The book of Ecclesiastes says: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecc 1:9)
This saying can have a positive meaning. After all, the teachings of the Orthodox Church originated centuries ago but they are still a living aspect of the Church. But it can also have a negative meaning. We remember the false teaching of the priest Arius from Alexandria in Egypt who, in the beginning of the 4th century, said that Jesus Christ was not truly God, but a created being. Many modern people would agree with this. They say that Jesus was a prophet, a mystic, a religious teacher but not God. Actually, these modern people have an even lower idea of God than Arius had. Arius said that Jesus Christ was a creature but He was the first to be created, created before the angels, the cosmos and human beings: and even that Jesus helped God to create these things. Few moderns would go this far. But the church does not accept either ancient Arianism or the modern belief. This faith of the Church is that Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are not creatures but are uncreated and fully divine as God the Father.
Another false teaching, ancient and modern, is that the names Father, Son and Holy Spirit are simply roles that the one God acts out. For example, in the Old Testament God appears as God the Father, in the New Testament as God the Son and in the ongoing life of the Church as the Holy Spirit. In this teaching the names Father, Son and Holy Spirit are simply names for God’s activities.
A modern variation of this is to say that Christians may call God Father, Hindus might call Him Vishnu and Buddhists might call Him the cosmic Buddha. The idea here is that these names of God are interchangeably human concepts. Christians would say that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three distinctly real persons with whom we can have a personal relationship. They are not simply interchangeable names.
With God we distinguish nature and person. God’s nature answers the question “what God is”. In other words, human beings have a common human nature. Of course, there is great variety in humanity, but there is a common human nature. Nature corresponds to the ‘what’ of humanity. Persons on the other hand answer the question “who”. If we ask “what” John Smith and Mary Jones are we would answer and say they are human beings. If we ask who they are, the answer is Mary and John.
This distinction exists with God. We ask what God, we answer He is divine, uncreated, omniscient, omnipresent and so forth. If we ask the question who is God, we answer Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They all share in the common divine nature but in three personal ways.
But our human nature and person correspond to the divine nature and person. For example, Jesus Christ is called the Logos or Word of God. Logos means more than simply Word in our modern sense, but also includes the meaning of reason, logic, knowledge. Because we are created in the image of Jesus Christ we participate in the Logos of God. Of course, this does not mean simply logic in a mathematical or philosophical sense. It goes beyond that. This Logos give us the ability to know God and have a spiritual relationship in a way that goes beyond logic in the narrow sense.
Human beings are also spiritual. This word should not be taken in some vague general sense. Rather, God the Holy Spirit dwells within us. In other words, human beings are called to imitate and participate in God because we are made in the image and likeness of God, and because God the Word and God the Spirit dwell within us and lead us to union with God.
Fr. John