Page 143 - Prayer Book

Ι Heard You…
143
The Possibility of Human “Personal” Existence:
The Christology of Saint Maximus
However, God did not create humanity to be lost. On
the contrary, as Saint Athanasius the Great, Saint Maximus
the Confessor, and other Church Fathers and Mothers tell
us, when God created humanity and all of creation, He
willed that they participate in the eternal divine Interper-
sonal Existence, so that human beings, each as a unique
“person,” could be immortal. For this reason, God created
the world in Christ, meaning He created the world with the
intention of assuming it into the personal Hypostasis of
His Son. Through the power and grace of the Holy Spirit,
the world would exist as the “flesh” of the Son of God, as
the “body” of the Son of God, that is, as the created exten-
sion of His Son. In this way, He would make humans “Sons
and Daughters of God.”
When God created humanity, He did so with the goal
that humanity would be integrated into the relationship
between God the Father and God the Son, participating in
this eternal “personal” relationship between Father and
Son by identifying each human person with the Son. Every
human being would be revealed as an immortal, unique
“person” through their “personal” relationship with the
Father as His Son, in communion with the Holy Spirit.
People would be identified as “persons” through this
unique and irreplaceable relationship with the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. Through this “non-mortal” inter-
personal relationship, humans would become immortal
“persons.”