While I’m far from a spokesperson for Catholicism these days, I don’t know that it says anything radically different than any other Christian church. The major division between the Christian West and the Christian East in terms of their theology has been seen as Cataphatic (positivist) versus Apophatic (negativist) theologies, though I am one of those who sees a bit of both in each, and not necessarily any conflict between the two, if proper care is taken to give both the East and the West their proper due, including acknowledging the inherent capability of either to produce orthodox theology (e.g., it is not wrong because it’s western/eastern; let’s evaluate ideas on their merits, please).
This is important to how we might choose to answer questions about God’s nature or essence, but not so much in establishing with certainty who or what God is, since all Christian churches agree about that up to a point (keeping in mind the “Theotokos/Christotokos” controversy involving the ACoE, and the issues surrounding the Council of Chalcedon in 451 for the Oriental Orthodox; these deserve their own threads, yet would not be solved anywhere).
From the point of view of an individual…whatever it is I am…I would answer your questions by looking at the person of the Savior Jesus Christ. The Incarnate God affirms His oneness with the Father in John 14. “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). So we can see the Father through the Son, but outside of that I am not sure how to respond to this, because I do not know that there is some “other” place where God is, or that matter isn’t. Our relationship to God is not like that, from what I can tell from praying, reading, talking to holy men, and praying some more. In the book
A Beginner’s Introduction to the Philokalia (an introduction to one of the classic works of Eastern Orthodox thought), there is a great passage from Clement of Alexandria (c.200 AD) wherein he writes:
“If the presence of some good man always molds for the better one who converses with him, owing to the respect and reverence which he inspires, with much more reason must he, who is always in the uninterrupted presence of God by means of his knowledge and his life… Such is he who believes that God is everywhere present, and does not suppose Him to be shut up in certain definite places, (so) that he could never be apart from God whether by day or by night.” (Coniaris 2004: 91)
I think this is a great way to look at questions like yours, because it emphasizes the effect of the relationship with God on the believer, and how it permeates every aspect of his life. I hear a lot from Muslims about how Islam is superior to other religions because it provides a “complete system” or what have you so that you can always know how to behave in every part of your life. Honestly, I’ve never seen Christianity as any less a complete way of life, it is just understood and expressed differently for many different reasons (the most obvious of which is our belief in the incarnation and all that follows from it in the Christian narrative).
Not much else to say, except that to love God and to fear God are not mutually exclusive options. We do both when we truly do either.
We can talk to Him as Christ taught us to: “Our Father, who art in heaven…”
What does it mean to worship Him? Oh, Amy…such big questions for one thread! I don’t know…what does it mean to
you to live?
I appreciate your inquisitive spirit.
