“Knowing the chemical formula of water cannot satisfy one’s thirst, just as concepts and theories about God are, by themselves, equally fruitless for salvation.
True theology is knowledge of God based on experience, rooted in a life of virtue, and imbued with the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Love and knowledge have a true interdependence, for the believer knows Christ whom he loves, and loves Him who he knows."
- V. Rev. Archimandrite Maximos Constas The Light of the World, pg xxi
Reflection:
When we are young we drink water and know it is good for us based upon our experience of it. We feel refreshed and re-energized, while unaware that it is H2O and how those properties benefit our bodies.
We do not always know how or why God works the way He does, but we experience His love, warmth, presence and come to know Him through that experience, if we choose to love Him. Our society sometimes demands to know logically how everything works, but with God [and every aspect of our lives], 'love and knowledge are interdependent'.
Our human relationships are similar: we truly come to know someone only when our knowledge of them is accompanied with our love.(1) It is through love that we understand deeper than the basic facts about a person, beyond even his/her faults, to the very core of their person.
When we spend time with someone we gain an affinity for them, a love and care for them. We must truly give God a chance in our lives: spend time speaking with Him, uniting with Him through the sacraments, spending time in worship, and contemplation of His Word.
With our hearts vulnerable in trust let us actively seek to know God through the life of the Church, which He has given us, so that we may come to ‘love He Whom we know, and know He Whom we love’.
Resources:
1) 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails."
