Understanding the sense of icon and its theology implies a philosophical approach of knowledge. The image, almost the most important concept in Orthodoxy, is a relation based on a sort of dialectic: the image is and is not the model. This way of thinking uses a logic of inclusion; it escapes the classical logic of exclusion of opposites in western philosophy. We have to think with «and» instead of «or».
The Byzantine way of thinking has stood in the very middle of the opposition between the nominalism and realism of western thought since Middle Ages, especially with the theology of divine energies of Palamas.
Two senses of beauty appear: the ancient sense of beauty as revelation or sign of divinity; and the modern sense, revealed after the Renaissance, as the real and unique goal of artistic production, independently of the model or the spectator. In the Byzantine tradition, the beauty of the artistic tradition used in the liturgy is a sort of icon of the Holy Spirit that supports the Word, which inspires Him. This art is dedicated to a sacred function, as sacrament.
Icon belongs to the sacramental life of Church. In addition, it represents a middle-term between God and man. The beauty of art is a way of feeling the mysterious presence of God. So, the icon may be, indeed, in that double reality of image, a relative epiphany of the beauty of God – not as a historical theophany as related in the Bible, but as an indirect image of the mystery of God
