Page 79 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

A P O P H AT I C I S M A N D T H E P E R S O N A L B E I N G O F G O D
Apophaticism and
the Personal Being of God
Ontology, as discourse about what exists, claims the right
to assign an absolute character to being—to the fact of
existence as opposed to non-existence. Throughout history,
many different ontologies have been developed, so that one
may properly speak of ontologies in the plural. Yet all of them
share a common feature: they affirm the absolute significance
of being.
In theology, however, a decisive question arises: can we
speak of God as being? The moment we answer affirmatively,
we enter the realm of ontology—we speak of God as the One
who is. The issue then becomes not whether we use ontology,
but what kind of ontology we employ.
Let us begin with the biblical witness. In Exodus (3:14), God
reveals Himself as “I am that I am”—or “He who is.” Whatever
the precise exegetical interpretation of this phrase, the patristic
tradition consistently understood it as affirming that God tru-
ly exists. This understanding is reflected in the liturgical life of
the Church, where God is addressed as “the One who truly is,”
in contrast to creation, which emerges from non-being (μὴ ὄν).
For the Greek Fathers, this affirmation of God as the One
who truly is was absolute. As St. Basil observes, no matter how
far one goes back in thought, one cannot go beyond “was,”
because nothing lies beyond being. And yet, this affirmation
does not lead to a simple identification of God with essence.
During the hesychast controversy, St. Gregory Palamas in-
sisted that it is a mistake to equate God’s being exclusively with
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