God is eternal spirit and infinite. Definition of the concept "God"

In different languages, the word “God” is related to different words and concepts, each of which can say something about the properties of God. In ancient times, people tried to find words with which they could express their idea of ​​God, their experience of contact with the Divine.

In Russian and other languages ​​of Slavic origin belonging to the Indo-European group, the word “God”, according to linguists, is related to Sanskrit bhaga, which means “gifter, endower,” which in turn comes from bhagas– “property”, “happiness”. “Wealth” is also related to the word “God”. This expresses the idea of ​​God as the fullness of being, as all-perfection and bliss, which, however, does not remain inside Deities, but poured out on the world, people, and all living things. God bestows, endows us with His fullness, His riches, when we join Him.

Greek word theos, according to Plato, comes from the verb theein, meaning “to run.” “The first of the people who inhabited Hellas worshiped only those gods that many barbarians still worship today: the sun, moon, earth, stars, . And since they saw that all this was always running, making a cycle, it was from this nature of running that they were given the name of gods,” writes Plato. In other words, the ancients saw in nature, its circulation, its purposeful “running”, indications of the existence of some higher intelligent force, which they could not identify with a single God, but represented in the form of many divine forces.

However, Saint Gregory the Theologian, along with this etymology, gives another: the name theos from the verb ethein- “ignite”, “burn”, “blaze”. “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God,” says the Bible (Deut. 4:24); The Apostle Paul will repeat these words, pointing to God’s ability to destroy and burn up all evil (Heb. 12:29). “God is fire and cold,” write Saints Barsanuphius and John. “God is a fire that warms and ignites hearts and wombs,” says St. Seraphim of Sarov. - So, if we feel the coldness in our hearts, which is from the devil... let us call on the Lord: He will come and warm our hearts with perfect love not only for Him, but also for our neighbor. And from the face of warmth the coldness of the hater of good will flee.”

St. John of Damascus gives another third etymology of the word theos from theaomai– “contemplate”: “For nothing can be hidden from Him, He is an all-seeer. He contemplated everything before it came into being.”

In languages ​​of Germanic origin, the word “God” is English God, German Gott– comes from a verb meaning “to prostrate”, to fall in worship. “People who in early times sought to say something about God,” says Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh on this occasion, “made no attempt to describe Him, outline Him, say what He is like in Himself, but only point out what happens to a person, when suddenly he finds himself face to face with God, when suddenly Divine grace, Divine light shines upon him. All that a person can do then is to fall on his face in sacred horror, worshiping the One who is incomprehensible and at the same time revealed to him in such closeness and in such wondrous radiance.” The Apostle Paul, whom God shone on the way to Damascus, struck by this light, immediately “fell to the ground... in trembling and horror” (Acts 9:4,6).

The name with which God revealed himself to the ancient Jews is Yahweh(Yahweh) means “He who is”, having existence, having being, it comes from the verb hayah– to be, to exist, or rather in the first person of this verb ehieh- "I am". However, this verb has a dynamic meaning: it means not just the fact of existence in itself, but a certain always actual being, a living and active presence. When God says to Moses, “I am who I am” (Ex. 3:14), it means: I live, I am here, I am near you. At the same time, this name emphasizes the superiority of the existence of God over the existence of everything that exists: this is an independent, primary, eternal existence, this is the fullness of being, which is superexistence: “In its meaning, the One who exists supernaturally surpasses the entire totality of existence, being the sole Cause and Creator of all things: matter , essence, existence, being; Existence is the beginning and measure of eternity, the cause of time and the measure of time for everything that exists, and in general the becoming of everything that becomes. From Existence come eternity, essence, existence, time, becoming and becoming, since in Existence all things exist - both changing and unchangeable... God is not just Existence, but Existence, Whom eternally and infinitely contains the totality of all forms of being - both present and future,” writes the author of the treatise “On the Divine Names.”

An ancient tradition says that the Jews in the era after the Babylonian captivity did not pronounce the name Yahweh - Jehovah - out of reverent awe of this name. Only the high priest, once a year, when he entered the Holy of Holies to burn incense, could pronounce this name inside. If a simple person or even wanted to say something about God, he replaced the name Jehovah with other names or said “heaven.” There was also such a tradition: when it was necessary to say “God,” a person fell silent and put his hand to his heart or pointed his hand to the sky, and everyone understood that we were talking about God, but the sacred itself Name was not pronounced. In writing, the Jews designated God with the sacred tetragram (YHWH). The ancient Jews were well aware that in human language there is no such name, word or term that could tell about the essence of God. “The Divine is unnameable,” says St. Gregory the Theologian. - Not only reason shows this, but also... the wisest and most ancient of the Jews. For those who honored the Divinity with special inscriptions and did not tolerate that both the name of God and the names of creatures were written in the same letters... could they ever decide in an absent-minded voice to pronounce the Name of the indestructible and unique nature? Just as no one has ever breathed all the air into himself, so neither the mind has completely contained, nor the voice has embraced God’s essence.” By refraining from pronouncing the name of God, the Jews showed that one can communicate with God not so much through words and descriptions, but through reverent and reverent silence...

Basic elements of the Orthodox teaching about God

1) The absolute transcendence of God. “Not a single thing in all created things has or will ever have the slightest connection or affinity with a higher nature.” Orthodoxy preserves this absolute transcendence of God by emphasizing the “path of negation,” or “apophatic” theology. Positive or "cataphatic" theology - the "path of affirmation" - must always be balanced and corrected by the use of negative language. Our positive statements about God - that He is good, wise, just, etc. - are true to the extent to which their meaning extends; however, they fail to adequately describe the inner nature of the deity. These positive statements, says John of Damascus, reveal “not [God’s] nature, but the things around nature.” “The fact that God exists is obvious, but what He is in His essence and nature lies absolutely beyond the limits of our understanding and knowledge.”

2) The absolutely transcendent God is not isolated from the world he created. God is above his creation and beyond creation; but He is also present within creation. As the common Orthodox Church says, God is “omnipresent and fills everything.” In other words, the Orthodox distinguish between the essence of God and His energies, preserving both divine transcendence and divine immanence: the essence of God remains unattainable, but His energies reach us. Divine energies, which are God himself, permeate all creation, and we feel their presence in the form of deifying grace and divine light. Verily, our God is the hidden God; and He is the active God, the God of history, who directly intervenes in specific situations of our lives.

3) God is personal and trinitarian. The Acting God is not only a God of energies, but a personal God. When human beings participate in the divine energies, they feel themselves not at the mercy of some vague and nameless force, but as standing face to face with a personality. And that's not all: God is not just one person limited by his own existence, but a Trinity of Persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - each of whom dwells in the other two by the power of the eternal movement of love. God is not just unity, but unity.

Divine names

In the Holy Scriptures there are many names of God, each of which, not being able to describe Him in essence, indicates one or another of His properties. The famous 5th century treatise “On the Divine Names,” attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, is the first Christian systematic presentation of this topic, although before that it was developed by other writers, in particular St. Gregory the Theologian.

Some names assigned to God emphasize His superiority over the visible world, His power, dominion, and royal dignity. Name Lord (Greek) Kyrios) denotes the sovereignty of God not only over his chosen people, but over the entire universe. This also includes the names Lord of hosts, that is, the Lord of armies (heavenly), the Lord of hosts, the Lord of ages, the Lord, the King of glory, the King of kings and the Lord of lords: “Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the splendor , and everything that is in heaven and on earth is Yours; Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom, and You are above all as Sovereign. Both wealth and glory are from Your presence, and You rule over everything; and in Your hand is strength and might, and in Your power to strengthen everything” (1 Chron. 29:11-12). Name Almighty (Greek) Pantokrator) means that God holds everything in His hand, maintains the Universe and the order in it: “My hand founded the earth, and My right hand stretched out the heavens” (Is. 48:13); God “upholds all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3).

The names Holy, Holiness, Holiness, Sanctification, Good, Goodness show that God has in Himself all the fullness of goodness and holiness, and He pours out this goodness on all His creatures, sanctifying their. “Hallowed be Thy name,” we turn to God in the prayer “Our Father.” That is, may Your name be holy not only in heaven, in the spiritual world, but also here on earth: hallowed in us, so that we become holy like You... God is also called Wisdom, Truth, Light, Life: “Wisdom as knowledge of divine and human affairs... Truth as one, and not plural by nature (for the true is unique, but lies are many-sided)... Light as the lightness of souls purified in mind and life, for if ignorance and sin are darkness, then knowledge and life are divine - light..., Life, because it is light, support and fulfillment of all rational nature” (Gregory the Theologian).

The Holy Scripture calls God Salvation, Redemption, Deliverance, Resurrection because only in Him (in Christ) is the salvation of man from sin and eternal death, resurrection to new life, realized.

God is called Truth and Love. The name of Truth emphasizes Divine justice: He is the Judge, punishing for evil and rewarding for good. In any case, this is how the Old Testament perceives God. However, the New Testament Gospel reveals to us that God, being fair and just, surpasses all our ideas of justice: “Do not call God just,” writes St. Isaac the Syrian. – Although David calls Him just and just, the Son revealed to us that He is rather good and gracious... Why does a person call God just when in the chapter about the prodigal son... he reads that at one contrition that the son showed, the father ran and fell on his neck and gave him power over all his wealth?.. Where is the justice of God? Is it because we are sinners, and Christ died for us?.. Where is the reward for our deeds?” The New Testament complements the Old Testament idea of ​​the justice of God with the teaching of His love, which surpasses all justice. “God is love,” says the holy Apostle John the Theologian (1 John 4:18). This is the most sublime definition of God, the truest that can be said about Him. As St. Gregory the Theologian says, this name is “more pleasing to God than any other name.”

The Bible also contains names of God, borrowed from nature and which are not His characteristics, not attempts to define His properties, but, as it were, symbols and analogies that have an auxiliary meaning. God is compared to the sun, star, fire, wind, water, dew, cloud, stone, rock, fragrance. Christ is spoken of as the Shepherd, the Sheep, the Lamb, the Way, the Door, the image of God. All these names are simple and specific, they are borrowed from everyday reality, from everyday life. But their meaning is the same as in the parables of Christ, when under the images of a pearl, a tree, leaven in dough, seeds in a field, we guess something infinitely greater and more significant.

In many texts of the Holy Scriptures, God is spoken of as a humanoid being, that is, as having a face, eyes, ears, arms, shoulders, wings, legs, breath; it is said that God turns or turns away, remembers or forgets, is angry or calms down, is surprised, grieves, hates, walks, hears. This anthropomorphism is based on experience personal encounter with God as a living being. Trying to express this experience, man resorted to earthly words and images. In the biblical language there are almost no abstract concepts that play such an important role in the language of speculative philosophy: when it was necessary to designate a certain period of time, they did not say “epoch” or “period” - they said “hour”, “day”, “year” or “age”; when it was necessary to talk about the material and spiritual world, they did not say “matter” and “spiritual reality,” but “heaven” and “earth.” Biblical language, unlike philosophical language, has extreme concreteness precisely because the experience of the biblical God was the experience of a personal meeting, and not abstract speculative speculation. The ancients felt God next to them - He was their king, their leader, He was present at their meetings. And when David says, “The Lord has heard my prayer” (Ps. 6:10), this does not mean that God did not hear before, but now he has heard: God has always heard, it’s just that man did not feel it before, but now he feels it. And the words “show Your face to Your servant” (Ps. 30:17) are not a request that God, Who was not there before, suddenly appear here, because He is present always and everywhere, but that a person who had not previously noticed God, I was able to see, feel, know, meet Him.

In the Bible, God is repeatedly called the Father, and people are His children: “Only You are our Father, for Abraham does not recognize us, and Israel does not recognize us as theirs; But You, O Lord, are our Father; from all eternity Your name is our Redeemer” (Isa. 63:16). In recent years, there has been increasing talk in the Protestant world that since God is genderless, He should not be called “Father.” Some representatives of so-called feminist theology insist that God is equally Mother, and in the Lord's Prayer they say “Our Father and Mother” instead of “Our Father”, and when translating the Holy Scriptures in those places, where we are talking about God, replace the pronoun “He” with “He-She” (He-She). These absurd distortions of the biblical concept of God arise from a failure to understand the fact that the division into two sexes exists in the human and animal worlds, but not in the Divine being. This is a kind of pseudo-anthropomorphism that has little in common with biblical anthropomorphism. The only thing that is indisputable for us is that, appearing to the people of Israel, God revealed himself with the name Father. It is also obvious that when God became incarnate, He became not a woman, but a man—Jesus Christ.

Properties of God

It is difficult to talk about the properties of One whose very nature is beyond words. Nevertheless, based on the actions of God in the created world, man can make assumptions and inferences regarding the properties of God. According to St. John of Damascus, God is beginningless, infinite, eternal, constant, uncreated, immutable, unchangeable, simple, uncomplicated, incorporeal, invisible, intangible, indescribable, limitless, inaccessible to the mind, immense, incomprehensible, good, righteous, Creator of all things, Almighty, Almighty, All-Seeing, Provider of everything, Lord of everything.

Beginninglessness

The originlessness of God means that He does not have any higher principle or reason for His existence above Him, but He Himself is the cause of everything. He does not need anything extraneous, is free from external coercion and influence:

“Who understood the spirit of the Lord and was His counselor and taught Him? With whom does He consult, and who admonishes Him and instructs Him in the path of righteousness, and teaches Him knowledge, and shows Him the path of wisdom? (Isa. 40:13-14)

Infinity

Infinity and limitlessness mean that God exists outside the categories of space, free from any limitation and lack. It cannot be measured, It cannot be compared or compared with anyone or anything. God is eternal, that is, he exists outside the categories of time, for Him there is no past, present or future: “I am the same, I am the first and I am the last,” says God in the Old Testament (Is. 48:10); ”

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come,” we read from John the Theologian (Rev. 1:8).

Having no beginning or end in time, God appears uncreated- no one created Him: “Before Me there was no God and after Me there will not be” (Is. 43:10).

Immutability

God has constancy, immutability and immutability in the sense that “with Him there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17), He is always true to Himself: “God is not a man, that He should lie, and not a son of man, that He must change” (Num. 23:19). In His being, actions, properties, He always remains the same.

Indivisibility

God is simple and uncomplicated, that is, he is not divided into parts and does not consist of parts. The Trinity of Persons in God, which will be discussed in the next chapter, is not a division of the single Divine nature into parts: the nature of God remains indivisible. The concept of the perfection of the Divine excludes the possibility of dividing God into parts, since any partial existence is not perfection. What does the essence of simple nature mean? - asks Saint Gregory the Theologian. And, trying to answer this question, he says that the mind, if it wants to explore the infinite God, finds neither the beginning nor the end, because the infinite extends beyond the beginning and the end and is not contained between them; and when the mind rushes up or down, trying to find some limits or boundaries to its ideas about God, it does not find them. The absence of any boundaries, divisions and limits is simplicity in God.

Incorporeality

God is called incorporeal because He is not a material substance and does not have a body, but is spiritual in nature. “God is Spirit,” says Christ to the Samaritan woman (John 4:24).

“The Lord is the Spirit,” repeats the Apostle Paul, “and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17).

God is free from all materiality: He is not somewhere, is not nowhere, is not everywhere. When talking about everywhere-the presence of God, then this is again an attempt to express the subjective experience of man who, Where whatever he is, everywhere meets God: “Where shall I go from Thy Spirit, and where shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend to heaven - You are there; If I go down to the underworld, you will be there too. If I take the wings of the morning and move to the edge of the sea, there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will hold me” (Ps. 139:7-10). But subjectively, a person can feel God everywhere, or he may not feel Him anywhere - at the same time, God Himself remains completely outside the category of “somewhere”, outside the category of “place”.

Incomprehensibility

God is invisible, intangible, indescribable, incomprehensible, immense, inaccessible. No matter how much we try to explore God, no matter how much we talk about His names and properties, He still remains elusive to the mind, because it surpasses all our thoughts. “It is difficult to understand God, but it is impossible to express it,” writes Plato. Saint Gregory the Theologian, polemicizing with the Hellenic sage, says: “It is impossible to say, and even more impossible to understand.” Saint Basil the Great says: “I know that God exists. But what His essence is - I consider this beyond understanding. So how can I be saved? Through faith. And he is content with the knowledge that God exists (and not that He is)… The consciousness of the incomprehensibility of God is knowledge of His essence.” God is invisible - “no one has ever seen Him” (John 1:18) in the sense that no one could comprehend His essence, embrace Him with their sight, perception, or mind. A person can join God, become involved in Him, but he can never understand God, because “to understand” means in some sense to exhaust.

Trinity

Christians believe in God the Trinity - Father, son And Holy Spirit. - these are not three gods, but one God in three Persons, that is, in three independent personal (personal) existences. This is the only case where 1 = 3 and 3 = 1. What would be absurd to mathematics and logic is the cornerstone of faith. A Christian joins the mystery of the Trinity not through rational knowledge, but through repentance, that is, a complete change and renewal of the mind, heart, feelings and our entire being (the Greek word for “repentance” is metanoia– literally means “change of mind”). It is impossible to join the Trinity until the mind becomes enlightened and transformed.

The doctrine of the Trinity is not an invention of theologians - it is a revealed truth. At the moment of the Baptism of Jesus Christ, God for the first time clearly reveals Himself to the world as Unity in three Persons:

“When all the people were baptized, and Jesus, having been baptized, prayed, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove, and there was a voice from heaven, saying: You are My beloved Son, in You I am well pleased” (Luke 3:21-22).

The voice of the Father is heard from heaven, the Son stands in the waters of the Jordan, the Spirit descends on the Son. Jesus Christ repeatedly spoke about His unity with the Father, that He was sent into the world by the Father, and called Himself His Son (John 6-8). He also promised the disciples to send the Comforter Spirit, who proceeds from the Father (John 14:16-17; 15:26). Sending his disciples to preach, He tells them: “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Also in the writings of the apostles it is said about God the Trinity: “Three testify in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these Three are One” (1 John 5:7).

Only after the coming of Christ did God reveal himself to people as the Trinity. The ancient Jews sacredly preserved their faith in one God, and they would not have been able to understand the idea of ​​​​the trinity of the Godhead, because such an idea would have been perceived by them clearly as tritheism. In an era when polytheism reigned supreme in the world, the mystery of the Trinity was hidden from human eyes; it was, as it were, hidden in the deepest core of the truth about the unity of the Divine.

However, already in the Old Testament we find some hints of the plurality of Persons in God. The first verse of the Bible - “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1) - in the Hebrew text contains the word “God” in the plural ( Elohim– lit. “Gods”), while the verb “created” is singular. Before the creation of man, God says, as if consulting with someone: “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Who can He consult with if not Himself? WITH ? But man was created not in the image of angels, but “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27). Ancient Christian interpreters argued that here we are talking about a meeting between the Persons of the Holy Trinity. In the same way, when Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God spoke to Himself: “Behold, Adam has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:22). And at the moment of the construction of the Tower of Babel, the Lord says: “Let us go down and confuse their language, so that one does not understand the speech of the other” (Genesis 11:7).

Some episodes of the Old Testament are considered in the Christian tradition as symbolizing the trinity of the Godhead. The Lord appears to Abraham near the oak grove of Mamre. “He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold three men stood against him. Seeing, he ran towards them from the entrance to the tent and bowed to the ground and said: Master! If I have found favor in Your sight, do not pass by Your servant... but I will bring bread, and you will strengthen your hearts, then go, as you are passing by your servant... And they said to him: Where is Sarah your wife? He answered: here, in the tent. And one of them said: I will be with you again at this same time, and Sarah will have a son” (Gen. 18:2-3, 5, 9-10). Abraham meets Three, but worships One. You = You, pass = go, said = said, 1 = 3...

The prophet Isaiah describes his vision of the Lord, around whom the Seraphim stood, crying out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.” The Lord says: “Whom should I send? And who will go for Us?” To which the prophet replies: “Here I am, send me” (Is. 6:1-8). Again equality between “Me” and “Us”. In the Old Testament, in addition, there are many prophecies speaking about the equality of the Son of the Messiah and God the Father, for example: “The Lord said to Me: You are My Son, today I have begotten You” (Ps. 2:7) or “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand... From the womb before the morning star I begot you” (Ps. 109:1, 3).

The cited biblical texts, however, only foretell the mystery of the Trinity, but do not speak about it directly. This mystery remains under a veil, which, according to the Apostle Paul, can only be removed by Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 3:15-16).

The Fullness of Divine Life in the Trinity

To make the doctrine of the Trinity more accessible to understanding, the Fathers sometimes resorted to analogies and comparisons. For example, the Trinity can be compared to the sun: when we say “sun,” we mean the celestial body itself, as well as sunlight and solar heat. Light and heat are independent “hypostases,” but they do not exist in isolation from the sun. But also the sun does not exist without heat and light... Another analogy: water, source and stream: one cannot exist without the other... Man has a mind and a word: the mind cannot exist without a soul and a word, otherwise it would be without- stuffy and demon-verbal, but both soul and word cannot be without-smart. In God there is the Father, the Word and the Spirit, and, as the defenders of “consubstantiality” said at the Council of Nicaea, if God the Father ever existed without God the Word, then He was demon-verbal or Not-reasonable.

But analogies of this kind, of course, also cannot explain anything essentially: sunlight, for example, is neither a person nor an independent being. The easiest way would be to explain the mystery of the Trinity, as St. Spyridon of Trimythous, a participant in the Council of Nicaea, did. According to legend, being asked how it could be that Three could simultaneously be One, instead of answering, he picked up a brick and squeezed it. From the clay that softened in the hands of the saint, a flame burst upward, and water flowed down. “Just as in this brick there is fire and water,” said the saint, “so in one God there are three Persons.”

Another version of the same story (or perhaps a story about another similar event) is contained in the acts of the Council of Nicaea. One philosopher argued for a long time with the Fathers of this Council, trying to logically prove that the Son cannot be consubstantial with the Father. Tired of the long debate, everyone was about to leave, when suddenly a certain simple old shepherd (identified with Saint Spyridon) entered the hall and declared that he was ready to argue with the philosopher and refute all his arguments. After which, turning to the philosopher and looking sternly at him, he said: “Listen, philosopher, there is one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, who created everything by the power of the Son and the assistance of the Holy Spirit. This Son of God became incarnate, lived among people, died for us and rose again. Do not labor in vain to look for evidence of what is comprehended only by faith, but answer: do you believe in the Son of God?” Struck by these words, the philosopher could only find something to say: “I believe.” The elder said: “If you believe, then come with me to church and there I will introduce you to this true faith.” The philosopher immediately stood up and followed the elder. As he left, he said to those present: “While they were proving it to me in words, I opposed words to words, but when divine power appeared from the mouth of this old man, words could not resist power, because man cannot resist God.”

God the Trinity is not some kind of frozen existence, it is not peace, immobility, staticity. “I am who I am,” God says to Moses (Ex. 3:14). Existing means existing, living. In God there is fullness of life, and life is movement, appearance, revelation. Some Divine names, as we have seen, have a dynamic character: God is compared to fire (Exodus 24:17), water (Jeremiah 2:13), wind (Genesis 1:2). In the biblical book of Song of Songs, a woman is looking for her lover, who is running away from her. This image is reinterpreted in the Christian tradition (Origen, Gregory of Nyssa) as the soul’s pursuit of God, who is forever running away from it. The soul seeks God, but as soon as it finds it, it loses it again, tries to comprehend Him, but cannot comprehend it, tries to contain Him, but cannot contain Him. He moves with great “speed” and always exceeds our strength and our capabilities. To find and catch up with God means to become Divine yourself. Just as, according to physical laws, if any material body began to move at the speed of light, it would itself turn into light, so the soul: the closer it is to God, the more it is filled with light and becomes luminiferous...

Holy Scripture says that “God is love” (1 John 4:8; 4:16). But there is no love without a loved one. Love presupposes the existence of another. A lonely isolated monad can love only itself: itself-love is not love. The egocentric unit is not a person. Just as a person cannot realize himself as a person-person except through communication with other personalities, so there cannot be personal existence in God except through love for another personal existence. God the Trinity is the fullness of love, each Person-Hypostasis is turned in love to two other Persons-Hypostases. The persons in the Trinity recognize themselves as “I and You”: “You, Father, are in Me, and I in You,” says Christ to the Father (John 17:21). “All that the Father has is Mine, therefore I said that the Spirit will take of Mine and declare it to you,” says Christ about the Holy Spirit (John 16:14). “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,” so begins the Gospel of John (John 1:1). In Greek and Slavic texts there is a preposition “to”: The word was “to God” ( pros ton Theon). The personal nature of the relationship between the Son (Word) and the Father is emphasized: the Son is not only born from Father, He not only exists with the Father, but He is addressed to the Father. Thus, each Hypostasis in the Trinity is addressed to two other Hypostases.

On the icon of the Most Holy Trinity by St. Andrei Rublev, as well as on others of the same iconographic type, we see three angels sitting at a table on which stands the Chalice - a symbol of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The plot of the icon is borrowed from the mentioned incident with Abraham (“Hospitality of Abraham” is the name of this iconographic version), and all the Persons of the Trinity are represented facing each other and at the same time to the Chalice. The icon seems to capture that Divine love that reigns within the Trinity and the highest manifestation of which is the redemptive feat of the Son. This, in the words of St. Philaret (Drozdov), “crucifying love of the Father, crucifying love of the Son, triumphant love of the Holy Spirit by the power of the cross.” The sacrifice of God the Son on the cross is also a feat of love between the Father and the Holy Spirit.

God the Creator

One of the main tenets of Christianity is the doctrine of God the Creator, who, in contrast to Plato’s Demiurge, who organizes the cosmos from some primary substance, creates the Universe out of nothing. This is stated in the Old Testament: “Look at heaven and earth, and seeing everything that is in them, know that God created everything out of nothing” (2 Mac. 7:28). Everything that exists came into being thanks to the free will of the Creator: “He spoke and it was done, He commanded and it appeared” (Ps. 32:9).

All three Persons of the Holy Trinity participated in the creation, as was prophetically stated already in the Old Testament: “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were created, and by the Spirit of His mouth was all their power” (Ps. 32:6). The Apostle John speaks about the creative role of God the Word at the beginning of the Gospel: “Through Him all things began to be, and without Him nothing began to be” (John 1:3). The Bible says about the Spirit: “And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Gen. 1:2). The Word and the Spirit, in the figurative expression of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, are the “two hands” of the Father. This is about with-action, joint creativity of the Three: Their will is one, but each has its own action. “The Father is the original cause of everything that exists,” says St. Basil the Great. “The Son is the creative cause, the Holy Spirit is the perfecting cause, so that by the will of the Father everything exists, by the action of the Son everything is brought into being, by the presence of the Spirit everything is accomplished.” In other words, in creation the Father plays the role of the First Cause of everything, the Son Logos (Word) plays the role of the Demiurge-Creator, and the Holy Spirit completes, that is, brings to perfection, everything created.

It is no coincidence that, speaking about the creative role of the Son, the Fathers of the Church prefer to call Him the Word: It reveals the Father, reveals the Father, and, like any word, It is addressed to someone, in this case to all creation. “No one has ever seen God: the Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed” (John 1:18). The Son revealed the Father to created being; thanks to the Son, the Father’s love was poured out onto created being, and it received life. Already in Philo of Alexandria, the Logos is a mediator between God and creation, and the Christian tradition directly speaks of the creative power of the Logos. In the same sense, the words from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah are interpreted: “My word, which proceeds from my mouth, does not return to me void, but accomplishes what I please, and accomplishes what I sent it for” (Is. 55 :eleven). At the same time, Logos is the plan and law according to which everything was created, the rational basis of things, thanks to which everything has purposefulness, meaningfulness, harmony and perfection.

However, created being is foreign to God; it is not an emanation - an outpouring of the Divine. The divine essence did not undergo any division or change during the creation of the world: it did not mix with creation and did not dissolve in it. God is the Artist, and creation is His picture, in which we can recognize His “brush”, His “hand”, see reflections of His creative mind, but the Artist did not disappear in His picture: He remained Who He was before its creation.

For what reason did God create everything? Patristic theology answers this question: “according to the abundance of love and goodness.” “As soon as the good and most good God was not content with contemplating Himself, but out of an abundance of goodness wanted something to happen that in the future would benefit from His benefits and be involved in His goodness, He brings from non-existence into existence and creates everything,” writes the venerable John of Damascus. In other words, God wanted there to be something else participating in His bliss, participating in His love.

Creation of Man

Man is the crown of creation, the pinnacle of the creative process of the three Persons of the Divine Trinity. Before creating man, They consult with each other: “Let Us make man in Our image and after Our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). The “Eternal Council” of the Three was necessary not only because man is born as a higher being, endowed with reason and will, ruling over the entire visible world, but also because he, being absolutely free and independent of God, will break the commandment and fall from paradise bliss, and the sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross will be needed to open the way for him back to God. Intending to create man, God sees his future destiny, because nothing is hidden from God’s gaze: He sees the future as the present.

But if God foresaw the fall of Adam in advance, doesn’t this mean that Adam is innocent, since everything happened according to the will of the Creator? Answering this question, St. John of Damascus speaks of the difference between God’s “foreknowledge” and “predestination”: “God knows everything, but does not predetermine everything. For He knows in advance what is in our power, but He does not predetermine it. For He does not want evil to happen, but He does not force good.” God's foreknowledge, therefore, is not a fate that predetermines the fate of man. Adam was not “destined” to sin - the latter depended only on his free will. When we sin, God knows it in advance, but God's foreknowledge in no way absolves us of responsibility for sin. At the same time, God’s mercy is so great that He expresses an initial willingness to sacrifice Himself in order to redeem humanity from the consequences of sin.

God created man “from the dust of the ground,” that is, from matter. Man is, therefore, flesh of the flesh of the earth, from which he is molded by the hands of God. But God also “breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7). Being “earthly,” earthly, a person receives a certain Divine principle, a guarantee of his involvement in Divine existence: “Having created Adam in His image and likeness, God through inspiration put into him grace, enlightenment and the ray of the All-Holy Spirit” (Anastasius Sinaite). The “breath of life” can be understood as the Holy Spirit (both “breath” and “spirit” are referred to by the same term in the Greek Bible pneuma). Man is involved in the Divine by the very act of creation and therefore fundamentally differs from all other living beings: he not only occupies the highest position in the hierarchy of animals, but is a “demigod” for the animal world. The Holy Fathers call man a “mediator” between the visible and invisible worlds, a “mixture” of both worlds. They also call it, following the ancient philosophers, microcosm - a small world, a small cosmos, uniting in itself the entirety of created existence.

Man, according to St. Basil the Great, “had a leadership in the likeness of angels” and “in his life he was like the archangels.” Being, however, the core of the created world, combining the spiritual and physical principles, he in some sense surpassed the angels: wanting to emphasize the greatness of man, St. Gregory the Theologian calls him “created god.” By creating man in His own image and likeness, God creates a being called become a god. The man is godman according to its potential.

Skepticism regarding the concept of God

Atheism

The word “atheism” aqews means godlessness; Therefore, an atheist in the proper sense of the word we must call someone who does not believe, does not recognize God, who thinks and says that there is no God and cannot exist. But in our ordinary speech, the word “atheism” is used very often and in very diverse meanings, however, close to each other.

1. We call an atheist a person who completely denies the truth of God's existence.
2. We very often call atheists those in whom we notice a radical perversion of the knowledge of God, a distorted view of the nature of God and His relationship to the world and man in its very essence. Therefore, dualism, pantheism and even deism are sometimes subsumed under atheism.
3. Pagans and people close in their views to them are called atheists.
4. Very often even Protestants and all Protestant sectarians are called atheists for their disrespect for the Mother of God and the saints.
5. If admirers of the true religion and those possessing true knowledge of God call the enemies of the true religion, apostates from it, and those who are not right-thinking, atheists, then there have been cases when, on the contrary, people with exalted and pure concepts of God were accused of atheism by those who themselves had other, false concepts about God, a false religion. Thus, the Greeks in the classical era accused of godlessness those philosophers who recognized the tales of the gods and folk religion as fiction of poets. Socrates, Plato, Anaxagoras were accused of atheism by their Greek contemporaries, despite the fact that they proclaimed the truth of the existence of one God.
6. Finally, atheism often includes skepticism, both absolute and relative. The first, denying absolutely any possibility of knowing anything, of course, thereby denies the possibility of religion. The second, relative, allowing the possibility of only experimental knowledge, denies the possibility of knowing anything from the supersensible world (so-called agnosticism). Obliged by the essence of his worldview about God to affirm that He cannot know about anything, he involuntarily somehow internally, albeit tacitly, agrees with those who deny the existence of God.

From the book of the Hieromartyr Archpriest Mikhail Cheltsov “ “

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God

God is in religious ideas the highest supernatural being, the supreme subject of religious cult. The concept of God as personalities and a supernatural being is a defining feature of theism. In contrast to this in pantheism God appears as an impersonal force inherent in nature, and sometimes identical to it. IN deism God is considered the first cause, the creator of the world, but this world further develops according to its natural laws.

God is Spirit, having an immaterial nature, the Creator and Creator of all things in the present, past and future. He original and independent: He did not receive His existence from anyone and does not depend on anyone for anything. God is above all conditions of space: immeasurable and omnipresent, above all conditions of time: eternal and unchangeable. He is omnipotent and omnipotent.

The main properties belonging to God:

1) Infinity or all-perfection. By calling God infinite, we mean that He not only free from any limitation and deficiency, in any respect whatsoever, but together possesses all possible perfections and, moreover, to the highest degree or without any degree or measure.

World creation. God of Hosts. His name, by that time, had already been taken out of use, but the image remained

2) Identity. God is called original because He does not owe His existence to any other being, but has both existence and everything that He has from Himself.

3) Independence. By the name of independence in God is meant such a property by which He is both in being, and in powers, and in actions His own are determined only by Himself, and not by anything external, and is self-satisfied, autocratic, autocratic. This property of God follows from the previous one. If God is an original Being, and everything that He has, He has only from Himself, then it means that He does not depend on anyone, at least in terms of His being and powers.

4) Immeasurability and omnipresence. Immeasurability is attributed to God in the sense that He, as the purest Spirit and, moreover, boundless in all respects, is not subject, in particular, to any limitation by space or place, but fills everything with Himself, and omnipresence - in the fact that, filling everything with Himself, He naturally is found in every place and is inherent in every being.

5) Eternity. When it is said that God is eternal, it means that He has neither a beginning nor an end to His existence and is generally free from all conditions of time.

6) Immutability. Immutability in God is such a property by which He always remains the same in His being, and in His powers and perfections, and in His determinations and actions.

The place of dogmas among other Christian truths: The Truth of Christian Revelation, contained in the Holy Scriptures. Scripture and Holy Traditions are divided into truths of faith and truths of activity.
The truths of faith are divided into those related to the very essence of the Christian religion as a restored union between God and man, called dogmas, and others not related to the essence, which contain historical legends or private sayings of sacred persons.
The truths of activity are divided into definitions of moral behavior and ritual and canonical truths.

Structure of Dogmatic Theology:
I Dogmas about God and His general relationship to the world and man.
II Dogmas about God, trinity in persons.
III Dogmas about God as Creator and Provider for the spiritual world.
IV Dogmas about God as Creator and Provider to man.
V Dogmas about God the Savior and His special relationship to the human race.
VI Dogmas about Christ the Savior.
VII Dogmas of Sanctification.
VIII Dogmas of the Holy Church.
iX Dogmas on the Sacraments of the Church.
X Dogmas about the Sacrament of the Priesthood.
XI Dogmas about God as Judge and Rewarder.
XII Dogmas on the General Court.

DOGMATS ABOUT GOD AND HIS GENERAL RELATIONSHIP TO THE WORLD AND MAN

General properties of the being of God

God is incomprehensible and invisible. God revealed himself to people in creation and in the supernatural Revelation, which was preached by the only begotten Son of God through the Apostles. God is one in being and threefold in persons.

God is the Spirit, eternal, all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present, unchangeable, all-content, all-blessed.

The nature of God is completely immaterial, not involved in the slightest complexity, simple.

God, as a Spirit, in addition to spiritual nature (substance), has mind and will.

God, as Spirit, is infinite in all respects, otherwise, all-perfect, He is original and independent, immeasurable and omnipresent, eternal and unchangeable, omnipotent and omnipotent, perfect and alien to any deficiency.

Particular properties of the being of God

Originality - everything that has, has from itself.

Independence - in being, in strength and in actions is determined by Himself.

Immeasurability and omnipresence - not subject to any limitation by space and place.

Eternity - He has neither beginning nor end of his existence.

Immutability - He always remains the same.

Omnipotence - He has unlimited power to produce everything and rule over everything.

Properties of God's Mind

The property of the mind of God in itself is omniscience, i.e. He knows everything and knows it most perfectly.

The property of God's mind in relation to his actions is the highest wisdom, i.e. the most perfect knowledge of the best ends and the best means, the most perfect art of applying the latter to the former.

Properties of God's Will

The properties of God's will in itself are extremely free and all-holy, i.e. pure from all sin.

The property of God's will in relation to all creatures is all-good, and in relation to rational creatures it is true and faithful, since it reveals itself to them as a moral law, as well as a just one, since it rewards them according to their deserts.

Unity of God in essence

God is one.

DOGMA ABOUT GOD, THE TRINITY IN PERSONS

There are essentially three Persons or Hypostases in the One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The three persons in God are equal and consubstantial.

The three persons are different in their personal properties: the Father is not begotten of anyone, the Son is begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.

(The hypostases are inseparable and unmerged; the birth of the Son never began, never ended, the Son was born from the Father, but was not separated from him, He abides in the Father; God the Holy Spirit eternally emanates from the Father.)

DOGMATS ABOUT GOD AS CREATOR AND PROVIDER TO THE SPIRITUAL WORLD

The spiritual world is made up of two kinds of spirits: good, called Angels, and evil, called demons.

Angels and demons were created by God.

Demons became evil from good spirits of their own free will with the connivance of God.

God, as a Provider, gave both Angels and demons nature, powers and abilities.

God assists the Angels in their good activities and controls them in accordance with the purpose of their existence.

God allowed the fall of demons and allows their evil activity, and limits it, directing it, if possible, to good goals.

By their nature, Angels are disembodied spirits, the most perfect of the human soul, but limited.

The angelic world is unusually great.

Angels glorify God, serve Him, serve people in this world, guiding them to the kingdom of God.

The Lord gives a special Guardian Angel to each of the believers.

The devil and his angels (demons) are personal and real beings.

Demons by their nature are ethereal spirits, the highest of the human soul, but limited.

Demons cannot use violence against any person unless God allows them.

The devil acts both as an enemy of God and as an enemy of man.

God destroys the kingdom of demons on earth through the ceaseless expansion of His blessed kingdom.

God gave people Divine powers against demons (prayer, etc.).

God allows the activities of demons aimed at the destruction of humanity for the moral benefit of people and their salvation.

God created man so that he would know God, love and glorify Him, and through this he would be eternally blissful.

God created the first people, Adam and Eve, in a special way, different from the creation of His other creatures.

The human race originated from Adam and Eve.

The soul, the highest and most excellent part of man, is an independent being, immaterial and simple, free, immortal.

The purpose of man is that he invariably remain faithful to the high covenant or union with God, to which the All-Good One called him at creation itself, so that he strives for his Prototype with all the strength of his rationally free soul, i.e. knew his Creator and glorified him, lived for Him and in moral unity with Him.

Heaven was a place to live a happy and blissful life, at the same time sensual and spiritual. Man in heaven was immortal.

It is not true that Adam could not die, he could not die.

To be continued

DOGMA ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP OF GOD, AS CREATOR AND PROVIDER, TO MAN

Man is created in the image and likeness of God.

God created man so that he would know God, love and glorify Him, and through this he would be eternally blissful.

God created the first people, Adam and Eve, in a special way, different from the creation of His other creatures.

The human race originated from Adam and Eve.

Man consists of an immaterial soul and a material body.

The soul, the highest and most excellent part of man, is an independent being, immaterial and simple, free, immortal. The purpose of man is that he invariably remain faithful to the high covenant or union with God, to which the All-Good One called him at creation itself, so that he strives for his Prototype with all the strength of his rationally free soul, i.e. knew his Creator and glorified him, lived for Him and in moral unity with Him.

The fall of man was allowed by God.

Heaven was a place to live a happy and blissful life, both sensual and spiritual. Man in heaven was immortal. It is not true that Adam could not die, he could not die. Adam was to make and maintain heaven. To instruct the truth of faith, God honored some people with His revelations, appeared to them Himself, talked with them, and revealed His will to them.

God created man fully capable of achieving the goal He established, i.e. perfect, both in soul, mentally and morally, and perfect in body.

In order to exercise and strengthen moral powers in goodness, God commanded man not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A person did not keep the commandments, then he lost his dignity.

All people came from Adam and his sin is the sin of all people.

God has given His grace to man from the very beginning.

The devil was hidden in the snake that seduced Adam and Eve. Eve was carried away by the dream of becoming equal to God, Adam fell due to addiction to his wife.

Death came to man from the envy of the devil towards God.

Consequences of a fall in the soul: dissolution of union with God, loss of grace, spiritual death, darkening of the mind, degradation of the will and its inclination towards evil rather than good, distortion of the image of God.

Consequences of a fall for the body: illness, sorrow, exhaustion, death.

Consequence for the external state of a person: loss or decrease in power over animals, loss of fertility of the earth.

The consequences of the fall extended to all of humanity. Original sin is universal.

After the fall of Adam and Eve, God did not stop thinking about man. He is the king of the whole earth, rules over the peoples and watches over them. He places kings over the peoples, grants them Power and strength, and rules earthly kingdoms through kings. He supplies lower powers through kings, and supplies His servants (Angels) to create the happiness of human societies.

God provides for individual people and, in particular, for guides, protects us throughout our lives, assists us in our activities, and sets a limit for our earthly life and activities.

God provides in natural ways (preserves people and helps them) and supernaturally (miracles and actions of Divine economy).

DOGMA ABOUT GOD THE SAVIOR AND HIS SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP TO THE HUMAN KIND

God sent His Only Begotten Son into the vale of the earth, so that He, having received flesh from the Most Pure Virgin through the action of the Holy Spirit, would redeem man and bring him into His kingdom in much greater glory than what he had in paradise.

God is our Savior in general, since all the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity participated in the work of our salvation.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Author and Finisher of our faith and salvation.

In the Person of Jesus Christ, each of His natures transfers its properties to the other, and precisely, what is characteristic of Him in humanity is assimilated to Him as God, and what is characteristic of Him in Divinity is assimilated to Him as a man.

The Most Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of the Lord Jesus, not according to His Divinity, but according to humanity, which, however, from the very moment of His incarnation, became inseparably and hypostatically united in Him with His Divinity, and became His own Divine Person.

Not the entire Holy Trinity was incarnated in Jesus Christ, but only one Son
God, second Person of the Holy Trinity

The attitude of the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity did not change at all through His incarnation, and after the incarnation, God the Word remains the same Son of God,
what it was before. The Son of God the Father is natural, not adopted.

Jesus Christ was anointed as high priest, king and prophet for
threefold service to the human race, through which he accomplished his
the rescue.

DOGMATS ABOUT CHRIST THE SAVIOR

The One Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, for the sake of man and the human race, came down from heaven and was incarnated by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man.

Jesus Christ, perfect in Godhead and perfect in humanity; truly God and truly man; also from soul and body; consubstantial with the Father in Divinity and consubstantial with people in humanity; in every way similar to people, except for sin; born before the age from the Father according to Divinity, in the last days born for our sake and for the sake of our salvation from Mary the Virgin Mother of God, according to humanity; The Only Begotten, in two natures unfused, unchangeable, inseparably, inseparably cognizable; not into two persons, cut or divided, but one Son and the Only Begotten God the Word.

How the two natures in Jesus Christ, Divine and human, despite all their differences, were united into one Hypostasis; how He, being perfect God and perfect man, is but one Person; this, according to the Word of God, is the great mystery of piety, and, therefore, inaccessible to our mind. The Lord performed prophetic service directly, having assumed the office of a public Teacher, and through His disciples. The teaching consists of the law of faith and the law of activity and is entirely aimed at the salvation of mankind.

The law of faith is about God, the highest and most perfect Spirit, one in essence, but threefold in Persons, original, omnipresent, all-good, omnipotent, Creator and Provider of the universe, Who fatherly cares for all His creatures, especially for the human race.

About Himself as the Only Begotten Son of God, who came into the world to reconcile and reunite man with God.

About His saving suffering, death and resurrection; about fallen, damaged man and about the means by which he can rise and assimilate salvation for himself, become sanctified, reunite with God through his redeemer and achieve an eternally blissful life beyond the grave.

Christ expressed the law of activity in two main commandments: the eradication in us of the very beginning of all sin - pride or self-love, cleansing from all filth of the flesh and spirit; love for God and neighbors with the goal of rooting in us, instead of the previous sinful one, the seed of a new life, holy and pleasing to God, to bring into us a union of moral perfection.

In order to excite people to accept and fulfill the laws of faith and activity, the Lord Jesus pointed to the greatest disasters and eternal torment, which all sinners will inevitably undergo if they do not follow His teachings, but also to the greatest and eternal blessings that the Heavenly Father has prepared, also for the sake of His merits beloved Son, for all the righteous who follow His teaching.

Jesus Christ gave the law for all people and for all times.

Jesus Christ taught the law that is saving and therefore necessary for achieving eternal life.

To be continued

As a prophet, Christ the Savior only announced to us about salvation, but had not yet accomplished salvation itself: he enlightened our minds with the light of true knowledge of God, testified about himself that he is the true Messiah, explained how he would save us, and showed us the direct the path to eternal life.

The high priestly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was the work through which eternal life was earned for us.

He did this, following the custom of the Old Testament high priests, offering Himself as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world, and thus reconciled us with God, delivered us from sin and its consequences, and acquired eternal blessings for us.

Christ the Savior, in order to satisfy the eternal Truth for all these human sins, deigned, in their place, to fulfill God’s will for people in its entirety and breadth, to show in himself the most perfect example of obedience to it and to humble and abase Himself for our sake to the last degree.

Christ, the God-man, in order to save people from all these disasters and suffering, deigned to take upon Himself all the wrath of God, to endure for us everything that we deserved for our iniquities.

The high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ spanned His entire earthly life. He constantly bore His cross of self-sacrifice, obedience, suffering and sorrow.

The death of Jesus Christ is the atoning sacrifice for us. He paid with His blood the debt to the Truth of God for our sins, which we ourselves were not able to pay, and He himself was not in debt to God. This replacement was the will and consent of God, because The Son of God came to earth to do not His own will, but the will of the Father who sent Him.

The sacrifice made for us by Christ the Savior on the cross is a comprehensive sacrifice. It extends to all people, to all sins and to all times. By His death He deserved the kingdom for us, not

The royal ministry of the Lord Jesus lies in the fact that He, having the power of a King, as a proof of the divinity of His gospel, performed a number of signs and wonders - without which people could not believe in Him; and, in addition, to destroy the realm of the devil - hell, to truly defeat death and open for us the entrance to the kingdom of heaven.

In His miracles He demonstrated power over all nature: He transformed water into wine, walked on waters, tamed the storm of the sea with one word, healed all kinds of diseases with one word or touch, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and tongue to the dumb.

He demonstrated his power over the forces of hell. With one command He cast out unclean spirits from people; the demons themselves, learning about His power, trembled at His power.

Jesus Christ defeated and destroyed hell when by His death He abolished the ruler of the power of death - the devil; He descended into hell with His soul, like God, to preach salvation to the captives of hell, and brought from there all the Old Testament righteous people to the bright abodes of the Heavenly Father.

Jesus Christ conquered death by His resurrection. As a result of the resurrection of Christ, we will all one day be resurrected, since through faith in Christ and through communion with His holy sacraments we become partakers of Him.

After the liberation of the Old Testament righteous from hell, Jesus Christ solemnly ascended to heaven with the human nature He assumed and, thus, opened for all people free entry into the kingdom of heaven.

DOGMATS ABOUT SANCTIFICATION

In order for every person to become a partaker of salvation, it is necessary to sanctify the person, i.e. the actual assimilation by each of us of the merits of Christ, or such a matter in which the all-holy God, under certain conditions on our part, really cleanses us from sins, justifies us and makes us sanctified and holy.

All Persons of the Holy Trinity participate in the work of our sanctification: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father appears to be the source of our sanctification. The Holy Spirit appears to be the accomplisher of our sanctification. The Son appears to be the author of our sanctification.

The grace of God, i.e. the saving power of God is communicated to us for the sake of the merits of our Redeemer and accomplishes our sanctification.

Particular types of grace: external, acting through the Word of God, the Gospel, miracles, etc.; internal, acting directly in a person, destroying sins in him, enlightening the mind, directing his will to good; transitory, producing private impressions and contributing to private good deeds; a constant that constantly dwells in a person’s soul and makes him righteous; preceding, preceding a good deed; accompanying, which accompanies good deeds; sufficient gives a person sufficient strength and convenience to act; effective, accompanied by human action that bears fruit.

God foresaw that some people would use their free will well, and others poorly: therefore, He predestined some to glory, and condemned others.

The prevenient grace of God, like a light that enlightens those who walk in darkness, guides everyone. Therefore, those who wish to freely submit to her and fulfill her commands, which are necessary for salvation, therefore receive special grace. Those who do not want to obey and follow grace, and therefore do not keep the commandments of God, but, following the suggestions of Satan, abuse their freedom given to them by God so that they arbitrarily do good, are subject to eternal condemnation.

The grace of God extends to all people, and not only to those predestined to a righteous life; God's predestination of some to eternal bliss, others to eternal damnation, is not unconditional, but conditional, and is based on the foreknowledge of whether they will or will not use grace; God's grace does not restrict human freedom and does not act irresistibly on us; man actively participates in what the grace of God accomplishes in him and through him.

DOGMA ABOUT THE HOLY CHURCH

The Church of Christ is called either the society of all rationally free beings, i.e. angels and people who believe in Christ the Savior and are united in Him as their single head; or a society of people who believed and believe in Christ, whenever they lived and wherever they are now; either only the New Testament and militant Church or the grateful Kingdom of Christ.

The Lord Jesus wanted people, having accepted the new faith, to maintain it not separately from each other, but for this purpose to form a certain community of believers.

Christ laid the beginning and foundation for His Church by choosing His first twelve disciples, who formed His first Church. He also established an order of teachers who would spread His faith among the nations; established the Sacraments of baptism, Eucharist and repentance.

Christ founded or established His Church only on the cross, where He acquired it with His blood. For only on the cross did the Lord redeem us and reunite us with God, only after suffering on the cross did He enter into the glory of God and could send down the Holy Spirit to His disciples.

Endowed with power from above, the holy Apostles from believers in different places tried to form societies that were called churches; commanded these believers to have meetings to hear the word of God and offer prayers; exhorted them that they all formed one body of the Lord Jesus; they were commanded not to leave their meeting under fear of excommunication from the Church.

All people are called to be members of the Church, but not all are actually members. Only those who are baptized belong to the Church. Those who have sinned but profess the pure faith of Christ also belong to the church, so long as they do not become apostates. Apostates, heretics, renegades (or schismatics) are cut off as dead members by the invisible action of God's judgment.

The purpose of the Church, for which the Lord founded it, is the sanctification of sinners, and then reunification with God. To achieve this goal, the Lord Jesus gave His Church Divine teaching and established the order of teachers; He established holy sacraments and sacred rites in general in His Church, and established spiritual administration and rulers in His Church. the church is obliged to preserve the precious deposit of the saving doctrine of faith and to spread this teaching among the nations; preserve and use the Divine sacraments and sacred rites in general for the benefit of people; preserve the governance established by God in it and use it in accordance with the intention of the Lord.

The church is divided into flock and hierarchy. The flock consists of all believers in the Lord Jesus, while the hierarchy, or hierarchy, is a special God-established class of people whom the Lord has authorized alone to manage the means that He has given to the Church for its purpose.

The three degrees of the Divinely established hierarchy are bishops, priests and deacons. The bishop in his private church or diocese is the locum tenens of Christ and, therefore, the chief superior over the entire hierarchy subordinate to him and over the entire flock. He is the main teacher for both ordinary believers and pastors. The bishop is the first celebrant of the holy sacraments in his private church. He alone has the right to ordain a priest on the basis of the word of God, the rules of the holy Apostles and holy Councils. The priest has the power to perform the sacraments and generally sacred rites, except those belonging to the bishop. He is subject to the constant supervision, authority and judgment of his archpastor. Deacons are the eye and ear of the bishop and priest.

Twice a year, a council of bishops, private or local, should meet to discuss the dogmas of piety and resolve church disagreements that occur.

The concentration of spiritual power for the universal Church is in the Ecumenical Councils.

The true Head of the Church is Jesus Christ, who holds the helm of the rule of the Church and revives it with the one and saving grace of the Holy Spirit.

The Church is one, holy, catholic and saving. It is united in its beginning and foundation, in its structure, external (division into shepherds and flocks), internal (the union of all believers in Jesus Christ as the true Head of the Church); according to your goal. It is holy in its origin and foundation; according to its purpose, according to its structure (its Head is the All-Holy Lord Jesus; the Holy Spirit dwells in it with all the grace-filled gifts that sanctify us; and a number of others). It is conciliar, otherwise catholic or universal in space (intended to embrace all people, no matter where they live on earth); in time (intended to lead to faith in Christ and exist until the end of time); according to its structure (the teaching of the Church can be accepted by all people, educated and uneducated, without being connected with the civil structure and, therefore, with any specific place and time). It is apostolic in origin (since the Apostles were the first to accept the power to spread the Christian faith and founded many private churches); according to its structure (the Church originates from the Apostles themselves through the continuous succession of bishops, borrows its teaching from the writings and traditions of the apostles, rules the believers according to the rules of the holy apostles).

Outside the Church there is no salvation for a person, since faith in Jesus Christ is necessary. who reconciled us with God, and faith remains intact only in His Church; participation in the holy sacraments, which are performed only in the Church; a good, pious life, cleansing from sins, which is possible only under the leadership of the Church.

DOGMA ABOUT THE SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH

A sacrament is a sacred action that, under a visible image, imparts to the soul of the believer the invisible grace of God.

The essential accessories of each sacrament are considered to be the Divine institution of the sacrament, some visible or sensory image, and the communication of invisible grace to the soul of the believer by the sacrament.

There are seven sacraments in total: baptism, confirmation, communion, repentance, priesthood. marriage, unction.

DOGMA ABOUT THE SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH

In baptism a person is mysteriously born into spiritual life; in anointing he receives restoring and strengthening grace; in communion he is nourished spiritually; in repentance one is cured of spiritual illnesses, i.e. from sins; in the priesthood he receives the grace to spiritually regenerate and educate others through teaching and sacraments; in marriage he receives grace that sanctifies marriage and the natural birth and upbringing of children; in the consecration of oil, one is healed from bodily diseases through healing from spiritual diseases.

(The following are dogmas about the sacraments as God’s institutions, their purpose and their reality; about the visible side of the sacrament and its invisible actions; definitions of the requirements for the one performing the sacrament and those approaching it; about the properties imparted by the sacrament.)

DOGMA ABOUT THE SACRAMENT OF PRIESTHOOD

So that people could become shepherds of Christ's Church and receive the power to perform the sacraments, the Lord instituted another special sacrament - the sacrament of the priesthood.

Priesthood is such a sacred act in which, through the prayerful laying on of the hands of the bishops on the head of the chosen person, God's grace is brought down to this person, sanctifying and placing him on a certain level of the church hierarchy, and then assisting him in the passage of hierarchical duties.

DOGMA ABOUT GOD AS A JUDGE AND WINNER

God accomplishes the great work of sanctifying people or assimilating the merits of Christ in no other way than with the free participation of the people themselves, under the conditions of their faith and good deeds. For the accomplishment of this work, God has appointed a limit: for private individuals it continues until the end of their earthly life, and for the entire human race it will continue until the very end of the world. At the end of both periods, God is and has to appear as the Judge and Rewarder for every person and all of humanity. He demands and will demand from people an account of how they used the means given for their sanctification and salvation, and will reward everyone according to their deserts.

The entire Holy Trinity participates in the matter of judging us and rewarding us.

The death of a person is an essential circumstance preceding this trial.

Death is the separation of the soul from the body, the cause of death lies in its fall into sin, death is the common destiny of the entire human race, death is the limit by which the time of exploits ends and the time of retribution begins.

The souls of the dead are blissful or tormented, depending on their deeds. However, neither this bliss nor this torment is perfect. They receive them perfect after the general resurrection.

Retribution to the righteous by the will of the heavenly Judge has two types: their glorification in heaven and their glorification on earth - in the militant Church.

The glorification of the righteous, after their death, on earth is expressed by the fact that the earthly Church honors them as saints and friends of God and calls them in prayers as intercessors before God; honors their very relics and other remains, as well as their sacred images or icons.

Sinners go with their souls to hell - a place of sadness and sorrow. Full and final reward for sinners will be at the end of this age.

Sinners who repented before death, but did not have time to bear fruits worthy of repentance (prayer, contrition, consolation of the poor and expression of love for God in their actions), still have the opportunity to receive relief from suffering and even complete liberation from the bonds of hell. But they can only be received by the goodness of God, through the prayers of the Church and charity.

DOGMA ABOUT GENERAL JUDGMENT

The day will come, the last day for the entire human race, the day of the end of the age and the world, the day established by God, who wants to carry out a general and decisive judgment - the day of judgment.

On this day Jesus Christ will appear in His glory to judge the living and the dead. The Lord did not reveal to us when this great day would come, for our own moral benefit.

Signs of the coming of the Great Judgment: extraordinary successes of good on earth, the spread of the Gospel of Christ throughout the world; extraordinary successes of evil and the appearance on earth of the Antichrist, an instrument of the devil.

On the day of general judgment, the Lord will come from heaven - the Judge of the living and the dead, Who will abolish the Antichrist by the appearance of His coming; at the voice of the Lord the dead will rise for judgment and the living will be changed; the very judgment of both will take place; the end of the world and the gracious kingdom of Christ will follow.

At the conclusion of the general judgment, the righteous Judge will pronounce His final verdict on both the righteous and sinners. This retribution will be complete, perfect, decisive.

Retribution for both the righteous and sinners will be proportionate to their good deeds and their sins and extends from different degrees of eternal bliss to different degrees of eternal torment.

Presentation of the dogmas of Orthodox dogmatic theology according to the book: “Guide to the study of Christian, Orthodox dogmatic theology”, M.A.L., M., Synodal Printing House, 1913. - 368 + VIII p. According to the definition of the Holy Governing Synod. Reprint edition of the Center for the Study, Protection and Restoration of the Heritage of Priest Pavel Florensky, St. Petersburg, 1997. With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus'.

God(Greek θεός; lat. deus) - A being that cannot be higher and more perfect than Whom. Being pre-eternal (beginningless), God is the Creator of all things (John 1:3). God is a real Person, much more real than ourselves.

The concept of God is inextricably linked with the concept of Revelation. We could not know anything about Him if God Himself had not revealed Himself to us. Everything we know about God is revealed to us by Him Himself.

“Our God is incorporeal and immaterial, and therefore the most pure Spirit. Thus the Holy Scripture testifies of Him: “God is spirit” (John 4:24). If the Holy Scripture ascribes members of the body, then it does not actually ascribe to Him, but out of condescension to weakness and the weakness of our understanding, since we cannot otherwise understand His actions, the manifestations of His power. Thus, the hands attributed to Him mean His omnipotent power, the eyes - His all-seeing, the hearing of everything, since from Him neither word, nor deed, nor ours the thoughts of the heart will not be hidden - both of all people and of every person: what he did, said, thought, and for what purpose he did it, and what he does, says and thinks, and for what purpose, and what he will do, say, think, and for what purpose everything is completely clear to Him. He has no hands, but does everything he wants with a single desire and wave. Has no eyes, but everything that happens in hidden places, and in the depths of the heart, observes and sees; has no ears, but everything word, voice, singing, bad and good, hears."

God as Spirit differs from all other beings in general in that they are all limited both in being and in powers and, therefore, more or less imperfect, but He is an unlimited or limitless Spirit in all respects, otherwise - all-perfect. It is not limited by space or time: “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8; Ps. 89:5).

God one, but not alone, because God is one in His essence, but trinity in Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit - the unity of Three persons who endlessly love each other: God is love (1 John 4:16).

Biblical names of God

• Jehovah (Yahweh)

Properties of God

Infinity or all-perfection. God is not only free from every limitation and deficiency in any respect, but also possesses all possible perfections and, moreover, to the highest degree or without any degree or measure.

Identity. God does not owe His existence to any other being, but has both existence and everything that He has from Himself.

Independence. God, in His being, in His powers, and in His actions, is determined only by Himself, and not by anything external, and is self-satisfied, autocratic, autocratic. This property of God follows from the previous one. If God is an original Being, and everything that He has, He has only from Himself, then it means that He does not depend on anyone, at least in terms of His being and powers.

Immeasurability and omnipresence. God, as the purest Spirit and, moreover, boundless in all respects, is not subject, in particular, to any limitation by space or place, but fills everything with Himself, and omnipresence means that, filling everything with Himself, He is naturally located in every place and is inherent in every being . “Where will I go from Your Spirit, and where will I flee from Your face? Will I ascend to heaven there You will go down to the underworld and there You will take the wings of the dawn (according to another translation of “Dawn”) and move to the edge of the sea, and there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will hold me."(Ps. 138:7-10).

Eternity. God has neither a beginning nor an end to His existence and is generally free from all conditions of time.

Immutability. God always remains the same in His being, in His powers and perfections, and in His determinations and actions.

Omnipotence. God has unlimited power to produce everything and to rule over everything - from which it is indifferent to being called omnipotent or omnipotent and Almighty.

Omniscience. “And there is no creature hidden from Him, but everything is naked and open before His eyes: to Him we will give an account” (Heb. 4:13). “Your eyes have seen my undone work” (Ps. 139:16)

Used materials

• Priest V. Shmaliy. God. Orthodox Encyclopedia, vol. 5, p. 387-433 (material used partially)
• God. Orthodox encyclopedia "The ABC of Faith" (partially used material)
• Archpriest Seraphim Slobodskoy. About God

Symphony based on the works of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk. Appendix to the master's thesis: "St. Tikhon of Zadonsk and his teaching on salvation" by Associate Professor Archimandrite Ioann Maslov. Zagorsk, 1981, 119-120

get to know the properties of God

Tasks:

• realize the incomprehensibility of God's being
• get acquainted with the properties of God, be able to explain them

References:

1. The Law of God: In 5 books. – M.: Knigovek, 2010. – T.2. Chapter 1.
2. Gumerov P., priest. Explanation of the Creed. – M.: Orthodox Encyclopedia ABC of Faith, 2016. Chapter “On the first member of the Creed.”
3. Uspensky S.M. Catechism in stories. – M.: Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, 1995.

Additional literature:

1. Job (Gumerov), hierome, Gumerov P., priest, Gumerov A., priest. God's Law. – M.: Sretensky Monastery Publishing House, 2014. Part 4. Chapter “The first member of the Creed.”
2. Slobodskoy S., prot. God's law for family and school. – St. Petersburg, 2006. Chapters “Properties of God”, “On the first member of the Creed”.
3. Nicholas of Serbia, St. I believe: the faith of educated people. – M.: Moscow Compound of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, 2002. Chapters “I believe in one God...”, “... the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible.”
4. Sosuntsov E.F., priest. Lessons of the Law of God for children. – M., 2002. Part 1. Lesson 4.
5. Zakharova L.A. Orthodox Catechism. Teacher's notes. Vertograd. 2nd ed. – M.: Oka Book, 2013.
6. Zakharova L.A. Tests. Vertograd. 2nd ed. – M.: Oka Book, 2013.

Key concepts:

• God is Spirit
• God is love

Lesson vocabulary:

• Unity of God
• Properties of God
• Eternity
• Immutability
• Ubiquitous
• Omnipotence
• Omniscience
• All-goodness
• All-Righteousness
• Contentment
• Omnibliss
• Wisdom

Lesson content: (open)

Illustrations:

Test questions:

1. Who is God?
2. What are the properties of God?
3. How can you recognize God?

During the classes. Option 1:

The teacher tells a new topic using a presentation, a conversation with children.

Watching videos.

Reinforce the topic using test questions.

During the classes. Option 2:

Watching the program “Who is God?” Discussion of what was seen.

1) Who is God?

One day the pagan king, Hiero, asked his famous sage, Simonides: “Tell me, sage , what is God? The sage answered the king: “Give me one day to think, and then I will give you an answer.” The day passed, and the king wanted to hear the answer, but the sage said to him: “Give me two days to think, and after they have passed, I will give you the answer.” When these days had passed and the king was confidently expecting an answer, Simonides said: “Give me four days to think, and after they have passed, I will give you an answer.” But these days passed, and Simonides still did not give the king the desired answer. He continued to put it off, each time demanding twice as much time for reflection as he had been given the previous time. The king finally asked impatiently what these constant delays meant? The sage said: “King, the more I think about the being of God, the less I understand it. His being is incomprehensible." We Christians can answer this question differently.

2) Properties of God

The being of God is incomprehensible to us, but from the word of God we know about properties of God and we can give a different answer than the one given by the pagan sage. This answer lies in three words spoken by the holy Apostle John the Theologian: “ God is love"(1 John 4:8). These words express the most important property of God. This determines the entire structure of a Christian’s spiritual life. Our relationship with God is based on mutual love. Heavenly Father loves us with a perfect and absolute love. We, believers, can perceive the fruits of this love only when we love God with the fullness of our being. Therefore, love for God is the first and main commandment. The Holy Scriptures reveal the basic properties of God.

God revealed to us about Himself that He is incorporeal and invisible Spirit(John 4:24).
This means that God has neither a body nor bones (as we have), and has nothing in Himself that our visible world consists of, and therefore we cannot see Him.
To explain, let us give an example from our earthly world. We do not see air, but we see its actions and manifestations: the movement of air (wind) has great power, capable of moving large ships and complex machines, we feel and know that we breathe air and cannot live without it. Likewise, we do not see God, but we see His actions and manifestations, His wisdom and power everywhere in the world and feel it in ourselves.
But the invisible God, out of love for us, sometimes appeared to some righteous people in a visible image - in likenesses, or as if in reflections of His own, that is, in the form in which they could see Him, otherwise they would have died from His greatness and glory .
God said to Moses: " Man cannot see Me and live"(Ex.33:20). If the sun blinds us with its brilliance and we cannot look at this God’s creation without becoming blind, then even more so at the God who created it. For " God is light and in Him there is no darkness"(John 1:5), and He lives in unapproachable light (1 Tim.6:16).

God eternal. Everything that we see in the world once began, was born, and will someday end, die, and be destroyed. In this world, everything is temporary - everything has its beginning and its end. Once upon a time there was no heaven, no earth, no time, but there was only one God, because He has no beginning. And having no beginning, He has no end. God always has been and always will be.

God - Omnipotent. In the Holy Scriptures He is called Almighty, since He holds everything in His power and authority.

The Holy Fathers teach us not only to believe in God, but to trust Him in everything, because He All-good and Humane. The Lord's mercy extends to every person. If a person always wants to be with God and turns to Him, then He does not leave the person under any circumstances. One ancient Byzantine manuscript contains the comforting admonition of a holy elder: “Someone told me that one man always prayed to God so that He would not leave him on his earthly path, and, as the Lord once descended with His disciples on their way to Emmaus (see. : Luke 24:13-32), so that he would also walk with him along the path of his life. And at the end of his life he had a vision: he saw that he was walking along the sandy shore of the ocean (of course, mean the ocean of eternity, along the shore of which the path of mortals passes). And, looking back, he saw the prints of his feet on the soft sand, going far back: this was the traveled path of his life. And next to the prints of his feet were the prints of a couple more feet; and he realized that it was the Lord who had descended with him in life, just as he had prayed to Him. But in some places along the path he saw the prints of only one pair of feet, which cut deeply into the sand, as if indicating the severity of the path at that time. And this man remembered that it was then when there were especially difficult moments in his life and when life seemed unbearably difficult and painful. And this man said to the Lord: you see, Lord, in difficult times of my life you did not walk with me; You see that the prints of only one pair of feet in those days indicate that then I walked alone in life, and You see from the fact that the footprints cut deep into the ground that it was very difficult for me to walk then. But the Lord answered him: My son, you are mistaken. Indeed, you see the prints of only one pair of feet in those times of your life that you remember as the most difficult. But these are not the prints of your feet, but of Mine. Because in the difficult times of your life, I took you in My arms and carried you. So, My son, these are not the prints of your feet, but of Mine.”

God has Omniscience. The entire past was imprinted in his endless memory. He knows everything and sees everything in the present. He knows not only every human act, but every word and feeling. Lord knows the future.

God Omnipresent He is in Heaven, on earth. The contemplation of the Divine omnipresence evokes joy and poetic tenderness in the psalmist David: “ If I ascend to heaven - You are there; If I go down to the underworld, you will be there too. Should I take the wings of the dawn and move to the edge of the sea, and there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will hold me"(Ps. 139:8-10).

God has Wisdom. Psalm 103 is a majestic hymn to God, who created all things with His wisdom and continues to care not only for man, but also for His other creatures: “ You water the mountains from Your heights; the earth is satisfied with the fruits of Your deeds. You produce grass for livestock and herbs for the benefit of man, to produce food from the earth."(Ps. 103:13-14).

Provider we call God because He takes care of everything, has care for everything.

3) The poem “God is Spirit” by J. Grot

- Oh, mummy, can I
Ever see God
Among the Heavenly Palace?
- But are you, my soul,
You don't see him all the time
In everything that lives around you:
In the flight of birds, in the splashing of waters,
In a flower, in all marvelous nature.
When, getting up or lying down,
With your hands folded, you read
Your prayer, every time
Then you are with God,
You see the Lord... - But I
I would like, mama, with my eyes
To see him there, above us,
Where is heaven, where is my grandmother?

There, the nanny says, in the radiance,
In a magnificent robe,
In a crown, on a golden throne
The Incomprehensible One sits;
A choir of angels stretched out all around
And he praises God in hymns.
That's where I would be someday
I wanted to look at the Lord.
My son, be kind and pure in soul,
Then you will see Him
Not under earthly clothing,
Oh no, more beautiful than that
How you presented Him to me.
He is Spirit; His throne is the whole world,
with whom He glorified love,
Where he summoned life to a wonderful feast.

4) The poem “Properties of God.” Priest A. Feodosiev

God is eternal Spirit and infinite,
He is original, unchanging,
Omniscient and omnipresent,
He is all-good and all-powerful,
All-righteous, all-perfect,
He is all-pleasant, all-blessed.

5) The story “The Omnipresence of God.” A. Tsarevsky

“Mom, how should you live in order to constantly feel the omnipresence of God?” one boy asked his mother. – I didn’t quite understand this lesson.

“I’ll explain it to you,” the mother answered, “as I heard it myself in childhood.” Listen!

Live, my child, always as if you always see God before you.

Don't do anything that you wouldn't want the Lord to witness.

Don't say anything that you wouldn't say out loud before God.

Don't write anything that you would be ashamed to show God.

Never go anywhere where you do not hope to see the Lord.

Do not read a book about which you would not like the Lord to ask: “Show it to Me.”

Never spend your time in a way that makes you afraid of the question, “What are you doing?” - or the words: “Shame on you!”

6) The story “The Omnipotence of God.” A. Tsarevsky

Once upon a time, King Canute reigned in Denmark, who was called “the great lord of the seas.”

One day Canute stood on the seashore, surrounded by his entourage. They extolled the power of the king, saying that he was rightly called the ruler of the seas and that nothing was impossible for him on earth, for he was omnipotent.

Listening to such speeches, the king said:

“Bring me my chair and place it here on the edge of the cliff.”

The chair was brought, the king sat down and again began to look at the sea.

Meanwhile, the wind rose and the waves began to noisily rush onto the shore.

– Don’t you dare come near me, sea! – Canute shouted menacingly. – After all, it must fulfill my will, right? – the king asked the courtiers.

They silently bowed to the king as a sign of agreement.

- So come closer to me, friends.

The courtiers approached.

And the storm at sea grew stronger and stronger. The waves rushed onto the shore like mad. The cowardly courtiers were filled with fear, but they were afraid to move away, and the king sat and seemed not to notice anything. But then one wave hit the shore so hard that it doused everyone with water. The courtiers screamed in fear and jumped back.

“How can you, standing next to me, be afraid of the sea?” - asked the king. “Didn’t you yourself say that I am the ruler of the seas and winds?”

The courtiers were silent.

Then Canute stood up and, pointing to himself, said:

- And there is your God... If Canute were actually the all-powerful ruler of the sea, then it would obey him. There is only one True God, Who is omnipotent and to Whom the winds, and the seas, and people, and everything created by Him obey.

Test questions:

1. Who is God?
2. What are the properties of God?
3. Why do we call God the Spirit, eternal, unchangeable, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, all-good, all-righteous, all-satisfied and all-blessed?
4. Why do we call Him Creator and Creator?
5. Why do we call Him Almighty, Ruler, King and Provider?
6. How can you recognize God?
7. Why do we say that “God is love”?

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