Nurturing and Sustaining Children’s Faith in God: Part 1 – Can We Cultivate Religiosity in Children?

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The Law of God that’s taught in schools isn’t intended to give children knowledge of God (it presupposes that this knowledge already exists)—it only gives children knowledge about God.

But since knowledge about God, like any other knowledge, is absorbed only by the mind and memory, studying the Law of God in school usually becomes an abstract, external assimilation of religious truths, without penetrating into the depths of the soul. Knowing God is distinct from knowing about God. Knowledge of God is the direct perception of Him by an inner sense, while knowledge about God is a property of the mind and memory.

The Gospel speaks about knowing God: And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent (Jn. 17:3). The Prophet Isaiah speaks about the same: The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know Me, My people hath not regarded Me (Is. 1:3).

The very word “religion” doesn’t mean a simple conception of God, but a living connection between living beings—man and God.

When I was in ecclesiastical school, from my nine-year course in the Law of God, only the preparatory course left an impression on me, remaining in my memory and heart to this day, perhaps because the instructor managed to give his teaching a particular vividness and heartfelt simplicity.

Meanwhile, regardless of the Law of God lessons, I had a religious life then, in early childhood. I truly felt the presence of God, and this feeling was reflected in my love for going to church, in my love for Church hymns, for feast-day religious traditions, for reading religious books, especially the lives of the saints, in my love for Edinovertsi’s Treasure: The Rule of Home PrayerUntil the revolution in Russia, there was a universal tradition of reading the “lay order” of the services. In the absence of the priest in church, or at home, the entire family would read part or all of the daily cycle of Church services. We will talk today about what happened to this good tradition, how to revive it, and what benefit it brings for the whole body of the Church.

“>home prayer, for reading akathists, for religious processions, and so on. Being a child, I wasn’t bored in church, and when I learned to read, I spent what little pocket change I had not on candy, but on the lives of the saints. And I didn’t have this religious life because I somehow, by my external senses, recognized God as an external object for me. Such knowledge of God is impossible, so when non-believers say they don’t believe in God because they never saw Him, and no one else has seen Him or can see Him, they make a gross error, applying the way we know the visible objects around us to the knowledge of God.

On the other hand, no one ever in my early childhood tried to prove the existence of God to me by various arguments—there was no need for this. And if someone had done this, he would’ve only given me an external knowledge of what God can or should be, but not the perception of God Himself as a living being. Like any other child, I came to know God in early childhood not by external experience or reasoned arguments, but directly, by an inner perception, because I was created in the image and likeness of God. Being like God, man, thanks to this godlikeness, perceives Him internally and directly and comes to know Him.

This internal perception of God is characteristic of all men. If we stop sensing God in ourselves, it’s not because we’re incapable of it, but because the feeling of God is stifled in us either by the delusions of our proud mind or the sinfulness of our corrupt heart.

Coming to the knowledge of God doesn’t mean coming to God outside yourself, as some external object, or being convinced of His existence by some logical proofs—it means enabling our inner self, in some mysterious way, to see God with our inner eye.

From this it’s clear that no amount of theological knowledge can achieve knowledge of God. The Jewish scribes, who were strong in theological scholarship, were unable to see in Jesus Christ His Divine power, which simple fishermen, publicans, and harlots saw in Him.

And in our time, theological, seminary, and academic education doesn’t provide for religiosity. If knowledge of God is achieved through the inner vision of the heart, then the main work, the main task of religious influence and education is to be able to preserve or awaken this inner vision of the heart in those being guided, or in other words, to produce such a change in their heart that their spiritual eyes are opened to seeing God.

Of course, I don’t want at all to deny the significance and importance of theological education and studying the Law of God; I only want to note that knowing God must be clearly distinguished from knowing about God, and when communicating the latter to children, don’t think that this is the totality of the task of religious leadership.

Knowledge about God is undoubtedly necessary, because it gives concrete content to our knowledge of God: It clarifies for us our conception of God, the relationship of God to the world and the world to God. A child’s soul, especially one reborn in the Sacrament of Baptism, has a natural ability to know God. This is probably what the Lord Jesus Christ means when He says: Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt. 18:3); I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes (Mt. 11:25); Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt. 18:4); the pure heart … shall see God (Mt. 5:8).

Some people preserve this property of the inner, direct vision of God their entire life. These are, first of all, the saints: St. Sergius of RadonezhUndoubtedly, the most outstanding establisher of the truly selfless “life equal to the angels” in fourteenth century Russia is St. Sergius of Radonezh, the founder of the famous Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery, which embodies in its historical legacy his blessed precepts, and gradually became a kind of spiritual heart for all of Orthodox Russia.

“>St. Sergius of Radonezh, St. Seraphim of Sarov“>St. Seraphim of Sarov, and others.

They didn’t come to knowledge of God through external experience or reasoning and logical conclusions. They knew God just as directly as we perceive the light and warmth of the sun. No one proves the existence of the sun. The Bible doesn’t prove the existence of God; the saints don’t seek proof of the existence of God. To make the recognition of God’s existence dependent upon the considerations of our reason, constantly fluctuating and changing based on the sharpness of our mind and our store of knowledge, would be to base the undoubted on the doubtful, or to examine the sun with the help of a dim candle.

And not only the saints, but also ordinary people sometimes preserve the gift of direct, living, and undoubted perception of the existence of God throughout their entire lives, and this is especially characteristic of simple and humble people, free from temptations of a proud mind or impure heart.

To be continued…