Comments

21 responses to “St. Silouan on the Love of God”

1. 

   Eric N Dunn

   May 22, 2025

   Wonderful reminder.

2. 

   Fr. Stephen

   May 22, 2025

   Eric,
   St. John said it first:
   “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:7–11)

   As simple as it can be stated – and is the most difficult thing that confronts us all.

3. 

   Mallory

   May 22, 2025

   Oh, how beautiful. This is my struggle every day–how do I love those closest to me? Yet when I don’t, I am disconnected from God and am miserable.

   Fr. Stephen, forgive me but I have even more scriptures questions. Thanks to your wise suggestion, I’ve gone back to gospel of John, and almost immediately felt that peace I remembered descend upon me. Praise God! A few passages struck me differently this time, having recently read (most, and admittedly poorly/kicking and screaming) the OT for the first time.

   This passage: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” along with Jesus’s teachings–love your neighbor, turn the other cheek, love your enemies (radical!), God is love, etc. made me wonder if it’s possible the God of the OT is different from the God Jesus came to reveal? I also had never noticed that John says “No man hath seem God at any time” but in the OT, the vengeful God is seen, is he not? So is there a possibility Jesus came in the flesh as the “Father” meaning the TRUE God, who is loving, merciful and teaches essentially the opposite lessons than the other “God” taught through his actions and demands? Even if they are allegorical, there is still murder and anger etc etc. Perhaps that God was present as a false ruler before Jesus came to reveal the true God? And maybe that’s why he says “that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one,”? I hope I’m making any sense at all and I hope I’m not offending anyone, I am just seeking understanding through Christ’s words. Has anyone in the Church thought this was a possibility? Am I nuts?

   I would be grateful for your thoughts on this. God bless everyone!

4. 

   Margaret

   May 22, 2025

   Thank you for this, Fr. Stephen.

5. 

   Jenny

   May 22, 2025

   Thank you, Father.

   Today, loving my brother has meant visiting my daughter’s elementary school to watch her fifth grade ball game against the teachers, a final celebration before the end of the school year. It has meant standing by the fence in the cool wind, listening to her excited chatter, her face thin and bright beneath her father’s ball cap.

   Loving my brother has meant getting home to fold warm laundry, giving milk to my toddler and helping him off with his coat. Love will be creating order in the kitchen, and if God wills it, I will vacuum the floors so they gleam like honey. But if I cannot, He is still good and I will certainly still cook dinner.

   I get to do all this and more today for the love of God, and the love of my brother. Added to this, I have scarlet geraniums in terracotta pots outside my window, and an orange cat lazing around under the evergreen bushes.

   God’s goodness is beyond measure that He loves us first and gave us His Son that we might be united to Him always.

   Added to this, so that our cup overflows, we have the gift of loving Him in return, not in theory or thoughts, but through those persons He has given us to love, in the good world He has placed us in.

   Christ is risen!

6. 

   Matthew

   May 22, 2025

   Hello Mallory. Please read “A More Christlike Word”.

7. 

   Matthew

   May 22, 2025

   Also Mallory, when I was struggling with these questions as a Protestant I also read “Disturbing Divine Behaviour” by Eric Seibert.

8. 

   Matthew

   May 22, 2025

   Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God is what 1 John 4 says.

   Wow. Such hopeful words.

   Absolutely everyone who loves is born of God and knows God? Man … there are a lot of loving people in our world who claim no Godly allegiance, but I suppose God claims them nonetheless?

9. 

   Fr. Stephen

   May 22, 2025

   Mallory,
   What you are describing is (historically speaking) a stumbling block that was very problematic in the early Church. The clear discrepancy between Christ and His teachings in the New Testament, and many passages in the Old Testament, created something of an abiding crisis. One solution was to say that this was “2 gods” or two presentations of God – that was a position that was common among many of the early “Gnostics.” It was rejected by the Church as heresy – which is to say – that’s not the proper solution.

   Another, accepted solution, is much like I’ve described – reading the Old Testament, looking for Christ “beneath the letter” – meaning, He is hidden within the Old Testament. The example I gave of Nyssa’s reading of the life of Moses is an example.

   There was a sort of pushback across time to that form of reading. Protestantism, especially, wanted a sort of literal/historical reading and thus applied itself to various theories that would reconcile the revelation of God in the OT with Christ in the NT. Some of those theories were things like Dispensationalism, in which God behaves in differing was a different times for His own purposes. And so on.

   The form of reading that I’ve suggested (Christ beneath the letter) requires the ongoing life of the Church. It is a form of reading that we learn and acquire, particularly as we are immersed in the liturgical life of the Church. It is “traditioned.” Protestantism, especially, was seeking to separate itself from the Church, from tradition, and urging the notion of “sola Scriptura” (Bible-only). Thus, it needed a Bible that was sort of “self-interpreting” – which is what literalism is all about. It just doesn’t work. It seems to me that this approach almost always winds up teaching a God that is incompatible with Christ in the New Testament.

   You cite John 1:18 (“no one has seen God…the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father…has made Him known”). This is foundational. One way I like to phrase this is: We know nothing of God except as He has been made known to us in Jesus Christ. That is why I say that we start with Christ and read the OT looking for Him beneath the letter.

   I’m glad you’re reading John and recovering the peace that you’ve known before. It has been suggested by some wise theologians that Matthew, Mark, and Luke, represent the “kerygma” of the Church (the public preaching accessible to all), while St. John’s gospel represents the “dogma” of the Church (meaning the deeper teaching or “mystagogy” for yet more mature consideration). In the early Church, catechumens most received moral teaching prior to their Baptism. After their Baptisms (usually at Pascha) they began to receive the “mystagogical” teaching – leading them deeper into the meaning of the faith and knowledge of God. In Orthodox practice, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are read through the course of the whole year…up until Pascha. After Pascha, the gospel of John is read up to Pentecost. It was in this post-Pascha period that the new baptized received their mystagogical catechesis. The lectionary (schedule of readings) points to this early practice.

   The Father, revealed to us through Christ, is the same – yesterday, today, and forever. Learning to see all of that in the OT is something we have to acquire. It is not readily apparent.

10. 

    Fr. Stephen

    May 22, 2025

    Matthew,
    Love is of God. There are lots of people who would love Him if they knew Him. That they don’t know Him is surely a complicated story. That they have intimations of Him is seen in their love. God claims us all. He is not the problem.

11. 

    Dee of St Herman

    May 22, 2025

    Father,
    Would it be appropriate to say that adherence to literalism, such that seeing God the Father as an angry god and the disparity with Christ being loving, that the penal substitution theology rose as an explanation of this disparity?

    I have appreciated the Creed that says “one in essence” it helped to explain what I needed to learn about such unity and love.

12. 

    Dee of St Herman

    May 22, 2025

    As I consider this further, Father, your book “Face to Face” is a helpful antidote to such heartache created by the penal substitution theology.

13. 

    Matthew

    May 22, 2025

    Yes Dee … PSA is a theological tragedy. 🙁

14. 

    Matthew

    May 22, 2025

    Fr. Stephen said:

    “Love is of God. There are lots of people who would love Him if they knew Him. That they don’t know Him is surely a complicated story. That they have intimations of Him is seen in their love. God claims us all. He is not the problem.”

    1 John seems to suggest that if one loves, they are born of God and they know God. I struggled with the verse in my evangelical days when stiff lines were drawn re: who is “in” and who is “out”. The text, however, doesn´t seem to suggest only intimations, it seems to be saying that if one loves, one is born of God and one knows God. Completely. I take this to mean if someone is loving, but denies God, then they know God without “knowing” God – be it intellectually, ontologically, or both.

    God is so much bigger than I ever imagined. How could an all powerful and loving God possibly be constrained by the four spiritual laws, a person´s imperfect will, a lack of personal spiritual knowledge or experience, a sickly theological paradigm, etc.? You are correct. In no way is God the problem. He´s got this.

15. 

    Fr. Stephen

    May 22, 2025

    Dee,
    It certainly contributed to the notions that fed the penal substitutionary theory. When Anselm first put forward an atonement account (ca. 1000 A.D) that would later be morphed into the Penal Substitution theory, he stated it in terms consistent with the feudal culture in which he lived. Thus he speaks of offenses against “God’s honor.” One of the darker paths of historical study is to look at what is happening in the West through the Middle Ages as the Germanic northern barbarians become Christian…but often transform Christianity into something consistent with their cultured barbarity. The Crusades are filled with “honor” and such – but are a sad series of disfiguring adventures.

    There were plenty of errors and temptations in the Byzantine world – but it largely took up the role of victim rather than conqueror. I’m convinced that the Middle Ages in the West had profound effects on Western thought (that secularism has done nothing to erase).

    “One in essence.” What we see in Christ is also the Father and the Spirit. Yes!

16. 

    Matthew

    May 22, 2025

    Fr. Stephen said:

    “I’m convinced that the Middle Ages in the West had profound effects on Western thought (that secularism has done nothing to erase).”

    What about the Reformation and the Enlightenment?

17. 

    Fr. Stephen

    May 22, 2025

    Matthew,
    Certainly, those have had profound effects. I’ve been doing lots of “deep dives” in historical stuff the last couple of years, concentrating especially on England. In some ways, it has to be said that the “Reformation” had already begun in small ways prior to the 16th century. The ruptures in the papacy, the various monastic reforms and such, point to something being “afoot.” I think the advent of the printing press unleashed or pumped steroids into a situation that was already looking for change.

    I think we have to take a much larger view on all of this, however. First, God’s providence is at work and always has been. So, even the failings will have a part in the healing (should He so will). This might be of interest: https://glory2godforallthings.com/2020/02/10/healing-the-tragic-soul-of-the-modern-west/

18. 

    Kenneth

    May 22, 2025

    A wonderful and humbling passage. A key observation for me is to notice how the Orthodox would understand these words differently (viz., ontologically) compared to other common understandings. The statement “if we do not love our brother the grace of God will not come into our souls” means that the actual presence (“energies”?) of God will not fill us, which is much stronger than the idea that God would simply regard us differently (Fr. Stephen feel free to correct or clarify). St Silouan seems to be saying here that loving our brother is the key to deification.

    Also, I notice that he says “Forty years have gone by since the grace of the Holy Spirit taught me to love mankind and every created thing…”, which interestingly seems to refer to a specific event he experienced, which I think is told in the book St Silouan the Athonite.

19. 

    Matthew

    May 22, 2025

    Thanks Fr. Stephen.

    Luther gets the trophy (so to speak), but there was a lot of reforming going on before the actions in Wittenberg took place. Jan Hus and the Bohemian Reformation comes to mind as one big example.

20. 

    Fr. Stephen

    May 22, 2025

    Kenneth,
    I think there’s a sort of double-edged quality to our spiritual speech. The statement “if we do not love our brother the grace of God will not come into our souls” should be nuanced. It is referring to a “kind” of “coming into” that requires our participation – whereas, nothing can even exist apart from the divine energies (taken in another sense).

    I agree that St. Silouan is referencing his earlier life – detailed in that book on his life.

21. 

    Fr. Stephen

    May 22, 2025

    Dee,
    A smile came to my face reading this comment. I thought, “I wish my parents had not believed so strongly in the punishment theory of anything at all.” I concluded early in life that I had little regard for such brute force. I bore it – but I despised it. I believe in discipline – but I do not believe in corporal punishment. “Spare the rod, spoil the child” is a metaphor – at best.