Two Paths; Knowing God or Knowing About God?
St. Gregory Palamas Sun. Mar 20, 2022, The Church in her wisdom has given us these special Sundays in Great Lent to help guide us into life in Christ. They are signposts along the way, as we slow down our lives and purposefully choose to re-focus on God and what is truly needful and of eternal importance. The goal is not to perfectly keep all the Lenten rules. The goal is to encounter God, that Christ may be revealed in and through us; that our hearts may become softened, and we may be transformed into what we were created to be; children of God through the Son of God. This is an experiential heart knowledge, not an exercise in discipline and intellectual achievement and so we are given St. Gregory Palamas today.
Last Sunday, on the first Sunday of lent we celebrated the 1st Triumph of Orthodoxy. We see the saints who in dying to themselves, in their suffering and cooperation with the energies of God, became icon’s of Christ. We celebrated the great victory of the Church in restoring the proper veneration of the icon’s of Christ and of the saints radiating Christ as we proclaimed: “This is the faith of the Apostles – this is the faith of the Fathers – this is the faith of the Orthodox – this is the faith which has established the Church.”
This Sunday is known as the 2nd Triumph of Orthodoxy! We commemorate St. Gregory Palamas, and go even deeper in our understanding of how God works in His world, through His uncreated energies and through His saints. St. Gregory fought a great battle against Barlaam and other heretics of the Church. His correct view of “Theosis” – of being transformed into the image of Christ through communing with the uncreated energies of God – became official Church dogma at the councils of 1341 and1351.
Barlaam and other heretics were promoting something known as “Scholastic Rationalism.” Essentially it describes a method of trying to understand God by using only the intellect. Barlaam claimed you can never know God; you can only know about God. He denied that we can experience God Himself through His uncreated energies. Upon having his views rejected by the Orthodox Church, Barlaam then left and became a Bishop in the Roman Catholic Church where his views were more acceptable. Thank God we don’t have to completely “understand” the mystery of the faith; this would eliminate a vast number of intellectually challenged humans from eligibility – starting with me!
Ultimately our battle is never against each other. Paul says, (Eph.6:12) “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” All of these described are fallen angels of various orders. The enemy is constantly trying to distort the truth of the Gospel. He loves to twist and plant subtle but deadly lies into our prideful human thinking. We struggle to not entertain these devious thoughts of the evil one, not realizing these thoughts are not even our own. We resist but often fail, and in our weakness we cry out to God with a broken and contrite heart – and His grace enters. The evil one especially loves to capture the prideful and intellectually brilliant as his victims and unwitting ambassadors. The fact that God breathed His very image into us pathetic and undeserving creatures drives him crazy. His jealousy fuels his relentless mission to destroy us before we wake up to the reality of our calling as children of God.
St. Gregory Palamas taught that we can partake of the Divine Nature of God through the uncreated energies of God. He wasn’t coming up with some new theology; St. Athanasius 1000 years before him said; “Christ became man so that man could become god.” How is this possible? Every Liturgy we say, “God is ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, indescribable, changeless…” And yet through prayer and the sacramental life of the Church we are joined to Christ, that we may be one!
It is true, in our intellect, in our minds alone, we can never partake of the energies of God. We can never hope to fully “understand” God. Whatever we can think of Him – He is beyond that; but we can “know” Him. Knowing God, and knowing about God, are very different things. The Orthodox Church teaches that a true theologian is one who prays. You don’t have to be a brilliant intellectual to pray. You could be mentally challenged, be too young for kindergarten, be sick or blind or deaf or mute; and still be able to call out to God in prayer. Through prayer and communion we are filled with God’s grace, through His uncreated energies, and our hearts are transformed into the dwelling place of God.
What a wonderful, welcoming God we have! The light of Christ is reflected in the eyes of the infants, of the children whose hearts have not yet started to harden with the logic and cynicism of human understanding. Christ said (Matt.18:3) “Assuredly I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Coming to Christ does not require great intellectual understanding; it is a matter of the heart and will. Immediately upon Baptizing and Chrismating infants we bring them to be fed on the body and blood of Christ– the true fountain of immortality – to feed their bodies, souls, and spirits. May God grant that we regain this purity of heart!
St. Gregory was defending a way of opening one’s heart to Christ known as Hesychasm -the way of silence. The hesychast is working on being completely present, with no thoughts of things that might happen, things we should do, memories of things that have happened, thoughts of hunger, pain…but just being completely in the present eternal moment with God and all of reality. The main method is to pray a very shot prayer continuously. St. Gregory is recorded to have used “O Lord my God, Enlighten my Darkness.” The “Jesus Prayer”; calling upon God, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy upon me a sinner” is however, the usual prayer suggested and certainly the most well know short prayer in the Orthodox Church. By continuously focusing upon calling upon God and being in the present moment, our hearts are slowly softened, and Christ answers our call to come and dwell in them. This manner of prayer does not require a huge intellectual effort to practise, but simply training our will to come.
Practical application for this week. How many are trying to put into practice last weeks suggestion to try to stop and turn our attention fully to God every 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th hour, praying the Lord’s prayer and Lord have mercy? This week, let us continue to improve in this as I’m sure we all struggled, and also commit to paying more attention to our thoughts. When they are not leading us in a helpful direction, let us violently do a 180-degree turn, change our thinking and calling on Christ with the Jesus prayer.
Our goal as followers of Christ is not to just to somehow learn live a more moral life, to become “nicer” people, more disciplined. Nor are we encouraged to become great intellectual thinkers, able to debate those who don’t agree with us with finesse. No, the goal is to become children of God, united with Him, to “know” God. This is our destiny and our true purpose while we are visiting this planet. This is what St. Gregory Palamas defended and what we are gathered here today to celebrate at the 2nd Triumph of Orthodoxy!
Holy Father Gregory, pray to God for us!