You might object: why burn it? Look further down in the contents under the section “About God, Triune in Persons.” Yes, all elements are in place, but the vector points in the wrong direction!!! Let me reveal a secret: seminarians, having listened to such a dead, scholastic, dogmatic theology and passed the exam, rush to forget what they learned. Why? Because this dead, abstract construct, although composed of Bible quotes and holy fathers, has nothing to do with the spiritual life of the Church. You might say: okay, we’ll burn all these Catholic and Protestant booklets, but then what materials will future pastors of the Church prepare with? Yes, there is little Orthodox literature, but it exists, it just takes a bit more effort… At the end of the book, I will recommend some “Recommended Literature” that the priest suggested to read, to acquire at least some Orthodox thinking [unfortunately, not about the Orthodox life] and to learn to “discern spirits.” Therefore, where initially it talks about nature, its properties, and only then mentions that there is also a name in “this nature” – this is a sign of paganism [when we say “pagan mind,” we don’t understand anything bad, derogatory – it’s a mind (as a creation of God – “very good”) not enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and also infected with pride, blindness], it repeats the original sin – from hypostasis (“Who” and “How”) to nature (“What”), no matter whether it’s Divine or mundane human. Therefore, seeking paradise, grace, spiritual gifts, visions, spiritual pleasure…, that is, seeking God, not God Himself, Personality – is sin, and consequently – death. Therefore, nature (essence) cannot be known, nor is there a need, because love is unrelated to nature. Therefore, the revelation of Personality and Hypostatic Being is the essence of the Gospel – the truth about God: a Trinity of loving Hypostases, and man – a personal being called to deification,
“To be as God” [not God by nature – that’s impossible and unnecessary, there’s no difference which nature I hypothesize, it’s still just a characteristic, an indicator of my life in Love (we will talk more about this later)], to live as a Personal Tri-Hypostatic Being, to live as Love, to become Love by grace. Sin is to live by nature, not Hypostasis, i.e., to survive at the expense of nature, to “eat” nature, not the Hypostasis of the Other [to live being as communication and receive life, oneself from the other and live by it: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me”]. God said: “do not eat” nature, non-being, but eat Me. Adam did not understand, like all children of the first Adam. The Second Adam – Jesus Christ restored “proper nutrition”: not by bread alone, but by the Logos, Hypostasis. Thus, Christ, as the Hypostatic Word of the Father, is the true and only Food (we will focus more on this in subsequent chapters).
Someone might object: does not the Church say that God is Almighty, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Spirit, Uncreated, Eternal, Freedom, Truth… Does it not speak of the divine nature and its attributes, properties? Of course, it does not. The Church does not speak of what it does not know, cannot know (“God dwells in unapproachable light,” it is not said “He is the unapproachable light,” but it is emphasized “in unapproachable light,” indicating the absolute transcendence of God’s being). When the Church says that God is Almighty, Omnipresent, Spirit, Truth, Freedom, it speaks not of the divine nature and its properties (why do we need to know this? what will this knowledge give us? The Church rejects knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and even more so fantasies about what you completely do not know and cannot know!), but about the Hypostasis and its “properties.” God is such not because He has such a nature, but because He “wants” to be so, for He is a Personality, which defines nature, not defined by it. Therefore, a human, as a personality, can and must know the Truth and become uncreated, that is, to step out of time and space, from immersion in nature and living by it into a personal, hypostatic existence, which is eternity, uncreatedness, omnipotence, spirituality, freedom… Personality – this reality is uncreated, omnipresent, omnipotent, free… these attributes are the essence of personality, hypostasis, not of nature, because if it were otherwise, how then could a person become deified, become god by grace?! Pagans and those Orthodox “Christians” [not to mention Catholics and Protestants], who do not know in a substantial way, in the Holy Spirit the revelation of Personality, do not understand this and cannot understand. They perceive revelation through nature and reduce everything to nature – in them “personality” – is an attribute, an appendix to nature, not a principle of being of all that exists. I think this seed is enough, with proper spiritual life and prudence, to grow the tree of knowledge of this main subject. But let’s irrigate this seed with a fact-example, giving a little moisture for faster growth: The Second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, the Logos of the Father, does not enter the world by nature nor is it united with man by nature, but rather, it assumes creaturely nature into its Hypostasis and begins to live already with two natures, indivisibly, unchangeably, inseparably, and undividedly hypostatically united, to realize its life as Love. Conclusion: Hypostasis is broader than nature, therefore not hypostasis in nature, but nature in hypostasis and hypostasis is primarily hierarchically relative to nature… Apostle Paul was in eternity, “in the third heaven,” meaning, to be there, he must have had some likeness to that realm, in which he stayed and partook [by the law of spiritual life: like unites with like], thus he had to be eternal at the “time” of his stay there… by nature this is impossible, therefore – by hypostasis! Thus, eternity is a “property” not of nature, but of hypostasis. “The Kingdom of God is within you” – this is all about our personality, our potential ability as the image of God, to live the Eternal Divine Life, to which the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit joins us…