Page 130 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
and Gregory of Nyssa conclude, on the basis of biblical pas-
sages, that all will ultimately be restored, so that God may be
“all in all.” For Gregory especially, the concern is to detach evil
completely from being: if God will be in all, evil cannot re-
main.
The Church, however, has officially rejected the idea of the
restoration of all as a false opinion. The Fifth Ecumenical
Council condemned the Origenian teachings concerning the
apocatastasis. Consequently, any theological reflection on the
eternity of hell must take seriously this ecclesial decision. The
question therefore remains: why does the Church insist on
this rejection?
Both the argument from divine love and the argument
from the nonbeing of evil come into conflict with a funda-
mental and inviolable principle: freedom. The decisive ques-
tion is not whether the love of God conflicts with justice, but
whether love can exist without freedom. If free beings do not
wish to participate in God, would it be an act of love to deprive
them of the freedom to reject Him forever? Real love cannot
be imposed.
For this reason, the teaching of Maximus the Confessor is
decisive. Interpreting the words that God will be “all in all,” he
emphasizes that this “subjection” applies to those who freely
accept it. Deification presupposes the free coincidence of the
human will with the will of God—“not what I want but what
You want.” It does not extend to those who do not freely wish
to identify their will with God. Freedom, therefore, sets a lim-
it to any universal restoration.
A further question concerns the meaning of “eternity.” Can
we speak of duration when referring to the eschaton, where
“time will be no more”? The eternity of the creature is not
identical with the eternity of God. God alone is without begin-
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