The Purpose of Life and the Proof Pointing Us to God According to St. Gregory Palamas

The Purpose of Life

"The reason mankind was brought into being by God was so that they might apprehend with their senses the sky, the earth, and everything they contain, as visible objects, and by means of them, go beyond them with their minds to invisible beauties, that they might sing the praises of God, the one Creator of all."

- St. Gregory Palamas 

(Second Homily on the Entry of the Theotokos into the Holy of Holies, 16)

Proof Pointing Us To God

"Let us admire Abraham and the far-famed Melchizedek, who turned to God of their own accord - after they had already attained the age of reason. They had observed that great proof pointing us to God: this universe; the earth; what surrounds it; the combination of elements; the noble harmony of opposites; the vast boundary formed by the heavens which encircle the visible portion of creation; the multitude of stars fixed therein; their varied and wonderful disposition and their movement, which is neither simple nor conflicting, but harmonious, orderly and lyrical; their progress around their orbits; their conjunctions; their shared paths; their alterations; the significant formations which result, according to what experts in these matters tell us. These things and everything else which happens according to nature's law proclaim God who is eternally above them."

- St. Gregory Palamas 

(Second Homily on the Entry of the Theotokos into the Holy of Holies, 28)

Christ, the Liberator of Adam and Eve

Christ liberating Adam and Eve from Hades

"As the evil one procured our twofold death by means of his single spiritual death, so the good Lord healed this twofold death of ours through His single bodily death, and through the one resurrection of His body gave us a twofold resurrection.

By means of His bodily death He destroyed him who had the power over our souls and bodies in death, and rescued us from his tyranny over them both.

The evil one clothed himself in the serpent to deceive man, but the Word of God put on man's nature to trick the trickster."

- St. Gregory Palamas, "Homily for Holy and Great Saturday"

That God is the Cause of All Creation (St. Gregory Palamas)

By St. Gregory Palamas

That the world has an origin nature teaches and history confirms, while the discoveries of the arts, the institution of laws and the constitution of states also clearly affirm it. We know who are the founders of nearly all the arts, the lawgivers and those who established states, and indeed we know what has been written about the origin of everything. Yet we see that none of this surpasses the account of the genesis of the world and of time as narrated by Moses. And Moses, who wrote about the genesis of the world, has so irrefutably substantiated the truth of what he writes through such extraordinary actions and words that he has convinced virtually the whole human race and has persuaded them to deride those who sophistically teach the contrary. Since the nature of this world is such that everything in it requires a specific cause in each instance, and since without such a cause nothing can exist at all, the very nature of things demonstrates that there must be a first principle which is self-existent and does not derive from any other principle.