Page 115 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

M A N A S B O D Y
nity of creation.
From this perspective, it becomes clear that the human be-
ing is not only connected to the natural environment but de-
pendent upon it. If the human being is body, then without the
material world he cannot exist. The truth of humanity is in-
separable from the truth of creation.
This is already indicated in the biblical narrative: the hu-
man being is created at the end of creation, after the material
world and the animal kingdom. This order is not accidental.
It signifies that humanity arises from and depends upon the
whole of creation. In contrast to certain Gnostic systems, in
which the human appears prior to or independent of the ma-
terial world, Scripture presents the human as emerging with-
in and from it.
From this point of view, even the theory of evolution need
not be seen as a threat. Properly understood, it does not an-
swer the question who created the world, but how it came to
be. And in doing so, it underscores the deep kinship between
the human being and the rest of creation. As Charles Darwin
observed, the differences between humans and animals are
often differences of degree rather than of kind. Such insights,
far from undermining theology, can serve to deepen our un-
derstanding of the human as organically bound to creation.
The real tension arises only when we confuse different lev-
els of inquiry—when theological questions of origin and
meaning are reduced to scientific explanations of process. A
careful reading of the Fathers, including St. Basil the Great in
his Hexaemeron, shows that such conflict is neither necessary
nor faithful to tradition.
Yet the human being is not only dependent on creation.
Paradoxically, creation also depends on the human being.
While modern ecological thought rightly emphasizes hu-
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