EngineeredTheology

God as a Mystery
We experience the Divine as two opposites, both farther from us, and closer to us than anything else. It is the very center of who we are, and also more foreign than what we could imagine. “Well known to the smallest child, incomprehensible to the most brilliant theologian “(12). Following God is like Abraham’s journey from a familiar country to an unknown, from light to darkness. We move from the “light of partial knowledge into a greater knowledge which is so much more profound that it can only be described as the ‘darkness of unknowing’”(14).
The faith we have is a faith in God not a faith that God is. “God is not the conclusion to a process of reasoning, the solution to a mathematical problem” (16). We believe in God like we believe in a person – it is personal not logical. Therefore, faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive (Mark 9:24). While there are no logical demonstrations of God, there are pointers towards a belief in a personal God (order and beauty, our personal conscience and a sense of the infinite, and relationships with other people).

God as Trinity
If we can affirm that God is personal and that God is love – we imply sharing and reciprocity. A person is not the same as an individual because relationships are how we become real people. This relationship is not static, but dynamic like all relationships. An analogy for this trinity is that of three torches burning with a single flame. It is three persons with one essence. This is unlike how we can say that three different people are still classified as “man” because each of these three people have an individual will. In the Trinity there is distinction, but not separation – one cannot act separately from the other two. The trinity is paradoxical and not something demonstrated by our reason, but revealed to us by God. It is from this personal relation within God that we find our own being and purpose in living that trinitarian unity on earth with communion between each other.
The Father is the source and the origin of the Godhead. The other two are defined in their relationship to the Father. The Son is the order and purpose that is in all things, making the universe into an integrated whole. The Holy Spirit is the breath of God that is within us where the Son is with us and the Father above or beyond us. With these neat categories we must remember “It is easier to measure the entire sea with a tiny cup than to grasp God’s ineffable greatness with the human mind” (34).

God as Creator
All was created not our of obligation, but by the free will of God – out of his love, which is to share and have others outside of himself to participate in this love. We have always existed in the mind of God, and our creation is the point where we began to exist for ourselves. Creation was not a one time event, but continues by the continual will of God (He did not make the world, but is making the world). Our creation is dependent on God, and without him we would cease to exist. “As Christians we affirm not pantheism but ‘panentheism’. God is in all things, but yet also beyond and above all things” (46). All things are created good, so sin and evil is not a “thing”, it is not a substance. Evil is the absence of good, it is the result of a free will twisting and perverting what is good.
Man is created as three distinct, but inseparable parts: body, soul, and spirit. Our body is our physical aspect (a rock has a body). The soul is what animates us and gives us life (trees and birds have bodies and soul). The spirit is what separates us from the animals. It is our ability to know good and evil, to act independently from our instincts. God has created two levels, the first inhabits the angels who have no physical body. The second level He formed the universe with various types of mineral, vegetable, and animal life. Man is the only thing that exists on both levels. We are more complex than the angles, and therefore created higher than they. Man is to be the mediator to unite the world to offer it back to God. The body is a piece of our true self, and without it we could not perform our mediating role. Separation of the body and soul at death is unnatural, contrary to God’s original plan, to be resolved at the resurrection.
Man is created in the image of God. This is the thing that distinguishes him from the animals, which includes his free will. In this freedom, each human realizes his divine image uniquely, which makes each human unrepeatable, irreplaceable, and therefore infinitely valuable. Though created in God’s image, each one of us can grow by the correct use of our free will to become perfect in God (in his “likeness”) – so our image is a dynamic thing. We were made for communion with God, and in a rejection of this communion we cease to properly be a man.
Man is the priest of creation, able to praise God for the world, seeing the world as a gift. He is able to reshape the world to create new meaning into it – so it is both a gift and a task, making man a logical, eucharistic, and creative animal.
The reason for evil and suffering in the creation has no easy answer. We have signposts that there was a fall in the heavenly realm, where angels chose self-will over God, and the second fall where man has chosen the same. Through our fall, we chose not to see the world as a gift to be offered back to God, but as his own possession to be exploited for his own pleasure. This begins to cut man off from God, creating a vicious circle. Therefore, evil and suffering comes from a deliberate choice from the created world to reject God’s love, and to turn from God to self. Love requires the ability to reciprocate. Without this free choice, there could be no love – and so evil has been a direct result of our reaction to the love of God.
The Augustinian view of the guilt of Adam’s sin being passed on to future generations is unacceptable to Orthodoxy. The result of Adam’s sin is the formation world where it “is easy to do evil and hard to do good; easy to hurt others and hard to heal their wounds; easy to arouse men’s suspicions, and hard to win their trust” (62). We are born into this world, that is further compounded by the wrong actions of those before us, and our own deliberate acts of sin. The actions we do effect not just ourselves, but everyone around us. We are not islands, but interdependent on everyone else, including the actions and mistakes of those who came before us.

God as Man
With man now separating himself from God through rebellion, we are unable to heal himself. This is where God comes to man to restore the opposing points between divine glory and human sinfulness. “The incarnation, then, is God’s supreme act of deliverance, restoring us to communion with himself” (70). The incarnation brings man to a new level, and shows the true possibilities of our nature. He was perfect in that he completely reflected the likeness of God.
Jesus is both fully God and completely man. He has two natures, both divine and human – but is not divided. He has two wills, but they are not opposed as the human will is at all times freely obedient to the divine. He solves the problem that must be solved by mankind, but is only God is capable to accomplish. For the Christ to bring total salvation, he must assume the entirety of humanness.
The virgin birth points to three things. First, that Jesus was a true man, but he was not just a man. Second, that it the birth was the result of a divine initiative. Finally, that a new person was not coming into existence (child born of two parents is a new person in creation, but the incarnate Christ is pre-existent).
As the incarnation is the act of God identifying Himself with us, and sharing the human experience, the cross shows the utmost limits of that sharing. His suffering was not just that of the Passion, but in His sense of failure, isolation, and loneliness (even to the extent of losing awareness of the divine presence). He is under no compulsion to die, but freely chooses to, identifying with all the human pain and despair. The result is His victory; the victory of love over hate.

God as Spirit
The spirit is elusive. We are conscience of His presence, feel His power, but he cannot be described verbally yet experienced directly. It is through the spirit that the divine becomes personal to us. At Pentecost, the Spirit was a gift to fill all those baptized in Christ and brings unity to the church, but also a gift of diversity based on the distinctions of our personalities.

God as Prayer
Stages of Christianity can be thought of as the practice of virtues and repentance, then the contemplation of God’s existence in all things, then the direct vision of God. These stages are not necessarily consecutive, and it is expected that repentance is practiced all through life. This spiritual way is ecclesial, done in a community through the Church (active life). It is also sacramental; though God is not bound by the sacraments, we are. Finally it is scriptural; reading the bible is communion and prayer with God, and as our Christian journey is not solely individual, our interpretation should be made using the entire whole of Church thought. These last two are known as the contemplative life.
The active life requires struggle and continuous effort of our will. “We are to hold in balance two complementary truths: without God’s grace we can do nothing; but without our voluntary co-operation God will do nothing” (112). Each day we renew our relationship with God through prayer and with others through practical compassion and cutting off our own self will. This active life requires “repentance, watchfulness, discrimination, and the guarding of the heart” (113).
The second stage is natural contemplation; contemplating the things that God has made. This is not possible without nepis or watchfulness and learning to be present where I am. Without the virtue of the active life, the natural contemplation becomes romantic and fails to reach the level of spiritual. All things are sacred, but have been distorted by sin (both original and personal). Searching for God in creation leads to the third step, realizing that God is also above and beyond nature. This leads to an acknowledgement that words cannot express God, and prayer turns to an inward stillness and silence.

God as Eternity
We await a second coming of Christ to bring a kingdom without end. Humanity does not increasingly advance and improve (evolutionary optimism), but is increasingly destructive. At this time the root of all our actions become clear and we will enter either eternal life or death. “The lost in hell are self-condemned, self-enslaved; it has been rightly said that the doors of hell are locked on the inside” (135). We will not be saved from our bodies and from the world, but in them and with the world. The resurrection kingdom is eternal and therefore has an inexhaustible variety. It is not a return to Eden, but a continual progression forward, greater than the first.