Knowing God

"There is a tendency to think that traditional churchly gnosiology [intuitive spiritual knowledge] is either detached intellectualism or irrational mysticism. What must be seen is that the mind is certainly central, but it is not detached from other qualities, particularly love. It is precisely when the mind and heart are united, and when man is fully integrated, with each element of his being purified and humanized, that he is capable of knowing God, by way of the divine manifestation in the divine energies. In a word, the mind is central but not in a purely intellectualistic way such as in the case of non-Christian gnosticism, or Origenism or Eunomianism, or in the type of gnosiology and theology which would say that any person with the correct data and the correctly functioning logical apparatus can know God or what there is to be known about him. The mind is central for gnosis, but true gnosis achieves itself particularly in relation to God when united with, and even in a sense being transformed into, love."

- Fr. Thomas Hopko in "All the Fullness of God"