The Council That Never Was – Volume VII
Prologue: The Unnameable Light
All fell silent.
No debates. No screens. No empires. No missions.
Only light.
Not a metaphor. Not theology. Not a symbol.
God.
The forum vanished.
Language collapsed.
Theologians became only eyes—and awe.
And yet, they must still speak.
Not to define.
But to adore.
Chapter 1: The Name and the Mystery
Augustine was first to whisper:
“If you understand it, it is not God. But He is not unknown—He is revealed in love.”
Aquinas bowed:
“He is pure act. Ipsum esse subsistens. But He is also Father, Son, and Spirit—indivisibly One.”
Gregory of Nazianzus smiled through tears:
“God cannot be grasped—but He can be worshipped.”
Barth, trembling:
“He is the wholly Other—yet the wholly Near in Christ.”
Pascal, softly:
“Not the God of the philosophers. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Maximus the Confessor:
“God is beyond being—and yet He became flesh.”
Chapter 2: The Trinity at the Centre
Athanasius rose:
“The Father has never been without the Son. The Spirit proceeds eternally. This is not a theory—it is the life of the Church.”
Cyril of Alexandria:
“In Christ, God and man are united without confusion. The Son is not an ambassador—He is God Himself.”
Balthasar:
“The Trinity is beauty. The drama of love, eternally exchanged.”
Barth, once more:
“Revelation is Trinity. The Revealer, the Revealed, and the Revealedness.”
Schleiermacher, hesitant:
“Then let our experience echo this mystery—not replace it.”
Bonhoeffer:
“We do not use God—we follow Him. And He is a Person. Not a force.”
Chapter 3: God and Suffering
Now the light dimmed, not from absence—but from descent.
Images of Auschwitz.
Of famine.
Of lonely graves.
Moltmann stepped into the darkness:
“God is not absent from suffering. The Crucified One suffers with us.”
Gutiérrez:
“The God of the poor is not a rescuer from a distance—He is the one who enters their story.”
Bonhoeffer:
“Only the suffering God can help.”
Aquinas, surprisingly gentle:
“God does not change. But in Christ, He bears what He does not need to bear—for love.”
Edwards, solemn:
“The display of His justice and mercy in history is not cruelty—but glory.”
Pascal:
“He remains hidden—so that those who seek may find. And those who refuse may flee.”
Chapter 4: Beyond All Names
Now words dissolved.
Doctrines were true.
But they were not enough.
Maximus fell silent.
Augustine smiled and wept.
Aquinas stopped writing.
Barth closed Church Dogmatics.
Balthasar folded his aesthetics.
And one by one, each theologian knelt—not before a concept, not before a throne—
But before the Living God.
Christ appeared—no longer veiled by flesh or history—but fully God from God, Light from Light.
And He spoke the words they had waited their whole lives to hear:
“Now you see Me.”
Finale: The Eternal Council
All theologians stood.
Not as authorities.
Not as experts.
But as children.
They did not argue.
They sang.
And their theology, for the first time, became worship.
The forum became a temple.
The temple became a city.
And the city had no need of sun—for the Lamb was its light.