Library › Ignatios Moschakis › Catechism of the Orthodox Eastern Church (1888)

Catechism of the Orthodox Eastern Church (1888)

Ignatios Moschakis, tr. Baker, 1894

1. Part 1, Chapter 1: Concerning God

§ 6. The First Article of the Creed, and the Meaning Thereof.

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.”

This first article of the Creed teaches us that there exists one only God, in Whose existence we ought to have unshaken confidence, in order that we may believe on Him. He, in His almighty power, made all things, both the visible and the invisible. And under the visible are contained all things that we see, the earth, the heavenly bodies, man, and all the natural bodies in general; but under the invisible are contained the Heavenly spirits, or the Angels, who are beings above man, set apart to minister to God, and of whom some that have erred and fallen away from God are called in Holy Scripture evil spirits or devils.

§ 7. The Existence of God.

The existence of God does not need any proof, because the idea of God is emplanted in every man. Nevertheless, to strengthen our faith, we give the arguments in succession. All nature proclaims the existence of God; because apart from God nature is not explained, and the existence of the world remains an incomprehensible enigma. There can be no effect without a cause; but the world is an effect, because the existences which make up the world cannot come into being by themselves; they have their cause then, and this cause is God. “Every house is builded by some man; but He that built all things is God” (Heb. iii. 4). We see the order, the harmony, that exists in the world, we observe its fixed and unchangeable laws, the bounteous blessings existing in nature, but these things cannot exist apart from a cause. The order presupposes a mind that orders all things, the laws presuppose a lawgiver, the blessings presuppose one who gives the blessings. The order, then, the harmony, the laws, and the blessings of nature have their own cause, and this cause is God. But the greater argument for the existence of God is our conscience, which tells us that there exists a God, Who made the world, and all things that are therein, and Who will avenge the evil, and reward the good. All the nations, from the beginning until to-day, believe in God. According to Holy Scripture, only the fool said, “There is no God:” “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Ps. xiv. 1).

§ 8. Concerning God, and All that Peculiarly Belongs to the Nature of God.

God is a Spirit. “God is Spirit” (St. John iv. 24). Nothing material or imperfect can therefore be ascribed to Him. He is a pure and perfect Spirit. Now, as a perfect Spirit, He is, in the first place, boundless; that is, He is not restricted to any given place: “He dwelleth not in temples made with hands” (Acts xvii. 24). In the second place, He is eternal, and independent of time; He has neither beginning nor ending: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, Thou art God from everlasting, and world without end” (Ps. xc. 2). In the third place He is unchangeable; that is, He is not subject to changes and alterations as imperfect creatures are: “With the Lord is no variableness, nor shadow of turning” (St. James i. 18). In the fourth place, He is everywhere present, and fills all things with His presence: “In Him we live, and move, and are” (Acts xvii. 28).

§ 9. What Other Attributes We Ascribe to God.

God is omniscient; that is, He knows all things, both past, and present, and future, and our actions, and thoughts, and perceptions: “Lord, Thou hast proved me, and known me, Thou understandest my thoughts and my path; Thou knowest all things” (Ps. cxxxix. 1). God is all-wise, and indeed both in wisdom made and continues to direct both the world and men: “O the depth of the wisdom and riches and knowledge of God!” (Rom. xi. 33). God is all-good, full of love towards men; in His love He pities the poor and the unfortunate, He pardons all who repent, and waits till the unrepentant return to Him: “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John iv. 19). God is holy; in fact, He is the perfect good: “Be ye holy, because I am holy” (1 Pet. i. 16). He is just, He judges righteously, and without partiality; He rewards the good and punishes the evil: “Thou art the God that hast no pleasure in wickedness, . . . neither shall the foolish stand in Thy sight” (Ps. iv. 5, 6). God is almighty; that is, He is able to do all that He wills to do, and He wills only what is good. Now, in proof of the almighty power of God we have the creation of the world: “Our God hath done in heaven and in earth whatsoever pleased Him” (Ps. cxv. 3).

§ 10. How Many Persons We Discern in the Godhead.

In the Godhead we distinguish Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these Three Persons, to Whom we pay one and the same adoration and worship, make up the Holy Trinity. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet they are not three Gods, but one only God; the Persons are three, but the Substance one. The Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten of the Father before all worlds, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father. We see the teaching concerning the Holy Trinity in the words which our Saviour spake to His disciples, when He sent them forth to preach: “Go ye, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (St. Matt. xxviii. 19).

§ 11. God is the Creator of the World.

The world, as we saw above, was not able to come into being by itself; because every effect has its cause. The Cause of the world, God, since He is perfect, has no need of anything, and therefore He did not make the world as it were by necessity, but out of His love and goodness. The matter of which the world is composed could not possibly have been eternal; because it was impossible that the dead and lifeless matter could give itself existence and life. If matter were self-existent it would be eternal, and timeless—it would be manifestly God. But in His own almighty power God has no need of matter and material organisms, as man has, to enable Him to do anything; He made the world, therefore, out of nothing, through His word alone: “He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast” (Ps. xxxiii. 9).

§ 12. God is the Preserver and Governor of the World.

As nothing is able to come into being without God, so nothing can possibly be preserved without Him. Only the Almighty God who made the world is able also to preserve it. But God not only preserves it, but also rules the world, and provides for it as an all-good Father. We cannot possibly dream that God Who made the world with so great goodness has left it to take its chance. If this were so, He would be cruel and unjust. God in His fatherly love directs all things, both great and small, the atoms of which it is formed, and the peoples that dwell in it. Faith in the Divine Providence makes man grateful towards God, and inspires him with hope and patience in the difficulties and distresses of life.

§ 13. God is the Creator of Man.

Holy Scripture teaches us that God, through the word of His mouth alone, created the world, that is, the heavens and the earth, the plants and the trees, the sun, the moon, and the stars, the fish, the birds, and the other different animals; but, lastly, He formed man. If all the rest of the existences cannot take their beginning from themselves, much less can man, who is the crown of the creation, the prince of all nature, the image of God: “And God made man, in the image of God made He him” (Gen. i. 27). Man does not, as all other creatures do, consist of body alone, but also of soul or spirit, through which he is shown to be above all other created existences. And his body was made of the earth, but his soul was breathed into him by the Creator: “And God made man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Gen. ii. 7). And on account of this special nature of man, on account of the Divine image which exists in him, man is not reckoned among mortal things, but things that are immortal. His body dies, but his soul remains immortal.¹

§ 14. The Pre-determined Destiny of Man.

Man is composed, as we said, of body, and soul or spirit; and his predetermined destiny is that he should develop and perfect these two things—in fact, both his body and his spirit. It is necessary that man should take care of the body, because the body is the organ of the spirit, and without the soundness of our bodies the spirit cannot be developed. We ought to value the body only so far as it is required for the development of the spirit; he who thinks only of his body comes to the materialism which teaches that the predetermined destiny of man is that we should eat and drink because to-morrow we die. The spirit, in which the true value of the man especially consists, is infinitely above the body; and for this reason we ought especially to develop and perfect it. But since our spirit includes mind, and will or heart, its development and perfecting demand that the mind also and the will should be brought to perfection. And we ought to develop the mind by diligent study and the use of books, and the will by habituating it to follow that which is good. Training and education by themselves, apart from virtue, are not only of no advantage, but are even a source of injury. On the contrary, we advance in the achievement of our predetermined destiny in proportion as we esteem and practise everything that is good and noble, and continue at all times the work of making ourselves morally perfect. The true destiny of man, then, consists in his spiritual, and, above all things, in his moral, progress towards perfection; and so only is it possible that man should appear a true image and likeness of God—in fact, that he should become like God in wisdom and in holiness, and that he should be one with Him through love: “Ye shall therefore be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect” (St. Matt. v. 48).

§ 15. The Fall of Man.

The first men were made by the Creator innocent and pure. They were fore-ordained to be holy and happy, of their own free will yielding obedience to the will of God. Men were created with a free will, because the value of virtue lies only in its being exercised freely, and out of love to what is good. But these men did not fulfil the destiny to which they were fore-ordained. Holy Scripture teaches us that the first created, Adam and Eve, when they were placed in Paradise, transgressed the commandment of God, and, on account of this disobedience, were expelled from Paradise; and the evil has been handed on to their descendants, in fact to the whole human race, and this has been named “original sin.” And history and our daily experience teach us that men incline naturally to evil, because they worshipped idols, and were destroyed or demoralized. (Rom. iii. 13-18.)

§ 16. Sin and Its Results.

Sin is the transgression of the moral law, which is to be found in Holy Scripture and in our conscience. The sinner does not act according to the direction of the moral law and his conscience, but does what his own selfishness and evil lusts demand. Sin separates us from God, robs conscience of its peace, generally brings misfortune from without, but from within always; makes us the slaves of our passions, and in the end leads us to death, bodily death and spiritual death, death in time, and death in eternity: “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. vi. 23).

Through sin the image of God in man has been obscured, but not effaced. Had the destruction of man’s moral constitution been complete, he would have ceased to be man. There remains to man still the attraction to what is good, the conviction of sin, and the desire to return from sin and to repent of it. Holy Scripture confirms us when we say that the attraction for good has not abandoned man, where our Saviour says, “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (St. Mark viii. 34).

§ 17. The Salvation of Man.

Man could not have been saved without help. History bears witness that, as the time passed on, so the evil increased, and man was placed at greater and greater distance from God. But God, in His goodness and compassion, was not able to allow the work of His hands to perish entirely. God, Who wills that every man should have eternal life (St. John iii. 16), pitied sinful man, and sent forth the Physician of souls, Who saves man from sin, and breathes into him new powers and new life. This Divine Physician of souls, and Ransomer of men, is our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ came into the world that He might seek and save that which was lost, and might beget men anew, and reconcile them again to God, from Whom they had been separated through sin.

Previous · Contents · Next