Halden shares a really keen insight on the nature of the relationship between God and Creation. It’s motivated by the work of Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas:
“Here’s a quote which spurred my thoughts in relation to the whole idea of ‘intelligent design’, a newish favorite idea among apologetically-minded evangelicals.
What the scientist sees today as a relational, indeterminate, ‘chaotic’ universe does not call simply for a creator God, but for a God who is so personal as to be capable of self-modification to the point of lending his very ‘mode of being’ to constitute and sustain the being of creation. (p. 32)
What Zizioulas means by ‘self-modification’ is made explicit in the book where he, following Maximus the Confessor argues that ontologically we must distinguish between the ‘what’ of being (its logos) and the ‘how’ of being (its tropos). Thus, Zizioulas argues that in Christ, God ‘modifies’ his tropos, his ‘mode of being’ in such a way as to assume humanity and all of creation in such a way for it to participate in the divine life, without thereby confusing the logos of God with the logoi of creation. Thus, creation has true, ontological communion with God, through his ‘mode of being’ as the incarnate Son. Thus, there is an ontological relationship between creator and creation, but because it takes place through the tropos of God as the Son, it is not as a relationship of fusion or confusion between divinity and humanity but of communion in otherness, which is to say communion in freedom.
The point I take to be interesting about the above quote is that Zizioulas rightly notes that the dynamic and chaotic nature of the world that is noted today by science points not to the need to posit an intelligent designer, but a Redeemer who will graciously elect to bring created being into communion with an imperishable, transcendent life. What we see in creation, as fallen is not an intelligently designed world, but a world whose very be-ing cries out for ontological liberation – from death – in the Triune life. ”
Read the rest here: John Zizioulas on Intelligent Design?
(Via Inhabitatio Dei.)
