Between Theology and Apprehension

It is a very known idea, and a false idea, that in Theology you can apprehend God like He is, without a graceful relation with Him. Many theologians believe very much in their mind and in their rational possibilities, and they believe that God is an object for reflection but less a Deity in three Persons, with Whom we are in intimate dialogue.

For this reason, this theologians militate for an ideological apprehension of the reality of God and not for an intimate dimension of love with God. But in our service of Church, we are in very deeply relation with God, very intimate with Him and we do not have a distant relation with our God. Between academic theologians and spiritual theologians it exists an abyss, because the firsts believe in human reason more than in intimacy and the seconds put a emphatic accent on experience, on mystic experience of the grace of God and on the sight of God.

This is the apple of discord in the Orthodox Church! Because we have an academic theology in contradiction in many problems with our cult, with our prayers, with our sensibility. In the books of our service it is a profound theology that is not very well studied and our inner sensibility is very much abused by a postmodern mentality, a mentality of separations, of compromises.

So that it is very hard for a priest to talk about the truth of Theology, about mystic level of our life, because this level is compromised in our contemporary world by many philosophical subterfuges and by other forms of religion, oriental religions. In the Orthodox Church from Romania the biggest problem is the work of grace in our being, the apprehension of this reality. It is very hard for many orthodox Christians to understand the fact that the grace is an inner reality from the life of God and the greatest mercy of God for us.

Without this reality, without the grace of God we are nothing, because in our Baptism we became Christians. And in ascetic way we experience this grace of God and in all prayers, in Sacraments and we live from grace. Without the grace of God and without Triune God the Orthodox Church has not a foundation, because the ground of the Church is Triune God and our God is a God alive and His life is eternal brightness of His praise.

When we say that we know God, we say that we communicate with Him, that we are in His glory, in His grace and by this we are alive. Our life is eternal life of God, from that we are alive and we exist. The truth of Theology is a direct experience of the grace of God and the Theologian is a seer of the praise of God. That who sees God knows how is God and what is the real orthodox life, life full of sanctity that God wants.

Theology as experience of reality of God is the real apprehension and the real inner dimension of orthodox life. If we accepted this reality we have a life full of humility, because God is not a reality that can be understand completely and we are limited, because we are not God but creatures. Theology as experience of the uncreated grace is a normal theology, because we are normal humans, that we live in grace.

Separation between body and soul, between mind and heart, between created and uncreated does not exist for a mystic experience and does not exist at all. When we shall experience the uncreated grace in our Orthodox Church and we shall feel it in our body, we shall know the depth of orthodox life, because we shall have this life like our treasure.

Father Dorin Octavian Picioruș