Page 80 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
His essence. While essence necessarily implies being, being is
not exhausted by essence. Thus, the hypostasis—the person—
retains full ontological significance. The God of apophatic the-
ology, though beyond essence, remains “the One who truly
exists” of the Divine Liturgy, the One to whom we pray and
whom we encounter.
The Cappadocian Fathers provide a decisive framework for
understanding this. They distinguish three aspects in speaking
of God: 1. That God exists — known through His energies
manifest in creation. 2. What God is — His essence, which
remains entirely unknowable. 3. How God exists — His per-
sonal existence as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
These distinctions are all ontological. Yet it is only at the
level of the “how”—that is, at the level of personhood—that
communion with God becomes possible.
God’s essence is beyond knowledge and beyond participa-
tion. But God as person is revealed and encountered. We do
not know what God is; we know how He is—how He exists in
communion.
For this reason, the persons of the Trinity are described as
“modes of existence.” Their distinguishing properties—unbe-
gotten, begotten, proceeding—are not attributes in a psycho-
logical or moral sense, but ontological determinations. They
express the way in which each person exists. Any attempt to
describe the Trinity in non-ontological terms risks distorting
this reality, as is evident in approaches that reduce the persons
to psychological analogies.
At the same time, this ontology is not abstract. It is per-
sonal and dynamic. The Cappadocians speak of the Father as
the “cause”—not in a temporal or mechanical sense, but as the
source of personal existence. Being itself is thus relational and
dynamic, grounded in love.
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