Page 107 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

T H E M E A N I N G O F D E AT H
doxically the vehicle of otherness and communion at the same
time. Through the body we affirm our particularity, and
through the body we enter into communion with other par-
ticular beings. The conflict arises only when the body, instead
of bringing us into communion, separates us from others and
becomes a carrier of death. But this conflict does not belong
to the body by definition: once the sting of death is removed,
the body ceases to perpetuate the opposition between par-
ticularity and nature, and becomes the place where commu-
nion and otherness truly meet.
This understanding immediately challenges certain deeply
rooted assumptions. One such assumption is the belief in the
natural immortality of the soul. If the soul were immortal by
nature, death could not be a return to non-being. But the soul,
too, is created. It has a beginning, and therefore it does not
possess immortality by nature.
We may speak of immortality by grace—but precisely by
doing so, we admit that immortality is not natural to the soul.
Only God “has immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16). If any creature were
immortal by nature, it would not be creature, but God.
Moreover, even this language of immortality must be puri-
fied. If immortality is given by grace, it cannot be restricted to
the soul alone. Such a restriction reflects a subtle but persistent
dualism. God does not will the salvation of disembodied souls,
but of the whole human being—and indeed of the entire cre-
ation.
Immortality by grace, therefore, is not the survival of a part,
but the transfiguration of the whole. It embraces body and
soul, matter and world. Deification concerns the entirety of
creation.
Thus, the true problem of death is not solved by isolating a
supposedly immortal element within us. The answer to death
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