The three scientific lights, psychology, logic, and ethics, with musical and wonderful harmony exhibited and proved the unique and preeminent object of philosophy, the life-bearing food for the infinite yearnings of the soul, the necessary condition for the happiness and welfare of men – the Ontological Logos that comprises and sums up in itself all beings, the perfect moral good, the supreme criterion of truth and falsehood and of virtue and vice. Nevertheless, the scientific light bf theology yet more clearly than the three lights of anthropology exhibits and proves the same glorious object of philosophy.
Theology is defined as the science of the ever-existent God, who can be known at the very outset by cognition in accordance with right reason as the first and perfect essence, self-existent as well as uncaused, yet the cause of every temporal and contingent existence, of every finite being and of every fact. But in connection with the existence of beings we also have to consider life, which is not attributed to all beings, since many beings exist without life; and together with life we also have to consider rational cognition, which is not attributed to all living beings, since many living beings live without rational cognition and science. But the cause of the existence of all beings is necessarily the cause also of the life of all living beings, and of the rational cognition of all thinking beings, Himself being eternally alive and eternally cognizant, having no external cause of His own existence, nor of His self-knowledge and all-knowledge, just as He has no cause of His self-existence.
Having for its object a knowledge of the ever-existent, ever-living, and ever-thinking God, theology seeks to learn: (1) what the eternal essence of God is; (2) what the eternal life of God is; (3) what the eternal consciousness and knowledge of God is. It finds the solution of these questions by two processes or methods: the reductive, which cognizes God through knowledge of His creative works; and the Scriptural, which cognizes God through His divinely written words. Thus, with reference to the first question, it decides first negatively that the essence of God is not matter, which has only entity without intellectuality; and then it decides positively that the essence of God is spirit possessing perfect awareness-spirit that is self-knowing and all-knowing and conscious that it knows all things and is ignorant of nothing, that it can do all things that it wishes to do, and that there is nothing impossible for it. As to the second question, which asks what God’s eternal life is, in the first place it decides negatively that the life of God is not in want of anything, nor mortal, nor a mixture of pleasure and sorrow, as is the life of us men and lower animals. Then it declares positively that the life of God is self-sufficient, immortal, unmixed with sorrow, all joy and elation and exhilaration. It is self-sufficient, because God’s life has no need of food and drink to maintain itself; it is immortal, because it is self-sufficient; it has need of nothing from without, because it does not die either of old age or from being attacked by a superior power inimical to God; and it is unmixed with sorrow, because God has no feeling of carnal or spiritual need, to feel, as we do, the sorrow due to want, and afterwards the joy due to fulfillment of the want. God’s life is pure joy, unmixed with sorrow, and perfect. For God, being self-knowing and all-knowing, does not experience, as we do, the sorrow due to ignorance, but all the joy due to omniscience; being able to do all that He wishes to do, He does not experience, as we do, the sorrow due to weakness, but all the joy due to omnipotence; being self-sufficient and in want of nothing, He does not experience, as we do, the sorrow due to want and privation, but all the joy due to His perfection and self-sufficiency. Therefore, God’s life is joy unmixed with sorrow, pure joy unalloyed, proportionate to His omniscience, omnipotence, self-sufficiency, and entire perfection – a joy that is full and perfect, suffering neither diminution nor augmentation, because of the completeness, perfectness, and wantlessness of God’s nature and essence. This full, perfect, and interminable joy of God’s life is called also bliss, which state of satisfaction we can conceive by reasoning in inverse proportion to the infinite yearnings and needs of our soul. For I, feeling infinite yearnings in my soul, and being unable to satisfy them, live a life of hardship and misery; whereas God, being complete and self-sufficient and wantless, lives the opposite kind of life – the life of perfect joy and bliss.
But the life of animals and men also involves birth, which is not incident to inorganic and lifeless essences. Birth occurs, however, only in the case, of those animals and men that are in the prime of life, and not in aged or deadened animals. Accordingly, birth is defined as the production of living essence from living essence, the child always being of the same essence with the parents, and connected with them by feelings of life-that is, of joy and sorrow. From this observation theology is led to propound the following problem: The question is whether God’s life is also connected with a kind of birth analogous to the divine essence, or whether it is a life without birth and the natural feelings of life due to birth. Does the first and self-existent and everliving essence of God beget an essence living in dependence upon it, or is it fruitless and barren, like the essence of stones, sticks, and dead bodies? In other words, does God beget a Son of the same essence with Himself, and rejoice in the contemplation of Him; or is He deprived of the natural joy, elation, and exhilaration due to the birth of a Son of like essence? Theology solves this problem by the following logical reflection:
Since superior essences have fertility and reproductivity of their own essence – that is, birth and the natural feelings of life resulting from birth; while inferior essences are lifeless and sterile – that is, deprived of life and birth; right reason does not permit us to attribute to the ever-living and perfect essence of God the character of lower essences – that is, sterility and lifelessness; and to exclude the character of higher essences – that is, fertility and procreation; but obliges the man who thinks and judges logically to exclude from the ever-living essence of God the character of lifeless essences, such as sterility and fruitlessness, and to attribute to it the character of superior essences – that is, birth and the reproduction of the same essence according to the law of analogy. For this reason theology solves the question of the birth of God both negatively and positively, as follows:
God’s essence has not the inferior character of inferior essences; it is not barren nor lifeless, like stones. The living essence of God is necessarily productive of living essence according to the universal law of living essences, which the living God laid down for animals. God by nature begets a Son of like essence with Himself and equal to Himself, and He feels the natural and perfect joy resulting from the birth and contemplation of His Son. God’s life is nothing but the generation of a Son of like essence having all the perfection of the Father who begets Him, together with love and affection proceeding from the Father to the Son, and being returned from the Son to the Father; a love and affection naturally connecting the living Father with the living Son, and that, too, being life, or a vivifying Spirit. Or, to state the same truth in other words: If superior essences have fertility and reproductivity of their own essence through the natural law of birth, and inferior substances are barren, sterile, lifeless, and senseless, it is to be inferred logically in accordance with the law of reduction that the strongest and best essence of God, which is above every essence, has also the best birth, above every birth, and the best life from the best birth, above every life; it is impossible for it to be otherwise. For the birth of a Son of like essence proves God’s essence to be alive, since birth is nothing but the production of living essence from living essence, and results in the mutual joy of two living essences: of that which gives birth or begets, and that which is begotten – of the Father and the Son. Accordingly, if God did not beget a Son of like essence with Himself, He would not be a living God; and, not having life, He could not have any of the other divine attributes. Therefore, the generation of a Son of like essence is the cause or the sufficient reason of God’s eternal life and bliss. Those who deny to God the generation of a Son of like essence deny God’s life immediately, while mediately they deny also His cognition and existence; and instead of God they have only mindless, lifeless, inert matter. But science which acknowledges from the very start the existence of a living God, can prove through exact observation of God’s works and through right reason that God begets a Son of like essence and equal to Himself, the contemplation and love of whom is the cognition of God, rejoicing at the birth and sight of a Son having the essence and nature of the Father, on which account the Son rejoices with the Spirit of the Father, cognizing Himself and the Father and the Spirit Itself of common consciousness and cognition.
This directly and immediately proves the pre-eminent object of our philosophy; and this scientific light of theology confirms the three lights of anthropology, by which the hitherto ignored and unknown object of Philosophy has been set forth. But also by many other proofs and statements of reasons God can be proved to be existent in three co-eternal and equally honorable persons, of whom two are produced from the other; the first of the two by generation, on which account He is called the Son; and the second by procession, on which account He is called the Holy Spirit and the Breath of God. All these theological and logical proofs concerning the three persons; or substances, of the one God are nothing but immediate proofs of the object of our philosophy, the scientific definition of which is surrounded with all possible scientific validity, and is the only true and exact definition of philosophy; upon which definition is built the science of sciences, philosophy, which is equivalent to all the sciences and the sovereign of all. Just as the three sciences pertaining to the inner man, psychology, logic, and ethics, which find and prove the object of philosophy, can at the same time prove themselves true sciences, so is theology proved to be a true science by virtue of the object of philosophy, which it proves by means of theological and logical proofs.
The theologies of the schools and of those religions that ignore the object of philosophy and the eternal generation from God, are false theologies, because they teach false notions concerning God. They imagine God as He is not, but they cannot at all understand Him as He is and as He is not, because they ignore the Logos of His life, which Logos is the pre-eminent, amiable, and much-beloved object of philosophy. Theology, then, also brightens philosophy by brightly showing forth its bright object, but is in turn brightened itself, being proved to be the true theology and clearly exposing the false theologies. When the scientific light of theology is conjoined with the three scientific lights of psychology, logic, and ethics, and these four lights are again conjoined with the brilliant light of the scientific definition of philosophy, a great and copious illumination results that shines down upon and illuminates all human affairs, dissolving the overlying darkness of pseudo-science and of every other superstition and error. God said: “Let there be light, and there was light” – a good light, a light to ward off evils, dissolving darkness; a light to permit the work of building and maintaining the new Christocratic world and civilization. We gratefully bless God, the Father of lights, singing to Him: Glory be to Thee for having shown us such a light of such a magnitude in these days of Satanic darkness; glory in the highest to God, and peace on earth, good will among men. Amen.
(continued in the next series of articles this week)
Apostolos Makrakis 