Page 45 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

FA I T H : T H E S U B S TA N C E O F T H I N G S H O P E D F O R
of the eschatological presence, the Parousia. All signs
indicating God’s presence in creation now (divine operations,
charisms, holiness, miracles, etc.) are signs of the Kingdom to
come. We now walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor 5:7), faith
being the “substance of things hoped for” (Heb 11:1). God’s
presence in creation now is a presence as an “already” and an
absence as a “not yet.” It is the eschatological Parousia that
allows presence to be what it means—a presence without
absence, a pure “yes” and not an antinomical “yes and no.”
“For the Son of God Jesus Christ … is not one who is Yes and
No, but in him is Yes. For all the promises of God in him are
Yes, and in him Amen unto the glory of God through us” (2
Cor 1:18–20).
It is precisely at this point that the question of sin must be
understood. The essence of Adam’s sin—and of that of his
descendants—lies, therefore, in the crisis of his faith:
“everything that is not of faith is sin” (Rom 14:23). Faith is not
simply the obedience to the word of God; it is, concretely, the
consent to accept God’s future promises, which ends up
replacing the protological reality, which is controllable by our
senses, with a “subsistence (ὑπόστασις) of things hoped for,
the assurance (ἔλεγχος) of things not seen” (Heb 11:1).
Abraham, the biblical example of faith par excellence, did not
show his faith only in his obedience to God’s order to sacrifice
his son but also, according to the Christian interpretation
given in the Letter to the Hebrews, in following the divine call
to “go out to a place which he should later receive for
inheritance, and he went out, not knowing where he went”
(Heb 11:8). All of chapter eleven of the Letter to the Hebrews
speaks of faith in terms of God’s promises (ἐπαγγελίαι). Faith
makes no sense without eschatology.
Yet this does not abolish the tragic condition of human
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