Knowledge of the Father

[Robert Hegwood]

This morning I read the Gospel portion for today and something struck me that I had not noticed before. In it Christ says that no one knows the Father but the Son and anyone to whom the Son choses to reveal Him. If this is so, then does that "no one" include the Spirit?

If so, does that mean the Spirit's knowledge of the Father is via the Son?

Frankly it does not make entire sense to me, limited creature that I am that God does not know God except by God. The only way I could see it, at present, is as some aspect of the perichoric nature of the communion of the Holy Trinity.

Then again Christ could simply have been speaking in a human context and not necessarily of knowedge of the Father with regard to the other Person of the Holy Trinity.

Anyway is there any patristic or saintly commentary on this point of consideration...any insights by those better qualified and better studied than myself?

[Edward Henderson]

Let's first look at the verse again, which I take from the KJV, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." (Matt. 11:27)

Notice first in this translation, it reads, "no man", now the Greek word is οὐδεὶς, which does translate as "no man", "no person", "no one", but I think that the context implies that Christ is referring to "no human being".

Blessed Theophylact's commentary brings another perspective, "He says something great, 'There is nothing marvelous in My being the Master of all things since I possess something even greater, that is, to know the Father, and knowing Him, to reveal Him to other.' Consider, then: He said, above, that the Father has revealed the mysteries to babes (Matt. 11:25), and here, that the Son reveals the Father. You see, then, the single power of the Father and the Son, since both the Father and the Son reveal."

Saint John Chrysostom comments, "But when He saith, 'Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son,' He means not this, that all men were ignorant of Him, but that with the knowledge wherewith He knows Him, no man is acquainted with Him; which may be said of the Son too. That is, that none but the Father has full knowledge of Him. For it was not of some God unknown, and revealed to no man, that He was so speaking, as Marcion saith; but it is the perfection of knowledge that He is here intimating, since neither do we know the Son as He should be known; and this very thing, to add no more, Paul was declaring, when he said, 'We know in part, and we prophesy in part.'"

As we can see from these Patristic commentaries, neither Blessed Theophylact nor Saint John saw this passage as a denial of the Divinity of the Holy Spirit and its equality with the Father and the Son. This passage deals more with the knowledge of God, which is ultimately revealed to man in and through Jesus Christ. As my Patristics professor recently said, Jesus Christ is the theology of the Orthodox Church.

Adding to this, when speaking about the knowledge of God, the consensus of the Fathers, especially Saint Athanasius the Great, Saint Basil the Great, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Gregory the Theologian, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Maximus the Confessor, and Saint Gregory Palamas, is that God is supremely knowable to man in His uncreated energies and supremely unknowable to man in His essence. I think Saint John Chrysostom's above commentary may allude to this. Now the Holy Trinity, being Co-essential (i.e. consubstantial, one in essence), means that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, being One God, do know each person both in essence and in energy.

I know to some this seems just to be terminology, but it, in my opinion, is the essential difference between Orthodox and Latin (and Protestant) theology. Neither Saint Augustine, nor the Augustinians, nor Aquinas, nor Latin theologians from the Scholastic period to the present day, distinguish between Divine essence and Divine uncreated energy. But I think that is another conversation.

[Robert Hegwood]

There is no question in my question with regard to the Divinity of the Spirit, simply an inquiry about the implication of this verse with regard to the Spirit as He knows the Father.

If the Greek supports a reading of "no man" meaning no human, then the question is moot since it does not apply. If it means "no person" then, at least on a surface reading, it becomes more open. Personally I find the "no human" reading the most sensible to my limited understanding since given that the Spirit proceeds from the Father how He could then not know the Father directly but must know Him only via the Son would be very hard to concieve. It would certainly be a complete knowledge, but it would be mediated in a way that seems, as I've said, hard to give credence. That said such a reading might be possible as you suggest with a reading shaped by a filioquian mindset.