THE SIMPLICITY OF THE DIVINE NATURE AND THE DIFFERENCES IN GOD ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. GREGORY OF NYSSA

KRIVOSHEIN VASILY

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The Simplicity of the Divine Nature and the Differences in God According to St. Gregory of Nyssa

Krivoshein Vasily

 Initially, I entitled this lecture Divine Simplicity According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, but I considered it necessary to change and then supplement this title in such a way that it more accurately reflects the terminology of St. Gregory and even the content of his teaching about God. The expression Divine simplicity could be understood to mean the simplicity of God. However, St. Gregory in his writings never says (or says very rarely) that God is simple. He says that His nature and His essence are simple. In any case, he always either specifies that God is simple by nature, or, when he calls Him simple, he does not use the word God, but the expression το θειον (Godhead). So I preferred to say in the title not the simplicity of the divine nature, but the simplicity of the divine nature. With this change I also wanted to emphasize the fact that the term nature (Φύσις) occurs in St. Gregory much more often than the term essence (ουσία) [1]. Finally, I have added words and differences in God, since it is impossible to speak of the simplicity of the divine nature according to the teaching of St. Gregory of Nyssa without mentioning the differences that he sees in God. It could even be said that his teaching about such differences is more characteristic of his theology than the assertion about the simplicity of the divine nature.

However, it is legitimate to begin such an investigation as ours with the question: is it possible at all, according to the teaching of St. Gregory of Nyssa, to know God? Is God accessible to our knowledge? Although St. Gregory's answer is many-sided, it can be said in general that he affirms, and with great force, precisely the unknowability of God. The eternity of God as an uncreated being and, therefore, not providing our thought with any support, makes Him inaccessible to rational cognition: "... thus he who deeply investigates that which is older than the ages, and ascends to the beginning of things, cannot stop his thought at anything, for the object sought always eludes him, and runs away, and does not indicate to the inquisitive mind any possible stop" [2]. In spite of this unknowability of the Divine, Gregory here, speaking of Him, uses the neuter gender: that which is older than the ages (το αιώνων πρεσβύτερον) - he again discerns in Him the essence, or nature, and considers it unknowable. Unknowability is a characteristic feature of the nature of the divine essence. "Such is this essence," he says, "that, although it transcends any principle, nevertheless it does not reveal to us the signs of its own nature, and it is recognizable only by its incomprehensibility" [3]. It is incomprehensible not only to men, but also to angels, although the latter statement is expressed with some caution: "Human nature has no powers at all for an accurate understanding of the essence of God, but perhaps it would not be enough to assert this in relation to the powers of man alone, and if someone were to say that the bodiless creature is also too weak to contain and comprehend the infinite nature, then he would not have been mistaken at all" [4]. So no attempt to raise one's mind or go beyond one's limits will help to know the divine nature, but it can be approached by simple and pure faith, as Abraham did. "That which he comprehended by advancing with his mind, whether it be power, beginninglessness, or infinity in relation to anything, or any such concept of those which are near the divine nature (τα περι την θειαν φύσιν), he turned into a means, he laid it as a foundation for ascent, and constantly relied on what he had already found, and extended beyond all that he knew by his own powers, for it was less than what was sought" [5] - and, "discarding in the conjectures (ύπολήψεσι) about God all conjectures (υπολοιων) about His nature, proceeding from His name, purifying his mind of such thoughts, accepting faith without admixture, purified from all opinion, he made a true sign testifying to the knowledge of God, the belief that God is better and higher than any sign that gives knowledge" [6]. Or again: "One can approach God only through faith, which unites the searching mind with incomprehensible nature" [7]. Faith is opposed by Gregory to gnosis [8], but faith in itself does not reveal to us the nature and essence of God, but only the power and greatness of what is seen around God [9]. To identify this or that concept, such as unbegottenness, with the essence of God would be idolatry [10]. The unknowability of the divine nature does not mean, however, that God is absolutely unknowable; it is only necessary to avoid extremes: not to assert His complete inaccessibility or, on the contrary, the possibility of a clear vision of Him with the mind. There is, however, knowledge through ignorance. "The Divinity," he says, "is by its nature inviolable, and incomprehensible, and surpasses all speculation, but the much-searching human understanding, conducting an investigation with those thoughts of which it is capable, lightly touches and touches the unapproachable and majestic nature; his sight is not sufficiently perceptive to see clearly the invisible, and at the same time it is not sufficiently detached from the possibility of approaching to be completely incapable of forming an idea of what is sought based on conjectures; however, by groping his conclusions, he has learned something about what he is looking for, and the impossibility of seeing it clearly gives rise to a certain clear idea that what is sought is above all knowledge" [11].

In his spiritual works, in his discourses on the Song of Songs, or in his Homilies on the Beatitudes, Gregory tells us of the experience of one who experienced the impossibility of knowing or contemplating the divine nature. This total impossibility gives rise to a "metaphysical" sorrow in us, a feeling of alienation from the Highest Good. "The more we believe that the Good by its nature is higher than our knowledge, the more we increase our sorrow, feeling that the Good from which we are separated is so great and of such high dignity that we are unable to contain the knowledge of Him" [12]. St. Gregory calls upon us to cease our investigations in view of their uselessness, although the very impossibility of attaining "nature above all blessings gives us a certain idea of the greatness of what we seek" [13]. Again, knowledge through ignorance is affirmed here. St. Gregory also contrasts contemplation and vision, denying the possibility of the latter: "How," he asks, "and by means of what thoughts can the contemplated but invisible Good reach our gaze?" [14].

Be that as it may, His nature is incomprehensible and inaccessible to our thoughts: "The divine nature," he says, "as it is in itself (αυτη καθ' αυητην), as it is in essence incomprehensible (καταληπτικης επινοίας), because it is inaccessible and unapproachable to reasonable thoughts (στοχαστικαις)... That is why the great Apostle calls God's ways inscrutable. With this word he shows that the path leading to the knowledge of the divine essence is impassable for thoughts" [15]. St. Gregory, however, adds one phrase which shows that, nevertheless, the unknowability of the divine nature does not mean to him that God is completely unknowable and inaccessible: "But, being such by His nature, the Eternal who is above all nature, is in another respect visible, this Invisible and Indescribable" [16]. Here, apparently, we are talking about the knowledge of God by a "purified" analogy with human nature [17], through ineffable intellectual enlightenment [18], about cognition in the mirror of the soul [19], through virtue [20], through divine energies, etc. - but at the same time the divine nature and essence remain what it is, i.e. unknowable, at least directly.

The assertion of the unknowability of the divine nature does not prevent St. Gregory from insisting on its simplicity. It can even be said that this statement is also one of the characteristic features of his teaching about God. He constantly speaks about this, defending the Orthodox teaching on the Holy Trinity: the consubstantiality of the Son in the polemics against Eunomius and the divinity of the Holy Spirit in the writings against the followers of Macedonius. However, it would be wrong to explain his insistence on the simplicity of the divine nature only by the necessity of polemics. For Gregory, this is a generally accepted teaching. "We believe," he says, "that even those who have a very crude and grounded mind will agree that the divine nature, blissful and surpassing all other nature, is simple. For how could anyone suppose that formless and ugly [nature], without quality and without quantity, could be multiform and complex" [21]. Thus, simplicity here is understood as the absence of type and complexity. However, this is not the reason for the disagreements between Gregory and Eunomius - the latter, according to Gregory himself, also recognized, albeit only formally, the simplicity of the Divine essence [22]. But in other places Gregory accuses Eunomius of the fact that the God he preaches is something multiple and complex, as if a kind of union of opposites [23]. However, the fundamental assertion of the simplicity of the divine nature raises many questions, since Gregory (following the theological tradition of the Church and, in particular, the teaching of his brother Basil) sees in God, or when he speaks of God, many differences. Differences, for example, between the Divine essence and the Trinitarian hypostases, between the Divine nature or essence and its energies or properties, between the Divine nature and what is seen around it, etc. What is the nature of these differences, what do they correspond to in God, how do they coexist with the simplicity of the Divine nature, and how does Gregory understand this simplicity?

It is not our intention to consider here the Trinitarian teaching of St. Gregory in its entirety. We will only say that he asserts with great clarity the truth of the hypostatic differences, and also distinguishes the hypostases from the divine essence; thus He Who is "Truly Being" (οντως οντος) is at once one and not one. Thus, we should "hold on to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in order to understand Him who truly is, who is one and not one." [24]. And he explains how this antinomic unity-non-unity should be understood: "In essence He is one, which is why the Lord commanded us to look at one name. But according to the attributes that serve to the knowledge of the hypostases (γνωριστικοις των ύπωοτάσεων ιδιώασιν), [one] name is divided by faith in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit, divided without separation and one without confusion" [25]. Further, Gregory emphasizes even more strongly the distinction between the Persons within the Holy Trinity and the unity of essence, and at the same time asserts that no name concerns nature and does not introduce division into it [26]. As for the Divine nature, it is above any name: "Only the uncreated nature, in which we believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit, is above any designation by name" [27]. "It is evident," he adds, "that the name of the Father does not express the essence, but denotes a relation to the Son. Thus, if it were possible for human nature to know the essence of God, then He Who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, would not pass over in silence the knowledge of it. But He said nothing about the essence and thereby showed that it is impossible to know it" [28]. In these Trinitarian texts, the question of the simplicity of the Divine nature, although not directly touched upon, is undoubtedly presupposed, as in all the works of St. Gregory. Thus we are justified in concluding that for him the simplicity of the divine nature is compatible with the hypostatic distinctions that exist in God, though in an antinomic way, and that they do not introduce complexity into His nature.

The same problem will arise if we consider how Gregory speaks of the divine nature or essence in relation to what he designates by the word energy or other similar expressions. One may even wonder whether, for Gregory, the words nature or essence have a completely identical meaning when it comes to God. To the term nature (nature), which, as we have already noticed, is found more often in Gregory, he seems to give an ontological connotation, while essence is used by him rather in the sphere of knowledge. They are, however, interchangeable; we observe this when Gregory writes that the essence of the Father does not differ from the nature of the Only-begotten [29], or that beings for whom the concept (λόγος) of essence coincides [30] cannot possibly have different natures. For him, as for St. Basil the Great, the impossibility of intellectual cognition of the Divine nature is only a particular case of the general unknowability of the nature of things: "If you have not comprehended the nature of the ant, which is so small," he says to Eunomius, "then how can you boast that you have embraced the understanding of the Sustainer of all?" [31] There is, however, a huge and insurmountable difference between created and uncreated nature: "Huge and insurmountable is the boundary that separates, like a wall, the uncreated nature from the created essence. The latter is limited, the former is infinite; the created is contained in its own dimensions, and the measure of the uncreated is infinity. The created has extension in space and is closed everywhere by time and place, while the uncreated is free from the spatial concept, and if anyone wishes to comprehend it with the mind alone, it immediately runs away from such an effort" [32]. Unknown in His essence, therefore, because of His infinity, God becomes, thanks to His creative energy, knowable from His creatures, as St. Gregory says: "God, Whose being, as it is in essence, is inaccessible to any impulses or efforts of the mind, nevertheless for our sake is revealed in the knowledge that He exists, through the majesty and beauty of His creatures, by a certain resemblance to the things known to us, giving us through His energies only faith, but not knowledge of what He is" [33]. Consequently, the knowledge of God through His energies is understood here not as the comprehension of what He is, but as the knowledge of the existence of God from His creations, although this creative Divine energy is different from the creatures that it creates. Let us also note that in the Trinitarian context, Gregory uses the term energy in the singular, meaning the energy common to the three Divine Persons. "Who does not know," he says, "that the life-giving power proceeds in the form of energy in the same way from the Father and from the Son" [34]. Or: "All energy which extends from God to creation and is named in accordance with a multitude of significations, originates from the Father and proceeds through the Son and is accomplished in the Holy Spirit" [35]. It is also called life: "One and the same life, which is worked (ενεργειται) by the Holy Spirit and is prepared from (παρά) the Son and depends on the will of the Father" [36]. Or, as he says: "A certain single movement of good will and mutual communion from the Son to the Holy Spirit" [37]. Here we are talking about the will, but as Gregory explains in another place: "It is clear that in the divine nature there can be no difference between will and energy" [38].

At the same time, St. Gregory's teaching on names will perhaps shed additional light on his understanding of the nature of God and His energies, as well as on the problem of the knowledge of God in general. It can be argued that this teaching is opposed to the doctrine of Eunomius, who, continuing the philosophical line of Plato's Cratylus and being under the influence of the magicism of later pagan mysticism, develops a whole philosophy of names as having a divine origin and expressing the nature of things [39]. Gregory completely rejects these theories of Eunomius. Without going into the consideration of the entire teaching of Gregory here, we will dwell especially on those of his propositions that are directly related to our topic. Whereas Eunomius, in Gregory's opinion, identifies the name with the subject [40], he himself believes that names and sayings express a certain movement of our thought and are necessary for us to know God to the best of our ability, "in order that we may have to some extent knowledge of what is divinely appropriate to understand about Him (περι αυτον νοουμένων)" [41]. All things are created by God, and names are created by the powers of our reason, although this ability itself, like rational nature, is "the work of God's hands" [42]. They (names) denote the natural potentialities of things [43]. As for God, He is above every name, since "the only name that befits God is to be above every name, for the fact that He surpasses all speculation and cannot be embraced by any name is a proof to men of His inexplicable greatness" [44]. In the same way, the names of Christ (such as the Door, the Shepherd, etc.) do not denote His essence or nature, but His "energies": "None of His names," says Gregory, "is neither the nature of the Only-begotten, nor the Divinity, nor the property (ιδίωμα) of the essence; but He is really called so, and the name has its own meaning... and inasmuch as the Lord, by His Providence, provides for the lives of people in many different ways, each type of beneficence is properly recognized by each of these names. In consequence of the fact that Providence and the energy contemplated in Him acquire the force of a name, it can be said that such a name is called by us the action of invention (κατ επίνοιαν τρόπου)" [45]. Gregory forcefully insists that the names are not applied to the divine nature, but that God is named according to His energies, for otherwise He would be complex: "What," he asks, "does Eunomius decree that the utterances denote nature itself? But then he asserts that the Divine nature is something multiform and multi-component, manifesting its complexity in accordance with the differences signified by the names... Consequently, names do not denote nature, but no one would dare to say that the naming of names is devoid of authenticity and meaning. Since, then, the name is given, but not by nature, and since all that is said in the Scriptures is just (κύριον) and corresponds to what the name indicates, what reason will there be that these words should be properly applied to the Only-begotten God, except by the act of invention (του κατ επίνοιαν τρόπου)? For it is clear that the Godhead is called by names (ονοματοποιειται το Θειον) according to different energies, so that we may understand Him Who is thus named" [46]. Therefore names are the names of different energies, and in this sense they are different from the latter. However, as the names of the Divine energies, the names help us to know God, but not His nature.