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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
"Dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto." Is He then Himself one Light, and is there another in which He dwells? is He then circumscribed by place? Think not of it. By this expression is represented the Incomprehensibleness of the Divine Nature. Thus he speaks of God, in the best way he is able. Observe, how when the tongue would utter something great, it fails in power. "Whom no man hath seen nor can see." As, indeed, no one hath seen the Son, nor can see Him. "To whom be honor and power everlasting. …
Gregory of Nazianzus
God is Light: the highest, the unapproachable, the ineffable, That can neither be conceived in the mind nor uttered with the lips, That giveth life to every reasoning creature. He is in the world of thought, what the sun is in the world of sense; presenting Himself to our minds in proportion as we are cleansed; and loved in proportion as He is presented to our mind; and again, conceived in proportion as we love Him; Himself contemplating and comprehending Himself, and pouring Himself out upon what is external to Him. …
Gregory of Nyssa
But we, even when we are told that God "only hath immortality," understand by "immortality" the Son. For life is immortality, and the Lord is that life, Who said, "I am the Life." And if He be said to dwell "in the light that no man can approach unto," again we make no difficulty in understanding that the true Light, unapproachable by falsehood, is the Only-begotten, in Whom we learn from the Truth itself that the Father is. …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, is in his own proper nature invisible. But he has appeared when he wished and to whom he wished; not as he is but in whatever way he wished, being served after all by all creation. If your mind, though it is invisible in your body, can appear by uttering your voice, and the voice in which your mind appears when you speak is not the substance of your mind, it means that mind is one thing and voice another, and yet mind becomes apparent in a thing which in itself is not. …
Ambrose of Milan
For it would be in vain, if it were not seen. Indeed, God Himself was in the light, because He dwells in inaccessible light, and He was the true light, which enlightens every person coming into this world: but He wished that light to be made, which could be perceived by bodily eyes. Whoever desires to construct a building worthy of a father's dwelling, before laying the foundations, explores from where to pour in light, and this is the first grace, which, if lacking, the whole house horrifies with its ugly neglect. …
Thomas Aquinas
In regard to the third he says, who alone has immortality and inhabits light inaccessible. God's incomprehensibility is clear from two things: first, because he transcends whatever is comprehensible in creatures; second, because, being God, he is too great for anyone's comprehension. He shows the first when he says, alone: for in every change something is lost, because whatever is changed ceases to be what it was. Therefore, that is properly and truly incorruptible which is altogether unchangeable. …
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