認識神
摘錄自何頓（Michael Horton）著，麥種編輯部譯，《基督徒的信仰》（麥種，2016），第一章
Chapter
1: Dissonant Dramas: Paradigms for Knowing God and the World
3)
Epistemology: Knowing God (p. 47)
a)
How Can We Know God? Post Reformation Interpretation
i)
God’s Incomprehensible Majesty
往後我們會再三回到神的本質與能量之間這東方教會神學所提出的重要區別。正如我會更全面地論證的，西方神學跟隨奧古斯丁和阿奎那（Thomas Aquinas），不承認這區別，堅稱：我們現在不能看見神的本質，唯一的原因在於我們身體的形式。雖然東方和西方一樣易受柏拉圖主義影響，前者對本質和能量的區分，是更全面考慮到創造主和受造物之間的差別，並常常提防在西方教會神秘主義中明顯的泛神傾向。
We
will return several times to this crucial distinction of Eastern theology
between God’s essence and energies. As I will argue more fully, Western
theology — following Augustine and Aquinas — did not recognize this distinction
and insisted that the only reason we do not behold God in his essence at
present is our bodily form. Although the East was as susceptible as the West to
the influences of Platonism, its essence-energies distinction reckoned more
fully with the Creator-creature difference and often guarded against the
pantheistic tendencies evident in Western mysticism.
在這方面，改教家們反映出東方教會所強調的，即神在祂本質方面不能被人測透，在祂能量方面屈尊俯就的自我啟示。正如我們只因太陽光線使身體變得溫暖，才能認識太陽；我們只有按著神對我們的作為，而不是按祂自己之所是，才能認識祂。 雖然中世紀的神學系統對神的本質作了冗長的處理，但當加爾文討論三一論的時候只是匆匆的對神的靈性和無限廣大性做了必要的斷言，他說：「企圖發現神是甚麼的人，都是瘋狂的。」 「神是甚麼？提出這問題的人只是在玩弄無用的猜測……。簡單來說，認識一位與我們無關的神有甚麼用呢？」「神的本質當受人敬拜，而非探究。」
In
this respect, the Reformers reflect the East’s emphasis on God’s
incomprehensibility (in his essence) and God’s self-revealing condescension (in
his energies). As we know the sun only as we are warmed by its rays, we know
God only in his activity toward us, not as he is in himself. While medieval
systems contained lengthy treatments of the divine essence, Calvin moves
quickly through a necessary affirmation of God’s spirituality and immensity to
discuss the Trinity. “They are mad who seek to discover what God is,” he says.
“What is God? Men who pose this question are merely toying with idle
speculations. . . . What help is it, in short, to know a God with whom we have
nothing to do? . . . The essence of God is rather to be adored than inquired into.”
——Michael
Horton, The Christian Faith, p. 52
