Page 116 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
manity’s dependence on nature, it often hesitates to affirm the
converse: that the world finds its fulfillment in the human
person. From a purely historical perspective, it may seem that
the world existed before humanity and could continue with-
out it. But from a theological perspective, which is not merely
protological but eschatological, the truth is different.
For the Fathers, and especially for St. Maximus the Confes-
sor, the human being is the crown of creation—not in a dom-
ineering sense, but as the one in whom creation is gathered,
unified, and offered to God. The true human being, ultimate-
ly identified with Christ, is the one in whom all things find
their meaning and their destiny.
Without the human person, creation remains incomplete.
Its truth is not found in its beginning, but in its end—in its
fulfillment in communion.
This vision finds a surprising echo even in modern cosmol-
ogy. The so-called “anthropic principle,” as articulated by John
D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, suggests that the universe is, in
some sense, oriented toward the emergence of human life. “It
is not only that man adapts to the world,” they write, “but that
the world is adapted to man.”
Thus, the human being stands at the intersection of all real-
ity: bound to the earth, yet open to God; shaped by creation,
yet called to gather it into communion.
To be human is not to escape the body, but to become tru-
ly body—to receive the world, to offer it, and through it to
enter into life.
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