Autor: Murray, John

Buch: The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today

Titel: The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today

Stichwort: Eunomius; gnosis - agnosia; Agennetos; an est, oti estin - quid est, ti estin

Kurzinhalt: Man therefore knows God and does not know him; How and why is it that God is at once known and unknown?

Textausschnitt: 60c The answer was contained in two series of texts. One asserts that God is unknown, hidden from men, "dwelling in a light unapproachable, whom no man has seen or can see" (1 Timothy 6:16). As no man has seen his face, so no man knows his Name. The other series asserts that God is known, "not far from anyone of us" (Acts 17:27). His invisibilities, in St. Paul's phrase, are visible in the world of nature (Romans 1:20). Furthermore, he is known as Lord and Savior through the mighty deeds he did and the many words he spoke in history (Hebrews 1:2). In particular, his only-begotten Son, made man, has "brought news" of him (John 1:18). Man therefore knows God and does not know him. Man has no Name for God, and he has many names for God. His condition is at once knowledge and non-knowledge (gnosis and agnosia are the Greek words whose assonance cannot be reproduced in English). But what can this mean and how is it to be understood? Is it contradiction or only paradox? In what sense is the Christian to be both gnostic and agnostic? The Scripture does not answer. It is not the kind of question that even arises in the historical-existential scriptural mode of thought. It is, however, a legitimate human question and therefore it inevitably had to come up for answer. (Fs)

[...]

61b Eunomius' answer to the noetic and onomastic questions was simple: "I know God," he said, "as God knows himself." On the face of it the statement seems silly. One must understand, however, that Eunomius was a nominalist. For him, as for his numerous posterity, knowledge has to do only with the names of things: a name either designates the essence of a thing or it is merely an empty sound. Eunomius said, I know the Name of God; it is Agennetos. (The Greek word can mean either "un-generated" or, more broadly, "without origin." Newman translated it, "the Unoriginate.") As God knows his own Name, said Eunomius, so do I. And this, he added, is God's only Name. All the other many names scattered throughout the Scriptures are either empty verbalisms that say nothing about God or they are mere synonyms for Agennetos, the one divine Name. (Fs)

62a The adversaries of Eunomius were Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil's brother Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom. In the patristic manner, they undertook first to witness to the faith affirmed in the Scriptures. They dwelt on the primary scriptural theme that God is, in the classic technical Greek term, Akataleptos, the Incomprehensible. They forbade the Eunomian type of "busy scrutiny," as they called it, of the divine mystery, and they recalled to the faithful their creaturely condition, which is that of ignorance (agnosia) of God. Second, the Cappadocians (as Basil and the two Gregories are customarily called) elaborated the subordinate scriptural theme that God is both knowable and known, as he shines through the web of history and the fabric of the world. They reminded the faithful of their creaturely privilege, which is to have a knowledge (gnosis) of God and thus to have God present as the God-with-us. (Fs)

62b To develop these two themes, however, was simply to echo the doctrine of the Scriptures. There was the further task of setting the two themes in harmony. (Fs)

62c How and why is it that God is at once known and unknown? This question was put not to Christian faith itself, which simply affirms the fact, but to the theological intelligence, to reason illuminated by faith. The answer was found by the skills of reason, chiefly by its high art of making distinctions. Aristotle had long since distinguished the two questions that direct all intellectual inquiry because they also designate the two acts of the mind. There is the question whether a thing is (the Latin an est, the Greek oti estin), which is answered by the act of affirmation or judgment. There is the concomitant question, what the thing is (the Latin quid est, the Greek ti estin), which is answered by the act of conception or understanding. With Basil this distinction first appears in the service of the Christian faith against the destructively misplaced agnosticism and gnosticism of Eunomius. We can answer the question of existence; we can affirm, make the true judgment, that God is. But we cannot answer the question of essence; we cannot understand, grasp in a proper concept, what God is. In the order of understanding, however, a negative knowledge is available. Precisely because we affirm that God is God, we can know that he is not his creation. (Fs)

63a In terms of this distinction, man's gnosis and his agnosia were rightly located. To the newly raised noetic question, how God is known, the patristic answer was given, that he is known in his existence but not known in his essence. I can affirm that God is and that he is all that Scriptures, or reason, say he is- eternal, omnipotent, wise, good, and so on. But I cannot conceive what it is for God to be and to be eternal, omnipotent, wise, good, and all the rest of what he is. (Fs) (notabene)