By Protopresbyter Dr Georgios Lekkas*
“For the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25)
The theology of the Orthodox Church allows us to try out philosophical-theological categories regarding God, on condition that we take them symbolically and not literally. Otherwise any human category applied to God is in danger of presenting Him ‘in the image’ of man.
When speaking of God we often employ opposing pairs, such as exalted/humble, great/small, glorious/insignificant, strong/weak and the like, and we usually adopt the more impressive aspect of the pair as being more appropriate to the life and existence of our Creator God.
However Orthodox Theology, as found in the writings of St Sophrony the Athonite about Divine Humility, makes it possible for us to speak symbolically about God by resorting to other ‘weak’ poles from these pairs of conceptual categories, such as ‘small’. Of course this is always on the condition that we understand that the existence and life of God by definition transcend any possible conceptual approach we might have to them.
God does not have material dimensions: a fact which might exclude the category of Smallness from being attributed to Him. Indeed Divine Smallness as an absolute dimension in the spiritual order is only revealed to a human being at the moment of their own self-effacement, when they are able to attune as fully as possible with the Complete Humility of God.
God’s affinity for Smallness is at the root of His Omnipotence, for divine self-effacement allows everything to exist in a state of increase, beginning with the least material elements. It is this self-effacement that ultimately allows what is materially absolutely great and what is materially absolutely small to exist.
Therefore, the divine affinity for Smallness, which certainly derives from the self-emptying mode of existence of the Triune God, not only does not favour non-existence, but on the contrary it constitutes as such the absolute precondition of existence of everything that is.
Because we are ignorant of the mystery of God’s self-effacement we do not properly appreciate the smallest thing which imitates it; consequently we fail to attune with such a God.
It is manifestly this divine affinity for Smallness that allowed God to be emptied of His divine glory, to take flesh in the form of a fallen man (though one free from sin) and to descend into Hell, unobserved by death, in order to bring salvation to mankind.
We think that God came into the world to teach us humility because we are unaware that thanks to His voluntary self-effacement, incomprehensible to man, all things are created by God, are recreated by Him in Christ, and are now preserved and promoted by Him.
For God, as an Interpersonal Trinitarian Existence, the absolutely great is identified with the absolutely small. Indeed, the fact that God loves to efface Himself makes Him infinitely great both within the Trinity and in His extra-Trinitarian relationships with His Creation. From a spiritual point of view there is therefore nothing greater than the Almighty Majesty of God’s voluntary self-effacement. The Devil, however, underestimated the immensity of God’s affinity for Smallness and fell because he believed that he could become greater than a God who loves to become smaller.
The Devil took God’s affinity for Smallness as a weakness, because he considered the Small in terms of material and therefore measurable power. He thus failed to see in God’s voluntary self-effacement the greatness of His transcendence. He even desired for himself greatness without self-effacement. Since that time, whoever chooses for himself greatness without Smallness, rather than the greatness of Smallness, diminishes God and replicates the fall of Lucifer.
Certainly God’s voluntary self-effacement is directly related to the discretion of a God who seeks to gain us all for Himself without depriving anyone of their freedom. If we are spiritually attuned with this God, who only wishes to grow within us when we self-diminish in order to grant Him the right to do so, we have the possibility of eternally living the Life of God at the limits of our own creatureliness. With such a God, a person must be foolish indeed to forfeit Paradise!
*Protopresbyter Dr Georgios Lekkas is a priest of the Holy Metropolis of Belgium
