Scripture and God in Christianity

present understanding of the human person leaves very little room to doubt the validity of this
objection. Undoubtedly to the Cappadocians, as to almost all Fathers, God is incomprehensible,
ineffable, one and infinite. Gregory of Nazianzuz has made it clear by writing: "It is difficult to
conceive God, but to define him in words is an impossibility, as one of the Greek teachers of divinity
taught, not unskillfully, as it appears to me; with the intention that he might be thought to
have apprehended him; in that he says it is hard thing to do; and may escape being convicted of
ignorance because of his impossibility of giving expression to the apprehension. But in my opinion
it is impossible to express him, and yet more impossible to conceive him....the darkness of
this world and the thick covering of the flesh is an obstacle to the full understanding of the
truth." 644 Gregory of Nyssa observed that "every concept relative to God is a simulcrum, a false
likeness, an idol. The concepts we form in accordance with the understanding and the judgment
which are natural to us, basing ourselves on an intelligible representation, create idols of God instead
of revealing to us God Himself. There is only one name by which the divine nature can be
expressed: the wonder which seizes the soul when it thinks of God." 645 In his Life of Moses he
wrote "For God makes His dwelling there where our understanding and our concepts can gain no
admittance. Our spiritual ascent does but reveal to us, ever more and more clearly, the absolute
incomprehensibility of he divine nature." 646 It is also true that Basil and others roundly denied
any suffering by or human weakness in the Godhead itself.
On the other hand, it is equally true that the understanding of God the Cappadocians aspired and
propagated by their writings did not and cannot remove them from a number of problems and
confusions which have been found in almost all the orthodox Fathers, such as the relationship of
Christ to God. Grillmeier rightly observes that "Whereas in trinitarian doctrine...they clearly recognized
that unity and distinction in the Godhead are to be sought through different approaches,
they only dimly grasped a corresponding insight into christology." 647 He further argues that "The
Cappadocians have seen something, but neither their path nor their goal is stated clearly. As a result,
the solution of christological problems is made much more difficult, as will be evident in the
case of Nestorius." 648
Gregory of Nazianzuz in opposition to Gregory of Nyssa takes over Origen's notion of the soul as
mediator between Godhead and flesh. He clearly uses the orthodox problematic terminology and
also declares Christ's divine nature as dominant over his inferior human nature. "And that (the
cause of his birth) was that you might be saved who insult him and despise his Godhead, because
of this, that he took upon him your denser nature... having conjunction with the flesh by means of
the mind. While his inferior nature, the humanity, became God because it was conjoined with
God and became one (with him). In this the stronger part (sc. the Godhead) prevailed in order
that I too might be made God so far as he is made man." 649 So if his human nature became God,
then any claim of denial of suffering and weaknesses in Godhead loses ground from beneath it. It
faces the same problems which have been faced by the solutions of Fathers before them.
Gregory of Nyssa takes the same route when he writes: "Yet we have no doubt, from the recorded
miracles, that God underwent birth in human nature, but how this happened we decline to
investigate as a matter beyond the scope of reason." 650 He further writes: "Our faith falters when
we think that God, the infinite, incomprehensible, ineffable reality, transcending all glory and
80