Gregory’s idea of God, with which we begin, represents in an original way the conflation of three quite distinct elements: the biblical, the philosophic and the doctrinal. He shares with the Bible certain primary ideas, some of which, although not all, find a parallel in the philosophical tradition in which he also stands. God for him is utterly real, ‘really real’, an idea which finds its most definite expression in the revelation made to Moses at the burning bush, “I am who I am’ [Exodus 3.14]. God is also morally perfect. ‘One alone is good, your father in heaven’ [Mark 10, 18].
However, the location of the Absolute in the realms ‘beyond being’ in Republic 509 and of the supreme position of ‘that which is’ in Timaeus 28, are not too far from the biblical expressions. Although it remains true that, for Plato, the Good is usually expressed in the neuter and therefore as apersonal, later Platonists, such as Alcinous, spoke of god as supreme and perfect. Again, Plato’s whole concern to elevate the good as the supreme value, and his insistence both in the Republic and the Laws on the moral superiority of the god/the absolute, brings him into line with the biblical revelation. In other words, as was stated above, Gregory shares the Platonic conviction of the unity of being and value…
… To this fairly traditional compromise Gregory adds three further elements which elevate his theology well beyond the Origenism it otherwise embodies: (1)For Gregory, God is creator of all. This serves to distinguish him form the perceptions of Platonism and the Bible alike. The former knew only of information or emanation; the latter of a form of information, with a possible doctrine of creation from nothing; (2) The defence of Nicene orthodoxy and the consequent controversy with Eunomius forced the Church to rethink its inherited understanding of the divine nature in two distinct, though connected, ways. In order to offset the extravagant claims of Eunomius to grasp the divine nature in its entirety by means of a definition, Gregory (and his brother Basil before him) argued that, as the divine nature was infinite, it could never be adequately controlled by the human mind. His argument was that God being the creator, he must be the inexhaustible source of all being and must therefore, be infinite in the strict sense; (3) A further reason for making this important and relatively novel and unconventional claim lay in Gregory’s argument that the divine goodness, unlike all created forms of goodness, had nothing to limit it and must, as a consequence, be infinite. For him, therefore, both the fact of God’s being the source of reality and the object of all our moral striving led to the important conclusion that God was infinite (cf. Contra Eunomium, 1.168; 274).
~ Anthony Meredith Gregory of Nyssa pg. 17-18
While I am nowhere near an expert on Nyssa, I do wonder if some of Meredith’s words don’t betray his own contemporary Roman Catholic bias. He seems to not think that Nyssa’s view of creation is strictly biblical, but what he appears to mean by this is that the Bible’s view of creation is limited, perhaps undeveloped. Thus he sees Gregory’s view as composed of subsequent theologizing and tradition. I’m not sure if I’d put it like this, even if I can grant a distinction akin to that between Biblical and Systematic theology.
I certainly do appreciate Nyssa’s stress on divine infinity, and I think it has played a role in Reformed thought, however varied. For instance, we could look on Calvin’s use of “acomodation” as a means of providing for divine infinity. Later of course, Van Til’s analogical knowledge becomes a key example, as he was firmly committed to the creator/creature distinction even in the areas of mind and knowing.
Reformed theology has not always made adequate room for divine infinity though, and thus a fresh look at Nyssa will do much good. A renewed emphasis on the role of image and the incarnation of Christ can also help secure some of our loose ends in epistemology and dogmatics.
