St. Nicholas of Serbia, in his various works, recalls the most important type of signals - those that God sends to man. Doctor of Economics, scientist, writer-publicist Valentin Katasonov writes about this in his article.
The word “signal” occupies an important place in the life of a modern person. It is used in technology (electronics, communications, computers, etc.), physics, astronomy, biology, and other sciences. One of the fundamental concepts of cybernetics. The scatter in the definitions of the word “signal” is quite large. However, most definitions directly or indirectly associate "signal" with a control function.
Today, the topic of “digital society” is becoming very popular. But the essence of this model of society is that it is controlled on the basis of a digital signal, called digit in English. Most of the signals that modern scientists, technicians, philosophers interpret are those that come from some people and go to others.
Signals can spread both horizontally and vertically in societies. In some cases, signals received “at the other end” require decryption by the recipient, in other cases they do not. To a large extent, this depends on the abilities and qualifications of the recipient. For example, earlier for the transmission of information in radio communication, Morse code was widely used (there all two “letters” are a dot and a dash). A beginner radiotelegraph operator could spend a lot of time decoding the longest set of dots and dashes from tape. And experienced aces immediately understood everything by ear.
But most textbooks and dictionaries explaining what a "signal" is, completely forget about the most important type of signals - those that God sends to man. And St. Nicholas of Serbia reminds us of this in his various works.
One of them is called “Symbols and Signals”.
Signals emanating from God are called "signs" in the Holy Scriptures and in Christian literature. Therefore, by the way, one of the variants of the title in Russian for the work of the saint: "Symbols and Signs."
In books on theology, a sign is usually defined as a sign, an omen of something. The phrase "heavenly sign" has already been established. One of the most revered icons of the Mother of God is the Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign.
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The saint draws attention to the fact that already on the first page of Holy Scripture we are told that God created lights in the firmament of heaven to separate day from night and for signs (Gen. 1:14). The saint, carefully reading the Holy Scriptures, explains to us that all nature, including the animal world and the bodily man himself, performs the most important function of serving as signs for people.
What are signs for? Ultimately, to save lost people. Saint Nicholas of Serbia writes: “The Creator is doing everything possible to save people: to enlighten the unreasonable, to enlighten those darkened by reason, to lead the lost on the right path, to awaken the sleeping. He transmits His holy will and His disposition to people through the stars, and through things, and through animals, and through occasions, and through dreams. It happens that the Lord warns people with disasters. In addition, He sends signals to people through other people, as well as to one nations through other nations. A spiritual person feels the presence of God every day, every moment convinced of this. And Holy Scripture, as the Book of God's will in the destinies of people and nations, daily confirms the truth of these testimonies."
The first part of the book "Symbols and Signals" is devoted to symbols, and the second to signals, or signs. From the very titles of the chapters of the second part, it is clear what signs are in question: chapter 10 "Dreams as Signals"; chapter 11 "Cases and events as signals"; chapter 12 “Thoughts and forebodings as signals”; chapter 13 "Ordinary events and natural phenomena as signals"; chapter 15 "Usual and abnormal natural phenomena as signals"; chapter 16 "Human destinies as signals"; chapter 17 “War, famine and epidemics as signals”; chapter 18 "Signs of the end of the world."
In the book "Symbols and Signals" the saint cites all examples of signals (signs) from the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. At the same time, there are a number of other works in which the saint speaks of the signs of our history of the last two thousand years. Including history of modern times.
Consider, for example, The Bible and War (1927), in which he retrospectively provides a picture of the signs that signaled the approach of the First World War. He also describes signs that signal that another big war is not far off. In addition, he examines a large number of wars (from Old Testament times to World War I), which are themselves signals to remind people that they have violated God's commandments.
In chapter 19, "The Difference Between a Symbol and a Signal," the saint draws a line between the two designated concepts as follows:
A symbol is something lasting, and a signal is something instantaneous.
For example, bodily death is generally a symbol of mental death. In contrast, the death of King David's son because of his father's sin is a signal to the father, signaling sin and calling for repentance.
The sun is a symbol of the great God in nature, and the eclipse of the sun is a warning signal from God to people.
The stone is a symbol of Christ and faith in Christ as the foundation on which spiritual life is built. At the moment when Christ accepted death on the Cross, a stone broke - and this is a signal, a warning. And so on.
“For those who have comprehended spiritual science and for whom the Holy Scripture is an open book, it will not be difficult for him to distinguish a symbol from a signal,” the saint concludes this chapter.
In chapter 14 "The Knowledge of the Truth," the saint notes with sorrow that in modern times people gradually ceased to understand the signals of God and even to notice them. Frivolous materialist scientists began to study some laws of nature, and they began to write off the most serious natural disasters as "fatal coincidence" or "accident".
The saint writes about such unfortunate scientists: “For the materialist philosopher, there are no signals from above at all, he denies all kinds of signs that appear in natural phenomena, and in dreams, and in thoughts, and in events. Everything that exists and that happens, from his point of view, exists and happens without meaning and purpose. One wheel pushes the second wheel, the second pushes the third, and so on. And if these wheels run over someone, then neither he nor the wheels are to blame for this, but this is just a fatal coincidence. Dreams, thoughts, words, events - all this is “grain” for the materialist, which the material mill grinds and discards, grinds and discards, until it itself is swept away and thrown away by some more powerful and more voracious mill."
By the way, the saint also writes about such a frivolous attitude of scientists to the knowledge of nature in his famous work "Science of the Law". For example, such a natural phenomenon as the Flood. The saint notes that even scientists cannot deny the fact of this event. And what? Were they able to explain the Flood? No, they didn't even try to make any serious attempts:
“Why weren't scientists able to find the causes of the Flood? Because they were looking for these reasons in the laws of nature, and not in the law of morality. Because the Flood is a unique, unrepeatable miracle in the history of the earth and mankind, similar to the unique, inimitable and only miracle of the creation of the world. And scientists do not like non-repeating natural phenomena at all, because they can not squeeze them into the framework of their physical, natural laws."
So, give scientists only such phenomena and events in the natural world, which have a stable recurrence, which can be experimentally tested and from which some kind of "law" can be derived. But the signals sent by God to people are very different and not even repeated. And illiterate idolaters in "doctor's gowns" look at these signals, and they show them "Chinese letters."
Some of God's signals are generally unique. For example, as we know, God, through such a sign as a rainbow, promised Noah and his descendants that he would no longer punish humanity with a global flood (Gen. 9: 12-17). But he did not promise that the punishment would stop. The saint writes in this connection:
“Although there was no more Flood, do not there be terrible floods? Isn't the terrible floods that are happening before our eyes today a clear sign of God's wrath over human misdeeds? Who can read with the spirit, let him read."
Of all the variety of examples of signals (signs) given in the book of the saint, I would especially like to dwell on the numerous miracles of the Savior during His earthly ministry. Saint Nicholas of Serbia writes:
“All the miracles of Christ were signs that He came, the predicted and long-awaited Savior so many times, and the Kingdom of God came with Him and through Him. When John the Baptist, who was in the prison of King Herod, sent two disciples to Jesus to ask Him: “Are you the one who should come, or are we expecting another?”, Christ referred to His miracles as reliable signs of His Messianic personality. “And Jesus answered them: go tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor preach the gospel” (Matthew 11: 4-5)”.
In addition to healings and resurrections, Jesus Christ performed other miracles, which, if we use the conceptual apparatus of modern science, can be attributed to the management of nature, and with the “violation” of the “laws” discovered by scientists. This is, in particular, the first miracle of Christ's transformation of water into wine at marriage in Cana of Galilee (John 2: 1-12); a huge catch of fish by the disciples at the beginning of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ (Luke 5: 1-11); taming the storm at sea (Matt. 8: 23-27; Mark 4: 35-41; Luke 8: 22-25); feeding five thousand people with five loaves (Matt. 14: 14-21; Mk. 6: 32-44; Luke 9: 10-17; John 6: 1-15); feeding four thousand people with seven loaves (Matt. 15: 32-38; Mark. 8: 1-9); the walking of Jesus Christ on waters (Matt. 14: 22-36; Mark 6: 45-56; John 6: 16-21); a miracle with a statir (Matt. 17: 24-27); miraculous catch of 153 fish at the third appearance to the disciples after the resurrection (John 11: 1-57; John 12: 9-11).
Our Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov has an interesting work "On Miracles and Signs", which well complements the reflections of Saint Nicholas of Serbia on the topic of signs:
“The miracles of Christ were tangible; they were clear to the simplest people; there was nothing mysterious about them; everyone could see them comfortably; there was no room for doubt and bewilderment whether it was a miracle, or just a performance of a miracle. The miracles of the God-man had many witnesses, most of whom were or were hostile to Him … The most bitter enemies of the Lord did not reject them, they only tried to humiliate them by blasphemous interpretation and by all means that were instilled in them by cunning and malice. There was no vanity in the Lord's miracles, no effect; not a single miracle is done for display to people; all miracles were covered with a veil of Divine humility. They constitute a chain of benefits for suffering humanity."
By the way, St. Nicholas of Serbia has a book called "Miracles of God", containing several dozen stories about miracles, which are taken by the author from patristic texts, as well as cases witnessed by the saint's contemporaries.
Tearing yourself away from reading the work of St. Nicholas of Serbia "Symbols and Signals", you involuntarily take in the world around you and begin to perceive it in a different way. So, today everyone around is just talking about the global environmental crisis and global climate change on the planet. Scientists mutter something to us about “carbon dioxide emissions” and the greenhouse effect.”Behind these pseudoscientific (and, by the way, deceitful, even in the first approximation) words, science is trying to hide that all these natural and climatic cataclysms are SOS signs, which the Lord but these signs are not about the "greenhouse effect", but about the fact that man has violated the highest moral law of God and has even ceased to recognize the existence of the law and the Legislator altogether.
The world is in a state of economic crisis. But this is not the result of the fact that effective demand lags behind the supply of goods or other economic and financial imbalances. Imbalances in the economy are only a consequence and manifestation of the violation of the same supreme law. Here, the modern atheist is not even a fan of nature, but of mammon. By the way, the saint reminds us that the word "crisis" in translation from Greek means "the judgment of God."
The same can be said about man-made disasters (Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc.), about terrorist acts, about endless wars, about epidemics, etc. All these are dire warnings to godless humanity.
And to those who remain in the bosom of the Church and continue to fight for their salvation and eternal life, the Lord sends comforting signs in the form of miracles: the myrrh-streaming of icons, the renewal of icons and murals of churches, the healing of the seriously ill and even the resurrection of the dead, etc.
For Christians, they are like a sip of spring water, but for the atheists, they are just events that do not fit into the "scientific picture of the world."
AUTHOR: Katasonov Valentin
