Exposition of the Faith
A systematic exposition of Christian doctrine that explains the beliefs of the early Church on God, creation, Christ, the sacraments, and salvation.
Themes that emerged
Date
- Cerca AD 675-749
Summary
Rather than introducing new ideas, John of Damascus gathers centuries of Christian teaching into a coherent whole. He carefully explains the doctrines of the Trinity, Christ, creation, free will, the Incarnation, and salvation, showing how Scripture and the tradition of the early Church fit together. Despite tackling profound theological mysteries, his writing remains remarkably clear and accessible, making the book one of the most influential summaries of historic Christian doctrine.
Highlights & Reflections
Book I
For the knowledge of God’s existence has been implanted by Him in all by nature. This creation, too, and its maintenance, and its government, proclaim the majesty of the Divine nature.
God is One, that is to say, one essence ; and that He is known , and has His being in three subsistences, in Father, I say, and Son and Holy Spirit; and that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one in all respects,
Only-begotten Son and Word of God and God, in His bowels of mercy, for our salvation, by the good pleasure of God and the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, being conceived without seed, was born uncorruptedly of the Holy Virgin and Mother of God, Mary, by the Holy Spirit, and became of her perfect Man;
the disciples of the Lord and His Apostles, made wise by the Holy Spirit and working wonders in His power and grace, took them captive in the net of miracles and drew them up out of the depths of ignorance to the light of the knowledge of God.
My thoughts
This made me think that not only that but to show who He is/was. Also to fulfill all the signs that the prophets gave and to both save us and to open a door for non Jews to know and follow the Father.
John emphasises that miracles were God’s way of drawing people from ignorance into the knowledge of Him. This also made me think of how Christ’s miracles revealed His identity, fulfilled the prophets’ expectations, and opened the way of salvation not only for Israel but ultimately for the Gentiles.
there is a God. But what He is in His essence and nature is absolutely incomprehensible and unknowable.
My thoughts
I have not thought about this before, mostly because of the passage in Genesis where it says let’s make man at our image and likeness, I always thought that God must look like us. But then reading Scripture and thinking on the Trinity its clear that I don’t know. Although God’s essence is beyond our understanding, He has revealed His attributes to us through Scripture and supremely through Christ. We truly know God, even if we cannot fully comprehend Him. Loving, merciful, creative, caring, just, righteous.
God then is infinite and incomprehensible and all that is comprehensible about Him is His infinity and incomprehensibility. But all that we can affirm concerning God does not show forth God’s nature, but only the qualities of His nature.
For I am the first God and I am the last, and beside Me there is no God. Before Me there was not any God, nor after Me will there be any God, and beside Me there is no God. Isaiah 43:10
God is not Wordless. And possessing the Word, He will have it not as without a subsistence, nor as having had a beginning, nor as destined to cease to be. For there never was a time when God was not Word: but He ever possesses His own Word, begotten of Himself, not, as our word is, without a subsistence and dissolving into air, but having a subsistence in Him and life and perfection, not proceeding out of Himself but ever existing within Himself. For where could it be, if it were to go outside Him?
Word of God in its independent subsistence is differentiated from Him from Whom it derives its subsistence: but inasmuch as it displays in itself the same attributes as are seen in God, it is of the same nature as God.
the Word must also possess Spirit. For in fact even our word is not destitute of spirit; but in our case the spirit is something different from our essence.
But we must contemplate it as an essential power, existing in its own proper and peculiar subsistence, proceeding from the Father and resting in the Word , and showing forth the Word, neither capable of disjunction from God in Whom it exists, and the Word Whose companion it is, nor poured forth to vanish into nothingness , but being in subsistence in the likeness of the Word, endowed with life, free volition, independent movement, energy, ever willing that which is good, and having power to keep pace with the will in all its decrees , having no beginning and no end. For never was the Father at any time lacking in the Word, nor the Word in the Spirit.
In treating, then, of the generation of the Son, it is an act of impiety to say that time comes into play and that the existence of the Son is of later origin than the Father.
And unless we grant that the Son co-existed from the beginning with the Father, by Whom He was begotten,we introduce change into the Father’s subsistence, because, not being the Father, He subsequently became the Father.
And just as light is ever the product of fire, and ever is in it and at no time is separate from it, so in like manner also the Son is begotten of the Father and is never in any way separate from Him, but ever is in Him.
the names Fatherhood, Sonship and Procession, were not applied to the Holy Godhead by us: on the contrary, they were communicated to us by the Godhead, as the divine apostle says, Wherefore I bow the knee to the Father, from Whom is every family in heaven and on earth.
the Son is begotten of the Father and not the Father of the Son, and that the Father naturally is the cause of the Son: just as we say in the same way not that fire proceeds from light, but rather light from fire.
My thoughts
For context this passage is to illustrate the relationship in terms of causation. In fact to support this the author later says: “Just as we do not say that fire is of one essence and light of another, so we cannot say that the Father is of one essence and the Son of another: but both are of one and the same essence.”
And just as we say that fire has brightness through the light proceeding from it, and do not consider the light of the fire as an instrument ministering to the fire, but rather as its natural force: so we say that the Father creates all that He creates through His Only-begotten Son, not as though the Son were a mere instrument serving the Father’s ends, but as His natural and subsistential force.
But the Son is derived from the Father after the manner of generation, and the Holy Spirit likewise is derived from the Father, yet not after the manner of generation, but after that of procession.
All then that the Son and the Spirit have is from the Father, even their very being : and unless the Father is, neither the Son nor the Spirit is.
My thoughts
The next sentence also mentions that They have the same attributes of the Father “unless the Father posesses a certain attribute, neither the Son nor the Spirit possesses it”. The Father is the eternal source within the Trinity. The Son and the Spirit receive everything they are from the Father - not as creatures receiving existence in time, but eternally. This does not make Them lesser, because whatever belongs to the Father by nature belongs equally to the Son and the Spirit, except the personal properties that distinguish Them.
Key Ideas
- God’s existence is evident through creation.
- God’s essence is incomprehensible, though His attributes are revealed.
- The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one essence in three Persons.
- The Son is eternally begotten, not created.
- The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father.
- The Incarnation was necessary for humanity’s salvation.
- Every doctrine should be grounded in Scripture and the apostolic faith.