The Eastern Fathers & Divine Hiddenness

Part 6 of 7 — Theological Letters

The following piece is adapted from a podcast series on the Problem of Divine Hiddenness. While my typical written work includes extensive citations, I have not added references to this particular post. In addition, I have largely preserved my manner of speech, which can be a bit more colloquial than my usual writing style. Perhaps, when time permits, I’ll revise this piece to accommodate a more formal tone with proper citations. But in the meantime, I trust my body of work should suffice to instill confidence that the philosophical, theological, and historical claims presented here are sound and can be verified by an investigation of the figures and sources referenced. If you have yet to read the first several pieces in this series, you may want to do so (links below). However, this particular post — and the next — wades into fresh waters, so one can likely dive in without looking back on the start to this series.

Thank you for reading Theological Letters. To my subscribers, thank you for being here. To my paid subscribers, thank you for sustaining this work. A paid subscription costs about two coffees and unlocks my full archive, weekly letters, the 15-hour Orthodox Foundations lecture series, and monthly live Q&A sessions. If paid support isn’t possible, your likes and restacks truly help expand my reach. I appreciate you all.

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Part 1: The Problem of Divine Hiddenness | When God Seems Silent

Part 2: Why God Stays Hidden

Part 3: Proving God

Part 4: Non-Resistant Unbelief

Part 5: Scrutinizing the Metanarrative of Divine Hiddenness

Part 6: The Eastern Fathers & Divine Hiddenness

Part 7: The Hidden & Revealed God of the Eastern Fathers

We began this series by examining Schellenberg’s early formulation of the hiddenness argument, which suggests that if there is a loving God, then there should be no such thing as rational unbelief. In our last two posts, we explored the updated formulation of the case, which adds the problem of rational non-resistant unbelief.

Throughout, we have scrutinized the underlying presumptions of the case, along with its underlying metanarrative, exploring what the argument tacitly presumes about God, world, man, hiddenness, and revelation.

I noted in prior posts that I take issue with the majority of the argument’s underlying presuppositions. Today, I want to delve deeper into why: If the world, God, and man are not what the objector presumes, then what are these truly like? The importance of the underlying metanarrative is crucial, and the reason is one I have noted previously. The objection is based on a hypothetical: If the God of the Christians is real, then belief in him is of utmost importance to a person’s fate. In other words, the hypothetical presumes Christianity. Hence, a right characterization of the Christian religion is indispensable when assessing the merits of the argument.

In what follows, I will explore an alternative metanarrative, offering a very different story about the world, God, man, hiddenness, and revelation than that of the objectors — one that offers a good bit of explanation for why our present experience is the way that it is. And to no surprise to my readers, this alternative will draw heavily upon the Eastern Church fathers.

On the Pursuit of the “Hidden” God

I begin with the question how one ought to pursue God, if the God of the Christians is, in fact, real. Toward this end, I want to return to Alex O’Connor’s testimony about his own failed attempt at rational non-resistant belief.

By his own testimony, Mr. O’Connor has undertaken a variety of pursuits in an effort to find the hidden God — reading, debating, even securing a degree in theology. To this he has added prayer, listening to worship music, and living with Christians. When ushering forth this litany of efforts, Mr. O’Connor appears to presume that such efforts should lead him to knowledge of God — if, of course, God is real. The fact that he has done such things only to come up empty demonstrates that his is both a rational and non-resistant unbelief.

Now, setting aside the question of whether this self-assessment is accurate — a question I explore in my prior post — there are some questionable presumptions in the case. The first concerns timeline. Alex is a young man, only in his mid-twenties. Hence, his case presumes, first, that the sorts of activities he describes should not only yield belief but yield it in a notably short period of time.

Many know all too well what it is like to spend decades wrestling with philosophical and spiritual questions before coming to faith. C. S. Lewis is one notable example, and my own story is a less notable one.¹ Without any disrespect to Mr. O’Connor, I find the suggestion dubious that the most important matters in human existence — a status the hiddenness argument concedes to religious belief — should also be matters easily buttoned up by one’s mid-twenties.

On this point, I would offer two further observations. The first is that Mr. O’Connor seems to believe that if he has not arrived at belief by now, then he never will. Speaking as one who converted when I was a decade older than Mr. O’Connor, I’m unconvinced this is true. We’ll return to the question of unremedied unbelief in the context of the Eastern patristic metanarrative below, but for now, let it suffice that unbelief in one’s mid-twenties hardly constitutes evidence for ultimate unbelief.

The second point concerns the value of a long journey of struggle. My second post in this series referenced the work of Paul Moser when discussing the value of divine hiddenness — that struggle and striving are means of growth, the very type of growth that produces the kind of faith that God desires. And to this point I appended the Eastern patristic case that process and growth are inherent to the nature of creaturely existence of metaphysical necessity. The combined case offers the alternative explanation for hiddenness, namely, that it is instrumental in the spiritual formation of the creature.

Such an explanation strikes me as more than plausible when considering those of us who have taken very long and tumultuous roads to arrive at faith. Already mentioned was Lewis. His life of study and skepticism before conversion shaped him into arguably the greatest Christian apologist of the twentieth century. One can hardly look at his very long journey as fruitless.

I hope the same might be said about my own journey. Faith came to me only after spending decades agonizing over belief in God, and I have no trouble seeing the wisdom of this long road now that I stand at journey’s end. All that I have learned about the history of ideas, about historical theology, about the pitfalls that threaten the spiritual pilgrim, and so much more has been harvested from the fields of struggle. And as painful as the road was, I would not trade what I’ve reaped for an easier path.

From where I presently stand, I can say with full confidence that I find it entirely plausible that someone like Mr. O’Connor will come to faith at some point. And I think it’s equally plausible that upon coming to faith, he will look back on the journey only to discover a storehouse of riches that he would never trade. In short, he may yet discover the value of the long and tumultuous road to faith.

Now, setting aside the journey, let us consider the desired destination. In one of his interviews, Mr. O’Connor speaks about the type of divine unveiling he desires — this being the desired destination. He explains that he would not require a booming voice from the sky, as Dawkin’s might demand, just a flicker of light — something subtle would do.

For my part, I’m unsure why the demand for a flicker of divine light is a lesser ask than a booming voice, since both are demands for a divine manifestation — whether loud or subtle seems, to me, immaterial. But setting aside whether the demand is lesser, I’m more interested in the nature of Mr. O’Connor’s request, namely, that he asks for a glimpse of divine light, or light that somehow originates from God.

I find the request intriguing because there is a fair bit of precedent within Eastern Christianity for the unveiling of God via the “uncreated light.” And within such precedent we discover a fair bit of guidance as to how one might obtain precisely what Mr. O’Connor desires.

By way of background, we need to look at the doctrine of the divine energies. The Greek term, energeia, has a long history, but for our purposes we need only understand a couple of points. The first is that the term refers to those operative powers by which a thing expresses its nature. For example, the mind expresses its rational nature by operations of speech or analysis. Fire expresses its pyrrotic nature with operations of heating and lighting. In other words, there is a distinction between the nature of a thing — what it is — and the energetic expressions of that nature by which we come to know what it is.

This distinction paves the way for the second thing we must understand about the term. The Alexandrian Jews and early Christians — first St. Paul and then the Eastern fathers with him — observed that some “energies” are communicable, capable of being transferred from one being to another. Iron, for example, is naturally susceptible to the energies of fire. When the two commune, the pyrrotic energies of fire take up residence within the iron, causing it to glow and burn. The iron remains iron but it bears within its person, as it were, energies from a foreign nature.

The concept was critical to how Alexandrian Jews, St. Paul, and the Eastern Christians understood man’s relationship to the spiritual world. A human being is naturally an open system. Physically, we take in our environment — food, air, and water — and the things we imbibe become part of us. The same is true spiritually. We are made to be receptive to our spiritual environment. We are spiritually porous, you might say, imbibing the energies of the spirits that inhabit our world.

While the notion may sound strange, most intuitively understand the point in a certain context. Evident enough to most is that toying with black magic or the occult is dangerous, precisely because it opens one up to malevolent spirits. The notion of “spiritual energy” offers some explanation of why this is so. Just as breathing in toxic air or consuming rotten food can make one physically ill, so communing with demons can make one spiritually ill. Such was the more ancient understanding of demoniacs. Persons in communion with demons were not puppets but participants, taking into themselves the energies of demonic powers, much like the way iron takes into itself the energies of fire. And the concept was not limited to dark spirits. In 2 Maccabees, several angels appear to protect the Temple from desecration, and they protect it by the “energies” of God.

Lest one recoil from such language, as sounding too “New Age,” this manner of speaking appears often in St. Paul. The Apostle speaks of himself being energized by God for ministry to the gentiles — and of the Apostle Peter being energized for ministry to the Jews. Paul also speaks of God’s energy working cooperatively with the energy of believers, making them “co-workers.” And much like in our above talk of demoniacs, Paul says the Children of Wrath are energized by The Devil. This became the basis for many different things within Eastern Christian theology, including relics, sacred spaces, and sacred artifacts.

For our purposes, the doctrine of the divine energies speaks to Mr. O’Connor’s request in two ways. First, the Eastern fathers have a very clear position on the thing Mr. O’Connor has requested: He has asked for a glimpse of the divine energies. According to the Eastern fathers, when people see the glory of God or when the prophets speak about God robed in light or when the Saints behold the uncreated light, such imagery is understood as a reference to the energies of God. These energies are expressions or processions that exude from the divine nature, revealing the nature of God to the beholder. The energies are divine in origin, but they are not the divine essence — not the totality of God or his inner self.

This is how Philo of Alexandria interprets God’s talk to Moses about his face as contrasted with his back. Recall the story where Moses asks God to show him his glory, and God replies that no man can see his face and live, but he agrees to show Moses his back. Philo interprets this as a distinction between God’s essence — which no man can behold — and the energetic expressions of that nature, which come down to us, revealing what can be known of the incomprehensible God.

A great many stories exist about the men and women beholding the uncreated light. I recall a story about a St. Porphyrios. As a man was confessing to him, he looked up and saw his face aglow with the energies of God and could hardly continue at the sight such glory. I recall a similar account by a spiritual pilgrim who journeyd to Mount Athos to visit St. Paisos, and I believe it was Elder Joseph whose face would sometimes blaze whlie serving behind the altar. These are far from the only stories of Saints who participate in the divine energies, shining forth the glory of God from their own person. The Bible itself testifies to the same when speaking about Moses’ face aglow after his descent from Sinai — a sight so unsettling to the people that he had to wear a veil.

Through these Saints, onlookers beheld the uncreated light — the holy person serving as a conduit for divine glory, himself participating in or partaking of the divine nature, as described in the above point concerning the transference of energies. And, of course, a great many Saints testify to seeing the uncreated light directly, in an unmediated fashion — this being the very phenomenon that sparked the controversy in the East between Gregory Palamas and Barlaam.

Granting these testimonies, then, the very thing Mr. O’Connor desires is possible. So, we might reframe his want as a desire to glimpse the energies of God.

I find this reframing useful because it carries us into the question of how the Saints attained what Mr. O’Connor desires. In a word, the reframe carries us into metanarrative territory, and particularly the question of what the testimony of the Saints tell us about the road to this destination.

Without any disrespect to Mr. O’Connor’s present efforts to find faith, I must ask: Did the Saints reach this destination by way of a theological degree, delving into academic reading, and listening to contemporary pop worship music?

One need not be an expert in hagiography to guess the answer. No, they did not. What we see in the life of the Saints is a long road of renouncing the world, of repentance, of participation in the sacramental life of the Church, of asceticism and the putting to death of the flesh and the passions, while turning their soul to God in perpetual prayer, fasting, and solitude. The journeys they describe are long and difficult, but they are singular in their pursuit of a common end — God himself.

Earlier within this series I noted the importance of asking whether there are any requisite conditions for discovering the God in question. Does he require something of the pursuer in order to be found?

The question is all the more pertinent when talking about a person, as opposed to an abstract force of nature. If one desires, not to simply know whether God exists — something that could be discerned from proofs — but wishes to know this divine Person, then he has moved out of bare analysis into relationship. So, he must ask: Presuming God can be known in such a way, does he make any demands on the would-be knower? Does this God lay bare a path by which one might come to know him?

Hats off to Mr. O’Connor for being proactive in his pursuit. One can hardly take seriously an objector who sits by passively, suggesting it is somehow incumbent upon God to reveal himself to me while I sit idly. But I raise the above considerations to ask whether Mr. O’Connor has taken the right path to reach his desired destination. Because Mr. O’Connor wishes to experience what the Saints experienced, their lives seem to be the best measuring rod. And measured against the lives of the Saints, it seems academic degrees and pop worship music offer a suboptimal road, to say the least. So we should not be surprised that Mr. O’Connor has come up empty.

What, then, is required? If we look at that pattern laid out for us by the Saints, we see precisely what I noted above — a life of repentance, participation in the life-giving sacraments of the Church, asceticism, fasting, prayer, silence, and the like. Now, I anticipate the objection that this is simply too much to ask. God should be discoverable without having to go through such rigors. If God is really so significant to my life, being the Highest Good and the true end of man, then that should be more evident to me without having to go through such drudgery, such lengths.

In reply, I would say two things. First, I think the point is easily inverted. If it’s really true that God is as significant to human existence as the theist claims, then why should finding him not require great effort? Every good in human life comes through striving, struggle, and effort. Why should we not expect the Greatest Good to require the greatest of efforts? And why shouldn’t we be willing to go to such lengths to discover him? If he truly is the Highest Good and the chief end of man, then it would seem he is worthy of the greatest effort.

The second thing I would say is this. The framing of the problem carries us, again, into the metanarrative side of things. For it tacitly suggests that God has intentionally made the journey to him as difficult as possible — that the journey could be easy, but he has made it unnecessarily toilsome. As noted in prior posts, the argument tacitly presumes that the present state of affairs is by design, and that within the current state of affairs, God is not only hidden but could easily be less hidden with no negative effects. In a word, we have ventured again into metanarrative territory.

So, at long last, I want to move into the underlying metanarrative that I would advocate as an Eastern Orthodox Christian philosopher. As we will see, this way of looking at the world offers very good reason why the lengths the Saints go is requisite for the unveiling of God.

An Alternative Metanarrative: The Real State of Affairs

Let me delve into the alternative metanarrative, the one I believe describes the actual state of affairs in which we live. Let’s begin with the phenomenon of hiddenness.

In previous posts, I contested the idea that God is hidden. I don’t think he is — or at least not in the way that advocates of the hiddenness objection suggest. However, I do believe that our present experience of God is limited in unnatural ways.

The regrettable fact is that we presently sit within an abnormal state of affairs. And within this state of affairs, there is good reason that God seems more distant than we would like. And when considered in the light of the Eastern Church fathers, this fact is both explicable and reflective of divine love. So, with that prelude, let’s consider the Eastern patristic understanding of our world.

The World Properly Formed

Well-known is the Christian belief that our world is Fallen, which is to say that our world was created good but dragged into corruption by free creatures — both men and angels. To begin, then, let us first consider the original state of the world prior to the Fall, according to the Eastern fathers.

Unlike in pagan philosophy, evil is not part of the original constitution of the world. The majority of pagan philosophies explain evil and corruptions by way of a second principle or duality — be at a war between good and evil deities, or a polarity between the chaos of matter and the order of providence, or a moral polarity between spirit and matter. Yet, within the Christian narrative, all of creation is good at its origin, and creation bore the potential to persist in this state of affairs, growing in goodness, never falling into corruption or evil.

Now, within Latin Christianity, this original state is often portrayed as idyllic. Yet, this is not so within Eastern Christianity. Yes, the whole of creation was free of corruption and sin, but this original state was akin to the state of an infant or a child, requiring a great deal of growth and maturity in order to reach its proper end. So, what is the proper end of creation, and what are the means to its achievement?

Anthropology

Man is central in the Eastern patristic vision of creation. So, let’s begin with the underlying anthropology — that is, the presumptions about the nature of man. Here, we discover several commitments common in the Eastern fathers.

The first is that man’s knowledge of God comes through the nous. We need not get bogged down in the details of the doctrine. For our purposes, let it suffice that the Greek word nous simply means “mind” amongst the ancients. Sometimes those from the Eastern Christian tradition will object to calling the nous the mind because they fear this word is pregnant with connotations from Latin scholasticism. Specifically, the Latin scholastics tend to treat the mind as reducible to operations of analysis and choice, and nous is more than a mere tool of analysis. The point is well taken. Yes, the Eastern patristic conception of mind includes much more than mere analysis. Mind entails the capacities of analysis and reason, certainly, along with the powers of free choice. But mind is more than these two, according to these fathers, and this fact is particularly important to the phenomenon of hiddenness.

To see this something more and its significance, we must entertain that there are other types of knowing, types that are non-analytic. Here’s one way I find useful to explaining the point: Imagine an infant child who has just been born and is drinking at his mother’s breast. Does that child know his mother? The answer is yes — in a very intimate, direct, deep way that goes far beyond the sort of knowledge that the majority of human beings will ever have of her — unless, of course, she has other children who also share in this knowledge.

In this bond beyond mother and child, the infant experiences a deep intimacy and knowledge of his mother. And yet, that same infant could never offer any sort of conceptual apparatus or analysis to explain that knowledge. Beyond the child’s grasp is the capacity to explain that he was gestated in her womb, birthed and brought to her breast to feed. The child has no concept of the relational properties that might schematize his bond. Yet, this in no way diminishes the intimate knowledge the child has of his mother.

That more intimate knowledge, that deeper knowing, is the sort of thing the Eastern Church fathers talk about when discussing the believer coming to know God. They draw a distinction between, say, Aristotle’s knowledge about God and St. Antony’s knowledge of God, which transcends analysis for intimate participation in and connection with God. The latter is the type of knowledge of God that the Christian is called to have and which is made possible because man is a nous-bearing creature.

The reason this is significant in our present context is that the Eastern fathers speak about the “eye of the soul,” by which they mean that the soul has a natural capacity to know and partake of God in this more intimate way. Within man’s natural and proper state — unfallen, uncorrupted — there is a natural capacity of soul to behold God. The human soul is made for divine vision, facilitating direct knowledge of, participation in, and intimacy with our Maker and divine Archetype.

Well-known is the Hebrew doctrine that man is an icon of God, this being the very thing that God sets out to make — a creature in his own image and according to his likeness. We will return to this particular feature of the story shortly. But for now, let is suffice that the Eastern fathers locate this image in our rational nature. The very fact that we bear mind — our nous being a small icon of the divine Nous — is the very thing that makes us an icon of God and capable of knowing God in the way described.

Equally key to this narrative is also that man is a hybrid being, bearing not only mind but also a lower animal nature. As Aristotle defines our species, we are a rational animal — or perhaps better, a nous-bearing animal.

The point is evident in the Hebrew creation account. All that God makes is bifurcated between the heavens and the earth, things mortal and things immortal. The divide was common amongst the ancients. Plato describes this as the contrast between being and becoming, between stable, unchanging realities, like those found in mathematics, and the shifting realities of the material realm. Within the Hebrew account, the same divide appears, contrasting the earth as the realm of mortal creatures who rise from the dust and return to it, and the heavenly realm of the immortals, who neither age nor die. In the Genesis story, however, there emerges a creature who bridges this chasm: Man, a creature crafted from the dust of the earth but breathed into from heaven.

This union of the heavens and the earth, of things mortal and things immortal, is precisely why the Eastern fathers refer to man as a microcosm of all that God has made. Within this microcosm, the proper order of things is that the higher nature — the thing that is most God-like about man — rightly governs and orders his lower nature, akin to a man wisely caring for and steering a horse.

In this sense, man not merely a merger of the higher and lower things of nature, but he is made to be a properly ordered union of nature, where the icon of God — man’s rational spirit — governs and orders his lower animal nature, raising it up to a life superior to that of the beasts. And this superior life is wed to the fact that man’s higher nature is capable of communing with God, participating in and partaking of the divine nature in a way a mere beast cannot. By this union, man’s lower nature gains access to the things of God, things that would otherwise be beyond its reach. So, man, as a nous-bearing animal, is called to commune with God, raising up his lower nature that the whole man might partake of the divine.

The Nature of Creatureliness

To no surprise, man is a creature within the Christian narrative. As touched on earlier in this series, the Eastern Church fathers understand creatureliness to entail certain inexorable traits.

The point came into sharp relief during the Arian dispute, the first of the ecumenical disputes that occasioned the Council of Nicea (325 A.D.) and the first draft of the Nicene Creed. The controversy brought to light the Eastern patristic understanding of the nature of creatureliness per se. The reason is this. Within the dispute, Arius of Alexandria had arguing that the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, is in fact a creature. He is, no doubt, a very God-like creature, but a creature nonetheless. Only God the Father is God in the true sense of the word.

The pro-Nicene position, represented by Athanasius of Alexandria, rejected Arius’ claim with great prejudice: The Son of God is of the same nature as God, his Father. But in making the point, Athanasius and the pro-Nicenes were exceedingly clear about the ramifications of Arius’ position. And within this clarity, we find an unvarnished explanation of the metaphysical entailments of being created.

First and foremost, a creature is something that moves from potentiality to actuality, transitioning from a mere possibility to a concrete reality. For this reason, every creature is necessarily changeable, since its very existence began with a transition from possible to real, from potential to actual, from unformed to form. In a word, every creature is subject to becoming.

The claim is one of metaphysical necessity. These fathers do not mean that God happens to make creatures changeable or mutable but he could have made them immutable, like himself. Quite the contrary, the Eastern Church fathers insists that not even God can make an immutable creature, since this is a contradiction in terms.

The point comes to light quite clearly during a pivot within the dispute. Amidst the onslaught of charges, Arius sought to fortify his position against the pro-Nicenes by arguing that the Son of God is a creature, but he is an immutable and incorruptible creature. The counter was rejected as nonsense, representing — as said above — a contradiction in terms. A creature, by definition, moves into being, which is a mutation or change. Such change is the mark of creatureliness, and not even God can make it otherwise.

Granting the point, two things come to light that are inherent to human nature. The first is that we are, by nature, transitional beings. Our existence begins with development, moving from a seedling state toward proper formation. And in the case of rational beings, this formation includes formation in reason, virtue, and spiritual perfection.

The second trait inherent in every creature is this. We are naturally corruptible. In other words, our capacity for change includes the possibility of change for worse. While we are made to move toward proper formation and attain perfection, our pliability makes it possible for us to change for worse, to be malformed. And in the case of rational beings, this possibility of malformation rests within our own hands.

On the Uniqueness of Reason

The power of free choice is one so native to us that we hardly consider how truly unique it is within the order of nature. As rational beings, we have the exceedingly strange capacity to not only discern the order of nature but to decide whether we wish to conform to that order or violate it. Nothing within all of nature operates in this way. Every other creature simply does what it is made to do. But man has the unique power of self-determination, deciding for himself the path he might take.

In the previous section, I noted that creatures are inherently transitional beings, subject to becoming, transitioning from a seedling state to maturity. Now, within irrational beings, like plants or animals, this formation is automatic. But the same is not and cannot be true of moral properties. Why? Because moral properties arise from reason and choice.

Every person intuitively understands this, both children and adults alike. When caught doing something wrong, a child’s only defense is to claim he didn’t know or he couldn’t help it. And though adult defenses grow more sophisticated, at bottom, these, too, boil down to a claim of ignorance or hindered capacity. And the reason is because we naturally understand that moral properties arise from the knowledge of right and wrong — what we ought or ought not do — and the freedom to do or not do. Such is the basis for all praise or blame.

This is precisely we do not blame a dog for acting beastly, but a man who acts like a beast we do blame. The former is incapable of moral behavior, while the latter, bearing reason and free will, is a moral being.

Now, the fact that moral properties arise from reason and choice highlights an important fact about the formation of man: If man is created to be virtuous, then he cannot become so without knowingly and willingly participating in his formation. In other words, not even God can unilaterally create a being, like man, formed in virtue. Rather, he can only create a being capable of virtue, bearing reason and will, but man must cooperate in his own making if he is to become virtuous.

The point is critical to how the Eastern fathers understand the distinction between the image and likeness of God. Within the Genesis creation account, God says, “Let us make man in our own image and according to our own likeness.” Then, God goes on and makes man in his own image — likeness is not repeated. The Eastern fathers take this omission to be important.

These early Christians understand the image of God to refer to our spiritual nature — that we have reason, free will, and a mind capable of communion with the God whom we image. This image can never be erased, having been woven into the fabric of our nature. But we bear that image for a purpose: That we might actively imitate God, and in imitating him, come to bear his attributes in our person — attributes of love, virtue, and even immortality. To bear such attributes — or, rather, energies of God — is what it means for man to bear the likeness of God, the image-bearer actively partaking of the Life of God by imitation.

This image-likeness distinction highlights the extraordinary point that is easily missed: Man must participate in his own making. Though God determines to create man in his own image and likeness, the latter cannot be brought about without cooperation — without us choosing communion with and imitation of God. Such is the test of Eden and the call to Adam: Choose life.

Yet, we know the story. Regrettably, Adam chooses to turn away from his Maker, bringing death upon himself and his progeny. Now, just as life can mean several things, so death can as well, and each meaning is integral to how the Eastern fathers understand Fallen man. The most obvious meaning is that the body ceases to live because the soul departs. Biological death of this kind is a natural consequence of Adam’s choice. Having turned away from the Fount of Immortality, he chose the life of mortal beasts. So, like the beasts, he and his progeny are destined to return to the earth from whence we came.

Yet, there is another meaning of death, namely, corruption — an unnatural or twisted state. Although animal death is a natural consequence of man’s retreat from God, it is unnatural that we die in this way. For we bear the image of God that we might raise up our mortal flesh to partake of Eternal Life. Having chosen death, however, the relationship between spirit and flesh is inverted, like a rider who has lost control of the beast he is meant to steer. So, we find ourselves in an unnatural state, our spirit subjugated to beastly passions. As St. Paul so aptly describes it, we know what we ought to do, but we fail to do it, our flesh having unnatural sway over our spirit, like a tyrannical taskmaster. Yet, our spirit retains its memory of what it ought to be, longing for more but incapable of attaining it. Such is the condition of Fallen man.

Continued in the final installment next week...

1. For a full account of my journey from wild-eyed heretical philosopher to an Eastern Orthodox Christian philosopher, see my essay, “My Journey to Orthodoxy (1 of 2)” and “My Journey to Orthodoxy (2 of 2).” You can also listen to this piece here: “My Wild Ride to Orthodoxy.”