As I have pondered these issues, my assigned reading over the past few weeks has seemed directly aimed at their answer, through John of Damascus, Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas, three great saints of the Eastern Church, in addition to good old Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. You will have to forgive, one again, my scattered musings - If I try for anything more I become too daunted by my task, realizing I am not uncovering mere human concepts, but divine fractals spiraling outward and inward for all of infinity!
First of all, I realized my problem was really a simple one, if I traced it far enough: if the issue is mediation through finite creatures, the question is really not "Why do we not have direct access to truth and God?" but "Why is there a multiplicity of forms to begin with?" Or less philosophically, "Why have creation at all?"
For now I will merely say a little about these theologians. Perhaps my own opinion belongs to another post.
St. John of Damascus is most famous for his contribution to the philosophical foundations of Scholasticism, but also for his defense of icons against the first iconoclastic controversy in the eighth century. And really, a defense against icons is not about preserving a perfectly innocent tradition from unjust condemnation, or the illicit role of the emperor in trying to control the Church; the real agenda of a philosophy of iconoclasm is summed up in a two part question: "Why should the material world be an avenue for knowledge of God or of our sanctification?" and "What is the importance of creatures at all?" (Now, I am no iconoclast: I asked my questions of earlier posts not to say that I felt that mediation is necessarily a bad thing; I was simply wondering why it should be that way.) The first question deals with the human being as being an embodied soul, and the second deals with the importance of saints as intercessors and especially as examples. As bodies, we need the material to communicate - self-explanatory enough. But interesting that St. John should place so much emphasis on the glory due to saints - the glory due to saints is due for the sake of Christ, who dwells in them - creation, at its most perfect, especially though Mary, becomes a dwelling place for God. So somehow the fact that there even is a multiplicity of forms at all, which was not necessary, now demands then that we should need mediation, not just one of communicating an understanding through bodily matter, but that God mediate himself through conscious matter; there is a different between the way a piece of carved marble and a thinking mind communicate God's presence; God dwells in each, but through the Incarnation, God took on man's nature so that man might take on God's - we truly participate in divine nature, "deification", as it is called in the Greek tradition.
Symeon and Gregory Palamas speak extensively of this, but in a particularly contemplative vein. They both come from the Eastern Mystical tradition, the "hesychast" movement, which seeks union with God in inner stillness of heart, a state reached usually by repetition of the Jesus prayer. Symeon says that if we purify ourselves, through the gift of divine grace, we can *really* have experience of God on this earth - it will not just be the gathered vestiges of his touch in creation, but we will *really* experience God. (Part of this is only possible through the Eastern understanding of the Trinity which keeps the Divine Essence a mystery, but allows us to fully understand his Energies acting in the world, as opposed to the Western knowledge, which says any "Energy" or attribute we can give to God (Love, Goodness, etc) is fully undifferentiated from "Essence", and so complete knowledge of God is only possible through beholding his Essence, something that can happen only in the beatific vision... but that's really beyond the scope of what I am able to discuss here.) As Fr. John pointed out in my philosophy class, observe Rublev's icon here of the Transfiguration: the light on the mountain was not mere created light, as shown in Raphael's painting (fully consonant with the Western method of reaching God through natural epistemology); the light is a divine, uncreated light, illuminating all and casting no shadows, even while Christ himself is also surrounded by a cloud of mystery. Defending Symeon, Palamas adds that we do experience the divine through our own senses, although not through any power of their own; God grants them additional supernatural powers so that the divine glory may be perceived through the eyes, as the disciples *saw* Christ becoming transfigured before them (although not that he changed; simply that their eyes were opened to the glory of God by supernatural gift).
This is the highly condensed form of part of my thought on part of the issue. Questions left that still need whole books to answer:
-why something rather than nothing? why should things spill over, from nothing into something, from our thoughts to others, charity itself being a spilling over and gift of our very self - what can we say about this Divine fruitfulness that leaves its traces in all creation, and in what ways?
-the way humans communicate through matter
-the ontological differences of mind and matter
-the way that a mind participates in mediation, both receiving and sending forth
-how the Incarnation, as God's word to us, gives us some license to mediate*
-what happens to non-human minds (i.e. angels) whose nature God did not assume
-what constitutes divine illumination, such that purification should be necessary to receive it (if it makes sense to talk about that)
-how Western mystics, without a distinction between Essence/Energies, can talk about union with God
-how what the mystics say is related to us "ordinary people," who either are not called, or not listening their call to such union
-what is meaning in general, anyway?
I could think of so many more. Do you understand how difficult it is to even look at such a dazzling saturation, much less blog on it?
*You'll notice I did not, in fact, write on the Incarnation in this post. That is too daunting and hard.
