Page 85 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

C R E AT I O N A N D C R E AT I O E X N I H I L O
why it exists. We would only ask how it exists—how its laws
function, how its structures are ordered. This is the domain of
science, which presupposes existence as a given.
But once we affirm that the world is created from nothing,
this necessity disappears. The existence of the world is no
longer self-evident; it is a gift. It is not obligatory—it is gratu-
itous.
Creation and grace thus coincide. This has profound exis-
tential consequences. If my existence is a gift, then my re-
sponse can only be gratitude. Ontology itself becomes eucha-
ristic. To be is to give thanks.
This insight is deeply embedded in the liturgical life of the
Church. The Eucharist is not first a thanksgiving for redemp-
tion alone, but for existence itself. Before all else, the Church
gives thanks that the world exists—that we exist.
From this arises a new mode of life. The human being no
longer sees existence as possession, but as gift. Nothing is
“mine” in an absolute sense. Everything is received, and there-
fore everything is referred back to the Giver. Gratitude re-
places entitlement. Freedom replaces necessity.
Such a person is liberated from the tyranny of possession,
from the illusion of self-sufficiency, from the fear that arises
from clinging to existence. One can affirm life without being
enslaved to it, and even offer it freely.
This is the ethos of the saints and the martyrs. Knowing
that existence is a gift of freedom—and not an inevitable or
self-evident reality—frees us not only intellectually from rigid
categories and logical necessities, but existentially from the
bondage imposed by biological necessity and instinct. It en-
ables us to live eucharistically: to receive, to give thanks, and
to offer ourselves in freedom.
Thus, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is not merely a
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