THE CONCEPT OF ”THE PRESENCE OF GOD”- A LINK BETWEEN MISSIONARY THEOLOGY AND CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY
THE CONCEPT OF ”THE PRESENCE OF GOD”- A LINK BETWEEN MISSIONARY THEOLOGY AND CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY

Summary/Abstract: In a world of religious and moral dissolution, in which nihilist atheism andhedonistic consumerism prevail, missionary theology must propose to thesecularized human the experience of reunion with God as a means of restartingthe religious experience manifested concretely through prayer and intensespiritual life. Modernity has obviously fuelled deified conceptions, isolating Godin an inaccessible transcendence, and promoting a total abandonment of thepossibility of experiencing any form of real encounter with Him. The only way toget in touch with Him was rational knowledge, as it was found in the Bible, orlogical deductions resulting from the dialogue between theology and science. Butthey dangerously lead to the postmodern concept of a God-idea, concept, force,etc., lacking the attribute of personality. According to Orthodox doctrine, God hasa personal character, being, more specifically, a Trinity of Persons. Therefore, wefind enough biblical and patristic grounds, all testifying to the existence of divinePresence. This Personal Presence is the basis of promoting an intense spirituallife of the faithful human, who is aware of the necessity of an organic bond with it,creating a true state of communion. It is, on the one hand, a personal relationshipcultivated by every person through prayer, but also an inter-personal relationshipcreated within the public cult, especially in the Divine Liturgy and the HolyMysteries of the Church. The experience of Divine Presence as generated theconsciousness of asceticism, consisting in desolation and climbing on the virtuescale, to perfection. The intense spiritual life, especially promoted in themonasteries, has led to the experience of awakeness as a work designed totransfigure human, who gives up on the comfort of the material world, preparinghimself or herself for experiencing of the kingdom of God. In this study, I willpresent, on the one hand, the role of spirituality for missionary theology, startingfrom fulfilling the concrete experience of the Divine Presence, and on the other, Iwill seek raising awareness of the dangers of the false spiritualist movementspromoted by the New Age movement and the rationalistic - anti-theistic conceptsof postmodernity.

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