The Universe as Communion: Towards a Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Theology and Science

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“Everything which Christ taught his disciples through parables was conceived by them through the action of the Spirit upon them at the Pentecost. Thus the entry of the Kingdom of God and annunciation about a new aeon in the event of Nativity was inaugurated by the same Spirit, who by his action initiated Logos’ entry into history. In a similar way the vision of the mystery of one’s birth being unfolded through the movement to the future, that is, in perspective of person’s becoming and potential salvation, is initiated by the Holy Spirit who activates in human subjectivity that eschatological intentionality which we have already called the spirit-like intentionality.” (Page 161)

“Thus, the ‘phenomenological turn’ in the problem of theology and science, as briefly outlined earlier, leads one to understand that the major and most difficult point in this dialogue is the dual position of humanity in the universe expressed as finite and local embodiment of humanity in cosmic stuff on the one hand, and its unlimited ability to transcend the locality of its body through knowledge across the universe, on the other. This is the problem of the origin of humanity, not in a trivial biological sense but as its own metaphysical origin, as incarnate hypostatic consciousness.” (Page 50)

“The state of affairs in modern science and technology reflects the situation in which man not only did not fulfil its function as the priest of creation, but making itself an ultimate point of reference, that is, God, through rational exploration and mathematization of nature, it condemned the universe to finitude and inevitable decay according to physical laws,⁵⁹—the finitude and transience which originates in the finitude and transience of man itself, whose blindness to the transcendent shields it from understanding its createdness and contingency upon God.” (Page 198)