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THOMAS HOPKO
A LEXANDER Schmemann, the well-known
Orthodox pastor and teacher, remarked on
more than one occasion that it would serve Christian
theology, preaching and spiritual direction immensely
if several words were dropped for a while from the
Christian vocabulary. One of these words was grace.
The word grace, Fr. Alexander believed, has
become so compromised and confused over centuries
of controversy between Eastern and Western Christ-
ians, as well as between Roman Catholics and Protest-
ants, and among Reformed Christians of differing con-
victions, that the word can hardly be used anymore in
ways which are meaningful and clear.
A way forward, Fr. Alexander suggested, might be
for people to describe their spiritual experience and
articulate their theological convictions in non-technical
everyday language. If this were done it would not only
demonstrate that people, especially preachers and
teachers, actually know what they are talking about,
but it would also compel their hearers to come to terms
not merely with terms, but with God and God's reality
and activity in human being and life.
If we were to heed Fr. Alexander's request, and not
use the word grace in our preaching and teaching,
what would we Christians say?
Those in the spiritual and ecclesial tradition of Fr.
Alexander would say that God through his divine Son,
Word and Image incarnate as Jesus Christ, and the
Holy -Spirit, speaks and acts in creation from its very
beginning. God's creatures do not merely have words
and images and ideas about God; we have God himself
with us through the divine activities of God's "two
hands": the divine Word and Spirit.
We would say that God's truth, love, goodness,
mercy, power, beauty, wisdom, glory...and indeed all
of God's qualities .. .actually enter into our creaturely
existence and activity. We truly experience and partici-
pate in God's supradivine being and life.
We would say that God's speaking and acting in
our world, and God's entrance into our creaturely being
and life is a free gift of God's mercy and love for us,
that there is nothing that we can do to earn or deserve
it, and nothing that we can do to stop or prevent it. We
20 · THE LIVING PULPIT / JANUARY-MARCH 1995
would say that there is no human life without partici-
pation in God's self-manifesting activity, and that we
human beings are who and what we are because we
are made in the image and likeness of God, male and
female, for unending divine life.
We would say that it is not a matter of God choosing
us without or against our will, nor of our choosing or
rejecting God. The mystery of God-with-me and
I-with-God depends wholly on God to the extent that
there is no "I" without God. When I am with God,
then I am who and what I am. When I am against
God, I am struggling to destroy who and what God
creates and saves me to be. This struggle is futile; I
cannot rid myself of God's presence in my being and
life. To persist in it is madness and hell.
It must be clearly affirmed, nevertheless, that I am
not God and God is not me. Without God, I am nothing
and can do nothing. With God, I am who I am and
can do all things through God who vivifies, illumines
and strengthens me.
In Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Church,
through the preaching of the Word and the celebration
of the sacraments, the presence and power of God is
given as a gift: pressed down, running over, lavished
upon us. All is given by God whether we like it or
not, whether we want it or not. When we like it and
want it, it is paradise. When we resist it, it is the hell
whose very pain is the presence and power of God
who is love and truth, peace and joy, beauty and bliss.
God is with us. This, simply put, is the meaning
of grace. God's gift of divinity to human persons is
undeserved and unmerited, unconditional and unstop-
pable. It cannot be resisted, yet it may be madly unsuc-
cessfully resisted from our side forever.
To speak in this way, without using the term grace
which was intended to say it all in a word, may allow
us to say things reasonable to the human mind, verifi-
able to the human heart, adequate to Christian worship,
and proper to the experience of God accessible to
creatures who are made for this wonderful reality in
which alone we find life.
Father Thomas Hopko is Dean of St. Vladimir's
Orthodox Seminary, Crestwood, New York.