Archimandrite PALAMAS - Acta Patristica, volume 16, issue 33/2025
WHAT IS GOD’S LOVE
Archimandrite PALAMAS
igumen (abbot), Holy Monastery of the Virgin Mary at Kallipetra, Veria 591 32, Hellenic Republic (Greece)
Abstract
The article brings together the spiritual experience of the Church as well as the author's personal experience with understanding the revealed love of God. The content is an expression of the essence and principle of the active love of the Holy Trinity. It explains why God created everything and why He became man and died on the cross. The author also points out the factor of full freedom, which is essential for the salvation of man. Only by a free decision to accept the love of God and unite with Him does theosis become possible. Man's freedom determines whether he will accept and will later be able to accept the boundless love of the Triune God. Even after the physical death of man, this love, as the only essential thing, continues and includes man, as long as he himself allowed it during his life.
Keywords
Love, Holy Trinity, therapy, theosis, freedom
SUMMARY
In the history of the Church and humanity, we find that the saints did not rush into this revelation because humanity was in a state where it could not grasp this truth. If someone wants to understand this love, he must imagine the love between the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. They are three Persons who do not have a different opinion among themselves. None of them wants to express their own and different opinion. They agree on everything before they start doing something. There is complete identity between their thoughts. The love of the Holy Trinity leads God to the solution that one of the Persons must become a man. This love for creation is the driving force for the healing and recovery of man. The concept of love is not some imaginary, abstract expression, but the essence of our life. God wants us to love him voluntarily and not out of compulsion. Even the salvation of man must be accomplished through love. The freedom to fight with God is found only in Christianity. And this shows how free God created us to contradict and slander Him. One moment I can sin against God and the next I can ask Him for something. God loves the devil and the Most Holy Theotokos equally strongly. There will be love in the next life, which the Most Holy Theotokos will perceive and enjoy. And when the devil sees this love, it will be something that he will abhor. This is a picture of hell.
(Language: english)