About God as the highest Spirit

Contents First reading about God as the highest Spirit Second reading about God as the highest Spirit Detailed summary of readings about God as the highest Spirit First reading about God as the highest Spirit The doctrine of God as the highest Spirit, which I take the liberty to present to you, is among the most mysterious and profound in theological science itself. Here we are talking about the inner, innermost life of the Supreme Being. Therefore, before I begin to talk about the subject of reading, I consider it an indispensable duty to say, and I put this word in my conversation with you: God is incomprehensible. According to the Apostle, God dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see (1 Tim. 6:16). One ancient Christian writer talks beautifully about this incomprehensibility of the Divine: if, he says, we cannot look at the sun, then how can we look at the Creator of the sun, at the very source of light! God cannot be seen; It's too shiny for our eyes. He cannot be embraced; It's too clean for our hands. He cannot be imagined because He is too great for our senses. Infinite, immeasurable, He can be known only to Himself. Whatever name I call Him, I will diminish Him. Whoever does not want to diminish Him, do not try to comprehend Him. Our heart is too tight to embrace Him, and then we comprehend Him worthily when we recognize Him as incomprehensible 1 . So God is, first of all, incomprehensible, and this thought should not leave me or you for one second. But on the other hand, we hear the words of the Savior: this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God (John 17:3). If our mind is called to reasoning and cognition, then what ​subject could be higher for it? Incomprehensibility: in this word at the same time lies the limit of our thought and the force that moves it forward. By the very fact that God is incomprehensible, He is the eternal, inexhaustible object of reverent contemplation of human and angelic minds. We must also remember that the life of our spirit does not consist of mental aspirations alone. Our heart desires to live as close as possible to the One Whom we have received, Whose image we carry within ourselves, Whom we serve before Whom we will be responsible for our lives. In particular, the truth of God’s spirituality has this vital significance: it gives a certain direction to all a person’s thoughts, sets his own goals for his life and permeates his every action. Due to this importance of knowledge of God in general and the truth of God’s spirituality in particular, God did not leave us in the dark about Himself and opened different paths, not only for the conviction that there is our Creator, but also for the knowledge of who He is in His being. ​First,​ He revealed and is revealing Himself in visible nature and our own soul. Here and here, the invisible of God, according to the word of the apostle, becomes visible, and not only His eternal power, but also His deity. (Rom.1:20). This revelation of God is called natural. It is proclaimed from the first minute of the existence of creatures - from the creation of the world, according to the word of the Apostle, and so clearly and strongly that the uncomprehending voices of nature about its Creator are unanswered. Then God reveals Himself through the prophets in the Old Testament: this revelation is special, supernatural; the Jews were admonished by them, and through them other nations, and prepared to receive the Gospel light; as the word of God himself, it unshakably retains its meaning in Christianity, serving, according to the word of the Apostle Paul, for teaching, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). Finally, God revealed Himself in and through the Son; it is the final and perfect revelation of God (Heb. 1:1,2). In these methods of Revelation one notices a wise gradualness, a certain majestic plan for the education of humanity, and this thereby shows us, as it were, the very method for reasoning about the subject, ​namely historical​. This method is especially important for revealing the great truth we have chosen: 1) each new feature in revelation becomes clearer in comparison with those previously given and, having experienced some difficulty in searching for it, we learn to more appreciate the light that has been sent down to us from above to understand it; 2) before us, along with the gradual discovery of the truth, human error in it gradually appears, and very important data are collected to explain why even now, with the clear light of truth in the revelation of the New Testament, misunderstanding and even complete oblivion are possible. Thus, the following main parts of our conversation are defined for us: 1) what indications for knowing the spirituality of God’s being can be obtained by observing nature and delving into one’s own soul, and how did people take advantage of these indications, left to themselves regarding the knowledge of God? 2) what was revealed from this mysterious region to the people who walked in the light of the preparatory supernatural revelation in the Old Testament, and did they all take advantage of the rays of this light as they should? 3) how is the truth of God’s spirituality proclaimed in Christianity, and what conditions are required in order to contain this truth in its height and purity? Let us try, ​most honorable listeners​, to renounce, as much as possible, from the light of Christian truth and let us look for the features of the great image of God in nature and in our own soul, as the ancient peoples who lived before Christianity once looked for them. We will be helped by thinkers, mainly of the Greco-Roman world, they will show us how much this truth was known to them, how and in what ​paths they walked towards it. The various indications in nature and our soul of the truth of God’s spirituality can be summarized in the following three: 1) First of all, one cannot help but see the wisdom of the Creator of the world: everywhere in the world a reasonable plan is noticeable, the goals to which the means are adapted are visible. The ancients perfectly understood this marvelous purposefulness in nature and, for example, the Greeks called the world κόσμος, ​which means​: order and beauty. The ancients understood well why there could be such an order in nature, and the first serious word of Greek philosophy about the Creator of the world was that it is Mind. The ancient thinkers went even further: ​not only​ ​were aware of the greatness​, as they put it, of the First Mind of the universe​, but were able to notice the types, or basic forms in things, natural phenomena, in which ​the very thoughts of the great Artist of the world were expressed, ​or imprinted.​ Penetration into this realm of creative ideas constitutes the glory of the brilliant Greek philosopher Plato, ​but also geniuses​, like It is known that they do not create anything new. They know how to embrace and express what is in everyone's minds and more or less felt by everyone. The one closest to people, the one that makes itself felt most often, of course, is the idea of ​​good, the herald of which is ​our conscience​, and its implementation should be our life. Here we feel so close the breath of the highest Reason according to the word of the ancients, the highest Spirit according to our concept enlightened from above, that people hear within themselves, as it were, His very voice, and from time immemorial this is what our conscience is called. ​Universal belief​: conscience is the voice of God in ​our soul ​. So, the expediency of nature indicates the wisdom of the Creator, and rationality is a natural property of the spirit. The second indication of the spirituality of God’s being is connected with the answer to the question: in what image can we imagine the highest being, the most “perfect life”, which should belong to the Supreme Being? The ancients understood very well and are finding out that such a being cannot belong to anything material, for material things are complex, subject to change, and by their very nature inactive. Therefore, the first cause of everything that exists, the Prime Mover, in the words of the famous Aristotle, can be a being ​alien to matter​, in which everything would be one or pure activity​, and free from any restrictions or obstacles. For its part, material nature, as it were, deliberately sends us away from itself, from its visible and tangible region, there, into the region of the invisible. It seems like a kind of ladder of objects and beings, along which the human mind ascends higher and higher until it reaches the thought of the spirit. The lowest form of life is a simple block of earth, ​or stone​. Here the vital force seems to be completely buried under the weight of gross matter. But the substance seems to lighten up in the plant. There is something that drives life in it from the inside, and this driving life is first of all invisible, and this invisible remains longer than the changing form of the plant: it drives the life of the plant until it withers. ​In the animal this invisible life force is even more manifested, and therefore the animal is higher in the chain of creation than the plant. In both forms, the life force acts in man, in this small world, as the ancients put it; but here, above them, there are some special, unique forces in this world: the power of reason, the power of free will. For these forces this life is not enough. The acquisitions that the mind assimilates to itself, apparently, no earthly power can take away. By striving in the field of good, a person can earn such rewards as life here cannot give, and vice versa. Therefore, human life has always been recognized as a life that cannot be interrupted by death, but must act beyond the grave: the body dies, but the spirit will remain and continue its life and activity. But human thought did not stop at this, so to speak, form of the spirit, but extended further: it assumed the existence of pure spirits, free from the body, and, due to this superiority of spiritual nature, more intelligent and powerful. Now the answer to the question is ready: how can we finally imagine the highest being, the life of the Divine? Not otherwise than in the most perfect form, the image of the highest, all-perfect Spirit. We repeat, and nature itself, as if on purpose, as if forcefully, tells us: ​go there, there, in the kingdom of the spirit, there seek perfect life and eternal existence. The third indication of the truth of God's spirituality came from the feeling of some mysterious kinship of our spirit with the Supreme Being. ​The Apostle Paul, in his famous speech to the Athenian Areopagus, quotes the words of one poet of antiquity: behold, ​he proclaimed to the learned luminaries of the pagan world, some of your poets said: we are His (i.e., God's) race, and in this indication he presents to them evidence of the spirituality of the being of God, for he further continues: So, being the race of God, we should not think that the Godhead is like gold or silver and gave. (Acts 17:28,29). From here and from many other evidence it is clear that the ancients were very well aware of the difference between nature and the human spirit and the special closeness of the latter to the Divine... But as soon as this affinity of the human spirit with the Infinite Being is realized, then the mind already sees a wide path of ascension from the properties of our immortal spirit to the highest spiritual perfections of the Infinite Being, for example: if people are kind to their children, then how good is He? If our conscience is so troubled when we commit sin, how holy is He who speaks in our conscience? These, according to the testimony of ancient thinkers, are indications in nature and our soul of the truth of God’s spirituality. It should be added to this that the ancient peoples were not without guidance for the proper understanding of these instructions. Undoubted historical monuments confirm that, before any philosophy, religion blossomed with the power of primitive tradition. The ancient peoples are called left to themselves only relatively, i.e. in comparison with the Jews. For more than three millennia there was no division between peoples, and everyone equally used the light of a special revelation given through Adam, Enoch, Noah and other patriarchs, and after the separation of the Jewish people, the light of true knowledge of God from among them spread in different ways among other peoples of antiquity. This means that not only were the ancients given indications of the spirituality of the Divine in nature and their own souls, but they were also interpreted, at least enough, to know God as separate from the world and the highest Being, to turn to Him alone in needs, to honor Him as the Creator and Provider, and to sacredly fulfill His law, inscribed as close as possible to us, in everyone’s own heart. How did people take advantage of these indications of the spirituality of God’s being? Paganism with its various types of errors proves that people did not understand these instructions and did not use them for the true service of God the Spirit. Paganism represents a strange, at first completely incomprehensible, desire of people to obscure the concept of the Divine and precisely the features of His spirituality. The deity is not free: fate or fate reigns over him; ​not omnipotent, for, in addition to submission to fate, many deities deprive each other of power; the gods need the gifts brought to them, just as we need food and drink; the gods, just like us, have ​feelings of envy, jealousy, enmity, squalor, etc., the deity is deprived of self-consciousness and, therefore, the very mind and represents it under the guise of blind force; finally, the deity is deprived of life itself; this is nothing more than an abstract concept of the forces of nature, or a boundless emptiness. As the thought of the living God the Spirit becomes obscured in paganism, nature begins to surround people everywhere with its enchanting influence and draws them into its nets, finally enslaving them to itself and forcing itself to deify itself. Paganism in relation to man is a state, as scientists say, passive, i.e. suffering, a state of spiritual slavery. Man is not the master of nature, but a slave at her feet. It should be noted, however, that man was such a slave of nature only in the field of religion; in other respects he continued to dominate ​over it. He subjugated many animals to his power, and then bowed to these same animals. He erected colossal buildings, made stone speak in works of art, and at the same time idolized soulless nature. How did people feel in this state? This question could well be answered by someone who has experienced it. We Christians cannot imagine what it means to lose the right thought about God. Let us give, however, a few examples. An enlightened Greek travels to the birthplace of civilization - Egypt. A gigantic building on the banks of the historical Nile attracts his attention: it is a famous church throughout the area. Magnificent porch; several buildings before the entrance to the sanctuary itself; here it is: a beautiful curtain of precious material, woven through with gold, covers the entrance; the priest carefully opens it, the mysterious twilight..., and what is there: there, for example, is a cat lying on purple blankets. Is it possible, it seems, for someone who has even a drop of reason not to see here the most pitiful delusion? But this evil is still, so to speak, on the surface. If you have read an interesting book about China by Mr. Pyasetsky, remember that episode when, in his presence, a woman enters a pagan temple filled with monstrously ugly-looking idols: apparently she brought here the need of her heart, she wants, like Anna once, to pour out her soul before the Lord, but a mortal cold blows from these ugly monsters, in which blinded people embodied the idea of their Creator-Father.... All this was joined by a feeling of fear. from everything in the world: the whistling wind, fast-flowing water, the crackling of falling stones, a gloomy cliff, a quietly creeping reptile, the voice of roaring ferocious animals, the echo echoing from the recesses - all this brought the pagans into horror and despair. He who does not fear the true God fears everything. They say about one of the pagan rulers of Rome that he made himself a god and hid under the bed when thunder struck. However, extreme selfishness, hard-heartedness, insensibility, bloodthirstiness were able to coexist with this fear: here are new scourges of humanity mired in paganism. What was the cause of such pitiful blindness of the pagans? It should be noted that pagan beliefs, rituals, and customs present a terrible chaos: truth next to lies, a strict demand for duty and then a seductive sop to sensuality; in the history of paganism, different trends are visible, different forces are at work from the side of ethnographic and everyday conditions, in general, its history is only just beginning to be developed. But among the various influences, one current stands out noticeably, captivating the minds and hearts of people in its direction, namely: sound and initially pure religious ideas are distorted under the influence of various illegal dispositions of our fallen and fundamentally corrupted will. Various sinful impulses both precede the distortion of a religious idea and will follow this distortion... Reason already plays here, so to speak, a passive role: it is not that it does not see the truth, no, it deliberately takes its eyes off it; It’s not that he doesn’t know how to get to the first reason for being and happiness, no, he deliberately stops at the second and third reasons. The bright face of the Deity seems to hurt his eyes. He wants to replace it with something less strict, he tries to introduce the deity into the circle of created limitations, he wants to assure himself and others that he is not uninvolved in our weakness. A detailed development of this view, based on the evidence of the word of God, the teaching of the Church Fathers and ancient historical monuments, would carry us too far. Two or three examples, however, are not superfluous in relation to our subsequent disclosure. Some of the oldest Indian hymns for 1000–500 liters. BC represent rather pure concepts of God. Different names for the Supreme Being so far only mean different His properties. But the germ of future distortions is already clearly visible: this effort will excuse sin and, with some kind of gift, and not correction of life, get rid of responsibility before God. Sin is given such an interpretation that it is an involuntary act, it is “an attraction, passion, fate poisoned by poison.” The old man has a tendency to corrupt the young man; the very dream leads to crime. As something involuntary, sin is an extraneous constraint for a person: “free me,” the hymn says, “as one frees a calf from a rope.” The sacrifices made to appease the deity are given such meaning that it is a gift pleasing to the deity. “Go down on it” i.e. to the sacrifice, the hymn says, “like flies to honey.” A little later, we can already hear a phrase that hits our ear like a heavy hammer: you howl like a hungry wolf at the sight of thunder, the Indian cries, hearing the rumble of thunder 2. Another example: in most pagan religions, before other objects, the sun and its subordinate luminaries are deified. From him, the pagan thinks, day and night, spring and autumn, sowing and harvest, wealth and happiness. But both the sun and the planets act within the limits of physical laws. What then? the pagan thinks, this is how everything should be done in life, and so the physical law begins little by little to overshadow the requirements of the moral law. As soon as this happened, many disgusting vices cease to seem so and are included in the number of natural and, as it were, legitimate needs of human nature 3 . It’s scary to say how far this current will bring the pagans in its final course: to the point of complete justification and even sanctification of sin. The most terrible crimes are, as it were, not sins at all, but virtues, even means of pleasing the deity. What could be more terrible than a crime when a father or mother kills his child, and even makes him suffer at the same time? And in paganism, fathers and mothers threw living children into the red-hot womb of, for example, a bronze statue of Moloch, in honor of the pagan goddesses Asherah, Venus, etc. in their very sanctuaries, to please them, such vile deeds were committed that the Apostle forbids Christians to even talk about (Eph. 5:3). This means that before the human spirit became a slave of nature, it became a slave of the passions in its own being. The balance in human nature itself was shaken, and sensuality took precedence over spiritual aspirations; and because of this, external nature had an excessive influence on him and subjugated him to itself. Obedient to passion, reason itself helped its enemy in concocting his intrigues, and put up with all kinds of errors, even absurdities, as long as the thought of law and justice was further away. Therefore, the Apostle Paul pronounces such a judgment on paganism: because they (the pagans), having known God, did not glorify Him as God, and did not give thanks, but became futile in their speculations, calling themselves wise, and became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image like corruptible man and birds, four-footed animals and reptiles, then God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, so that they themselves desecrated their bodies. They replaced the truth of God with a lie, and worshiped and served the creature instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever, amen. Therefore God gave them over to shameful passions. And as they did not care to have it in mind, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do indecent things... They know the righteous judgment of God, that those who do such things are worthy of death; however, not only do they do them, but they also approve of those who do them (Rom. 1:21–28,32). What did these luminaries of paganism, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, these giants of human thought, whose genius we still never cease to amaze, do in the midst of such a terrible error? They did what they could, but they couldn't do anything. On the one hand, before them was a terrible crust of delusions in which the mass of the people were mired, and which could not be penetrated by any philosophical reasoning; on the other hand, they felt that some kind of darkness reigned in their very souls and plunged their thoughts into the abyss of naturalism, that is, the deification of nature, and they realized their powerlessness, and in this humble consciousness lies their strength and merit. There are wonderful passages in the writings of the Greek philosopher Plato where they talk about the difficulty of knowing God and the need for help from above. It is difficult to find, he says, the Creator and Father of everything (that exists), and having found it, it is impossible (αδύνατον) to preach Him to everyone 4 . There will be no order in the world unless some divine event occurs 5. So, we need to wait until someone teaches us what kind of relationship we should have with Gods and people 6 . This was, as it were, a prayer of the human spirit to heaven for enlightenment and liberation from bonds and a testament of this most brilliant of ancient thinkers to his many disciples and imitators, whom they could not forget. Let us now fast forward to the environment of the Jewish people. Insignificant in number, it is in contrast to all the peoples of antiquity. This is a people chosen by God specifically to preserve the true knowledge of God. A double light sanctified him: seeing before him nature proclaiming the glory of God, he had the word of God, which he kept and preserved for us. In this word of God: 1. those paths by which the human mind went to the knowledge of the spirituality of the being of God were sanctified. Among other peoples, even in highly enlightened Greece, the search for God in nature was carried out with some tension: thought does not move freely, expressions are found with difficulty, in general the path is very long and tedious, but in the Holy Scriptures these same thoughts are presented in a clear, bright, poetic form, for example. four centuries before the vague philosophical considerations about the first mind, David sings this wondrous psalm: Bless my soul the Lord. You are wonderfully great... You are clothed with glory and greatness (Ps. 103:1) and then, as we know, you depict in detail the wonders of Creative wisdom in various creatures. Seven centuries before Aristotle affirmed the idea of ​​a matter-free Prime Mover of the universe, the same psalmist expressed this idea in the following clear and powerful words: in the beginning You, O Lord, founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands, they will perish, but You remain; and they will all wear out like a robe, and like a garment You will change them, and they will be changed. But You are the same and your years will not end (Ps. 101:26-28). The idea of ​​the kinship of the human spirit with the Supreme Being is presented as a special triumph of the Greek genius, as if elevated above external nature and bowed before its own, and in the Bible on the first page it not only talks about it, but also explains it: let us make man in our image and in our likeness (Gen. 1:26). With such a comparison of the wisdom of philosophers with the clear and majestic word of Revelation in its wondrous simplicity, one involuntarily feels that sanctification there comes from bottom to top: philosophical thought intensifies to break through the darkness of the delusion that dominates the minds and often itself falls under its yoke; but here the light is given from top to bottom, and immediately illuminates all the difficulties of human thought. 2. In the Old Testament Holy Scripture, with a special intention, those features of the Divine being are clarified, which, due to their sinful attractions, the pagans obscured for themselves. The value of these passages of the Old Testament Holy Scripture can again be assessed only by comparing them with the wanderings of pagan thought. Revelation is a wise teacher; it seems to casually mention what everyone knows, and often repeats, with special strength and energy, what people have forgotten. So it very often reminds the Jews: 1. about the unity of God in contrast to pagan polytheism. Listen, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. (Deut.6:4); 2. about the life of the Supreme Being, separate from the life of the world. I lift up My hand to heaven and swear by My right hand, - the Lord says with extraordinary solemnity in Moses: I live forever. (Deut.32:40). As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand (1 Kings 17:1), the Prophet Elijah exclaimed when, like lightning, he appeared before the idolater Achaab. 3. Reminds us of the supreme holiness of God. This truth is instilled with special force because in its obscurity lies the very root of pagan error. Thus says the prophet Isaiah, “High and Exalted, Ever-Living, Holy is His name” (Is. 57:15). Holy of Israel: This was one of the most common names of God. At the same time, the word of God strictly forbids idolatry to the Jews, for example, in the 2nd commandment, and shows them the emptiness and vileness of idols. In this regard, the message of the prophet Jeremiah to the Jews taken into Babylonian captivity is especially remarkable: they, that is, idols, the prophet writes to them, are like a house of logs. Their hearts, they say, are eaten away by earthworms and they eat them and their clothes, but they do not feel. Their faces are black from smoking in the churches. Bats and swallows and other birds fly onto their bodies and heads, and cats also climb on them. From this you will understand that these are not gods. So, the prophet convinces, “do not be afraid of them... (Post. Jer. 1:19–22). Reading these lines from the Prophet, you are involuntarily amazed at what obvious misconceptions people once had to beware of. Finally, the Old Testament Revelation brings the very idea of ​​God the Spirit closer to the mental gaze of people, and precisely in its moral height. The following passage is very remarkable in this regard. When God determines to punish people who have fallen away from Him with a worldwide flood, He says this: My Spirit will not forever be despised by these people, because they are flesh (Gen. 6:3). Here the flesh, in the sense of visible material existence and especially in the sense of sensuality, is opposed to the Spirit of God, as an invisible and moral force. The Highest Spirit does not tolerate vices and corruption and, after many measures to correct people, pronounces to them the verdict of His eternal truth. David's penitential psalm is also very remarkable in relation to the doctrine of God the Spirit. In order to appreciate the height of this teaching, remember what was previously said about the hymns to the Divine in the Indian Vedas. There, the inclination to excuse sin leads to a perverted religious idea, here it’s the other way around: the idea of ​​the spirituality of God’s being is inextricably linked with a sincere consciousness of deep guilt before God. The Indian poet says: this is an involuntary act, passion, fate, and David sings: I am aware of my iniquity, and my sin is always before me (Ps. 50:5). The Indian poet says: an old man teaches a young man to sin, the very dream inspires crime, and David sings: You, You alone, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are righteous in Your judgment and pure in Your judgment (Ps. 50:6). The Indian singer says: free me like a calf from a rope, but David says completely differently: create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb (Ps. 50:12). The Indian poet, in accordance with the previous one, appeals to the Divine: come down to the sacrifice like flies to honey, but David already has this thought about God: you don’t want a sacrifice, I would give it; You do not favor burnt offerings. A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit: You will not despise a contrite and humble heart, O God (Ps. 50:18,19). What then? In this double and so strong light, did the Jews always understand the truth of God's spirituality as they should? Of course, at all times in Old Testament sacred history there were people who stood at the height of true knowledge of God. A distinctive feature of these righteous people was that they walked before God, always had His greatness and moral height in mind, and tried, if possible, to respond to them with their good lives. Walk before Me and be blameless (Gen. 17:1), God said to Abraham, concluding His covenant with him, and this was set as a condition of God’s covenant for all his descendants. But these people were in some times a minority, and in others even an exception. The majority of the Jewish people, in relation to the question we have raised, is a very sad phenomenon. In the first and ​middle times of their history, the Jewish people reveal a terrible tendency towards idolatry: at the foot of ​Sinai​ they worship a calf. Then his entire history presents almost the following phenomenon: despite the admonitions of the prophets, he enters into alliances with various neighboring nations and adopts ​idolatry from them, is punished for this, repents and, after being delivered from disasters, is corrected for a while, then falls into idolatry again, is punished again, etc. Past the magnificent temple of ​Solomon​, the Jews pass into ​pagan​ temple. In the places of the royal residences there were ​idol churches, and the Israelites drank, as the prophet put it, from the intoxicating cup (Jer. 51:7) of idolatry and ​indulged in vile debauchery. On the south-eastern side of Jerusalem lies the terrible place of Tophet in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, where sacrifices were made in honor of Moloch, and hundreds of children were thrown into the red-hot belly of this idol. These terrible, fiery torments of the innocent victims of human blindness in the Valley of Hinnom gave the name to the future place of hellish torment: Gehenna. What does this mean? This means that the nature of the Jews was fallen and corrupted, in a word, the same as that of the pagans. And where they were not restrained by the bonds of the law, there they were irresistibly drawn to the path of paganism. Finally, through the actions of God's providence and the admonitions of the prophets, the Jewish people seemed to be forever healed from the infection of idolatry. The Babylonian captivity was the most powerful medicine in this case. Hatred of idols entered the flesh and blood of the Jews, was absorbed with their mother’s milk, and, as completely confirmed in the idea of ​​​​monotheism, this people was sent to all peoples, as their teacher and preparer for Christianity. But this healing for many, many Jews was nothing more than the closing of an external ulcer... Their nature remained ​also sinful, and our Russian proverb says: drive nature out the door, it will fly in through the window. Over time, new paths began to be laid among the Jews, on which, with the recognition of the one true God, different inclinations characteristic of paganism, which had forgotten about Him, were able to coexist. ​Such trends in erroneous or, more accurately, wandering thoughts were expressed clearly and in typical terms in the two main Jewish sects: Sadduceeism and Pharisaism. The definition of the Sadducees by Saint Luke in the Acts of the Apostles is extremely characteristic: The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, no angel, no spirit (Acts 23:8)... There is not a word yet regarding God Himself: who He is and what He is like in His being. But the denial of the spirit did not apply to angels alone, for angels are rejected in themselves, and the spirit in itself does not apply to people, for their resurrection is also rejected in itself. What is this? What did they want to say? This is a timid in words, but bold in the heart, attempt to reject spirituality with its moral requirements in the Supreme Being. Why did the Sadducees need this? In order to be Sadducees, that is, to live in complete pleasure and indulge in passions, not embarrassed by the thought of eternity and judgment. The Pharisees acted even more cunningly: they did not touch upon the issue of the spirit at all, they believed in the resurrection and angels, and in general in theory they left everything in its place, but in practice they followed the manner of the pagans: to please God by observing external rituals, leaving aside the moral requirements of God’s law. Go to the church at a certain time, make a sacrifice, distribute a few coins to the poor and then be calm about your responsibility before ​God, and when you somewhat strengthen these ​external​ acts of piety, i.e., ​fast​ twice a week, which the Jewish law did not necessarily require of everyone, then you can safely say about yourself: ​I am not​ like​ ​others​ ​men ​.... (Luke 18:11). Now we understand this energetic, and moreover, fiery word to them from the Forerunner of the Lord John: brood of vipers, who is telling you to flee from the future wrath (Matthew 3:7; Luke 3:7)? Who is it that teaches you to drown out the demands of duty and feelings of guilt in your heart, and to hide behind empty sophisms and hypocritical piety? To what extent the errors of the Pharisees and Sadducees could lead is illustrated in the nonsense of the Talmud, where the deity is presented, like the pagans, as visible, sensual and tangible, its measure, height, distance between the eyes are calculated, and where activities worse than ​human are attributed to it. But even at this time there were people who wanted to sincerely reconcile with God and please Him. Some of them stood here on the banks of the Jordan, hungry and thirsty for truth, and with tears in their eyes, with deep tenderness in their hearts, they listened to the strict word of truth from the lips of the great preacher of repentance, and, while crushing others, this word of holy truth consoled them. In general, the peculiarity of this time was that fishermen, tax collectors, women who walked with buckets to wells were sincerely interested in religious issues and hoped that the Messiah would come and explain all their confusion... There, in the pagan world, scientists - philosophers and magicians - came to the light of truth; here, in the land of Israel, this thirst for truth burned more in the hearts of ordinary people - tax collectors, fishermen and shepherds. In the minds of these simple and humble people great questions were born and matured, such as those heard in the words of the fisherman Philip from Bethsaida, who later said to the Savior: Lord, show us the Father (John 14:8). It was to one of these simple and humble souls, thirsty for truth, that the Lord spoke the word of life. Second reading about God as the highest Spirit Judging by the great importance of the doctrine of God the Spirit for human thought and life, one would expect that it would be solemnly proclaimed in the Temple of Jerusalem, or at least in the Areopagus of Athens. No: it is revealed by the Lord, at the Well of Shechem, during a rest on the way, in a conversation with the only listener, the simplest of simple women - the Samaritan Woman. This immeasurable condescension of the Savior at all times aroused reverent amazement: but here, more than mere condescension, deep goals are visible here. And the conversation with the Samaritan Woman was by no means an accident. Since the Samaritan schism represented a mixture of Jewish and pagan beliefs, in the person of the Samaritan Woman, before the Doctor of Souls, there seemed to be two sides of the ancient world, equally in need of enlightenment from Him: there was paganism, which had lost the truth of knowledge of God and was suffocating in the bonds of grave enslavement to nature; there stood Jewry, which kept the treasure of the word of God and the right faith, but in the majority, and moreover, in the person of its representatives, those who held the key of understanding, who bore only the image of piety, and rejected its power. At the same time, in the person of the Samaritan Woman, stood before the Lord a woman who has such great significance in Christianity, this future distributor of St. faith, mother and teacher of children. Having revealed to her the great truth about God the Spirit, the Lord showed that this truth is not some kind of philosophical doctrine, set forth in the close walls of a school only to a select few and hidden from ordinary mortals; no: this is the truth of life, it should permeate all of a person’s behavior and form the basis of his upbringing. Finally, it was not in vain that not another woman, but precisely this Samaritan woman, was chosen as the herald of this truth. This deep interest in religious issues, this living faith in the Messiah, finally this is her ​simplicity​ and sincerity: these are her ​high​ rights. Just ​before this she listened to a strict judgment on her ​life, both the past and the present were revealed to her, but she does not run from the wrath of the righteous ​Judge, she does not ​invent apologies and justifications, on the contrary, she opens her whole heart to this Seer and ​Judge of her life. Remember the pagans’ apologies for sin, which led to the perversion of the religious idea, ​remember David’s deep contrition, combined with the deep thought about God the Spirit, and you will see that the Lord’s conversation with the Samaritan woman is something foreseen and ordained in the deep ways of Providence. Seeing that the One speaking to her has the gift of prophecy, or, what is the same, teaching, the Samaritan woman turns to Him with bewilderment, about which she had heard many different rumors and thought a lot about it herself. Our fathers, she says, worshiped on this mountain (Mount Garizin rose nearby), and you say that the place where we should worship is in Jerusalem (John 4:20)? The Samaritan woman feels that she is not on the right path, but how can she retreat from it when her fathers and grandfathers followed this path for so long? Oh, how much even now, let us note in passing, people stay outside the saving fence of the church only by this respect for the memory of their fathers and grandfathers! Having listened with humility to the trial of her own life, she, for the sake of these fathers and grandfathers, seems to be afraid to speak further, she is afraid to directly express the question: but it can be seen by itself in her words: where is the truth? Hidden in the words of the ​Samaritan Woman was another question, about ​serving​ God itself: ​which sacrifices are more pleasant to Him, those ​that are offered there in the Temple of Jerusalem, or those ​that were once offered here in the ​Samaritan Church, from which in the near future ​the ruins sacred to her could be seen, which ​is more pleasing to Him service? Thus, the words of the Samaritan woman reflected all the shortcomings of the pagan and narrow Jewish knowledge of God. First of all, in matters of faith, the custom of the fathers and the traditions of the elders lie on her mind with a heavy burden. Further, the deity is tied to one place. Finally, the idea is expressed that these or ​other sacrifices, these or ​other ritual features are pleasing to God. The Savior explained to her that hitherto the truth was on the side of the Jews, but not because the Lord limited His stay only to the temple in Jerusalem, but because Judea was chosen as the place from which saving grace began for the enlightenment of all people. But I am afraid that my ​own​ word will detract from something in the words of the Lord​, and ​I consider it best to remind them to you in all their wondrous beauty, as His confidante conveyed to us: ​Believe me​, the ​Lord​ tells her, ​that the time is coming when you will ​worship​ the Father, neither on this mountain nor in ​Jerusalem. You do not know what you bow down to, but we know what we bow down to, because salvation is from the Jews. But ​the time​ will come and has already come when true worshipers ​will​ ​worship​ the Father in Spirit and truth, for the Father is looking for such worshipers for Himself. ​God is​ spirit, and ​those who worship​ Him must ​worship​ in spirit and truth (John 4:13-24). Another powerful passage that reveals this same great truth is found in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. The inhabitants of Corinth, this ancient capital of ​Sparta, during the ​Apostolic​ world trading city, were distinguished, on the one hand, by ​refinement in tastes, on the other hand, by extreme ​licentiousness, and in no other city did the Apostle notice such vices as here. This means that pagan corruption here has reached its extreme limits: suffice it to say that the expression “to live in the Corinthian way” meant to live dissolutely. And so to people who lived in the midst of such terrible corruption of morals, the life-giving word about God the Spirit is proclaimed: The Lord is the Spirit, - the Holy Apostle writes to them and adds words of the deepest meaning: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Cor. 3:17). Let us dwell on these places and try not to embrace - this is not possible, but at least to outline that area of ​​​​various truths, dogmatic, moral, ritual, and everyday, where the light extends from this great and life-giving truth that God is spirit. 1) The doctrine of God is supplemented with the most important feature and receives its completeness. Once upon a time, when Moses asked what Your name is, God said: My name is Jehovah (Exodus 3:14), the ever-changing Jehovah. Now the very form of divine life is definitely indicated, as far as ​this is possible​ for us, with the means of our limited mind and the inevitable figurativeness of our language, and what was once, in the form of a bright star, ​presented to the great minds of ​brilliant​ philosophers, who spoke to a close circle of selected students about the ​First Mind​, ​The Prime Mover​ of the universe, about the Supreme Good - is confirmed, clarified and brought closer to understanding of all... This does not in the least detract from the significance of Christian truth that it was anticipated by great minds. Our soul is Christian by nature, and the Lord ​came to earth not to ​create​ people again, but to recreate the fallen human race. On the other hand, it is another thing to sense the truth, and another thing to give and reveal it in all its wondrous beauty. So God is Spirit. This is the most sublime existence. This is the most perfect life. As a Spirit, God is infinite, independent, original, ​all-sufficient, omnipotent, unchangeable, eternal: all these properties of ​God​ are conveniently ​combined​ in the concept of the all-perfect Spirit, and are, as it were, the fundamental properties of His nature. But at the same time, the properties of the all-perfect mind of God are revealed to us: omniscience, wisdom, truth; as if the all-perfect will of God: freedom, righteousness, holiness. But just as the life of a ​limited​ spirit has its focus in the heart, and the heart is the very ​outcome​ of life; then in the nature of the ​highest​ and ​most perfect​ Spirit, one property is revealed to us, as if it were dominant or ​central, and the name of this property is love: God the Spirit is love (1 John 4:8). And the wondrous combination and agreement of all these perfections in God the Spirit, their completeness constitutes what we call the bliss of divine life. Thus, we see before us, as it were, a living image of our Creator and Provider, and in boundless love, if one can say so, we hear the beating of His very heart. It is impossible to convey to us the idea of ​​​​​God closer, more clearly. It’s as if the Lord says this to each of us: behold, I have imprinted my law on your heart, so that you will always have its light before your eyes; and now I reveal to you the image of my life in your own spirit... This spirit of yours is from Me. I breathed it into your soulless body. Will you ever forget Me now?! At the same time, 2) the true concept of life in general is affirmed. Now God himself has undoubtedly revealed to all of us that real life, in the full sense of the word, life in itself and by itself, belongs not to matter, but to spirit. There was a time when there was nothing, and a single beginningless Spirit reigned forever. Everything that exists in the world came, by the will of this infinite Spirit, from the non-existent. And the future belongs to the Spirit: in the infinite Spirit it is eternity, in limited spirits, by the will and ineffable mercy of God the Spirit, immortality. The rest of everything belongs to fleeting life and dependent on the spirit: I looked, and it was no longer the same, something had disappeared and disappeared, something else had appeared again. All this appears and disappears, remains and changes, according to the will of the Eternal Spirit and for the purposes of the spirit, that is, for the development and life of limited spirits. Thus, 3) together with the existence of the one perfect Spirit, a great kingdom of spirits appears to our mental gaze, to which, according to the will of God, belongs an incomparably better life than that which is apparently taking place around us. ​From here on, - said the Lord, - ​you will not ​see heaven ​open​ and ​the angels ​of God ​ascending​ and descending on the Son of man (John 1:51). Known to the people of the Old Testament, foreseen by all peoples, the kingdom of the celestial beings was revealed only in the New Testament in clearly defined features and in that greatness that cannot but arouse reverent amazement for them. This is, first of all, the highest beauty of life, which cannot be compared with any beauty of this external nature, which, of course, as the work of God, the most good and wise, is beautiful in its own way. How can one imagine closer this beauty of the spirit, invisible with bodily eyes? Here's an example: the best thing in the world we inhabit is, in all fairness, human genius. We are amazed at this power of the mind with which a genius person ​looks into the very essence of things, we are amazed at the indestructible power of will with which he overcomes the obstacles encountered on his way, we admire this wondrous beauty of word, image, sound, in which the thoughts, feelings and premonitions of a genius are poured out, and every feature in the spiritual and moral image A person of genius is dear to us, carefully sought and studied, passed on from generation to generation, like a shrine, like a spark of God’s light. So now a boundless row of pure spirits rises above us, each of whom, by the power of mind and will, surpasses the highest geniuses of humanity: their gaze is faster than lightning, wider than an eagle’s eye. Luminous Cherubim, fast-moving Seraphim, they go in orders and degrees to the very ​throne of the Almighty and fill the abyss that separates the world from the Highest Spirit... ​The difference in these degrees, the superiority of one of these celestial beings over others, depends solely on the strength of the spirit. The higher the mind, the holier the will, the more ardent the love, the closer to the Highest Spirit, and there are such a multitude of these great light spirits of darkness that it is impossible for us to even imagine. One of the Lord’s parables brings this boundless wealth of the spiritual kingdom somewhat closer to our view. One of the shepherd's one hundred sheep got lost, and he, forgetting about the ninety-nine sheep, went to look for the lost one. This lost sheep, found and raised by the Shepherd of souls, is the human race that was before us, that now exists, and that will come after us. Ninety-nine sheep are Angels. Imagine now the ​borders​ of this world of spirits! The mere thought that there is a world so rich and varied outside the one that surrounds us here makes it impossible to slavishly worship the vastness of external nature; but it is open to us that this great world of pure ​blessed spirits is not alien to us. We belong to it with the best side of our being. We are called to take a place among him, to also be members of this smart hierarchy. We are called there, we are given constant and strong support, so that, through the path of this fleeting life, they direct us there, into their endless kingdom. Hundreds of thousands of those redeemed by the blood of Christ are already there, as if they took the place of spirits who had fallen away from God. And now the sky has become even closer to us, calling us even more strongly to its eternal abodes. Therefore, 4) by the truth of God’s spirituality, the aspirations of human life are clarified and that side in our being, which is called spirit, is elevated; the answer is given why ​no pleasures of life satiate our soul, instructions are given on how and where we can find peace for ourselves. Instead of collecting many blessings for many years, a person faces another task - to sow into the spirit, to transfer treasures to where neither moth eats nor rust destroys. A true assessment is given of the various deeds and exploits of human life. The word is applied to many of the ​greatnesses​ of this world: I saw the terrible wicked one, ​expanding​ like a rooted ​many-branched tree, but I passed through, and behold he was not there: I looked for him and did not find him (Ps. 37:35,36), and on the contrary, those who are so often persecuted and reviled here turn out to be truly wise. Finally, the high purpose of the very earthly dust that we carry in our body is indicated, through spiritualization, to become an indestructible container and organ of our immortal spirit forever. 5) The truth of God’s spirituality even gives meaning to all actions of Christian “worship.” The Spirit is God and as spirit, He loves spirit. My son, give your heart to me, He says to each of us. The Father seeks for himself such and not other worshipers (John 4:23,24; Proverbs 23:26). Devotion, humility, gratitude, love - these are the sacrifices that please him as the Highest Spirit. But the spirit also inspires external actions of ​god-worship and gives them a value that they do not have in themselves. God the Spirit equally did not need those thousand sacrifices that Solomon offered with such generosity from his wealth in Gibeon, and those two mites that the widow with such zeal out of her poverty put into the treasury of the church; but He accepted these sacrifices for the sake of those feelings of love and devotion with which they were made. Let, however, not draw any hasty conclusions from here by those who, in the name of the spirit, humiliate church rituals. No! These church rituals are strong precisely because of the power of the spirit: 1) they, in the best possible way, express the movement of the spirit; 2) they raise him to be a Christian. Churchliness is, so to speak, an atmosphere of the spirit: the sign of the cross expresses faith in the Lord the Savior, fasting is a sign of heartfelt participation in His suffering, bowing and kneeling is a sign of humility and submission, a candle burned in front of a holy icon is a symbol of love burning in the heart. Psalms, songs and spiritual songs are conductors of the spirit to us: if they are borrowed from the Bible, then this is the word of the Holy Spirit; if they were compiled by the fathers of the church, then they were anointed by the Holy Spirit, and their word was filled with His power. Therefore the Apostle said: be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and sayings and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your churches to the Lord (Eph. 5:18,19). Finally, the Apostle solemnly proclaims freedom for the human spirit: freedom in turning to God as the Father, freedom from slavish service to nature, freedom from sensuality and passions, freedom in relation to life. The rights of this freedom are unlimited: everything is permissible for me, said the Apostle, but at the same time he also indicates the fundamental law of this freedom: but nothing should possess me (1 Cor. 6:12). True freedom of thought and life does not consist in any way in self-will, which is slavery to sin and passion, but in the fact that the human spirit rises above all hostile influences on it, whether from its own flesh or ​the world around it, and does what the ​high moral requirements of its own ​God-like​ nature indicate to it. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is ​freedom (2 Cor. 3:17). Imagining this boundless breadth and distance, ​opened to us in two words of holy truth, how could we not bow before the Divine Teacher and ​Physician of our souls, and exclaim: glory to Thee, who showed us the light! The human spirit in ​Christianity​ seems to have escaped from a difficult prison. The captive was told freedom, the blind man received his sight, the tormented man was set free (Is. 61:1,2; Luke 4:18). Of course, those who felt the mercy of the Lord most were those who were under the yoke of captivity and remembered the darkness that once hung over their thoughts and lives. In this regard, the literature of Apologists is especially remarkable, i.e. ​defenders​ of Christianity at the beginning of its ​spread against various kinds of persecutors. They were students of pagan philosophers, in some places they adhere to old philosophical views; but where their Christian thought felt freedom, there it soars high above the worldview of the pagans, and their word takes on the tone of a victorious cry over the fallen enemy... ​There is no need for this enemy to still retain external ​power; he has fallen morally, and the winner mercifully spares him and treats him with love. Here, for example, is an appeal to God by one of these Christian writers: “O great God,” he exclaims, “Creator of things, invisible and incomprehensible!” You are worthy to continually receive praise from all that ​breathes and thinks, if only ​mortal lips​ adequately express Your name. You are the cause of causes. You are an infinite, ​uncreated​ being, without beginning, without end. You are the one who is exalted above all height and greatness. Forgive, Supreme King, those who persecute Your servants, and since this is in accordance with Your mercy, have compassion for the unfortunate ones who reject Your name and Your religion. It is not surprising that they do not know You; it would be much more surprising if they knew You.” 7 But ​Christianity​ is great not only because it reveals ​high​ and life-giving truths. It gives strength to perceive these truths and teaches how to contain them in their proper height and purity. It was not enough to teach us the truth, it was necessary to reconcile us with God and destroy the barrier that separated our lives from His life and revive us again, it was necessary for the grace of the Holy Life-giving Spirit to descend into the innermost depths of our hearts and there to dispel that, according to the beautiful expression of church prayer, ​naturally​ - the animal darkness that prevents people from seeing the light of truth. Otherwise, this light will glide, so to speak, only on the surface of the soul. ​A person ​will remember and repeat good words about the great truth, but its light will not penetrate the heart. The Apostles themselves, these most devoted disciples of the Lord, were not imbued with the full power of His teaching until they were enlightened by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the most important condition for a person to properly understand the ​high truths of ​Christianity​. No matter what eloquent sermon you hear about ​God​ the Spirit, it will not give you that clarity of heart's gaze, like a feeling of closeness to God, that spiritual freedom with which, reconciled with ​God​ and feeling the breath of His love in the inmost depths of the heart, a believing Christian stands straight, so to speak, before His eyes, and clearly, firmly, with boldness says: Our Father... This high right and this ​sincere​ closeness ​of the earthly creature to the incomprehensible and immense Divinity is given by the ​grace of the Holy ​Life-Giving​ Spirit in the ​sacraments​ of Baptism, where a person is ​reborn and adopted​ by God, Confirmation, where spiritual enlightenment is imparted to him, so that a person does not need outside guidance to know the truth, but this very anointing teaches him everything (1 John 2:20,27), and finally - the Eucharist, where he partakes of the Divine life itself and not only learns, but also tastes how good the Lord is. And on the part of a person, important ​conditions are also required for the proper perception and storage of holy truths: first of all, the heart must be cleansed from sinful inclinations and attractions, which were the main reason for the forgetting of the truth about God the Spirit in paganism and the insufficient attention to it ​of the majority of Jews. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8). The heart is a spiritual eye, ​with which we contemplate something invisible to sensual eyes and incomprehensible to the mind. To the extent that the heart is pure, it is capable of spiritual contemplation. Someone ​Autolicus​, an educated pagan, ​asks​ one of the apologists (​Theophilus​, ​Bishop​ of Antioch): “show me your God.” Theophilus answered him beautifully: “Show me your man, and I will show you my God.” Show that the eyes of your soul can see and the ears of your heart can hear. For just as the bodily eyes of sighted people see the objects of this earthly life, just as the ears distinguish sounds: so exactly there are ears of the heart and eyes of the soul to see God 8 . But purity of heart is not all that is required for true knowledge of God: it is only the removal of an obstacle, so to speak, the negative side of the matter. The eye can be healthy and open, and not notice what is needed. For completeness and clarity of ​knowledge​ you need to have, according to the word of the Apostle, senses skillfully accustomed to distinguish between good and evil (Heb. 5:14). In particular, in order for our heart to be able to peer into the mysteries of divine life, it is necessary for it to enter into its spirit, to be imbued with pure and holy spiritual aspirations. Then only it will be able to experience the perfection of Divine life. Since the dominant and ​central​ property of the Highest Spirit is love; then our hearts must be especially imbued with the spirit of Christian love. Only, rooted and established in love, we, according to the word of the Apostle Paul, can comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and understand the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Eph. 3:18,19). He who does not love, according to the words of the Apostle John, has not known God (1 John 4:8). Violation of these necessary conditions is the reason that even in Christianity, in the clear light of knowledge of God, there may be deviations in understanding the truth of God’s spirituality. Although our nature is blessed in the sacraments, its correction is also our own feat and the feat of our whole life... The passions are still active... Our mind is even now ready for ​all sorts of fabrications to soften the feeling of ​the guilt of sin and, if possible, for its complete elimination. Therefore, even today it is possible to deviate along all those false paths that were indicated above: one can now leave aside the moral demands of the Supreme Lawgiver and rest in the external works of piety alone, or, which is the same, be Pharisees; It is possible now, without denying the existence of God, to subject to all sorts of perplexities, doubts, some indecisive denials of the truth of the afterlife, judgment, the ​existence of the spirit itself, and with greater ​courage​, due to such supposed convictions, to allow ​the licentiousness in life and the violation of various laws, not ​excluding​ even those written ​Moses​, according to ​God's command​, the tablets, ​in a word​ be Sadducees; You can finally believe in nothing, not even recognize the existence of God, and not only be pagans in life, but also openly preach paganism. History has laid out these paths of evasion from the truth clearly and in the most typical features, and ​everyone has been given the opportunity to see and believe on which path he stands in relation to the holy truth. Therefore, the Lord said to all of us in the person of his disciples: look out, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:6,11). The Apostle Peter, warning believers against falling again into paganism, says: it would be better for them not to know the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment handed down to them, and the latter is worse than the first (2 Pet. 2:20,21). Since ​the great truth about ​God​-Spirit was discovered, the second millennium has already passed and is nearing its end. At this time, various kinds of questions and perplexities arose regarding it and were clarified by the fathers and teachers of the Church. Some of these questions are still being asked today. Therefore, it seems not ​superfluous​ to indicate them. First of all, when teaching about God as the most perfect ​Spirit, those expressions about God in which ​human properties and even members of the human body are attributed to him: heart, eyes, ears... These expressions, firstly, are ​inevitable. If we knew ​Angelic​ languages, ​which​ ​the Apostle mentions (1 Cor. 13:1), then perhaps we would express ourselves differently about God, closer to ​the truth of His highest spirituality, while human language, in its essence, is figurative. Our thought itself moves in the sphere of different images. This is already a property of our spiritual nature. Therefore, imagery inevitably enters thoughts about the Highest Being, and from here it penetrates into the word. Whatever word we take: father, lord, almighty, ​outside, ​behold, mind, will - these are images. Not ​speaking figuratively means stopping speaking altogether. Secondly, these humanoid expressions about God even have some legitimate basis for themselves. The Lord created us in His image. Therefore, it is common for us to think and talk about God in our image. There is a mysterious connection between our spirit and the Infinite Spirit; therefore the ​highest​ perfections​ of the Infinite Spirit appear to us in the features of our finite spirit. But this does not prevent us from always being aware of the difference between word and thought and, according to our strength and mainly with the help of mysterious grace, from ascending to the most frequent possible idea of ​​​​God: when we hear about the Father, to imagine His ineffable love, when we hear about the Master, to imagine His highest power. The very word spirit is an image, and, according to the ​teaching​ of John ​of Damascus, this word in no way ​comprehends​the essence of the Divine, but only something ​related to the essence, just as if we say about the body that it is white or black (statement of the Orthodox faith, Book 1, Chapter 10). The thought of the holy father is very deep. When we say that a body is white, we do not comprehend the essence of the body, but we nevertheless have some correct idea of ​​it. There is a thought that should always be presented to us with these two words: “God the Spirit”, this is the thought of the highest holiness of the Divine, which is expressed in another also beautiful image: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness (1 John 1:5). To whom the Lord will give participation in heavenly life, he will see closer, face to face, what we now see, as if through a glass darkly, ​(1 Cor. 13:12), and will learn to ​glorify​ God together with the Angels: but while we are in this life, various temptations draw us to the path of sin. That's St. The angels instill in us the strongest truth about God the Spirit: holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty (Rev. 4:8). In forgetting about the greatest holiness of God the Spirit lies the root of pagan errors, as well as various deviations towards the path of paganism among Jews, and it is this holy truth about God the Spirit that we especially need to remember: God is holy and requires from us purity of heart and correction of life, otherwise we cannot be partakers of His eternal kingdom. Some said: if God is Spirit, and the world was created by Him out of non-existence at a certain time, then what did He do before the creation of the world? This question was asked for two reasons, and therefore the answers to it were different. Sometimes in such questions only idle curiosity was expressed, or a desire by some kind of sophistry to remove from the eyes a truth that was too bright for these eyes, and to a question in this tone, here is, for example, the answer of ​Blessed​ ​Augustine​ “I will not say, as someone said, resolving this question, that God was then preparing Gehenna for those who try to comprehend the ​incomprehensible​, but rather I will say: I don’t know, I don’t I know." In another place the same teacher says: since there was no time before the creation of heaven and earth, why ask: what did God do then? This did not happen when there was no time 9. In the words of the great teacher of the Western Church there is some righteous indignation, something similar to those words of fire and power with which St. Elijah and St. John the Baptist punished the wandering thought. As he says, a great truth has been revealed to you, life-giving and saving, it requires a repentant tear from your eyes and a deep sigh from your soul, and you find the time and desire to engage in empty and idle questions. But the same question can be in a different tone and express not idle curiosity, but a sincere search for truth, characteristic of wisdom. True, the very form of the question also changes: “if God is the Highest Spirit and a being completely separate from the world, then in what way could the life of this Spirit manifest itself when there was no world? What was the object of knowledge of His mind, the object of His love? To ​calm​ the worried thought, church teachers from ancient times pointed to the highest and deepest of the Christian mysteries: the mystery of the Holy Consubstantial and Indivisible Trinity. This secret says: God is one, but not ​alone​. The essence of the One God consists of: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each of these persons has intelligence, freedom, action, and all together ​make up a single life ​all-blessed​. With this ​inner fullness of life, the All-Perfect Spirit has no need for any extraneous thing for His existence, and if ​he wanted to give life to countless creatures, then this was ​an all-free act of His boundless love. Finally, in the last time, close to us, to raise the question of self-consciousness and personality characteristic of the Spirit, but seemingly contradicting the idea of ​​​​an infinite and unlimited Being? If, they say, the Deity recognizes itself as a personal being, then it seems to limit itself to this... With this thesis or fundamental principle, two and a half ​centuries ​before this, the movement of philosophizing thought in the West began, which continues to this day. A detailed development of various philosophical views on this subject and their refutation would take us too far. This should be the subject of separate readings. I will say, however, that the debate with representatives of various philosophical views that deviate from Christian truth is conducted both abroad and here with great dignity and success, and the clarification of various perplexities enriches theological science with new data in support of its truths. By the way, the very important importance of self-awareness and personality is revealed, according to which they in no way constitute any damage to the concept of the Supreme Being; on the contrary, they are necessarily required by this concept as the distinctive features of the most perfect life. And in visible nature, life is the more perfect the more defined its features. The highest certainty in this world is the human personality. In self-consciousness and ​intelligence​, in the freedom and character of a high and noble personality, there is something better in all world life; and God is the prototype of all perfection, therefore we cannot think of it otherwise than as ​self-conscious​ and personal. But personality, they say, is conceivable with other ​personalities​: what distinction of personality can be imagined in the Infinite Being? When delving deeper into this question, again, like a luminous star, the mystery of the Holy Consubstantial and Indivisible Trinity shines over the minds. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are both distinct and inseparable. The personal properties of the Three ​Hypostases​ in the ​One​​ Deity represent, as it were, ​peculiar​eternal manifestations of the single Divine life. Here is a certain, of course ​incomprehensible​, marvelous ​combination of the concept of personality, as ​a necessary sign of the most perfect life with ​the concept of infinity, which is characteristic of the Highest Being. Therefore, some of the philosophers ​call​ the mystery of the ​Holy Trinity the highest ​triumph​​of speculation: but it is more correct to say that this mystery is the last word of God about Himself and His life and constitutes the crown of all data about this ​revelation​. Here we must make an even sharper distinction between the demands of serious philosophical thought and various kinds of doubts and perplexities that are expressed by people who do not stand on the basis of pure science for other reasons, mainly of a practical nature. The reason why the latter kind of bewilderment may arise has been sufficiently clarified above. Let's say a few words about the first ones, that is, about the demands of serious philosophical thought. That philosophers will and will touch upon various issues in the field of religion is very natural; on the one hand, what could be more tempting for the human mind of this native sphere of the invisible? On the other hand, no matter what a person ​seriously thinks about, about external nature, or about ​himself, he constantly encounters ​the thought​ of God. That deepening into theological issues is possible even after the discovery of truths in Christianity is one of the signs of divine wisdom in Revelation: the great truth is at the same time understandable to a child, and represents an unattainable depth for the wise and reasonable of this world. Whatever questions ​are raised in the field of pure science, one should not be afraid of them: sooner or later the truth will triumph and appear to the astonished minds of humanity in a new light. This was the case before us, we see it clearly even now - remember what was said above about the secret of the Most Holy One. Trinity, it will be so after us. But we must never forget that the truth is not so easily given to limited minds, even those of genius, how easily it is revealed from above, and that along the way it is inevitable for them deviations, in other words, hobbies and mistakes. It is possible, for example, for philosophical thought to rush with force in one direction, and then with the same speed to be carried away in the opposite direction: starting with idealism, ending with extreme materialism, and vice versa. The same thinker sometimes adheres to one worldview at the beginning of his career, but at the end he pursues another. Already this rapid change of ​authorities​ of science, rejecting today what was said yesterday, shows that learned philosophers are moving towards the truth, but have not yet reached it. Let them go their own way, and a serious dispute with them and pointing out certain deviations from the truth is only possible and, as we said, carried out with honor in the field of theological science. But this should not prevent faith from doing its work. At all times in the Orthodox Church the lamp of pure holy truth is lit and shining, clearly showing everyone the path to heaven, and a Christian must use the time while he has this light before him to sow into the spirit, to prepare for endless life there, in the kingdom of the spirit. Centuries and even millennia are assigned for the movement of philosophizing thought; but a short limit has been appointed for our life, and we must value our ​time for this purpose of our immortal spirit as much as if we were buying it at a high price. On this saving path, if different winds of teachings contrary to the faith reach the ears of the believing soul, and different names of great celebrities are loudly proclaimed before her, allegedly fighting against the holy truth, she, imagining in her mind the vast expanse of light that shone in the world with the appearance of the truth of the Gospel, can always and has the inalienable right to say: never has a man spoken like this person i.e. The Lord is our Savior (John 7:46), and will always find peace from all doubts and perplexities in the prayer of the Apostle Peter: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (John 6:68). Detailed summary of readings about God as the highest Spirit The importance of knowledge of God in general and in particular the truth of the spirituality of God’s being for human thought and life Paths opened by God to the knowledge of His spirituality Historical method of studying the subject Indications of the truth of God's spirituality in the sphere of natural revelation Aids to understanding these ​indications​ from supernatural revelation Forgetting the truth of God's spirituality in paganism Enslavement of the human spirit in the deification of nature The reason for this enslavement The merit of ancient thinkers Indications of the truth of God's spirituality in the ​supernatural​ revelation of the Old Testament The tendency of the Jews to forget this truth and the reason for this tendency New ways to forget this truth in Sadducees and Pharisaism Souls who sincerely thirsted for truth before the coming of the Savior Discovery of the truth about God the Spirit in the conversation of the Lord ​Savior​ with ​Samaritan woman The doctrine of God the Spirit in the Epistle of St. Apostle Paul to the Corinthians ​ Circle​ of truths illuminated by the ​great​ truth about ​God​-Spirit: a) in the ​teaching​ about the properties of the being of God b) in the ​concept​ of life in general c) in ​the doctrine of the world of spirits e) in the doctrine of ​reverence​ and worship The triumph of the spirit in Christianity upon liberation from slavish ​admiration​ of nature Graceful powers ​given​ from above to ​understand the great​ truths of Christianity and in particular the truth about God the Spirit Conditions on the part of man for proper storage and ​understanding​ of this great truth Questions and perplexities in the ​teaching​ about God the Spirit: a) regarding humanoid ideas and expressions about God the Spirit b) regarding ​the life​ of God before the creation of ​the world​ and beyond it c) regarding self-awareness and ​personality​ in the concept of ​Infinite Being About ​requests​ for serious philosophical thought About ​the saving​ path of faith devoted to the guidance of ​revelation​ Min. Telix in Octav. C. XVIII More about this in Ebrard's Apologetics, in Russian. Translation of 1880, vol. 11, pp. 21 et seq. Ibid. vol. 2, pp. 547 et seq. Platonis opera ed. Stalbaumii Lipsiae 1867 an. In Timaeo V, 28, pag. 509. Platonis de republica lib. IX, p.374. Platonis Alcibiades II, p.231. Arnovius. Dispute, adv. gentes. 1.31. Confess. lib. XI, c. 12, 13. You might be interested in: