The concept of the divine essence: God is Spirit. The word "Spirit" truly denotes for us, more clearly than anything else, the incomprehensible being or nature of God.
We know only two kinds of natures. There are material, composite natures, without consciousness or rationality. There are also immaterial, simple, spiritual natures, endowed in greater or lesser measure with consciousness and rationality.
We cannot at all allow that God has within Himself a nature of the first kind. In all His works, both of creation and of providence, we see traces of the highest reason. On the contrary, we are necessarily compelled to suppose in God a nature of the latter kind by our constant contemplation of these traces.
And if revelation itself truly depicts God for us as a spiritual Being, then our supposition must pass into the rank of undoubted truth. Revelation truly teaches us that God is the most pure Spirit, united to no body whatever. Consequently His nature is wholly immaterial, sharing in no complexity whatsoever, and simple.
This is seen, first, from those passages of Holy Scripture in which all properties that necessarily belong to matter or body are denied of God.
Every body is limited by space. God is unlimited by anything and is everywhere present: "Can a man hide himself in secret places, so that I shall not see him?" says the Lord. "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" says the Lord (Jer 23:24; Ps 139:7-12).
Every body has a definite form and therefore can be depicted. God has no sensible form at all. For this reason the Old Testament strictly forbade depicting Him: "To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with Him?" (Is 40:18, cf. 25).
Again: "Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image, the likeness of any figure, male or female" (Deut 4:15-16).
Every body, for this very reason, can be seen. God is called the invisible God (Col 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17; Rom 1:20), "whom no one has ever seen" (Jn 1:18, cf. Jn 6:46). In particular, He is the One "whom no man has seen or can see" (1 Tim 6:16, cf. Ex 33:18-23).
Every body can be subject to change. Yet "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning" (Jas 1:17).
Every body, as composed of parts, is destructible and corruptible. God is "the King of the ages, immortal" (1 Tim 1:17). The pagans are condemned because they "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image resembling corruptible man, birds, and four-footed animals" (Rom 1:23).
This is seen, second, from those passages in which, on the contrary, properties essentially belonging only to spirit are ascribed to God.
Such are self-consciousness and personhood: "See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no God besides Me" (Deut 32:39, cf. Ex 20:2-3). "I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last I am He" (Is 41:4, cf. Is 48:12). "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end," says the Lord, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty" (Rev 1:8; Rev 22:13).
Such is reason: "For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?" (Rom 11:33-34).
Such is free will: "The Lord does whatever He pleases, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all deep places" (Ps 135:6). In general, He "works all things according to the counsel of His will" (Eph 1:11).
Such are abiding life and ceaseless activity: "As I live," says the Lord (Jer 22:24); "I live forever" (Deut 32:40). "My Father is working until now, and I am working" (Jn 5:17). "As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself" (Jn 5:26).
Accordingly, the true God is called the living God, in distinction from all false gods (1 Thess 1:9; 1 Tim 6:17; 2 Cor 3:3; Heb 12:22; Jn 6:57, 69).
This is seen, finally, from those passages in which God is directly called Spirit. There are only two such passages, but both are equally clear and definite.
The first is found in the Savior's conversation with the Samaritan woman. He wished to teach her that God was not to be worshiped only on Gerizim, as the Samaritans thought, or in Jerusalem, as the Jews believed.
The hour was coming when true worshipers would worship Him in every place. Christ said: "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (Jn 4:20-24).
Consequently, He used the word "Spirit" to mean a Being not bound to any place, an immaterial, omnipresent, rational, and moral Being.
The other passage is read in the Apostle Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians: "The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Cor 3:17). Here, plainly, the name "Spirit" is also used in the strictest and proper sense, not figuratively.
It is also worthy of note that the Apostle Paul calls God "the Father of spirits," in contrast to "our fathers according to the flesh" (Heb 12:9).
How the holy Church, the guardian of apostolic tradition, regarded this dogma from ancient times is clearly expressed by her teachers. This became especially clear in connection with the error of the anthropomorphites.
On the basis of God's words, "Let Us make man according to Our image" (Gen 1:26), and of many passages where human properties and members are ascribed to God, they claimed that God is truly clothed in flesh and wholly resembles man.
In refuting this opinion, the ancient pastors first of all tried to explain that these passages of Scripture must be understood in an entirely different way.
They said that the image of God should not be placed in man's body, for this has no foundation. It should be placed in his soul, in its powers and capacities, and in its virtues, according to the Apostle's words in Eph 4:24.
Or it should be placed in man's dominion over earthly creatures. This accords with the sequence of the Creator's own words. As soon as He said, "Let Us make man according to Our image and according to Our likeness," He immediately added the words that follow.
"And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of heaven, over the beasts, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth" (Gen 1:26).
Likewise, when we find in divine Scripture many passages in which something bodily is symbolically ascribed to God, we must know this. We men, clothed in coarse flesh, cannot understand or express the divine, exalted, and immaterial activities of the Godhead unless we use images, types, and symbols.
Therefore, if anything bodily is ascribed to God, it is said symbolically and has a higher meaning. For the Godhead is simple and without visible form.
Thus, by God's eyes, eyelids, and sight, we must understand His all-beholding power and His all-embracing knowledge. Through the sense of sight we also acquire a more perfect and reliable knowledge.
By ears and hearing, we must understand His merciful attention and His receiving of our prayer. When we are asked, we also incline the ear mercifully to those who ask, and through this sense we show them our favor.
By mouth and speech, we must understand the manifestation of the divine will. We too disclose the thoughts of our heart by mouth and speech.
By food and drink, we must understand our agreement with the will of God. Through taste we satisfy a necessary demand of nature.
By smell, we must understand the acceptance of our thoughts directed toward God and of our disposition of heart. Through smell we perceive fragrance.
By face, we must understand His manifestation and disclosure in His works. Our own face also discloses us.
By hands, we must understand His active power. We too do everything useful, and especially what is more precious, with our hands.
By the right hand, we must understand His help in righteous works. We too, when performing deeds that are nobler, weightier, and require greater strength, more often act with the right hand.
By touch, we must understand His exact knowledge and perception even of the smallest and most hidden things. Those whom we touch cannot conceal anything from us.
By feet and walking, we must understand His coming and manifestation, whether to help those in need, to defend them from enemies, or for some other action. We too come somewhere by means of our feet.
By oath, we must understand the immutability of His counsel. Among us also, mutual agreements are confirmed by oath.
By wrath and fury, we must understand His aversion and hatred toward evil. We also become angry when we hate what is contrary to our will.
By forgetfulness, sleep, and slumber, we must understand His delay in avenging enemies and His postponement, for a time, of His customary help to His own.
In short, everything said of God in bodily fashion, somatikos, contains some hidden thought. Through what is proper to us, it teaches what is above us.
Yet the pastors of the Church did not confine themselves to these explanations alone. They also strove to prove positively that God is an immaterial and bodiless Being.
For this purpose they pointed to various properties of God mentioned in revelation and likewise acknowledged by sound reason. These are incompatible with corporeality.
They pointed to His infinity and omnipresence. "Will you call the Godhead a body?" asks Gregory the Theologian. "But how will you call Him infinite, without bounds and without outline?"
"It is God's property to penetrate all things and fill all things, according to what is said: 'Do I not fill heaven and earth?' says the Lord (Jer 23:24). And again: 'The Spirit of the Lord fills the universe' (Wis 1:7)."
"How will this be preserved, if God limits one thing by Himself and is Himself limited by another?"
They pointed to His immutability. "Will God be immutable if He can be circumscribed and is subject to passions? And how will that which is composed of elements, and is again dissolved into elements, not be subject to passion?"
They pointed to His indestructibility, immortality, and eternity. "Composition is the beginning of conflict; conflict is the beginning of division; division is the beginning of destruction. Destruction is altogether foreign to God, as the first nature."
"Therefore there is no division in Him, or else there would be destruction. There is no conflict, or else there would be division. There is no composition, or else there would be conflict."
Finally, they pointed to the fact that, by universal belief, God is the most perfect Being. He would not be such if His nature were not wholly simple, because composition always reveals a certain imperfection.
For us it is especially noteworthy that the ancient pastors, when exposing the error of the anthropomorphites, called it a heresy, an irrational heresy, and a most foolish heresy.
They constantly numbered among heretics the anthropomorphites who stubbornly held to their opinion. They spared only those who were carried away by it through simplicity and ignorance.
This is an undoubted sign that the Church did not regard this error as indifferent in matters of faith, as recent freethinkers assert. On the contrary, she condemned it as a very serious error.
She recognized the teaching on the perfect simplicity of the divine essence as her unchangeable dogma.
From this it is clear how, from the Christian point of view, one must regard ancient and modern pantheists, including those who have appeared within Christianity itself. They acknowledge as God, or as a development of the Godhead, all that exists, and consequently the material world as well.
If, according to the judgment of the Church, it is contrary to revelation to ascribe to God even a material covering, that is, a body, then it is still more contrary to count God as body itself or as matter.
THEOSIS