Orthodox Reflections

How Western Beliefs Changed the Original Gospel Message

   … Approach to Wisdom …

Irene Polidoulis MD

with the blessing of her spiritual father

This eleven-part series is dedicated to my loving husband, Dimitri, who sets me free, and to Theodore, Gianni, Andrew, Conor, Matthew, Susan, and all those who go out on a limb to see the stars.

The liberating message of the Gospel rings clearest and truest in the ancient faith of the Orthodox Church. This is the same liberating message of Christ, as explained by the Apostles and their successors, a message of hope and truth. This message is the meaning of our lives, who we are and why we exist. Our life as we experience it is inexorably linked to our origin, our destiny, our fall, and our restoration; but with the passage of time and human history, the Gospel’s true message of hope and promise was altered, particularly in the West. Western emphasis on legalism, rationalism and institutionalism engendered and fostered a misunderstanding of God’s Love and our relationship to Him. This eleven-part ‘Western Series’ shall endeavour to demonstrate how and why this came about, what it means for us today, and how we can return to the real Jesus.

Part I contrasts Eastern from Western approaches to Wisdom and knowing Christ and the resulting difference in mindset and beliefs.

Part II examines the nature of Primordial (Pre-Fallen) Man* and their true purpose as male and female through Image and Likeness.

Part III defines sin by examining both Satan’s and Man’s falling from grace.

Part IV compares Eastern and Western remedies for sin.

Part V contrasts Eastern and Western approaches to guilt, suffering, sickness and death.

Part VI discusses Works in relation to Love, Faith, and human destiny.

Part VII examines the evolution of post Apostolic Papal ideas and ambitions, which eventually resulted in the Great Schism with the East and Reformation within the West.

Part VIII explains the successes and failures of the Protestant Reformation in seeking emancipation from Papal corruption and tyranny.

Part IX addresses the Reformers’ rejection of Holy Tradition.

Part X examines how Christ redeemed us according to Eastern and Western theology.

Part XI describes Heaven and Hell through Eastern and Western lenses.

This series is intended as a comparative introduction of the less known (in the West) Orthodox doctrines and mindset and is not meant to be exhaustive. Some questions that arise in the reader’s mind in the earlier parts may be answered in subsequent parts. The author assumes the reader has some Biblical background knowledge, so that in the interest of brevity, some of the information presented is concentrated or dense. For further clarity, the reader is invited to study the references at the end, as well as the hyperlinks and scriptural references provided within the text.

A Brief History

During Apostolic times, the spread of Christianity was facilitated by a closely knit Roman Empire that embraced different national groups. Greek or Latin were understood almost everywhere and many spoke both.  When Saint Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople in 330 A.D., he created a cultural and political shift that had a profound and lasting impact.  Constantinople soon eclipsed Rome as the new center of political, economic, and cultural influence. In 395 A.D., when Emperor Theodosius I officially divided the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western halves, this further hastened the decline of the Western half of the Roman Empire.

Economic problems, civil wars, power struggles, and frequent invasions of Rome by Western Germanic and other tribes destabilized the West until Rome was finally sacked and collapsed in 476 A.D. Despite the political upheavals, the bishops of Rome continued to function, operating within a different political framework. To help maintain unity and order, the Roman Bishops adapted by increasingly adopting a monarchial model, which, by the 6^th century, gradually led to the loftier title of “Pope” (from the Latin “papa” meaning “father”) and the associated idea that the Pope was the supreme ruler of the whole Church (papal supremacy). In addition, Rome had the sole autocephalous Patriarchate in all Western Europe. This made it much easier for Rome to evade the checks and balances of the four autocephalous Patriarchates that existed in the East – in Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Hence, men of ambition, rather than prayer, found it easier to hijack the unique and more isolated See of Rome, far away from and unimpeded by their Eastern counterparts.

Because of its stronger economy, strategic location and centralized administration, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire was able to weather Barbarian attacks for another ten centuries before succumbing to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 A.D. A better economy, a more stable government and greater accountability to a more educated laity, helped the Eastern Patriarchates more successfully preserve Holy Tradition with dogmatic and liturgical continuity and cohesiveness, despite the upheavals that were unique to them.

To add to these differences, after Theodosius I divided the Roman Empire in 395 A.D. between his two heirs, the populace gradually lost their Greek/Latin bilingualism. By 450 A.D. very few in Western Europe could read Greek, and by 600 A.D., it was rare for a Byzantine Greek to speak Latin. They no longer drew upon the same sources or read the same books, even in translation. As the two sides grew further apart intellectually, culturally, racially, politically, and philosophically, there was also a theological shift in the Western mindset that often resulted in misunderstandings and friction between East and West.¹

Differences in Approach and Thought

Ancient Christianity did not change the world because of its great thinkers, philosophers or scientists. It changed the world because of those who were fundamentally changed at their core by the crucified Christ when they tried to personally know God, not according to their own understanding, but according to the Truths that HE revealed. Knowledge of Christ and His teachings was an important entryway into the Christian faith, but it was the mystical experience of His presence in the hearts of men and women, that unified them into one Church and the Body of Christ.

The Orthodox mindset (phronema, Greek: φρόνημα) has always accepted the mysteries that God has revealed without worrying too much about how to precisely explain them. Part of the Orthodox mindset is that human vocabulary cannot sufficiently explain the inexplicable God. And besides, words are superfluous when divine Truth is known in the heart. Only when this Truth was challenged by the world, did the divinely inspired Saints and Early Church Fathers (in both East and West) alongside the Ecumenical Councils, argue, debate, and with great pains, write things down. The approach they used was called Scholasticism.

Scholasticism used the process of questioning, debating, and forming conclusions to resolve questions about religion, politics, economics or the supernatural. It was a philosophical approach first used by the ancient Greeks, and then by the Early Church Fathers, to better understand, clarify and defend the teachings of the Church against paganism and heresies – but they only went so far with it. They correctly understood that Humanity* is limited in fully understanding all of God’s truths. After a point, we must place our trust and faith in God and await enlightenment, strength and courage through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Although we may speak about God, no words can contain or fully describe who He is.

In the West, Scholasticism went much further, attempting to explain all things, even just how many angels could fit on the head of a pin. Roman Catholicism emphasized the rational approach at the expense of mystery and faith. For example, the West tried to define in minute detail how the inner substance of the bread and wine change – in a way understandable and describable by the human mind – to become the Body and Blood of Christ. In contrast, the East simply took Jesus at His word when He said, “This is My Body…This is My Blood” (Matthew 16:26-28).²

The Orthodox accept that inwardly, in a mysterious, miraculous and inexplicable way, the Holy Gifts are truly the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, even if outwardly, they still appear and taste as bread and wine to most people.² I say “most” because some doubters have experienced raw flesh and other Eucharistic miracles. Orthodoxy does not use specific Western words such as “transubstantiation” or “consubstantiation” to explain this, as do the Roman Catholics and Protestants. They simply call it a “mystery” (mysterion, Greek: μυστήριον) or “change” (metabole, Greek: μεταβολή).⁴ The Eastern Holy Fathers and the spiritually mature know that one does not need to thoroughly understand the inexplicable God with one’s brain to experience Him in the heart. Recognizing the limitations of human rationalism, Orthodox Christianity seeks the experience of God by looking upwards with the eyes of the spiritual heart; and by experiencing Him, she knows Him.²

In contrast, the West developed a more rational top-down approach, as though looking through a microscope. This method of scholastic scrutiny, which relies much on human rationalism with definitions, categorizations, legalisms and other man-made criteria, assumes an element of arrogant superiority towards God. The mindset here is that we can understand God best if we rationalize enough about Him. The Orthodox mindset maintains that although the study of God is good, filling the self with too much rational knowledge can breed pride at the expense of developing a healthy relationship with God. The Orthodox emphasize emptying the self of all pride with a worshipful bottom-up approach. This approach focuses less on the rational and more on the relational.  Love and humility (the frequency in which God works, according to St. Paisios) are two of God’s relational energies. Therefore, these qualities in us are what attract God to us, so that instead of us figuring Him out through our own rationalism, our humble and loving approach attract God to us, who then reveals Himself. These divine revelations are the work of the Holy Spirit which open and fill the human heart with a correct understanding of God and the Holy Scripture.

This should not be surprising, for nothing that God has ever done is rational to the human mind. Indeed, throughout human history, perhaps as lessons in humility so that we may learn to rely less on our three-pound brains and more on Him, God has frequently turned human logic on its head. We can never understand how He spoke the Universe into existence; how the Word can remain God while becoming a man; how He took human flesh from a virgin, who remained a virgin, to unite divinity with corrupt humanity; how he conquered death by dying and then resurrecting, and so on.

This is why the Athenians first scoffed at the preaching of St. Paul. It was completely irrational to them for an Almighty God to assert His divine power by assuming the extreme of human weakness (and therefore completely irrational for Christianity to be a man-made religion). From commanding Noah to building an ark on dry land, to granting offspring to deeply aged and infertile couples, it has been through the humanly irrational that God has always revealed Himself. This type of divine activity that defies human rationalism, is what the Orthodox Church calls mysteries or mysticism. Therefore, trying to know God solely on our own terms, with human logic, is not only destined to fail, but also risks leading us dangerously astray and into the murky waters of Gnosticism.

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The Paths of Gnosticism

The word ‘Gnosticism’ originates from the Greek γνώσις (gnosis) which means knowledge. Orthodoxy understands Gnosticism as the heresy of relying on one’s human reason as the ultimate authority. While human reason is a gift from God that elevates Mankind* above the animals, divine revelation and experience surpass the limitations of human reason and understanding. Many heresies fall under the umbrella term of Gnosticism, all of which put human knowledge or understanding at the forefront, ignoring, changing or denying God’s revealed divine Truths.

St. Paul warns the early Church against gnostic heresy in Colossians. This apostle writes, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). To Timothy, St. Paul writes, “O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge…[emphasis mine]” (1 Timothy 6:20). Another apostle, John the Evangelist, records Christ’s words in Revelation 2:6. Here, Jesus says to the church of Pergamos, “But I have a few things against you: you also have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” The Nicolaitans were an early gnostic sect that tolerated idolatry and encouraged fornication. Some of the Church Fathers held the founder of this sect to be an apostate, Nicholas, who was one of the original seven deacons in Acts 6:5.⁵

 As the Apostles first did, the Early Church Fathers also strongly opposed Gnosticism, viewing it as a dangerous heresy that deviated from Orthodox Christianity. Irenaeus (in his work Against Heresies), Tertullian, Justin Martyr and others were key figures who rejected Gnosticism’s emphasis on secret knowledge rather than faith and grace for salvation. Gnostics rejected the material world, believing it to be inherently evil. They denied the incarnation, the physical resurrection, and they rejected the Old Testament. While the Church Fathers largely succeeded in pushing Gnosticism to the margins of the Christian world, its ideas have resurfaced throughout history in various forms.

In a broader sense, some examples of modern-day “neo-gnostic” heresies that started in the West include the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus is not God, and not part of a Trinity, but a creation of God. The bible they use is the New World Translation (NWT), which they study using their Watch Tower Society publications. These do not align with the interpretations of the Apostles or the Early Church Fathers. In the NWT, the first verse of the Gospel according to St. John has been altered from the original, to mean that Jesus did not exist eternally with the Father and is not God.² The Mormons also reject the divinity of Christ, as well as the Christian Holy Trinity.² Freemasonry, which claims to have secret knowledge is another type of Western gnostic heresy, and there are many others.

Gnosticism is as old as human history. The founder of Gnosticism is none other than Satan, who in the guise of a serpent, made an irresistible proposition to the first humans, Adam and Eve. He pretended to have special knowledge that only he and God knew about. The line Satan used was, “You shall not die by death (knowledge that was a lie). For God knows in the day you eat [from the Tree of Knowledge] your eyes will be opened (knowledge that was a truth), and you will be like gods (a lie), knowing good and evil (a truth) [emphasis mine]” (Genesis 3:4-5).

Gnosticism appeals to those who like to believe they have special or secret knowledge about God, revealed only to them or to their select group, which makes them more special, or exempt from the hard parts of Christianity, like the Nicolaitans who wanted to be exempt from having to resist idolatry and fornication as part of their Christian identity.

There are also those who rely only on human rationalism, which includes reason and knowledge, rather than God’s mysteries and revealed divine Truths, Truths that elude science or human logic. This does not mean that science or human logic are bad, for these are some of God’s gifts to us; it means that science and human logic are limited. They are tools, much like a hammer or a saw, which are useful but also limited. Similarly, science and human logic do not suffice in answering existential questions about life. Their purpose is to act as stepping stones to the Truth, but on their own they do not arrive ‘there.’ Somewhere along the line they stop short.

Let us consider, for a moment, starting on a scientific or logical path to find the meaning of life. By marveling at the natural world, we study it using science and logic. When these tools can take us no further, we realize that the answer to our existential question does not lie within our brains or in the natural world but in a life-giving power beyond nature, a power we cannot find or explain scientifically or logically. We cannot grasp this power with our hands or our brains, but it is there in birth, growth, reproduction and death. We cannot see the power, capture it or create it, but we experience it all around and within us. We started looking for it with our brain but ultimately, we acknowledge it with the eyes of our heart. We call this power God and Creator. Now, we seek Him, no longer as scientists or scholars, but as beggars because we cannot find Him unless He reveals Himself to us. When we understand this, we begin to seek Him on His terms. This is the honest, humble and Orthodox approach to God. When God spoke through the wise Solomon, He said, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not exalt your own wisdom. In all your ways, know [the] Wisdom [of God], that He may cut a straight path for you [emphasis mine]” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

Having touched on just a few of a great many gnostic heresies that have sprung up through the ages, let us consider one more, a modern one, that originated in the West, one that this author believes is a more covert modern-day example of Gnosticism – the theory of Evolution. The Evolution of one species into another has become the modern Scholastic approach to understanding Man’s origin, and hence, what it means to be Human. If one assumes that “science” cannot be wrong but that God also exists, then one must somehow reconcile “scientific” Evolution with Biblical Creation. Even some Orthodox Christians try to do this because they find the “science” of Evolution compelling enough to not discount the possibility that God could have employed evolution as a means of creation. Their argument is that Evolution is, after all, “scientific,” isn’t it? The spiritual origin and image of man is not negotiable in the Orthodox Church. If Orthodox thought allows for diversity on physical creation, it is because Orthodoxy recognizes that the all-powerful God could have created the world any way He wished. While this is true of God, however, many do not realize that it is not true of Science.

To fall under the definition and category of Science, an idea must be testable using the Scientific Method, which stipulates the following:

1. Ask a question about an Observation
2. Conduct Background (foundational) Researchto learn if the Question has been already answered
3. If not, propose a Hypothesis or Theory that might answer your question
4. Design and conduct an Experiment (study) to test your Hypothesis
5. Record your new Observations and Analyze your Data
6. Draw your Conclusion and make further iterations

Evolution cannot get past step 3 to step 4, because it is impossible to conduct an experiment to test something that requires us to go back in time, or that takes lifetimes to achieve. The best any honest scientist can do is to stop at step 3 and admit that Evolution is stuck in the theory phase and can never claim to be a scientific truth. It can even be argued that the Theory of Evolution does not even belong in the category of science, since it can never satisfy the Scientific Method. And yet, many scientists have not only accepted it and promoted it as science, but even embraced it and wholeheartedly believe it, using it to reject any religion that includes a belief in God. This they do without realizing they have adopted a faith-based gnostic religion by the name of Scientism.  According to theoretical physicist, Sabine Hossenfelder, “If it’s not testable, it’s not science…The moment you begin talking about untestable beliefs, you’re doing religion, not science.”

It is beyond our scope here to expand on the totality of problems with all the so-called “scientific” evidence that Evolution really happened, such as the fact that none of the dating methods used by Evolutionists have any proven reliable or reproducible accuracy, but this topic is thoroughly covered in another excellent source by investigative journalist and Christian apologist, Lee Strobel. ³ **

Not only is Evolution an unsatisfactory scientific explanation, but it is also an insufficient one because it is entirely materialistic. It assumes that Humanity consists only of flesh and bones like the dinosaurs. Evolution only deals with the “how,” not the existential “why” of human existence. It also does not explain why humans differ as much as they do from other creatures, from which they were supposed to have evolved. For all these reasons, Evolution will forever remain a theory.

Human beings may share similar physical characteristics with other mammals, but we differ from them in numerous, inexplicable (“mystical”) and profound ways. Humans are the only ‘species’ capable of reason and abstract thinking. The complex subjects of mathematics, physics, philosophy, medicine, and so on, are neither studied nor applied by other animals or even apes, our supposed closest evolutionary ancestors. Only Humans have the sophistication to plan, develop, engineer and create systems and structures of immense diversity and complexity. Only humans demonstrate the diverse artistic expression and creativity found in literature, fine art, music, dance and architecture. What other creature understands the nature of time, reality, relationships, choice and truth, or can read, write, speak and otherwise communicate in multiple languages? Who else can engage in research, philosophy, spirituality, and pursue integrity, generosity and truth – or the opposite, immorality, falsehood, and corruption? And how does the same ‘evolved’ physical human brain in the same individual, alternate between good and evil thought, desire or action; or even simply change its mind? And if we all have different brains that practice different levels of morality, goodness or evil, how is it that we all instinctively and uniformly know the difference between what is good and what is evil? How does Evolution explain the issue of choice in the realm of human freedom? It cannot.

 If there is any evidence (without holes in it) to support Evolution, there is a larger body of hard, truly scientific evidence to support Creation;³ but one does not need to be a scientist to understand this because mere observation is enough to demonstrate that Humanity is unlike any other living creature, no matter how hard the gnostic religion of Scientism tries to attribute us to the apes.

Only the Book of Genesis adequately explains why we differ as we do, because only Humanity was created in the image and likeness of God. No other living creature has this distinction. Not only is it unnecessary to reconcile Evolution with Creation, but it is also dangerous. The more we try to explain ourselves purely academically, scientifically, scholastically, or by any other purely rational means, the closer we get to falling down a gnostic rabbit hole.

And yet, because we are limited by our human nature, God understands our weaknesses, and He often invites us to “examine” Him when our faith needs a boost. These are the self-revealing words of Jesus to Thomas: “Reach your finger here and look at My hands; and reach your hand here and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving but believing” (John 20:27). The divinely inspired early Church and her Fathers correctly understood the limitations of the human mind and when to trust God by accepting His mysteries with humility, rather than creating theories or relying on their own understanding. With this approach, the Orthodox East achieved a healthy balance between scholasticism and mysticism. They used the former to defend Christianity against paganism and other heresies, and they relied on the latter to approach, worship and experience God.

No Orthodox dogma has been fabricated, only divinely revealed. This means that the Christian Orthodox Faith is not a man-made “religion” but a “revelation” from God. It is not an ideology but a mystical way of living that is “[out] not of this world” (John 15:19 & John 18:36). Every revelation from God has, as its foundation a previous revelation, all the way back to the beginning of time, like an unbroken chain. This history has been recorded and understood by divinely inspired men and women of God, who preserved both Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition.

From Pentecost to the present day, the Orthodox Church in the East has safeguarded God’s revealed and unalterable Truths. In the West, a host of differing viewpoints have sprung up, which have changed the original Gospel message and how Man relates to God. To better understand this phenomenon, we shall begin to lay the foundation of our arguments at the beginning – with Genesis – because we will often refer to Genesis in subsequent Parts. Unless otherwise stated, everything is written from the Orthodox perspective, which the reader can compare to his own.

The Mystery of the Holy Trinity

Because it is a mystery to our rational, human way of thinking, God’s very first Biblical revelation is that of Himself, as a Trinity.⁵

In the beginning, God [the Father] made heaven and earth…the [Holy] Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. Then God said [To Whom was He speaking? God, the Father, spoke to His Word and only begotten Son, through Whom He made the light], “Let there be light” (Genesis 1: 1-3).⁵

 In His lovingkindness, God first introduces His incomprehensible majesty to us, almost as if to say, you can never understand me with your own, limited rationalism, but if you approach Me by trying to imitate My Love and Humility, I will reveal Myself to you. Therefore, through the great prophet, Moses, who wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, God lays down the foundation of His revealed Truths in the first verses of Genesis by introducing Himself as Trinitarian. In parallel, the Holy Church Fathers teach that the Father made heaven and earth through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Holy Trinity made heaven and earth, and the Church sings, “We glorify the Father, we exalt the Son, and we worship the Holy Spirit – the indivisible Trinity who exists as One.” ⁵

Orthodox Icon of the Holy Trinity

In case there is any doubt in the first three verses of Geneses that God is Trinitarian, on the sixth day He said, “Let Us [plural] make man in Our [plural] image [singular], according to Our [plural] likeness [singular, emphasis mine]” (Genesis 1:26). Here, the original text is not using bad grammar, nor was God speaking in the royal “we.” When God said, “Let Us make…in Our image,” He spoke as the three distinct ‘Persons’ of the Holy Trinity. Note how the word “image,” is in the singular.  God did not say “in Our images.” This means that the three ‘Persons’ of the Holy Trinity, while distinct, are one in essence and undivided – one God.⁵

There are many other scriptural passages that combine the plural with the singular, or otherwise denote a Trinitarian God –  (Genesis 3:22, Genesis 11:6-7, Genesis 18:1-3, Psalm 109/110:1, Matthew 3: 16-17, Matthew 22:41-46, John 1:1-5,14, 1John 5:7, Luke 1:35, Luke 3:22, Matthew 27:46, John 10:28-30, John 14:17, John 14:20). This is the first mystery, the mind-boggling mystery of the Holy Trinity, that God reveals because no amount of human rationalism can even imagine, let alone fabricate, or understand, a Trinitarian God.

The Orthodox Church understands the mystery of the Holy Trinity as one God, who is one in essence (ousia, Greek: ουσία) or substance, being, or nature. These are terms which indicate true unity. God is also three ‘Persons’ (hypostases, Greek: υποστάσεις), Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which indicates genuine personal differentiation. The three ‘Persons’ of the Holy Trinity, while distinct, are not separate. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. They are one in nature and undivided – one God, with one and the same will, one and the same energy and one and the same nature. For example, all three are All-knowing and Almighty. While none of the three ever act separately or apart from the other two, there is genuine diversity between them as each has different but synergistic roles.⁵

The Father is the ever-present, knowing and loving Fountainhead of the Holy Trinity. The only begotten Son is eternally begotten of the Father (not just at His incarnation); and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father (not just at Pentecost). The Father is an approachable and ever-present person who knows and loves, and who is to be known and loved. Christ said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23).⁵

The Son is the ‘Word’ or ‘Logos’ (Greek: Λόγος) and is equal to the Father. His objective is to bring people back to the Father, as well as to Himself. This is why He said, “I am the way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). His activity or role was to become a man so that Man may become God (St. Athanasius) by sharing in His divine nature. He accomplished this with his Incarnation, Public Ministry, Suffering, Death by Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension.⁵

The Holy Spirit, also called the ‘Helper’, ‘Comforter’ or ‘Paraclete’, is the “breath” of God and is equal to the Father. The Holy Spirit, who eternally proceeds from the Father, was sent to us by the Son at Pentecost. The objective of the Holy Spirit is to support the salvific role of the Son by bearing witness of the Son and dwelling within us. His activity is summarized in this prayer:⁵

Heavenly King, Comforter, the Spirit of truth, everywhere present and filling all things, Treasury of blessings and Giver of Life, come and dwell in us; cleanse us of every impurity and save our souls, O gracious One.

(Doxology, Great Vespers of Pentecost)

The three ‘Persons’ of the Holy Trinity relate to one another in perfect Love and Humility. Fully in line with the Early Church Fathers, 20^th century St. Paisios taught that “love and humility is the frequency in which God works.”  From the very beginning, with great love and great humility, God sought a deep and intimate relationship with us. When God created the Universe, the earth, and every living thing, He did so by divine command; but Man was made differently. God said, “Let Us make man in Our image according to Our likeness. Let them have dominion over…all the earth, and over every…thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:26).⁵

Rather than speaking Mankind into existence, as was done with the rest of creation, God “formed Man out of the dust from the ground and breathed in his face the breath of life; and Man became a living soul [emphasis mine]” (Genesis 2:7). Unlike the rest of creation, God came down to the ground and personally formed Man. No other creature was personally formed or breathed on by God. None other was made in His image according to His likeness; and although other creatures have life, none except Man has a living (immortal) soul derived from the breath of God, Himself.⁵  

 At the time of Creation, all three ‘Persons’ of the Holy Trinity were bodiless spirit, for the Word (Logos, Greek: Λόγος) had not yet incarnated as Jesus Christ. Therefore, ‘Image’ has nothing to do with God’s physical appearance. God did not create us to look like Him, but to be like Him. ‘Image,’ therefore, has to do with God’s divine attributes, which He readily shared with us, so that He could also share His very divinity with us. This He did because of His great love and profound humility.

 “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you…” (Jeremiah 1:5)

 People commonly ask, if God is all knowing and knew in advance that Adam and Eve would rebel and fall from grace, requiring the redemptive intervention of the Incarnate Christ, why did He proceed to create Humanity in the first place? The answer is as simple as it is profound. We are God’s wanted and planned children. His creation of us was not an experiment, an accident, a mistake, or based on a fleeting loving sentiment, like the attraction we may feel for a cute puppy in a pet shop. God is Love and the source of Love. God loves deeply, intensely and divinely; in human terms, one might even dare to say madly. There is no earthly type of love, neither experiential nor imaginary, that even approaches the profundity of depth and the intensity of God’s Love. God’s divine Love is a mystery, beyond human understanding (but not beyond human experience), and indescribable by any human vocabulary by those who have experienced it.

Love exists only because God exists. He loved us even before He created us, not merely to bring us to His Heavenly Kingdom, but to share His glorious divinity with us, a prerogative which is for Mankind alone. Even before our existence, He had so much love for us, that He made us last of all, as the crown of His creation to be the pinnacle and jewel of the Universe (Psalm 8: 6-7), next only to Him. He was willing to do everything it took to help us fulfil His divine plan for us, even knowing beforehand that we would fail at first. Like a mother, who well knows how hard it will be for her, but already loves her child so, and longs for it even before its conception, God so loved Mankind that He created us anyway, and He made us very special.

To be continued in Part II – True Love Makes Truly Human…

 Footnotes

• The terms Man, Humanity, Mankind are used interchangeably and in the plural sense to mean both the masculine and the feminine together. The terms he, him, his also denote the singular feminine unless otherwise stated in the text. These terms will be used in this manner throughout all parts of this Series.

** Although a Protestant apologist, investigative journalist, Lee Strobel, provides an excellent and unbiased scientific treatment of Evolution and Creation in his book, the Case for a Creator.

References

1. Nicozisin, A History of the Church, 75-76
2. Nicozisin, The Orthodox Church: A Well-Kept Secret – A Journey Through Church History, 70-72, 340-34, 114
3. Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God, Reprint edition. (Grand Rapids, Mich.; Barrington, IL: Zondervan, 2015)
4. Ioannes M. Phountoules, Answers to Liturgical Questions – Vol III 64-69, Vol IV 291-300
5. The Orthodox Study Bible, Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today’s World, Old & New Testaments, texts & exegesis Pg. 1715, 3-5