IV
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.