Regarding this: “Ontologically, upon separation from God creaturely being begins to drift toward non-being. Death, disease, damage, and decay come to haunt creaturely existence.” Im trying to figure out how this stacks with evolutionary science. Obviously, there was death disease, and decay before this instaneous human Fall. How does the fall then have anything to do with these creaturely aspects of non-being.
I think if we start Christologically central, beginning at ‘The Cross’, where a Triune God who is outside our artificial notions about the boundaries of space and time, we can potentially see how the very essence of his ontological being – [Love] requires Freedom – even freedom for the Creation to in effect, make itself. Emergently, this brings forth a hominid who possesses a gnomic will with the potentiality for free will agency, along with an existential awareness of its own terminable condition. 'Non-being' in one sense, could be thought of a reversion back to a purely animal state, denying an awareness of a Creator and embracing only genetically wired appetites. Paradoxically humanity is also epistemologically insatiable and corporately will push beyond the restrictions of its own biology, which results in a kind of pre-wired Nihilism. For a loving God who exists in the eternal now, Creation itself is simultaneously an act of kenotic condescension whereby through stellar and biological evolution, God lovingly enters into human flesh and unites himself with our nihilistic self-slaughter. Jesus is in a sense, the terminus of human evolution where he inverts the biological imperative, which leads to “Non-being” and transforms it into a beautiful spiritually resurrected one.
Caution: humanity has no view yet of the past prior to 300 million past the proposed beginning of what we think of as the universe. Neither do we know how to account for, about, 80% of what the universe is. We cannot yet say we know what creation is, let alone how it started. The foundations of our experience of what we presume is the universe are far from known. The theological discussion on this topic are not too unlike talking about how the earth was formed by extrapolating based on a single bolder in your backyard garden. Too soon!
Good morning. I was surprised at which point has received the most push back from your readers! For me, the idea of apokatastasis was the hardest to wrap my head around. A quick web search revealed quite a lot of condemnation of that train of thought, mostly as the province of those who teach "once saved, always saved". But that does not seem to be what Maximus was saying, is it? I would appreciate some more exploration of that point if you have the time and inclination.
The two points are not the same. The fall at the instant of creation is sometimes called "meta historical" fall because it happens "before" time/space and I believe can be reconcialed with eternal conscius torment or annihilationism. On the other topic, about Apokatastasis, some people defend that Maximus was a universalist, others disagree. About Maximus and universalism you could see Fr Aidan (Alvin) Kimel blog, it is in the pro universalist view of Maximus.
Regarding this: “Ontologically, upon separation from God creaturely being begins to drift toward non-being. Death, disease, damage, and decay come to haunt creaturely existence.” Im trying to figure out how this stacks with evolutionary science. Obviously, there was death disease, and decay before this instaneous human Fall. How does the fall then have anything to do with these creaturely aspects of non-being.
I find John Polkinghorne helpful for this question, see https://imonk.blog/2018/01/11/testing-scripture-scientist-explores-bible-john-polkinghorne-chapter-3-creation-fall/
I think if we start Christologically central, beginning at ‘The Cross’, where a Triune God who is outside our artificial notions about the boundaries of space and time, we can potentially see how the very essence of his ontological being – [Love] requires Freedom – even freedom for the Creation to in effect, make itself. Emergently, this brings forth a hominid who possesses a gnomic will with the potentiality for free will agency, along with an existential awareness of its own terminable condition. 'Non-being' in one sense, could be thought of a reversion back to a purely animal state, denying an awareness of a Creator and embracing only genetically wired appetites. Paradoxically humanity is also epistemologically insatiable and corporately will push beyond the restrictions of its own biology, which results in a kind of pre-wired Nihilism. For a loving God who exists in the eternal now, Creation itself is simultaneously an act of kenotic condescension whereby through stellar and biological evolution, God lovingly enters into human flesh and unites himself with our nihilistic self-slaughter. Jesus is in a sense, the terminus of human evolution where he inverts the biological imperative, which leads to “Non-being” and transforms it into a beautiful spiritually resurrected one.
Caution: humanity has no view yet of the past prior to 300 million past the proposed beginning of what we think of as the universe. Neither do we know how to account for, about, 80% of what the universe is. We cannot yet say we know what creation is, let alone how it started. The foundations of our experience of what we presume is the universe are far from known. The theological discussion on this topic are not too unlike talking about how the earth was formed by extrapolating based on a single bolder in your backyard garden. Too soon!
Good morning. I was surprised at which point has received the most push back from your readers! For me, the idea of apokatastasis was the hardest to wrap my head around. A quick web search revealed quite a lot of condemnation of that train of thought, mostly as the province of those who teach "once saved, always saved". But that does not seem to be what Maximus was saying, is it? I would appreciate some more exploration of that point if you have the time and inclination.
The two points are not the same. The fall at the instant of creation is sometimes called "meta historical" fall because it happens "before" time/space and I believe can be reconcialed with eternal conscius torment or annihilationism. On the other topic, about Apokatastasis, some people defend that Maximus was a universalist, others disagree. About Maximus and universalism you could see Fr Aidan (Alvin) Kimel blog, it is in the pro universalist view of Maximus.