Content:

The world is created. That means: the world came out of nothing. That means there was no world before it sprang up and came into being. It sprang up and came into being together with time. Because when there was no world, there was no time. Because “time is reckoned from the creation of the heavens and the earth,” as St. Maximus the Confessor said.¹ Only the world exists in time — in change, succession, duration. Without the world there is no time. And the genesis of the world is the beginning of time.² This beginning, as St. Basil the Great explains, is not yet time, nor even a fraction of time, just as the beginning of a road is not yet the road itself. It is simple and uncomposite.³ There was no time; and suddenly, all at once, it began. Creation springs, comes into being, passes from out of non-being into being. It begins to be. As St. Gregory of Nyssa says, “The very subsistence of creation owed its beginning to change,”⁴ “the very transition from non-entity to existence is a change, non-existence being changed by the Divine power into being.”⁵ This primordial genesis and beginning of change and duration, this “transition” from void to existence, is inaccessible to human thought. But it becomes comprehensible and imaginable from its opposite. We always calculate time in an inverse order, back from the present, retreating into the depths of time, going backwards in the temporal sequence; and only secondarily do we think in terms of consecutive reckoning. And going backwards into the past, we stop at some determinate link, one which is calculated and calculable from within the series, with a clear consciousness that we have to stop. The very notion of the beginning of time is this necessity of stopping, is the very impossibility of an infinite regression into the past. It makes no difference whether we can or cannot compute this limit of retreat in terms of centuries or of days. The prohibition itself remains in full force. A first unit is absolutely postulated in the temporal series, before which there are no other links, no other moments of time, because there was no change, and no sequence whatever. It is not time that precedes time, but “the height of ever-present eternity” transcending duration — celsitudo semper praesentis aeternitatis, as St. Augustine used to say. Time began. But there will be a time “when time shall be no more” — "oti hronos uketi estin” (“οτι χρονος ουκετι εσται” Rev. 10:6). Change will cease. And according to St. John Damascene, “Time, after the resurrection, will no longer be numbered by days and nights; rather, there will be one day without evening.”⁶ The temporal sequence will be broken; there will be a last unit in it. But this end and cessation of change does not indicate the abolition of what began with time, of what was and existed in time; it does not suggest a return or relapse into nothingness. There will be no time, but creation will be preserved. The created world can exist even not in time. Creation began, but it will not cease.⁷ Time is a kind of line segment, with a beginning and an end. And therefore it is incommensurate with eternity, because time has a beginning. And in eternity there is no change, neither a beginning. The whole of temporality does not coincide with eternity. “The fullness of the times” (omne tempus) does not necessarily mean “always” (semper), as Augustine has pointed out.⁸ Infinity or endlessness does not necessarily imply beginninglessness. And creation may be compared to a mathematical “bundle of rays,” halves of straight lines extending from their point of origin to infinity. Once brought out of nothingness and non-being, the world has in the creative fiat an immutable and final foundation and support for its existence. “The creative word is like an adamantine bridge upon which creatures are placed, and they stand under the abyss of the Divine Infinitude, over the abyss of their own nothingness,” said Metropolitan Philaret. “Because the word of God must not be imagined as like the spoken word of man, which, when it has been pronounced, straightway desists and vanishes in air. In God there is nothing of cessation, nothing of vanishing: His word proceeds but does not recede: "The word of the Lord endureth for ever (1 Peter 1:25).”⁹ God “Created all things, that they might have their being’" (Wis. Solomon 1:14). And not for the time being, but for ever did He create: He brought creation into being by His creative word. "For He hath established the world, so that it shall not be moved” (Ps. 93:1).

The world exists. But it began to exist. And that means; the world could have not existed. There is no necessity whatsoever for the existence of the world. Creaturely existence is not self-sufficient and is not independent. In the created world itself there is no foundation, no basis for genesis and being. Creation by its very existence witnesses to and proclaims its creaturehood, it proclaims that it has been produced. Speaking in the words of Augustine, “[It] cries out that it has been created — it cries out that it did not create itself: [I] exist because I am created; and I was not before I came to be, and I could not issue from myself...” — clamant quod facta sunt. Clamant etiam quod seipsa non fecerint: ideo sumus, quia facta sumus; non eramus ante quam essemus, ut fieri possemus a nobis...¹⁰

By its very existence creation points beyond its own limits. The cause and foundation of the world is outside the world. The world's being is possible only through the supra-mundane will of the merciful and Almighty God, "Who calls the things that be not, to be” (Rom. 4:17). But, unexpectedly it is precisely in its creaturehood and createdness that the stability and substantiality of the world is rooted. Because the origin from out of nothing determines the otherness, the “non-consubstantiality” of the world and of God. It is insufficient and inexact to say that things are created and placed outside of God. The “outside" itself is posited only in creation, and creation “from out of nothing” [ex nihilo] is precisely such a positing of the “outside,” the positing of an “other” side by side with God. Certainly not in the sense of any kind of limitation to the Divine fullness, but in the sense that side by side with God there springs up an other, a heterogeneous substance or nature, one different from Him, and in a certain sense an independent and autonomous subject. That which did not exist springs now up and comes forth. In creation something absolutely new, an extra-divine reality is posited and built up. It is precisely in this that the supremely great and incomprehensible miracle of creation consists — that an “other” springs up, that heterogeneous drops of creation exist side by side with “the illimitable and infinite Ocean of being,” as St. Gregory of Nazianzus says of God.¹¹ There is an infinite distance between God and creation, and this is a distance of natures. All is distant from God, and is remote from Him not by place but by nature — u topo alla physi (ου τοπω αλλα φυσει)— as St. John Damascene explains.¹² And this distance is never removed, but is only, as it were, overlapped by immeasurable Divine love. As St. Augustine said, in creation “there is nothing related to the Trinity, except the fact that the Trinity has created it” — nihilique in ea esse quod ad Trinitatem pertineat, nisi quod Trinitas condidit...¹³ Even on the most exalted heights of prayerful ascent and intimacy there is always an impassable limit, there can always be perceived and revealed the living duality of God and creation. “He is God, and she is non-God,” said Macarius “the Great” of the soul. “He is the Lord, and she the handmaid; He the Creator, and she the creation; He the Architect, and she the fabric; and there is nothing in common between Him and her nature.”¹⁴ Any transubstantiation of creaturely nature into the Divine is as impossible as the changing of God into creation, and any “coalescence” and “fusion” of natures is excluded. In the one and only hypostasis and person of Christ — the God-Man — in spite of the completeness of the mutual interpenetration of the two natures, the two natures remain with their unchanged, immutable difference; “without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union, but rather the specific property of each nature being preserved” (“Ουδαμου της των φυσεων διαφορας ανηρημενες δια τυν ενωσιν σωζομενης δε μαλλον της ιδιοτητος εκατερας φυσεως” the Oros [ορος] of Chalcedon). The vague “out of two natures” the Fathers of Chalcedon replaced by the strong and clear “in two natures,” and by the confession of the double and bilateral consubstantiality of the God-Man they established an unshakeable and indisputable criterion and rule of faith. The real existence of a created human nature, that is, of an other and second nature outside of God and side by side with Him, is an indispensable prerequisite for the accomplishment of the Incarnation without any change in or transmutation of the Divine nature.

What is created is outside of God, but is united with Him. The Fathers of the fourth century, moved by the Arian controversy to define the concept of creation in a clear and precise manner, stressed above all else the heterogeneity of the created and Creator in counter distinction to the “consubstantiality” of generation; and they corrected this heterogeneity with the dependence of creation upon the will and volition. Everything created, wrote St. Athanasius the Great, “is not in the least like its Creator in substance, but is outside of Him,” and therefore also could have not existed.¹⁵ Creation “comes into being, made up from outside.”¹⁶ And there is no similarity between that which bursts forth from nothing and the Creator Who verily is, Who brings creatures out of nothing.¹⁷ Will and volition precede creating. Creating is an act of will [ek vulimatos, εκ βουληματος], and therefore is sharply distinguished from the Divine generation, which is an act of nature [genna kata physin, γεννα κατα φυσιν].¹⁸ A similar interpretation was given by St. Cyril of Alexandria. The generation is out of the substance, kata physin (κατα φυσιν). Creating is an act, and is not done out of the creator's own substance; and therefore a creation is heterogeneous to its creator.¹⁹ Summarizing the patristic interpretation, St. John of Damascus gives a following definition: “Begetting means producing from the substance of the begetter an offspring similar in substance to the begetter. Creation, or making, on the other hand, is the bringing into being, from outside and not from the substance of the creator, an actor of something, entirely unlike [by nature].” Generation is accomplished “by a natural power of begetting,” (“της γονιμοτητος φυσικης”) and creating is an act of volition and will —theliseos ergon (θελησεως εργον).²⁰ Creaturehood determines the complete dissimilarity of the creation and God, its otherness, and hence its independence and substantiality. The whole section of St. John is actually an elaborate rejoinder to arguments of Origin.

Creation is not a phenomenon but a “substance.” The reality and substantiality of created nature is manifested first of all in creaturely freedom. Freedom is not exhausted by the possibility of choice, but presupposes it and starts with it. And creaturely freedom is disclosed first of all in the equal possibility of two ways: to God and away from God. This duality of ways is not a mere formal or logical possibility, but a real possibility, dependent on the effectual presence of powers and capacities not only for a choice between, but also for the following of, the two ways. Freedom consists not only in the possibility, but also in the necessity of autonomous choice, the resolution and resoluteness of choice. Without this autonomy, nothing happens in creation. As St. Gregory the Theologian says, “God legislates human self-determination.”²¹ “He honored man with freedom that good might belong no less to him who chose it than to Him Who planted its seed.”²² Creation must ascend to and unite with God by its own efforts and achievements. And if the way of union requires and presupposes a responsive prevenient movement of Divine Mercy, “the ancient law of human freedom,” as St. Irenaeus once put it, is not undermined by this. The way of disunion is not closed to creatures, the way of destruction and death. There is no irresistible grace, creatures can and may lose themselves, are capable, as it were, of “metaphysical suicide.” In her primordial and ultimate vocation, creation is destined for union with God, for communion and participation in His life. But this is not a binding necessity of creaturely nature. Of course, outside of God there is no life for creation. But as Augustine happily phrased it, being and life do not coincide in creation.²³ And therefore existence in death is possible. Of course, creation can realize and establish herself fully only by overcoming her self-isolation, only in God. But even without realizing her true vocation, and even opposing it, thus undoing and losing herself, creation does not cease to exist. The possibility of metaphysical suicide is open to her. But the power of self-annihilation is not given. Creation is indestructible — and not only that creation which is rooted in God as in the source of true being and eternal life, but also that creation which has set herself against God. “For the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor. 7:31), and shall pass. But the world itself shall not pass. Because it was created “that it might have being.” Its qualities and properties are changeable and mutable, and do change; but its “elements” are immutable. And immutable above all is the microcosm man, and immutable are men's hypostases, sealed as they are and brought out of nothing by the creative will of God. Indeed, the way of rebellion and apostasy is the way of destruction and perdition. But it leads not towards non-being, but to death; and death is not the end of existence, but a separation — the separation of soul and body, the separation of creation from God. In fact, evil “is not an entity.”²⁴ Evil has no “substance” — it is anusion (ανουσιον) according to St. John Damascene.²⁵ Evil has a negative and privative character, it is the absence and privation of true being. And at the same time, as St. Gregory of Nyssa says, “in its very non-being it has its being.” (εν τω μη ειναι εχει)²⁶ The root and character of evil is delusion and error. Evil, in the incisive phrase of one German theologian, is “a mythopoeic lie” ["eine dichtende Lüge" — F. Staudenmeier]. It is a kind of fiction, but a fiction loaded with enigmatic energy and power. Evil is active in the world, and in this actuality is real. Evil introduces new qualities into the world, as it were, adding something to the reality created by God, a something not willed and not created by God, although tolerated by Him. And this innovation, in a certain sense “non-being,” is in an enigmatic fashion real and powerful, "For God made not death” (Wis. Sol. 1:13), and nevertheless the whole creation is become subject to futility, and to the bondage of corruption (Rom. 8:20-21). By sin death spread to all men (Rom. 5:12), and sin, being itself a fictitious innovation in the world, the spawn of the created will and of human devices, creates death and as it were sets up a new law of existence for creation, a kind of anti-law. And in a certain sense, evil is ineradicable. Yet, because the final perdition in eternal torment provoked by evil in “the resurrection unto judgment” does not mean total annihilation nor the total suppression of evil beings, it is impossible to ascribe to evil such anti-creative power which would overcome the creative power of God. By its devastation of being, evil does not wipe out being. And, such a devastated, distorted, deceitful, and false reality is mysteriously received into eternity, even though in the torments of unquenchable fire. The eternity of torments that will come upon the sons of perdition points out with a special urgency and sharpness the reality of creation as a second and extra-divine reality. It is provoked by a persistent though free rebellion, by a self-assertion in evil. Thus, as in becoming, so in dissolution — as in holiness, so in perdition — as in obedience, so in disobedience — creation manifests and witnesses to her own reality as the free object of the divine decrees.

The idea of creation is alien to the “natural” consciousness. Classical, Hellenistic thought did not know it. Modern philosophy has forgotten it. Given in the Bible, it is disclosed and manifested in the living experience of the Church. In the idea of creation are juxtaposed the motif of the immutable, intransitory reality of the world as a free and active subject (more precisely, as a totality of interacting subjects) and the motif of its total non-self-sufficiency, of its ultimate dependence upon Another higher principle. And therefore any supposition of the world's beginninglessness, the necessity of its existence, and any admission of its elimination are excluded. Creation is neither self-existent being, nor transitory becoming; neither eternal "substance,” nor illusory "appearance.” In creaturehood a great wonder is revealed. The world also might not have existed at all. And that which might not have existed, for which there are no inevitable causes or bases, does exist. This is a riddle, a “foolishness” for “natural” thought. And hence comes the temptation to attenuate and blunt the idea of creation, to replace it by other notions. Only by the contrary approach can the mystery of creation be clarified, by the exclusion and suspension of all evasive speculation and conjecture.

God creates in perfect freedom. This proposition is framed with remarkable precision by the “Subtle Doctor” of the Western middle ages, Duns Scotus: Procedit autem rerum creatio a Deo, non aliqua necessitate, vel essentiae, vel scientiae, vel voluntatis, sed ex mera libertate, quae non movetir et multo minus necessitatur ab aliquo extra se ad causandum. “The creation of things is executed by God not out of any necessity, whether of essence or of knowledge or of will, but out of a sheer freedom which is not moved — much less constrained — by anything external that it should have to be a cause.”²⁷ Even so, in defining God's freedom in creation it is not enough to do away with crude conceptions of compulsion, of external necessity. It is obvious that we cannot even speak of any kind of external compulsion, because the very “outside” itself is first posited only in creation. In creation God is determined only by Himself. But it is not so easy to demonstrate the absence of any internal “necessity” in this self-determination, in the revelation of God ad extra. Here, the thought is beset by alluring temptations. The question may be put in this manner: Is the attribute of Creator and Sustainer to be considered as belonging to the essential and formative properties of the Divine Being? The thought of the Divine immutability may prevent us from giving a negative answer. Precisely so did Origen reason in his time. “It is alike impious and absurd to say that God's nature is to be at ease and never to move, or to suppose that there was a time when Goodness did not do good and Omnipotence did not exercise its power.”²⁸ From the perfect extra-temporality and immutability of the Divine Being, Origen, in the words of Bolotov, draws the conclusion “that all His properties and predicates always belong to God in a strict sense — in actu, in statu quo."²⁹ Here, “always” for Origen has the meaning of “extra-temporal eternity,” and not only “the whole of temporality.” — “Just as nobody can be a father without having a son, nor a lord without holding a possession or a slave,” reasons Origen, “so too we cannot even call God Almighty — Pantocrator if there are no creatures over whom he can exercise His power. For if anyone would have it that certain ages, or periods of time, or of Divine Omnipotence — whatever he cares to call them — elapsed during which the present creation did not exist, he would undoubtedly prove that in those ages or periods God was not Almighty but that He became Pantocrator afterward, that He became Almighty from the time when he began to have creatures over whom he could exercise power. Thus God will apparently have experienced a kind of progress, for there can be no doubt that it is better for Him to be Almighty than not to be so. Now how is it anything but absurd that God should at first not possess something that is appropriate to Him and then should come to possess it? But if there was no time when God was not Almighty, there must always have existed the things in virtue of which He is Almighty; and there must always have existed things under his rule, over which He is their Ruler.”³⁰ In view of the perfect Divine immutability, “it is necessary that the creatures of God should have been created from the beginning, and that there should be no time when they were not.” Because it is inadmissible to think that, in time, God “would pass from inaction to action.” Hence it is necessary to recognize “that with God all things are without beginning and are co-eternal.”³¹

It is not simple or easy to escape from Origen's dialectical nets. In this very problematic there lies an incontestable difficulty. “When I think what God was Lord of from eternity, if creation be not from always,” exclaimed Augustine, “I fear to affirm anything.” Cum cogito cuius rei dominus semper fuit, si semper creatura non fuit, affirmare aliquid pertimesco...³² Origen complicated his question by his inability to extricate himself completely from time as change.

Together with the sempiternal and immobile eternity of the Divine Being, he imagined an endless flow of ages which had to be filled. Furthermore, any sequence in the Divine predicates appeared to him under the form of real temporal change; and therefore, having excluded change, he was inclined to deny any sequence at all to, or interdependence among, those predicates taken as a whole; he asserted more than the mere “co-eternity” of the world with God; he asserted the necessity of the Divine self-disclosure ad extra, the necessity of the revelation and out-pouring of Divine goodness upon the “other” from all eternity, the necessity of the eternal realization of the fulness and of all the potentialities of Divine power. In other words, in order to comply with the notion of the Divine immutability, Origen had to admit the necessity of a conjointly ever-existent and beginningless “not-I” as a corresponding prerequisite to and correlative of the Divine completeness and life. And here is the ultimate sting of the question. It was also possible that the world might not have existed at all — possible in the full sense of the word only granted that God can also not create. If, on the other hand. God creates out of necessity, for sake of the completeness of His Being, then the world must exist; then it is not possible that the world might not have existed. Even if one rejects the Origenistic notion of the infinitude of real past time and recognizes the beginning of time, the question remains: Does not at least the thought of the world belong to the absolute necessity of the Divine Being?

We may assume that the real world came into being together with time, and that “there was when it was not,” when there was no temporal change. But the image of the world, does not this remain eternal and everlasting in the Divine knowledge and will, participating immutably and ineluctably in the fulness of the Divine self-knowledge and self-determination? On this point St. Methodius of Olympus had already put his finger, against Origen, stressing that the Divine All-Perfectness cannot depend on anything except God Himself, except on His own nature.³³ Indeed, God creates solely out of His goodness, and in this Divine goodness lies the only basis of His revelation to the “other,” the only basis of the very being of that “other” as recipient and object of this goodness. But should we not think of this revelation as eternal? And if we should — since God lives in eternity and in unchangeable completeness — would not this mean that in the final analysis “the image of the world” was present, and conjointly present, with God unchangingly in eternity, and moreover in the unalterable completeness of all its particular predicates? Is there not a “necessity of knowledge or will?” Does not this mean that God in His eternal self-contemplation also necessarily contemplates even what He is not, that which is not He, but other? Is God not bound in His sempiternal self-awareness by the image of His “Non-I” at least as a kind of possibility? And in His self-awareness is He not forced to think of and to contemplate Himself as a creative principle and as the source of the world, and of the world as an object of and participant in His good pleasure? And on the other hand, over the whole world there lies imprinted the Divine seal, a seal of permanence, a reflection of the Divine glory. The Divine economy of the world, the unchanging and immutable Providence of God, conveys — to our vision — perfect stability and wise harmony — and also a kind of necessity. This vision hinders our understanding and apprehension of the claim that the world also might not have existed. It seems we cannot conceive the world as non-existing without introducing a kind of impious fortuitousness or arbitrariness in its existence and genesis, either of which is contradictory and derogatory to the Divine Wisdom. Is it not obvious that there must be some kind of sufficient cause for the world, cur sit potius quam non sit? And that this cause must consist of the unchangeable and sempiternal will and command of God? Does it not follow that once the world is impossible without God, God also is impossible without the world? Thus the difficulty is only shelved, but not solved, if we limit ourselves to the chronological beginnings of the actual existence of the world, since, in this case, the possibility of the world, the idea of the world. God's design and will concerning it, still remains eternal and as though con-jointly everlasting with God.

And it must be said at once that any such admission means introducing the world into the ultra-Trinitarian life of the Godhead as a co-determinant principle. And we must firmly and uncompromisingly reject any such notion. The idea of the world, God's design and will concerning the world, is obviously eternal, but in some sense not co-eternal, and not conjointly everlasting with Him, because “distinct and separated,” as it were, from His “essence” by His volition. One should say rather that the Divine idea of the world is eternal by another kind of eternity than the Divine essence. Although paradoxical, this distinction of types and kinds of eternity is necessary for the expression of the incontestable distinction between the essence (nature) of God and the will of God. This distinction would not introduce any kind of separation or split into the Divine Being, but by analogy expresses the distinction between will and nature, the fundamental distinction made so strikingly explicit by the Fathers of the fourth century. The idea of the world has its basis not in the essence, but in the will of God. God does not so much have as “think up” the idea of creation.³⁴ And He “thinks it up” in perfect freedom; and it is only by virtue of this wholly free “thinking up” and good pleasure of His that He as it were “becomes” Creator, even though from everlasting. But nevertheless He could also not have created. And any such “refraining” from creation would in no way alter or impoverish the Divine nature, would mean no diminution, Just as the very creation of the world does not enrich the Divine Being. Thus by way of opposites we can come close to an understanding of God's creative freedom. In a sense, it would be “indifferent” to God whether the world exists or not — herein consists the absolute “all-sufficiency” of God, the Divine autarchy. The absence of the world would mean a kind of subtraction of what is finite from the Infinite, which would not affect Divine fulness. And conversely, the creation of the world would mean the addition of what is finite to the Infinite, which in no way affects Divine plenitude. The might of God and the freedom of God must be defined not only as the power to create and to produce but also as the absolute freedom not to create.

All these words and presuppositions, obviously, are insufficient and inexact. They all have the character of negations and prohibitions, and not of direct and positive definitions; but they are necessary for the testimony to that experience of faith in which the mystery of Divine freedom is revealed. With a tolerable inexactitude, one could say that God is able to permit and tolerate the absence of anything outside of Himself. By such a presumption the whole immeasurability of the Divine love is not diminished, but on the contrary is thrown into relief. God creates out of the absolute superabundance of His mercies and goodness, and herein His good pleasure and freedom are manifest. And in this sense, one could say that the world is a kind of a surplus. And further, it is a surplus which in no way enriches the Divine fulness; it is, as it were, something “supererogatory” and superadded, something which also could not have existed, and which exists only through the sovereign and all-perfect freedom and unspeakable good pleasure and love of God. This means that the world is created and is “the work of” God's will, theliseos ergon (θελησεως εργον). No outward revelation whatever belongs to the “necessity” of the Divine nature, to the necessary structure of the intra-Divine life. And creative revelation is not something imposed upon God by His goodness. It is executed in perfect freedom, though in eternity also. Therefore it cannot be said that God began to create, or “became” Creator, even though “to be Creator” does not belong to those definitions of Divine nature which includes the Trinity of Hypostases. In the everlasting immutability of God's Being there is no origination whatsoever, nor any becoming, nor any sequence. And nevertheless there is a kind of all-perfect harmonic order which is partially knowable and expressible on the level of the Divine names. In this sense St. Athanasius the Great used to say that “to create, for God, is secondary; and to beget, primary,” that “what is of nature [essence]” is antecedent to “what is of volition.”³⁵ One has to admit distinctions within the very co-eternity and immutability of the Divine Being. In the wholly simple Divine life there is an absolute rational or logical order [taxis, ταξις] of Hypostases, which is irreversible and inexchangeable for the simple reason that there is a “first principle” or “source” of Godhead, and that there is the enumeration of First, Second, and Third Persons.³⁶ And likewise it is possible to say that the Trinitarian structure is antecedent to the will and thought of God, because the Divine will is the common and undivided will of the All-Holy Trinity, as it is also antecedent to all the Divine acts and “energies.” But even more than this, the Trinity is the internal, self-revelation of the Divine nature. The properties of God are also revelations of the same sort, but in their particular disclosure God is free. The unchanging will of God freely postulates creation, and even the very idea of creation. It would be a tempting mistake to regard the “thinking up” of the world by God as an “ideal creation,” because the idea of the world and the world of ideas are totally in God, εν τω Θεω, and in God there is not, and there cannot be, anything of the created. But this ambiguous notion of an “ideal creation” defines with great clarity the complete distinction between the necessity of the Trinitarian Being on the one hand and the freedom of God's design — His good pleasure concerning creation — on the other. There remains an absolute and irremoveable distinction, the denial of which leads to picturing the whole created economy as made up of essential acts and conditions which disclose the Divine nature as though of necessity, and this leads to raising the world, at least the “intelligible world” [kosmos noitos, κοσμος νοητος] to an improper height. One might, with permissible boldness, say that in the Divine idea of creation there is a kind of contingency, and that if it is eternal, it is not an eternity of essence, but a free eternity. We could clarify the freedom of God's design — His good pleasure — for ourselves by the hypothesis that this idea need not have been postulated at all. Certainly, it is a casus irrealis, but there is no inherent contradiction in it. Certainly, once God “thought up” or postulated such an idea, He had sufficient reason for doing so. However, one thinks that Augustine was right in prohibiting any search for “the cause of God's will.”³⁷ But it is bound by nothing and preordained by nothing. The Divine will is not constrained by anything to “think up” the world. From eternity, the Divine Mind, rhapsodized St. Gregory the Theologian, “contemplated the desirable light of His own beauty, the equal and equally-perfect splendor of the triple-rayed Divinity... The world-creating Mind in His vast thoughts also mused upon the patterns of the world which He made up, upon the cosmos which was produced only afterwards, but which for God even then was present. All, with God, lies before His eyes, both what shall be, and what was, and what is now... For God, all flows into one, and all is held by the arms of the great Divinity.”³⁸

"The desirable light” of the Divine beauty would not be enhanced by these “patterns of the world,” and the Mind “makes them up” only out of the superabundance of love. They do not belong to the splendor of the Trinity; they are postulated by His will and good pleasure. And these very “patterns of the world” are themselves a surplus and super-added gift or “bonus” of Him Who is All-Blessed Love. In this very good pleasure of His will to create the world the infinite freedom of God is manifest.

So St. Athanasius says, “The Father creates all, by the Word, in the Spirit,”³⁹ — Creation is a common and indivisible act of the All-Holy Trinity. And God creates by thought, and the thought becomes deed (κτζει δε ενοων και το εννοημα εργου υφισταται), says St. John Damascene.⁴⁰ "He contemplated everything from before its being, from eternity pondering it in His mind; hence each thing receives its being at a determinate time according to His timeless and decisive thought, which is predestination, and image, and pattern” (κατα την θελητικην αυτου αχρονον εννοιαν ητις εστι προορισμος και παραδειγμα).⁴¹ These patterns and prototypes of things that are to be constitute the "pre-temporal and unchangeable counsel” of God, in which everything is given its distinctive character [echarakterizo, εχαρακτειριζετο] before its being, everything which is preordained by God in advance and then brought to existence (η βουλη αυτου η προαιωνιος και αει ωσαυτως εχουσα).⁴² This “counsel” of God is eternal and unchanging, pre-temporal and without beginning — [anarhos, αναρχος] — since everything Divine is immutable. And this is the image of God, the second form of the image, the image turned towards the creation.⁴³ St. John Damascene is referring to Pseudo-Dionysius. These creative patterns, says the Areopagite, “are creative foundations pre-existent together in God, and together compose the powers that make being into entities, powers which theology calls ‘predestinations,’ Divine and ‘beneficient,’ decisions which are determinative and creative of all things extant, according to which He Who is above being has preordained and produced all that exists” (Παραδειματα δε φαμεν ειναι τους εν Θεω των οντων ουσιοποιους και ενιαιως προυφεστωτας λογους, ους η Θεολογια προορισμους καλει, και Θεια και αγαθα θεληματα, των οντων αφοριστικα και ποιητκα καθ ους ο Υπερουσιος τα οντα παντα και προωρισε και παρηγαγεν).⁴⁴ According to St. Maximus the Confessor these types and ideas are the Divine all-perfect and everlasting thoughts of the everlasting God (νοησεις αυτοτελεις αιδιοι του αιδιου Θεου).⁴⁵ This eternal counsel is God's design and decision concerning the world. It must be rigorously distinguished from the world itself. The Divine idea of creation is not creation itself; it is not the substance of creation; it is not the bearer of the cosmic-process; and the “transition” from “design” [ennoima, εννοημα] to “deed” [ergon, εργον] is not a process within the Divine idea, but the appearance, formation, and the realization of another substratum, of a multiplicity of created subjects. The Divine idea remains unchangeable and unchanged, it is not involved in the process of formation. It remains always outside the created world, transcending it. The world is created according to the idea, in accordance with the pattern — it is the realization of the pattern — but this pattern is not the subject of becoming. The pattern is a norm and a goal established in God. This distinction and distance is never abolished, and therefore the eternity of the pattern, which is fixed and is never involved in temporal change, is compatible with temporal beginning, with the entering-into-being of the bearers of the external decrees. “Things before their becoming are as though non-existent,” said Augustine, utiquae non erant. And he explains himself: they both were and were not before they originated; “they were in God's knowledge: but were not in their own nature” — erant in Dei scientia, non erant in sua natura.⁴⁶ According to St. Maximus, created beings "are images and similes of the Divine ideas,”⁴⁷ in which they are “participants.”⁴⁸ In creation, the Creator realizes, “makes substantial” and “discloses” His knowledge, pre-existent everlastingly in Himself.⁴⁹ In creation there is projected from out of nothing a new reality which becomes the bearer of the Divine idea, and must realize this idea in its own becoming. In this context the pantheistic tendency of Platonic ideology and of the Stoic theory of “seminal reasons” [spermatiki logi, σπερματικοι λογοι] is altogether overcome and avoided. For Platonism the identification of the “essence” of each thing with its Divine idea is characteristic, the endowment of substances with absolute and eternal (beginningless) properties and predicates, as well as the introduction of the “idea” into real things. On the contrary, the created nucleus of things must be rigorously distinguished from the Divine idea about things. Only in this way is even the most sequacious logical realism freed from a “pantheistic flavor; the reality of the whole will nevertheless be but a created reality. Together with this, pan-logism is also overcome: The thought of a thing and the Divine thought-design concerning a thing are not its “essence” or nucleus, even though the essence itself is characterized by logos λογος, [logikos, λογικος]. The Divine pattern in things is not their “substance” or “hypostasis;” it is not the vehicle of their qualities and conditions. Rather, it might be called the truth of a thing, its transcendental entelechy. But the truth of a thing and the substance of a thing are not identical.⁵⁰

The acceptance of the absolute creatureliness and non-self-sufficiency of the world leads to the distinguishing of two kinds of predicates and acts in God. Indeed, at this point we reach the limit of our understanding, all words become, as it were, mute and inexact, receiving an apophatic, prohibitive, not a cataphatic, indicative sense. Nevertheless, the example of the holy Fathers encourages a speculative confession of faith. As Metropolitan Philaret once said, “We must by no means consider wisdom, even that hidden in a mystery, as alien and beyond us, but with humility should edify our mind towards the contemplation of divine things.”⁵¹ Only, in our speculation we must not overstep the boundaries of positive revelation, and must limit ourselves to the interpretation of the experience of faith and of the rule of faith, presuming to do no more than discern and clarify those inherent presuppositions through which the confession of dogmas as intelligible truths becomes possible. And it must be said that the whole structure of the doctrine of faith encourages these distinctions. In essence, they are already given in the ancient and primary distinction between “theology” and “economy.” From the very beginning of Christian history, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church endeavored to distinguish clearly and sharply those definitions and names which referred to God on the “theological” plane and those used on the “economical.” Behind this stands the distinction between “nature” and “will.” And bound up with it is the distinction in God between “essence” [usia, ουσια] and “that which surrounds the essence,” “that which is related to the nature.” A distinction, but not a separation.

“What we say about God affirmatively shows us,” as St. John Damascene explains, "not His nature, hut only what is related to His nature” (ου τυν φυσιν, αλλα τα περι τυν φυσιν),⁵² “something which accompanies His nature” [u physin, alla ta para physin, τι των παρεπομενων την φυσει].⁵³ And “what He is by essence and nature, this is unattainable and unknowable.” ⁵⁴ St. John expresses here the basic and constant assumption of all Eastern theology: God's essence is unattainable; only the powers and operations of God are accessible to knowledge.⁵⁵ And as matters stand, there is some distinction between them. This distinction is connected with God's relation to the world. God is knowable and attainable only in so far as He turns Himself to the world, only by His revelation to the world, only through His economy or dispensation. The internal Divine life is hedged by “light unapproachable,” and is known only on the level of “apophatic” theology, with the exclusion of ambiguous and inadequate definitions and names. In the literature of the ante-Nicene period, this distinction not seldom had an ambiguous and blurred character. Cosmological motives were often used in the definition of intra-Trinitarian relations, and the Second Hypostasis was often defined from the perspective of God's manifestation or revelation to the world, as the God of revelation, as the Creative Word. And therefore the unknowability and inaccessibility were assigned primarily to the Hypostasis of the Father as being un-revealable and ineffable. God reveals Himself only in the Logos, in “the spoken Word” [logos prophorikos, λογος προφορικος], as “in the idea and active power” issuing forth to build creation.⁵⁶ Connected with that was the tendency to sub-ordinationism in the ante-Nicene theological interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma. Only the Fathers of the fourth century obtained in their Trinitarian theology the basis for an adequate formulation of God's relation to the world: the whole entire and undivided “operation” [energie, ενεργειαι] of the consubstantial Trinity is revealed in God's acts and deeds. But the single “essence” [usia, ουσια] of the undivided Trinity remains beyond the reach of knowledge and understanding. His works, as St. Basil the Great explains, reveal the power and wisdom of God, but not His essence itself. ⁵⁷ “We affirm,” he wrote to Amphilochius of Iconium, “that we know our God by His energies, but we do not presume that it is possible to approach the essence itself. Because although His energies descend to us, His essence remains inaccessible.” And these energies are multiform, yet the essence is simple.⁵⁸ The essence of God is unfathomable for men, and is known solely to the Only-begotten Son and to the Holy Spirit.⁵⁹ In the words of St. Gregory the Theologian, the essence of God is “the Holy of Holies, closed even to the Seraphim, and glorified by the three ‘Holies’ that come together in one ‘Lordship’ and ‘Godhead.’” And the created mind is able, very imperfectly, to “sketch” some small “diagram of the truth” in the infinite ocean of the Divine entity, but based not upon what God is, but upon what is around Him [ek ton peri avton, εκ των περι αυτον].⁶⁰ “The Divine essence, totally inaccessible and comparable to nothing,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa, “is knowable only through His energies.”⁶¹ And all our words concerning God denote not His essence but His energies.⁶² The Divine essence is inaccessible, unnameable, and ineffable. The manifold and relative names referring to God do not name His nature or essence but the attributes of God. Yet the attributes of God are not just intelligible or knowledgeable signs or marks which constitute our human notion of God; they are not abstractions or conceptual formulae. They are energies, powers, actions. They are real, essential, life-giving manifestations of the Divine Life — real images of God's relation to creation, connected with the image of creation in God's eternal knowledge and counsel. And this is “that which may be known of God” (το γνωστον του Θεου, Rom. 1:19). This is, as it were, the particular domain of the undivided but yet “many-named” Divine Being, “of the Divine radiance and activity,” — η Θεια ελλαμψις και ενεργεια, as St. John Damascene says, following the Areopagitica.⁶³ According to the Apostolic word, “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His everlasting power and Godhead” (η τε αιδιος αυτου δυναμις και Θειοτης, Rom. 1:20). And this is the revelation or manifestation of God: "God hath shewed it unto them” (Rom. 1:19; ephanerosen, εφανερωσεν). Bishop Silvester rightly explains in commenting on these Apostolic words: “The invisible things of God, being actually existent and not merely imaginary, become visible not in a kind of illusory way, but certainly, veritably; not as a mere phantom, but in His own eternal power; not merely in the thoughts of men, but in very fact — the reality of His Divinity.”⁶⁴ They are visible because manifested and revealed. Because God is present everywhere, not phantasmally, not in remoteness, but really present everywhere — “which art in all places, and fillest all things, the Treasury of good things, and Giver of life.” This providential ubiquity (different from the “particular” or charismatic presence of God, which is not everywhere) is a particular “form of existence” for God, distinct from the “form of His existence according to His own nature.”⁶⁵ And furthermore this form is existentially real or subsistent — it is an actual presence, not merely an omnipraesentia operativa, sicut agens adest ei in quod agit. And if we “do not particularly understand” (in the phrase of St. Chrysostom⁶⁶) this mysterious omnipresence, and this form of the Divine Being ad extra, nevertheless it is indisputable that God “is everywhere, whole and entirely,” “all in all,” as St. John Damascene said (ολον ολικως πανταχου ον, ολον εν πασι).⁶⁷ The life-giving acts of God in the world are God Himself — an assertion which precludes separation but does not abolish distinction.⁶⁸ In the doctrine of the Cappadocian fathers concerning “essence” and “energies” we find in an elaborate and systematic form the mysterious author of the Areopagitica that was to determine the whole subsequent development of Byzantine theology. Dionysius bases himself on the strict distinction between those “Divine Names” which refer to the intra-Divine and Trinitarian life and those which express the relation of God ad extra⁶⁹ But both series of names tell of the immutable Divine reality. The intra-Divine life is hidden from our understanding, is known only through negations and prohibitions,⁷⁰ and in the phrase of St. Gregory the Theologian “one who by seeing God has understood what he has seen, has not seen Him.”⁷¹ And nevertheless God really reveals Himself and acts and is present in creation through His powers and ideas — in “providences and graces which issue from the incommunicable God, which pour out in a flooding stream, and in which all existing things participate,”⁷² “in an essence-producing procession,” [usiopion proodon, ουσιοποιον προοδον], in “a providence that works good things,” [agathopion pronian, αγαθοποιον προνοιαν], which are distinguishable but not separable from the Divine entity “which surpasses entity,” from God Himself, as St. Maximus the Confessor says in his scholia.⁷³ The basis of these “processions” and of the, as it were, procession of God in His providences out of Himself — [eks eavtu genete, εξω εαυτου γινεται] — is His goodness and love.⁷⁴ These energies do not mix with created things, and are not themselves these things, but are only their basic and life-giving principles; they are the prototypes, the predeterminations, the reasons, the logi (λογοι) and Divine decisions respecting them, of which they are participants and ought to be “communicants.”⁷⁵ They are not only the “principle” and the “cause,” but also the “challenge” and beckoning goal which is beyond and above all limits. It would be difficult to express more forcefully both the distinction between and the indivisibility of the Divine Essence and the Divine energies than is done in the Areopagitica (το ταυτον και το ετερον).⁷⁶ The divine energies are that aspect of God which is turned towards creation. It is not an aspect imagined by us; it is not what we see and as we see it, but it is the real and living gaze of God Himself, by which He wills and vivifies and preserves all things — the gaze of Almighty Power and Superabundant Love.

The doctrine of the energies of God received its final formulation in the Byzantine theology of the fourteenth century, and above all in St. Gregory Palamas. He bases himself on the distinction between Grace and Essence, “the divine and deifying radiance and grace is not the essence, but the energy of God” (η Θεια και Θεοποις ελλαμψις και χαρις ουκ ουσια αλλ ενεργια εστι Θεου)⁷⁷ The notion of the Divine energy received explicit definition in the series of Synods held in the fourteenth century in Constantinople. There is a real distinction, but no separation, between the essence or entity of God and His energies. This distinction is manifest above all in the fact that the Entity is absolutely incommunicable and inaccessible to creatures. The creatures have access to and communicate with the Divine Energies only. But with this participation they enter into a genuine and perfect communion and union with God; they receive “deification.”⁷⁸ Because this is “the natural and indivisible energy and power of God,” (φυσικη και αχωριστος ενεργεια και δυναμις του Θεου)⁷⁹ “it is the common and Divine energy and power of the Tri-Hypostatic God.”⁸⁰ The active Divine power does not separate itself from the Essence. This “procession” [proiene, προιεναι] expresses an “ineffable distinction,” which in no way disturbs the unity “that surpasses essence.”⁸¹ The active Power of God is not the very “substance” of God, but neither is it an “accident” [symvevikos, συμβεβηκος]; because it is immutable and coeternal with God, it exists before creation and it reveals the creative will of God. In God there is not only essence, but also that which is not the essence, although it is not accident — the Divine will and power — His real, existential, essence-producing providence and authority.⁸² St. Gregory Palamas emphasizes that any refusal to make a real distinction between the “essence” and “energy” erases and blurs the boundary between generation and creation — both the former and the latter then appear to be acts of essence. And as St. Mark of Ephesus explained, “Being and energy, completely and wholly coincide in equivalent necessity. Distinction between essence and will [thelisis, θελησις] is abolished; then God only begets and does not create, and does not exercise His will. Then the difference between foreknowledge and actual making becomes indefinite, and creation seems to be coeternally created.”⁸³ The essence is God's inherent self-existence; and the energy is His relations towards the other [pros eteron, προς ετερον]. God is Life, and has life; is Wisdom, and has wisdom; and so forth. The first series of expressions refers to the incommunicable essence, the second to the inseparably distinct energies of the one essence, which descend upon creation.⁸⁴ None of these energies is hypostatic, nor hypostasis in itself, and their incalculable multiplicity introduces no composition into the Divine Being.⁸⁵ The totality of the Divine “energies” constitutes His pre-temporal will, His design — His good pleasure — concerning the “other,” His eternal counsel. This is God Himself, not His Essence, but His will.⁸⁶ The distinction between “essence” and “energies” — or, it could be said, between “nature” and “grace” [physis, φυσις and haris, χαρις] — corresponds to the mysterious distinction in God between “necessity” and “freedom,” understood in a proper sense. In His mysterious essence God is, as it were, “necessitated” — not, indeed, by any necessity of constraint, but by a kind of necessity of nature, which is, in the words of St. Athanasius the Great, “above and antecedent to free choice.”⁸⁷ And with permissible boldness one may say: God cannot but be the Trinity of persons. The Triad of Hypostases is above the Divine Will, is, as it were, “a necessity” or “law” of the Divine nature. This internal “necessity” is expressed as much in the notion of the “consubstantiality” as in that of the perfect indivisibility of the Three Persons as They co-exist in and intercompenetrate one another. In the judgment of St. Maximus the Confessor, it would be unfitting and fruitless to introduce the notion of will into the internal life of the Godhead for the sake of defining the relations between the Hypostases, because the Persons of the All-Holy Trinity exist together above any kind of relation and action, and by Their Being determine the relations between Themselves.⁸⁸ The common and undivided “natural” will of God is free. God is free in His operations and acts. And therefore for a dogmatic confession of the reciprocal relations between the Divine Hypostases, expressions must be found such as will exclude any cosmological motives, any relation to created being and its destinies, any relation to creation or re-creation. The ground of Trinitarian being is not in the economy or revelation of God ad extra. The mystery of the intra-Divine life should be conceived in total abstraction from the dispensation; and the hypostatic properties of the Persons must be defined apart from all relationship to the existence of creation, and only according to the relationship that subsists between Themselves. The living relationship of God — precisely as a Triad — to the creation is in no way thus obscured; the distinction in the relations of the different Hypostases towards the creation is in no wise obscured. Rather, a fitting perspective is thus established. The entire meaning of the dogmatic definition of Christ's Divinity as it was interpreted by the Church actually lay in the exclusion of all predicates relative to the Divine condescension which characterize Him as Creator and Redeemer, as Demiurge and Saviour, in order to understand His Divinity in the light of the internal Divine Life and Nature and Essence. The creative relationship of the Word to the world is explicitly confessed in the Nicene Creed — by Whom all things were made. And “things” were made not only because the Word is God, but also because the Word is the Word of God, the Divine Word. No one was as emphatic in separating the demiurgical moment in Christ's action from the dogma of the eternal generation of the Word as St. Athanasius the Great. The generation of the Word does not presuppose the being — and not even the design — of the world. Even had the world not been created, the Word would exist in the completeness of His Godhead, because the Word is Son by nature [Yos kata physin, υιος κατα φυσιν]. “If it had pleased God not to create any creatures, the Word would nevertheless be with God, and the Father would be in Him,” as St. Athanasius said; and this because creatures cannot receive their being otherwise than through the Word.⁸⁹ The creatures are created by the Word and through the Word, “in the image” of the Word, “in the image of the image” of the Father, as St. Methodius of Olympus once expressed it.⁹⁰ The creation presupposes the Trinity, and the seal of the Trinity lies over the whole creation; yet one must not therefore introduce cosmological motifs into the definition of the intra-Trinitarian Being. And yet one may say that the natural fulness of the Divine essence is contained within the Trinity, and therefore that the design — His good pleasure — concerning the world is a creative act, an operation of the will — an abundance of Divine love, a gift and a grace. The distinction between the names of “God in Himself,” in His eternal being, and those names which describe God in revelation, “economy,” action, is not only a subjective distinction of our analytical thinking; it has an objective and ontological meaning, and expresses the absolute freedom of Divine creativity and operation. This includes the “economy” of salvation. The Divine Counsel concerning salvation and redemption is an eternal and pre-temporal decree, an "eternal purpose” (Eph. 3:11), "the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God” (Eph. 3:9). The Son of God is from everlasting destined to the Incarnation and the Cross, and therefore He is the Lamb "Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world” (1 Pet. 1:19-20), "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). But this “purpose” [prothesis, προθεσις] does not belong to the “essential” necessity of the Divine nature; it is not a “work of nature, but the image of economical condescension,” as St. John Damascene says.⁹¹ This is an act of Divine love — for God so loved the world ... And therefore the predicates referring to the economy of salvation do not coincide with those predicates by which the Hypostatic Being of the Second Person is defined. In Divine revelation there is no constraint, and this is expressed in the notion of the perfect Divine Beatitude. Revelation is an act of love and freedom, and therefore introduces no change into the Divine nature.⁹² It introduces no change simply because there are no “natural” foundations for revelation at all. The sole foundation of the world consists in God's freedom, in the freedom of Love.

From eternity God “thinks up” the image of the world, and this free good pleasure of His is an immutable, unchangeable counsel. But this immutability of the accomplished will does not in the least imply its necessity. The immutability of God's will is rooted in His supreme freedom. And therefore it does not bind His freedom in creation, either. It would be very appropriate here to recall the scholastic distinction between potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata.

And in conformity with the design — the good pleasure of God — creation, together with time, is “built up” from out of nothing. Through temporal becoming, creation must advance by its own free ascent according to the standard of the Divine economy respecting it, according to the standard of the pre-temporal image of and predestination for it. The Divine image of the world always remains above and beyond creation by nature. Creation is bound by it unchangeably and inseparably, is bound even in its very resistance to it. Because this “image” or “idea” of creation is simultaneously the will of God [thelitiki ennia, θελητικη εννοια] and the power of God by which creation is made and sustained; and the beneficent counsel of the Creator is not made void by the resistance of creation, but through this resistance turns out to be, for rebels, a Judgment, the force of wrath, a consuming fire. In the Divine image and counsel, each creature — i.e., every created hypostasis in its imperishable and irreproducible form — is contained. Out of eternity God sees and wills, by His good pleasure, each and every being in the completeness of its particular destiny and features, even regarding its future and sin. And if, according to the mystical insight of St. Symeon the New Theologian, in the age to come “Christ will behold all the numberless myriads of Saints, turning His glance away from none, so that to each one of them it will seem that He is looking at him, talking with him, and greeting him,” and yet “while remaining unchanged. He will seem different to one and different to another”⁹³ — so likewise out of eternity, God in the counsel of His good pleasure, beholds all the innumerable myriads of created hypostases, wills them, and to each one of them manifests Himself in a different way. And herein consists the “inseparable distribution” of His grace or energy, “myriadfold hypostatic” in the bold phrase of St. Gregory Palamas,⁹⁴ because this grace or energy is beneficently imparted to thousands upon myriads of thousands of hypostases. Each hypostasis, in its own being and existence, is sealed by a particular ray of the good pleasure of God's love and will. And in this sense, all things are in God — in “image” [en idea ke paradigmati, εν ιδεα και παραδειγματι] but not by nature, the created “all” being infinitely remote from Uncreated Nature. This remoteness is bridged by Divine love, its impenetrability done away by the Incarnation of the Divine Word. Yet this remoteness remains. The image of creation in God transcends created nature and does not coincide with “the image of God” in creation. “Whatever description may be given to the “image of God” in man, it is a characteristic moment of his created nature — it is created. It is a “likeness,” a mirroring.⁹⁵ But above the image the Proto-Image always shines, sometimes with a gladenning, sometimes with a threatening, light. It shines as a call and a norm. There is in creation a supra-natural challenging goal set above its own nature — the challenging goal, founded on freedom, of a free participation in and union with God. This challenge transcends created nature, but only by responding to it is this nature itself revealed in its completeness. This challenging goal is an aim, an aim that can be realized only through the self-determination and efforts of the creature. Therefore the process of created becoming is real in its freedom, and free in its reality, and it is by this becoming that what-was-not reaches fulfilment and is achieved. Because it is guided by the challenging goal. In it is room for creation, construction, for re-construction — not only in the sense of recovering, but also in the sense of generating what is new. The scope of the constructiveness is defined by the contradiction between the nature and the goal. In a certain sense, this goal itself is “natural” and proper to the one who does the constructive acts, so that the attainment of this goal is somehow also the subject's realization of himself. And nevertheless this “I” which is realized and realizable through constructiveness is not the “natural” and empiric “I,” inasmuch as any such realization of one's self” is a rupture — a leap from the plane of nature onto the plane of grace, because this realization is the acquisition of the Spirit, is participation in God. Only in this “communion” with God does a man become “himself;” in separation from God and in self-isolation, on the contrary, he falls to a plane lower than himself. But at the same time, he does not realize himself merely out of himself. Because the goal lies beyond nature, it is an invitation to a living and free encounter and union with God. The world is substantially different from God. And therefore God's plan for the world can be realized only by created becoming — because this plan is not a substratum or substantia that comes into being and completes itself, but is the standard and crown of the “other's” becoming. On the other hand, the created process is not therefore a development, or not only a development; its meaning does not consist in the mere unfolding and manifestation of innate “natural” ends, or not only in this. Rather, the ultimate and supreme self-determination of created nature emerges in its zealous impulse to outstrip itself in a kinisis yper physin κινησις υτερ φυσιν, as St. Maximus says.⁹⁶ And an anointing shower of grace responds to this inclination, crowning the efforts of the creatures.

The limit and goal of creaturely striving and becoming is divinisation [theosis, θεωσις] or deification [theopiisis, θεοποιησις]. But even in this, the immutable, unchangeable gap between natures will remain: any “transubstantiation” of the creature is excluded. It is true that according to a phrase of St. Basil the Great preserved by St. Gregory the Theologian, creation “has been ordered to become God.” ⁹⁷ But this “deification” is only communion with God, participation [metusis, μετουσια] in His life and gifts, and thereby a kind of acquisition of certain similitude to the Divine Reality. Anointed and sealed by the Spirit, men become conformed to the Divine image or prototype of themselves; and through this they become “conformed to God” [symmorphi Theo, συμμορφοι Θεω].⁹⁸ With the Incarnation of the Word the first fruit of human nature is unalterably grafted into the Divine Life, and hence to all creatures the way to communion with this Life is open, the way of adoption by God. In the phrase of St. Athanasius, the Word “became man in order to deify [theopiisi, θεοποιηση] us in Himself,”⁹⁹ in order that “the sons of men might become the sons of God.” ¹⁰⁰ But this “divinization” is acquired because Christ, the Incarnate Word, has made us “receptive to the Spirit,” that He has prepared for us both the ascension and resurrection as well as the indwelling and appropriation of the Holy Spirit.”¹⁰¹ Through the “flesh-bearing God” we have become “Spirit-bearing men”; we have become sons “by grace,” “sons of God in the likeness of the Son of God.”¹⁰² And thus is recovered what had been lost since the original sin, when “the transgression of the commandment turned man into what he was by nature,”¹⁰³ over which he had been elevated in his very first adoption or birth from God, coinciding with his initial creation.¹⁰⁴ The expression so dear to St. Athanasius and to St. Gregory the Theologian, Theon genesthe (Θεον γενεσθαι),¹⁰⁵ finds its complementary explanation in a saying of two other Cappadocian Saints: omiosis pros ton Theon (ομοιωσις προς τον Θεον).¹⁰⁶ If Macarius the Egyptian dare speak of the “changing” of Spirit-bearing souls “into the Divine nature,” of “participation in the Divine nature,”¹⁰⁷ he nevertheless understands this participation as a krasis di olon κρασις δι ολον, i.e., as a certain “mingling” of the two, preserving the properties and entities of each in particular.¹⁰⁸ But he also stresses that “the Divine Trinity comes to dwell in that soul which, by the cooperation of Divine Grace, keeps herself pure — He comes to dwell not as He is in Himself, because He is incontainable by any creature — but according to the measure of the capacity and receptivity of man.¹⁰⁹ Explicit formulae concerning this were not established all at once, but from the very beginning the impassable gulf between the natures was rigorously marked, and the distinction between the notions kata usian, κατ ουσιαν (or κατα φυσιν) and kata metusian, κατα μετουσιαν was rigorously observed and kept. The concept of “divinization” was crystallized only when the doctrine of God's “energies” had been explicated once and for all. In this regard the teaching of St. Maximus is significant. “The salvation of those who are saved is accomplished by grace and not by nature,”¹¹⁰ and if “in Christ the entire fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily according to essence then in us, on the contrary, there is not the fulness of the Godhead according to grace.”¹¹¹ The longed-for “divinization” which is to come is a likeness by grace (και φανωμεν αυτω ομοιοι κατα την εκ χαριτος θεωσιν).¹¹² And even by becoming partakers of Divine Life, “in the unity of love,” “by co-inhering totally and entirely with the whole of God,” (ολος ολω περιχωρησας ολικως τω Θεω) by appropriating all that is Divine, the creature “nevertheless remains outside the essence of God.”¹¹³ And what is most remarkable in this is the fact that St. Maximus directly identifies the deifying grace with the Divine good pleasure as regards creation, with the creative fiat.¹¹⁴ In its efforts to acquire the Spirit, the human hypostasis becomes a vehicle and vessel of Grace; it is in a manner imbued with it, so that by it God's creative will is accomplished — the will which has summoned that-which-is-not into being in order to receive those that will come into His communion. And the creative good pleasure itself concerning each and every particular is already by itself a descending stream of Grace-but not everyone opens to the Creator and God Who knocks. Human nature must be freely discovered through a responsive movement, by overcoming the self-isolation of its own nature; and by denying the self, as one might say, receive this mysterious, and terrifying, and unspeakable double-naturedness for sake of which the world was made. For it was made to be and to become the Church, the Body of Christ.

The meaning of history consists in this — that the freedom of creation should respond by accepting the pre-temporal counsel of God, that it should respond both in word and in deed. In the promised double-naturedness of the Church the reality of created nature is affirmed at the outset. Creation is the other, another nature willed by God's good pleasure and brought forth from nothing by the Divine freedom for creation's own freedom's sake. It must conform itself freely to that creative standard by which it lives and moves and has its being. Creation is not this standard, and this standard is not creation. In some mysterious way, human freedom becomes a kind of “limitation” on the Divine omnipotence, because it pleased God to save creation not by compulsion, but by freedom alone. Creation is “other,” and therefore the process of ascent to God must be accomplished by her own powers — with God's help, to be sure. Through the Church creaturely efforts are crowned and saved. And creation is restored to its fulness and reality. And the Church follows, or, rather, portrays the mystery and miracle of the two natures. As the Body of Christ, the Church is a kind of “plenitude” of Christ — as Theophan the Recluse says — “Just as the tree is the ‘plenitude’ of the seed.”¹¹⁵ And the Church is united to Her Head. “Just as we do not ordinarily see iron when it is red-hot, because the iron's qualities are completely concealed by the fire,” says Nicholas Cabasilas in his Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, “so, if you could see the Church of Christ in Her true form, as She is united to Christ and participates in His Flesh, then you would see Her as none other than the Lord's Body alone.”¹¹⁶ In the Church creation is forever confirmed and established, unto all ages, in union with Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

"Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5)

Content: Eschatology — an unpopular topic. Why an “end”? The Second Coming.

Eschatology was for a long time a neglected field in modern theology. The arrogant phrase of Ernst Troeltsch — “The bureau of eschatology is for the most part closed” — was distinctively characteristic of the whole liberal tradition, since the Age of the Enlightenment. Nor is this neglect for eschatological issues fully overcome in contemporary thought. In certain quarters eschatology is still regarded as an obsolete relic of the forlorn past. The theme itself is avoided, or it is summarily dismissed as unreal and irrelevant. The modern man is not concerned with the last events. This attitude of neglect was recently reinforced by the rise of theological Existentialism. Now, Existentialism does claim to be itself an eschatological doctrine. But it is a sheer abuse of terms. Eschatology is radically interiorized in its existentialist reinterpretation. It is actually swallowed up in the immediacy of personal decisions. In a sense, modern Existentialism in theology is but a fresh variation on the old Pietistic theme. In the last resort, it amounts to the radical dehistorization of the Christian faith. Events of history are eclipsed by the events of inner life. The Bible itself is used as a book of parables and patterns. History is no more than a passing frame. Eternity can be encountered and tasted at any time. History is no more a theological problem.

On the other hand, precisely in the last few decades, the basic historicity of the Christian faith has been reassessed and reaffirmed in various trends of contemporary theology. This was a momentous shift in theological thinking. Indeed, it was a return to Biblical faith. Of course, no elaborate “philosophy of history” can be found in the Bible. But there is in the Bible a comprehensive vision of history, a perspective of an unfolding time, running from a “beginning” to an “end,” and guided by the sovereign will of God toward the accomplishment of His ultimate purpose. The Christian faith is primarily an obedient witness to the mighty deeds of God in history, which culminated, “in those last days,” in the Advent of Christ and in His redemptive victory. Accordingly, Christian theology should be construed as a “Theology of History.” Christian faith is grounded in events, not in ideas. The Creed itself is a historical witness, a witness to the saving or redemptive events, which are apprehended by faith as God’s mighty deeds.

This recovery of the historic dimension of the Christian faith was bound to bring the eschatological theme into the focus of theological meditation. The Bible and the Creed are both pointing to the future. It has been recently suggested that Greek philosophy was inescapably “in the grip of the past.” The category of the future was quite irrelevant in the Greek version of history. History was conceived as a rotation, with an inevitable return to the initial position, from which a new repetition of events was bound to start again. On the contrary, the Biblical view opens into the future, in which new things are to be disclosed and realized. And an ultimate realization of the divine purpose is anticipated in the future, beyond which no temporal movement can proceed — a state of consummation.

In the witty phrase of von Balthasar, “Eschatology is the ‘eye of the storm’ in, the theology of our time” (Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Eschatologie,” Fragen der Theologie Heute. Feiner, Trütsch, Böckle, editors (Zürich: Köln, 1958), pp. 493-421). Indeed, it is a “subtle knot” in which all lines of theological thinking intersect and are inextricably woven together. Eschatology cannot be discussed as a special topic, as a separate article of belief. It can be understood only in the total perspective of the Christian faith. What is characteristic of contemporary theological thought is precisely the recovery of the eschatological dimension of the Christian faith. All articles of faith have an eschatological connotation. There is no common consensus in the contemporary theology of “the Last Things.” There is rather a sharp conflict of views and opinions. But there is also a new widening of the perspective.

Emil Brunner’s contribution to the current discussion was both provocative and constructive. His theology is a theology of hope and expectation, as it befits one who stands in the Reformed tradition. His theology is inwardly oriented toward “the Last Events.” Yet, at many points, his vision is limited by his general theological presuppositions. Indeed, his theology reflects his personal experience of faith.

The mystery of the Last Things is grounded in the primary paradox of Creation. According to Brunner, the term Creation, in its Biblical use, does not denote the manner in which the world did actually come into existence, but only the sovereign Lordship of God. In the act of Creation God posits something totally other than Himself, “over against” Himself. Accordingly, the world of creatures has its own mode of existence-derivative, subordinate, dependent, and yet genuine and real, in its own kind. Brunner is quite formal at this point. “A world which is not God exists alongside of Him.” Thus, the very existence of the world implies a certain measure of self-imposed “limitation” on the side of God, His kenosis, which reaches its climax in the cross of Christ. God, as it were, spares room for the existence of something different. The world has been “called into existence” for a purpose, in order that it manifest the glory of God. The Word is the principle and the ultimate goal of Creation.

Indeed, the very fact of Creation constitutes the basic paradox of the Christian faith, to which all other, mysteries of God can be traced back, or rather in which they are implied. Brunner, however, does not distinguish clearly, at this point, between the very “being” of God and His “will.” Yet, the “being” of God simply cannot be “limited” in any sense. If there is a “limitation,” it can refer only to His “will,” insofar as another “will” has been “called into existence,” a will which could not have existed at all. This basic “contingency” of Creation testifies to the absolute sovereignity of God. On the other hand, the ultimate climax of the creative kenosis will be reached only in “the Last Events.” The sting of the paradox, of the kenosis, is not in the existence of the world, but in the possibility of Hell. Indeed, the World may be obedient to God, as well as it may be disobedient, and in its obedience it would serve God and manifest His glory. It will be not a “limitation,” but an expansion of God’s majesty. On the contrary, Hell means resistance and estrangement, pure and simple. However, even in the state of revolt and rebellion, the world still belongs to God. It can never escape His Judgment.

God is eternal. This is a negative definition. It simply means that the notion of time cannot be applied to His existence. Indeed, "time" is simply the mode of creaturely existence. Time is given by God. It is not an imperfect or deficient mode of being. There is nothing illusory about time. Temporality is real. Time is really moving on, irreversibly.

But it is not just a flux, as it is not a rotation. It is not just a series of indifferent “time-atoms” which could be conceived or postulated as infinite, without any end or limit. It is rather a teleological process, inwardly ordained toward a certain final goal. A telos [an end] is implied in the very design of Creation. Accordingly, what takes place in time is significant — significant and real for God Himself. History is not a shadow. Ultimately, history has a “metahistoric” goal. Brunner does not use this term, but he stresses strongly the inherent “finitude” of history. An infinite history, rolling on indefinitely, without destination or end, would have been an empty and meaningless history. The story is bound to have an end, a conclusion, a katharsis, a solution. The plot must be disclosed. History has to have an end, at which it is “fulfilled” or “consummated.” It has been originally designed to be “fulfilled.” At the end there will be no history any more. Time will be filled with eternity, as Brunner puts it. Of course, eternity means in this connection simply God. Time has meaning only against the background of eternity, that is — only in the context of the divine design.

Yet, history is not just a disclosure of that primordial and sovereign design. The theme of actual history, of the only real history we know about, is given by the existence of sin. Brunner dismisses the query about the origin of sin. He only stresses its “universality.” Sin, in the biblical sense of the term, is not primarily an ethical category. According to Brunner, it only denotes the need for redemption. Two terms are intrinsically correlative. Now, sin is not a primary phenomenon, but a break, a deviation, a turning away from the beginning. Its essence is apostasy and rebellion. It is this aspect of sin that is emphasized in the biblical story of the Fall. Brunner refuses to regard the Fall as an actual event. He only insists that without the concept of the Fall the basic message of the New Testament, that is — the message of salvation would be absolutely incomprehensible. Yet, one should not inquire into the “when” and “how” of the Fall.

The essence of sin can be discerned only in the light of Christ, that is — in the light of redemption. Man, as he can be observed in history, always appears as sinner, unable not to sin. The man of history is always “man in revolt.” Brunner is fully aware of the strength of evil — in the world and in the history of man. He commends the Kantian notion of radical evil. What he has to say about the Satanic sin, as different from man’s sin, about the super-personal Satanic power, is impressive and highly relevant for theological inquiry, as much as all that may inevitably offend and disturb the mind of modern man. But the major question remains still without answer. Has the Fall the character of an event? The logic of Brunner’s own argument seems to compel us to regard it as event, as a link in the chain of events. Otherwise it would be just a symbol, a working hypothesis, indispensable for interpretative purposes, but unreal. Indeed, the end of history must be regarded, according to Brunner, as “an event,” howsoever mysterious this event will be. “The beginning” also has the character of “event,” as the first link in the chain. Moreover, redemption is obviously “an event” which can be exactly dated-indeed, the crucial event, determinative of all others. In this perspective it seems imperative to regard the Fall as event, in whatever manner it may be visualized or interpreted. In any case, redemption and Fall are intrinsically related to each other, in Brunner’s own interpretation.

Brunner distinguishes clearly between the creatureliness as such and sin. Creatures come from God. Sin comes from an opposite source. Sinfulness is disclosed in events, in sinful acts and actions. Indeed, it is an abuse of power, an abuse of freedom, a perversion of that responsible freedom which has been bestowed upon man in the very act by which he was called into existence. Yet, before the abuse became a habit, it had to have been exercised for the first time. The revolt had to have been started. Such an assumption would be in line with the rest of Brunner’s exposition. Otherwise one lapses into some kind of metaphysical dualism which Brunner himself vigorously denounces. In any case, creatureliness and sinfulness cannot be equated or identified.

Indeed, Brunner is right in suggesting that we must start from the center, that is, with the glad tidings of redemption in Christ. But in Christ we contemplate not only our desperate “existential predicament” as miserable sinners, but, above all, the historical involvement of men in sin. We are moving in the world of events. Only for that reason are we justified in looking forward, to “the Last Events.”

The course of history has been radically challenged by God — at one crucial point. According to Brunner, since the coming of Christ, time itself has been charged, for believers, with a totally new quality — “an otherwise unknown quality of decision.” Ever since, believers are confronted with an ultimate alternative, confronted now — in this “historic time.” The choice is radical — between heaven and hell. Any moment of history may become decisive — for those who are bound to make decisions, through Christ’s challenge and revelation. In this sense, according to Brunner, “the earthly time is, for faith, charged with an eternity-tension.” Men are now inescapably called to decisions, since God has manifested His own decision, in Christ, and in His Cross and Resurrection. Does it mean that “eternal decisions” — that is, decisions “for eternity”— must be made in this “historic time?” By faith — in Jesus Christ, the Mediator — one may, already now, “participate” in eternity. Since Christ, believers dwell already, as it were, in two different dimensions, both inside and outside of the “ordinary” time — this universal time, or age, in which the dying give place to those being born (St. Augustine, Civ. Dei, XV.I). Time has been, as it were, “polarized” by Christ’s Advent. Thus, it seems, time is related now to eternity, that is to God, in a dual manner. On the one hand, time is always intrinsically related to the eternal God, as its Creator: God gives time. On the other hand, time has been, in those last days, radically challenged by God’s direct and immediate intervention, in the person of Jesus Christ. As Brunner says himself, “temporality, existence in time, takes on a new character through its relationship to this event, Jesus Christ, the eph hapax of history, the once-for-all quality of His cross and Resurrection, and is newly fashioned in a paradoxical manner that is unintelligible to thinking guided by reason alone” (Brunner, Eternal Hope (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954), p. 48). We have reached the crucial point in Brunner’s exposition. His interpretation of human destiny is strictly Christological and Christocentric. Only faith in Christ gives meaning to human existence. This is Brunner’s strong point. But there is an ambiguous docetic accent in his Christology, and it affects grievously his understanding of history. Strangely enough, Brunner himself addresses the same charge to the traditional Christology of the Church, claiming that it never paid enough attention to the historic Jesus. It is a summary charge which we cannot analyze and “refute” just now. What is relevant for our purpose now is that Brunner’s Christology is obviously much more docetic than that of the Catholic tradition. Brunner’s attention to the historical Jesus is utterly ambiguous. According to Brunner, Christ is a historic personality only as man. When He “unveils Himself” — that is, when He discloses His Divinity to those who have the eye of faith — He is no more a historical personality at all. In fact, Christ’s humanity, according to Brunner, is no more than “a disguise.” The true self of Christ is divine. To faith Christ discards His disguise, His “incognito,” to use Brunner’s own phrase. “Where He discloses Himself, history disappears, and the Kingdom of God has begun. And when He unveils Himself, He is no longer an historical personality, but the Son of God, Who is from everlasting to everlasting” (Brunner, The Mediator (London: Lutterworth Press, 1949), p. 346). This is a startling language, indeed.

Actually, Christ’s humanity is just a means to enter history, or rather — to appear in history. God’s relation to history, and to human reality, is, as it were, no more than tangential, even in the crucial mystery of Incarnation. Actually, Christ’s humanity interests Brunner only as a medium of revelation, of divine self-disclosure. Indeed, according to Brunner, in Christ God has really found a firm footing in humanity. But this does not seem anything more than that God has now challenged man in his own human element, on his own human ground and level. In order to meet man, God had to descend — to man’s own level. This may be understood in a strictly orthodox way. Indeed, this was the favorite thought of the ancient Fathers. But Brunner denies any real interpenetration of divine and human aspects in Christ’s person. In fact, they are no more than “aspects.” Two elements meet, but there is no real unity. Christ of faith is only divine, even if in a human disguise. His humanity is just a means to enter history, or rather — to appear in history. Is history just a moving screen on which divine “eternity” is to be projected? God had to assume a beggar’s robe of man, for otherwise He would be unable to encounter man. There was no real “assumption” of human reality into the personal experience of the Incarnate. The role of Christ’s humanity was purely instrumental, a disguise. Basically it is a sheer “Docetism,” however much attention may be given to “historic Jesus.” After all, “historic Jesus” does not belong, in this interpretation, to the realm of faith.

Real decisions are not made on the plane of history, says Brunner. “For that is the sphere in which men wear masks. For the sake of our “masquerade,” that is, for the sake of our sinful mendacity, Christ also, if I may put it like this, has to wear a mask; this is His Incognito” (Ibid, p. 346). Now, in the act of faith, man takes away his mask. Then, in response, Christ also discards His mask, His human disguise, and appears in His glory. Faith, according to Brunner, breaks down history. Faith itself is a kind of a “metahistoric” act, which transcends history, or even discards it. Indeed, Brunner stresses the uniqueness of God’s redemptive revelation in Christ. For man it only means that the challenge is radical and ultimate. Man is now given a unique opportunity, or occasion, to make his decision, to overcome his own limited humanity, and even his intrinsic temporality — by an act of faith which takes him beyond history, if only in hope and promise, till the final keros [time] has come. But is human history ultimately just a masquerade? According to Brunner’s own emphatic statement, temporality as such is not sinful. Why, then, should divine revelation in Christ discard history? Why should historicity be an obstacle to God’s self-revelation, an obstacle that must be radically removed?

In the last resort, the radical change in history — the New Age, released by Christ’s Advent — seems to consist only in the new and unprecedented opportunity to take sides. God actually remains as hidden in history as He has been before, or, probably, even more than before, since the ultimate incommensurability of divine revelation with the human masquerade has been made self-evident and conspicuous. God could approach man only in disguise. The actual course of history has not been changed, either by God’s intervention, or by man’s option. Apart from the decision of faith, history is empty, and still sinful. The intimate texture of actual historic life has not been affected by the redemptive revelation. Nevertheless, a warning has been given: The Lord comes again. This time He is coming as judge, not as Redeemer, although judgment will actually accomplish and stabilize redemption.

By faith we can now discern an “eschatological tension” in the very course of history, although it would be idle and in vain to indulge in any kind of apocalyptic calculations. This tension seems to exist on the human level alone. The eschatological interim is the age of decisions — to be taken by men. God’s decision has been already taken.

As a whole, Christian history, according to Brunner, was a sore failure, a history of decay and misunderstanding. This is an old scheme, firmly established in Protestant historiography at least since Gottfried Arnold. The primitive Christian community, the ecclesia, was a genuine Messianic community, “the bearer of the new life of eternity and of the powers of the divine world,” as Brunner puts it. But this primitive ecclesia did not survive, at least as an historic entity, as an historic factor. Brunner acknowledges partial and provisional “advents” of the Kingdom of God in the course of history. But all these “advents” are sporadic. Where faith is, there is ecclesia or Kingdom. But it is hidden, in the continuing “masquerade” of history. Ultimately, the ongoing history is a kind of testing ground, on which men are challenged and their responses are tried and tested. But does the “saving history” still continue? Is God still active in history, after the First Advent — or is history now left, after the great intervention of Christ, to man alone, with that eschatological provision that finally Christ comes again?

Now, history is obviously but a provisional and passing stage in the destiny of man. Man is called to “eternity,” not to “history.” This is why “history” must come to its close, to its end. Yet, indeed, history is also a stage of growth — the wheat and the tares are growing together, and their ultimate discrimination is delayed — till the day of harvest. The tares are growing indeed, rapidly and wildly. But the wheat is growing also. Otherwise there would be no chance for any harvest, except for that of tares. Indeed, history matures not only for judgment, but also for consummation. Moreover, Christ is still active in history. Brunner disregards, or ignores, that component of Christian history. Christian history is, as it were, “atomized,” in his vision. It is just a series of existential acts, performed by men, and, strangely enough, only negative acts, the acts of rebellion and resistance, seem to be integrated and solidarized. But, in fact, ecclesia is not just an aggregate of sporadic acts, but a “body,” the body of Christ. Christ is present in the ecclesia not only as an object of faith and recognition, but as her Head. He is actually reigning and ruling. This secures the Church’s continuity and identity through the ages. In Brunner’s conception Christ seems to be outside history, or above it. He did come once, in the past. He is coming again, in the future. Is He really present now, in the present, except through the memory of the past and the hope of the future, and indeed in the “metahistoric” acts of faith?

Creation, according to Brunner, has its own mode of existence. But it is no more than a “medium” of divine revelation. It must be, as it were, transparent for divine light and glory. And this strangely reminds us of the Platonizing gnosis of Origen and his various followers. The whole story is reduced to the dialectics of eternal and temporal. Brunner’s own term is “parabolic.”

The notion of "the end" — of an ultimate end — is a paradoxical notion. An "end" both belongs to the chain or series, and breaks it. It is both "an event" and "the end of all events." It belongs to the dimension of history, and yet it dismisses the whole dimension. The notion of "the beginning" — first and radical — is also a paradoxical notion. As St. Basil has said once, "the beginning of time is not yet time, but precisely the beginning of it" (Hexaem. 1.6). It is both an "instant" and more than that.

Of the future we can speak but in images and parables. This was the language of the Scripture. This imagery cannot be adequately deciphered now, and should not be taken literally. But in no sense should it be simply and bluntly “demythologized.” Brunner is formal at this point. The expected Parousia [the appearance]of Christ must be regarded as “an event.” The character of this event is unimaginable. Better symbols or images can be hardly found than those used in the Bible. “Whatever the form of this event may be, the whole point lies in the fact that it will happen” (Brunner, Eternal Hope, p. 138). The Christian kerygma is decisive at this point: “the ultimate redemptive synthesis has the character of an event.” In other words, the Parousia belongs to the chain of historic “happenings,” which it is expected to conclude and to close. “A Christian faith without expectation of the Parousia is like a ladder which leads nowhere but ends in the void.” At one point, in any case, we can go beyond images: it is Christ that is coming. The Parousia is a “return,” as much as it is an ultimate novelty. “The Last Events” are centered around the person of Christ.

The end will come “suddenly.” And yet it is, in a certain sense, prepared inside of history. As Brunner says, “the history of man disclose radically apocalyptic traits.” At this point he indulges in metaphysical speculations. “The swing of the pendulum becomes ever faster.” This acceleration of the tempo of human life may reach the point at which it can go no further. History may simply explode suddenly. On the other hand, and on the deeper level, disharmonies of human existence are steadily increasing: there is “an everwidening split in the human consciousness.” Of course, these suggestions have no more than a subsidiary or hypothetical value. Brunner tries to commend the paradoxical concept of the end to the modern mind. But they are also characteristic of his own vision of human reality. History is ever ready to explode, it is vexed and overburdened with unresolved tensions. Some years ago a Russian religious philosopher, Vladimir Th. Ern, suggested that human history was a kind of “catastrophical progress,” a steady progression toward an end. Yet the end was to come from above, in a Parousia. Accordingly, it was to be more than just a “catastrophe,” or an immanent or internal “judgment” — a disclosure of inherent contradictions or tensions. It was to be an absolute judgment, the Judgment of God.

Now, what is judgment? It is no less “an event” than the Parousia. It is an ultimate encounter between the sinful humanity and the Holy God. First of all, it will be an ultimate disclosure or manifestation of the true state of every man and of the whole mankind. Nothing will be left hidden. Thus, judgment will terminate that state of confusion and ambiguity, of inconclusiveness, as Brunner puts it, which has been characteristic of the whole historic stage of human destiny. This implies an ultimate and final “discrimination” — in the light of Christ. It will be an ultimate and final challenge. The will of God must be finally done. The will of God must be ultimately enforced. Otherwise, in the phrase of Brunner, “all talk of responsibility is idle chatter.” Indeed, man is granted freedom, but it is not a freedom of indifference. Man’s freedom is essentially a responsive freedom — a freedom to accept God’s will. “Pure freedom” can be professed only by atheists. “To man is entrusted, of man is expected, merely the echo, the subsequent completion, of a decision which God has already made about him and for him” (Ibid, p. 178). There is but one fair option for man — to obey; there is no real dilemma. Man’s purpose and goal are fixed by God.

All this is perfectly true. Yet, at this very point, the vexing question arises. Will actually all men accept, at the Last Judgment, God’s will? Is there any room for radical and irreversible resistance? Can man’s revolt continue beyond judgment? Can any creaturely being, endowed with freedom, persist in estrangement from God, which has been persistently practiced before, that is — to pursue its own will? Can such a being still “exist” — in the state of revolt and opposition, against the saving will of God, outside God’s saving purpose? Is it possible for man to persevere in rebellion, in spite of the call and challenge of God? Is the Scriptural picture of separation — between the sheep and the goats — the last word about man’s ultimate destiny? What is the ultimate status of creaturely “freedom?” What does it mean that finally the will of God must and will prevail? These are queer and searching questions. But they cannot be avoided. They are not dictated only by speculative curiosity. They are “existential” questions. Indeed, the Last Judgment is an awful mystery, which cannot, and should not, be rationalized, which passes all knowledge and understanding. Yet, it is a mystery of our own existence, which we cannot escape, even if we fail to comprehend or understand it intellectually.

Brunner emphatically dismisses the “terrible theologoumenon” of double predestination, as incompatible with the mind of the Bible. There is no eternal discrimination in God’s creative design. God calls all men to salvation, and for that purpose He calls them into existence. Salvation is the only purpose of God. But the crucial paradox is not yet resolved. The crucial problem is, whether this only purpose of God will be actually accomplished, in all its fullness and comprehensiveness, as it is admitted and postulated in the theory of universal salvation, for which one may allege Scriptural evidence. Brunner rejects the doctrine of the Apokatastasis, as a “dangerous heresy.” It is wrong as a doctrine. It implies a wrong security for men — all ways lead ultimately to the same end, there is no real tension, no real danger. And yet, Brunner admits that the doctrine of the forgiving grace, and of the justification by faith, leads logically to the concept of an universal redemption. Can the will of the omnipotent God be really resisted or, as it were, overruled by the obstinacy of feeble creatures? The paradox can be solved only dialectically — in faith. One cannot know God theoretically. One has to trust His love.

It is characteristic that Brunner discusses the whole problem exclusively in the perspective of the divine will. For that reason he misses the very point of the paradox. He simply ignores the human aspect of the problem. Indeed, “eternal damnation” is not inflicted by “the angry God.” God is not the author of Hell. “Damnation” is a self-inflicted penalty, the consequence and the implication of the rebellious opposition to God and to His will. Brunner admits that there is a real possibility of damnation and perdition. It is dangerous and erroneous to ignore that real possibility.

But one should hope that it will never be realized. Now, hope itself must be realistic and sober. We are facing the alternative: either, at the Last Judgment, unbelievers and unrepentant sinners are finally moved by the divine challenge, and are “freely” converted — this was the hypothesis of St. Gregory of Nyssa; or their obstinacy is simply overruled by the divine Omnipotence and they are saved by the constraint of the divine mercy and will — without their own free and conscious assent. The second solution implies contradiction, unless we understand “salvation” in a forensic and formalistic manner. Indeed, criminals may be exonerated in the court of justice, even if they did not repent and persevere in their perversion. They only escape punishment. But we cannot interpret the Last Judgment in this manner. In any case, “salvation” involves conversion, involves an act of faith. It cannot be imposed on anyone. Is the first solution more convincing? Of course, the possibility of a late “conversion” — in “the eleventh hour,” or even after — cannot be theoretically ruled out, and the impact of the divine love is infinite. But this chance or possibility of conversion, before the Judgment-Seat of Christ, sitting in glory, cannot be discussed in abstracto, as a general case. After all, the question of salvation, as also the decision of faith, is a personal problem, which can be put and faced only in the context of concrete and individual existence. Persons are saved, or perish. And each personal case must be studied individually. The main weakness of Brunner’s scheme is in that he always speaks in general terms. He always speaks of the human condition and never of living persons.

The problem of man is for Brunner essentially the problem of sinful condition. He is afraid of all “ontic” categories. Indeed, man is sinner, but he is, first of all, man. It is true, again, that the true stature of genuine manhood has been exhibited only in Christ, who was more than man, and not a man. But in Christ we are given not only forgiveness, but also the power to be, or to become, children of God, that is — to be what we are designed to be. Of course, Brunner admits that believers can be in communion with God even now, in this present life. But then comes death. Does faith, or — actually — one’s being en Christo, make any difference at this point? Is the communion with Christ, once established by faith (and, indeed, in sacraments), broken by death? Is it true that human life is “a being unto death.” Physical death is the limit of physical life. But Brunner speaks of the death of human persons, of the “I.” He claims that it is a mystery, an impenetrable mystery, of which rational man cannot know anything at all. But, in fact, the concept of this “personal death” is no more than a metaphysical assumption, derived from certain philosophical presuppositions, and in no way a datum of any actual or possible experience, including the experience of faith. “Death” of a person is only in the estrangement from God, but even in this case it does not mean annihilation. In a sense, death means a disintegration of human personality, because man is not designed to be immaterial. The bodily death reduces the integrity of the human person. Man dies, and yet survives — in the expectation of the general end. The ancient doctrine of the Communion of Saints points to the victory of Christ: In Him, through faith (and sacraments), even the dead are alive, and share — in anticipation, but really — the everlasting life. Communio Sanctorum is an important eschatological topic. Brunner simply ignores it altogether — surely not by accident but quite consistently. He speaks of the condition of death, not of personal cases. The concept of an immortal soul may be a Platonic accretion, but the notion of an “indestructible person” is an integral part of the Gospel. Indeed, only in this case there is room for a general or universal judgment, at which all historic persons, of all ages and of all nations, are to appear — not as a confused mass of frail and unprofitable sinners, but as a congregation of responsive and responsible persons, each in his distinctive character, congenital and acquired. Death is a catastrophe. But persons survive, and those in Christ are still alive — even in the state of death. The faithful not only hope for life to come, but are already alive, although all are waiting for Resurrection. Brunner, of course, is fully aware of this. In his own phrase, those who believe “will not die into nothingness but into Christ.” Does it mean that those who do not believe “die into nothingness?” And what is “nothingness” — “the outer darkness” (which is probably the case) or actual “nonbeing?”

It is also true that full integrity of personal existence, distorted and reduced by death, will be restored in the general Resurrection. Brunner emphasizes the personal character of the Resurrection. “The New Testament faith knows of no other sort of eternal life except that of the individual persons” (Ibid, p. 148). The flesh will not rise. But some kind of corporeality is implied in the Resurrection. All will rise, because Christ is risen. Now, Resurrection is at once a Resurrection unto life — in Christ, and a Resurrection — to Judgment. Brunner discusses the general Resurrection in the context of faith, forgiveness, and life. But what is the status of those who did not believe, who did not ask for forgiveness, and never knew of the redemptive love of Christ, or probably have obstinately denounced and rejected it as a myth, as a fraud, as a deceit, or as an offense for the autonomous personality ?

And this brings us back again to the paradox of the judgment. Strangely enough, at this point Brunner speaks more as a philosopher than as a theologian, precisely because he tries to avoid metaphysical inquiry, and all problems which have been suppressed reappear in disguise. Brunner puts the question in this way: how can we reconcile divine Omnipotence and human freedom, or — on a deeper level — divine holiness (or justice) and divine merry and love. It is a strictly metaphysical problem, even if it is discussed on the scriptural basis. The actual theological problem is, on the other hand: what is the existential status of unbelievers — in the sight of God, and in the perspective of the human destiny? The actual problem is existential — the status and destiny of individual persons. For Brunner the problem is obscured by his initial choice — his sweeping bracketing together of all men as sinners, without any real ontic or existential discrimination between the righteous and the unrighteous. Indeed, all are under the judgment, but, obviously, not in the same sense. Brunner himself distinguishes between those who fail being tempted, and those who choose to tempt others and to seduce. He knows of deliberate perversion. But he does not ask, how an individual human person may be affected, in his inner and intimate structure, by deliberate and obstinate perversion, apostasy and “love for evil.” There is a real difference between weakness and wickedness, between frailty and godlessness. Can all sins be forgiven, even the non-avowed and non-repented? Is not forgiveness received only in humility and in faith? In other words, is “condemnation” just a “penalty,” in the forensic sense, or a kind of negative “reward?” Or is it simply a manifestation of what is hidden — or rather quite open and conspicuous in those who have chosen, by an abuse of “freedom,” that wide path which leads into Gehenna.

There is no chapter on Hell in any of Brunner’s books. But Hell is not just a “mythical” figure of speech. Nor is it just a dark prospect, which — one wants to hope — may never be realized. Horribile dictu — it is a reality, to which many human beings are even now committed, by their own will, or at least — by their own choice and decision, which may mean, in the last resort, bondage, but is usually mistaken for freedom. “Hell” is an internal state, not a “place.” It is a state of personal disintegration, which is mistaken for self-assertion — with certain reason, since this disintegration is grounded in pride. It is a state of self-confinement, of isolation and alienation, of proud solitude. The state of sin itself is “hellish,” although it may be, by an illusion of selfish imagination, mistaken for “Paradise.” For that reason sinners chose “sin,” the proud attitude, the Promethean pose. One may make of “Hell” an ideal, and pursue it — deliberately and persistently.

Indeed, ultimately, it is but an illusion, an aberration, a violence, and a mistake. But the sting of sin is precisely in the denial of the divinely instituted reality, in the attempt to establish another order or regime, which is, in contrast with the true divine order, a radical disorder, but to which one may give, in selfish exaltation, ultimate preference. Now, sin has been destroyed and abrogated — it can not be said that “sin” has been redeemed, only persons may be redeemed. But it is not enough to acknowledge, by faith, the deed of the divine redemption — one has to be born anew. The whole personality must be cleansed and healed. Forgiveness must be accepted and assessed in freedom. It cannot be imputed — apart from an act of faith and gratitude, an act of love. Paradoxically, nobody can be saved by love divine alone, unless it is responded to by grateful love of human persons. Indeed, there is always an abstract possibility of “repentance” and “conversion” in the course of this earthly or historic life. Can we admit that this possibility continues after death? Brunner will hardly accept the idea of a “Purgatory.” But even in the concept of Purgatory no chance of radical conversion is implied. Purgatory includes but believers, those of good intentions, pledged to Christ, but deficient in growth and achievement. Human personality is made and shaped in this life — at least, it is oriented in this life. The difficulty of universal salvation is not on the divine side — indeed, God wants every man “to be saved,” not so much, probably, in order that His will should be accomplished and His Holiness secured, as in order that man’s existence may be complete and blessed. Yet, insuperable difficulties may be erected on the creaturely side. After all, is “ultimate resistance” a greater paradox, and a greater offense, than any resistance or revolt, which actually did pervert the whole order of Creation, did handicap the deed of redemption? Only when we commit ourselves to a Docetic view of history and deny the possibility of ultimate decisions in history, in this life, under the pretext that it is temporal, can we evade the paradox of ultimate resistance.

St. Gregory of Nyssa anticipated a kind of universal conversion of souls in the afterlife, when the Truth of God will be revealed and manifested with compelling evidence. Just at that point the limitation of the Hellenic mind is obvious. Evidence seemed to it to be the decisive motive for the will, as if “sin” were merely ignorance. The Hellenic mind had to pass through a long and hard experience of asceticism, of ascetic self-examination and self-control, in order to overcome this intellectualistic naïveté and illusion and discover a dark abyss in the fallen soul. Only in St. Maximus the Confessor, after some centuries of ascetic preparation, do we find a new and deepened interpretation of the Apokatastasis. Indeed, the order of creation will be fully restored in the last days. But the dead souls will still be insensitive to the very revelation of Light. The Light Divine will shine to all, but those who once have chosen darkness will be still unwilling and unable to enjoy the eternal bliss. They will still cling to the nocturnal darkness of selfishness. They will be unable precisely to enjoy. They will stay “outside” — because union with God, which is the essence of salvation, presupposes and requires the determination of will. Human will is irrational and its motives cannot be rationalized. Even “evidence” may fail to impress and move it.

Eschatology is a realm of antinomies. These antinomies are rooted and grounded in the basic mystery of Creation. How can anything else exist alongside of God, if God is the plenitude of Being? One has attempted to solve the paradox, or rather to escape it, by alleging the motives of Creation, sometimes to such an extent and in such a manner as to compromise the absoluteness and sovereignty of God. Yet, God creates in perfect freedom, ex mera liberalitate, that is, without any “sufficient reasons.” Creation is a free gift of unfathomable love. Moreover, man in Creation is granted this mysterious and enigmatic authority of free decision, in which the most enigmatic is not the possibility of failure or resistance, but the very possibility of assent. Is not the will of God of such a dimension that it should be simply obeyed without any real, that is, free and responsible, assent? The mystery is in the reality of creaturely freedom. Why should it be wanted in the world created and ruled by God, by His infinite wisdom and love? In order to be real, human response must be more than a mere resonance. It must be a personal act, an inward commitment. In any case, the shape of human life — and now we may probably add, the shape and destiny of the cosmos — depends upon the synergism or conflict of the two wills, divine and creaturely. Many things are happening which God abhors — in the world which is His work and His subject. Strangely enough, God respects human freedom, as St. Irenaeus once said, although, in fact, the most conspicuous manifestation of this freedom was revolt and disorder. Are we entitled to expect that finally human disobedience will be disregarded and “dis-respected” by God, and His Holy Will shall be enforced, regardless of any assent? Or it would make a dreadful “masquerade” of human history? What is the meaning of this dreadful story of sin, perversion, and rebellion, if finally everything will be smoothed down and reconciled by the exercise of divine Omnipotence?

Indeed, the existence of Hell, that is, of radical opposition, implies, as it were, some partial “unsuccess” of the creative design. Yet, it was more than just a design, a plan, a pattern. It was the calling to existence, or even “to being,” of living persons. One speaks sometimes of the “divine risk,” says Jean Guitton. It is probably a better word than kenosis. Indeed, it is a mystery, which cannot be rationalized — it is the primordial mystery of creaturely existence.

Brunner takes the possibility of Hell quite seriously. There is no security of “universal salvation,” although this is, abstractly speaking, still possible — for the omnipotent God of Love. But Brunner still hopes that there will be no Hell. The trouble is that there is Hell already. Its existence does not depend upon divine decision. God never sends anyone to Hell. Hell is made by creatures themselves. It is human creation, outside, as it were, of “the order of creation.”

The Last Judgment remains a mystery.