Page 84 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
“nothing” from which creation arises has no content, no latent
being, no hidden potential. It is absolute.
Here the Fathers introduced something entirely new into
Greek thought: the concept of absolute nothingness. For a
Greek philosopher, this was problematic. “What is this ‘noth-
ing’?” he would ask—and immediately attempt to assign it
some form of being. For Greek ontology could not tolerate a
true non-being; everything had to belong, in some way, to the
order of kosmos.
The Fathers, however, were confronting two radically dif-
ferent visions.
On the one hand, there was the God of Greek philosophy—
inseparably linked to the world, bound to its ontological struc-
ture, even when conceived as transcending it. On the other
hand, there was the God of the Bible—free from the world, not
dependent on it, and not constrained by any necessity, wheth-
er logical or moral. This is the God who “has mercy on whom
He wills” (Romans 9:15), a God whose freedom surpasses all
categories of reason.
In this biblical vision, it is not being that holds the primary
place in ontology, but freedom.
The world exists because it is freely willed. It could just as
well not have existed. This is something inconceivable within
classical Greek thought. Yet it is precisely this possibility—that
the world need not exist—that reveals existence as a gift.
God, in this perspective, is not dependent on being—not
even on His own being. He is the source not only of beings,
but of being itself. He gives existence to all that is.
From this arises what the Fathers expressed as the dialectic
between the created and the uncreated.
Existence is the fruit of freedom. If the world were eternal,
its existence would be self-evident, and we would never ask
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