Scientific
explorations have led us to the distant corners of the space and also to the core of atoms. Great thinkers of all
ages give wise guidance to balance this scientific quest for knowledge with
human self understanding. Sages and philosophers of ancient period used to take
the question ‘Who am I?’ very seriously. Upanishadic philosophy of India
equated man with God whereas certain western Christian thinkers considered man as basically a sinner.
Modernism replaced God with man. This
essay is an attempt to have a glimpse of the understanding of man in the
thought of late H. G. Paulos Mar Gregorios, the renowned philosopher and
theologian and the bishop of the Indian Orthodox Church. Based on the teaching of the ancient Christian fathers especially that of St. Gregory of
Nyssa, H.G. Paulos Mar Gregorios(here after mentioned as PMG) develops an
enlightening and balanced answer to the question of human self
identity which is very relevant to the
people of post modern era. Let us try to
see how he develops the Christian understanding of man as the image of God, how
he describes the process of the fulfillment of human potential to be like God,
and also his vision of human vocation to shape the world in relation to
mediatory role in creation, to social and political justice, gender justice,
the humanization of science and technology, sustainable environment and peace
and unity of the world.
1. A glorious Portrait of Human
1.1. Sin as extrinsic to human nature /Essential goodness of man
PMG holds comparatively a glorious picture of man. He affirms the basic goodness of creation and
especially of human beings whose ultimate source and ground is God. St. Augustine(4th
century CE) has influenced the western theology enormously and even the
reformers have imbibed some of his viewpoints into the reformed theology. For
Augustine human beings without grace from God can do no good at all. PMG is
trying to give an alternative theology to correct this pessimistic
understanding of humans. He avoids both the overemphasis of human sinfulness in
the western Christianity and the over glorification of man in secular philosophy. PMG’s theology
seems to take a moderate path which makes man neither a beast nor a god but
gives due emphasis to human potentiality. As he rightly says St. Augustine’s
“understanding of man as totally sinful, without any capacity for good in him,
could be understood only as a pious confession of human frailty, but not as a
matter of faith to be taken wholly seriously.”[1] PMG
cannot tolerate a theology, which regards evil itself as central to human
nature and the whole of humanity as a lump of sin out of which no movement
towards the good can come.
. According to
the original sin concept of western Christianity Adamic sin or the sin of the ancestral parents
is transmitted down through the generations and
since the sexual union is sinful, the product of that union is tainted
by sin. As a typical Orthodox theologian PMG could not subscribe to this.
Quoting eastern fathers like St. Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Severius of
Antioch, he totally rejects the original sin concept as such.[2]
Sin is not transmitted. Sin’s consequences can be transmitted. Death and
corruption or distortions of the image of God in man were communicated to the
generations from the ancestral parents. Innocent children cannot be called
sinners. PMG upholds the dignity of human sexual union in the married life.
There is no evil in such a blessed act. With the support of eastern patristics,
he attempts to emphasize the fact that sin is not part of human nature. But
death and corruption are part of the fallen human nature.
1.2. Knowledge of God
Mar Gregorios upholds the view of the
Cappadoceans who believe that God in his essence is basically incomprehensible.
What humans can undesrstand is the knowledge of the works of God and not the
essence of God. Growth in even this knowledge of God is correlated to moral
growth. In other words knowledge of God is dependent on ethical maturity.[3] And ethical maturity is closely associated
with worship also. So ‘good works’ and communion with God help humans to grow
in their knowledge of God. As he puts
it “the knowledge of God can not be separated from the love and worship of God
and from the love and service of fellowmen.”[4] So it is holiness and obedience to God rather
than theology that leads to the knowledge of God.
1.3. Faith as Foundational to Human Existence
PMG portraits
the ongoing human struggle for meaning and existence in a beautiful way: “Our
being has an emptiness at bottom; we have to fill this in some way in order to
feel our existence. The whole of human existence is the struggle to find the
foundation on which we can establish that existence.”[5] He is
fully convinced about the fickleness of
the foundations like wealth, sex,
popularity, education, race or tribe, nation etc[6] It is faith or trust in God that gives true
assurance of security in human life. What we proclaim in Nicene Creed according
to PMG is not merely knowledge about the
Trinity and church but our trust in them, which gives a solid foundation in otherwise
a bottomless pit or emptiness or abyss of this life. He enumerates the advantages of faith thus: a) Faith delivers persons
from all fear of the future and worry about past guilt, from fear of death and
anxiety about condemnation; establishing the person on the firm foundation of
Christ and opening up channels to the powers of God available in the new life. b) Faith provides confidence that the
future of all is safe in God’s hands, that evil cannot finally triumph and that
the good will be finally liberated from the mixture with evil. This gives one
the courage to face the power of evil, to challenge it, and where necessary to
accept martyrdom. e) Faith provides persons and communities with the courage
for integrity and self –sacrificing love, since the knowledge of the grace of
God in Christ frees one from the need either to justify oneself or to seek
one’s own. This integrity and love manifest themselves in new ways of
beneficent creativity. [7]
1.4. ‘Image of God’ Explained
Following
Gregory of Nyssa’s thought PMG endorses the special and unique fashioning of
humans: being created in God’s image, human beings can participate in God’s
nature and manifest Him. Participation in God’s nature or becoming like God is
the soul of eastern tradition. It is by acquiring the qualities of God in
communion with Him that human beings fulfill their potentiality to be God’s
image. For PMG divinization is humanization: “the very nature of humanity is to
be like God, for that is what it means to be created in the image of God. The
more humanity becomes like God, the more it becomes itself. Divinization is
humanization. Theosis is anthropesis.”[8] So
it is when humanity becomes what it is i.e. when it manifests its true nature
as the Image of God that it becomes fully human. In other words it is when man
becomes good as God is good that he or she becomes God like and God’s presence
on earth and thus fully human.
Jesus Christ
manifested the meaning of being in the image of God because he was the true
image of God. He is the measure of man’s relationship with God and
responsibility to serve the world. An understanding of PMG’s Christology and
vision of freedom are necessary to get the full picture of being the image of
God.
PMG maintained a deep conviction of the equality
of men and women. They share equally in the image of God. Domination of men
over women is a development in the fallen state. Progress in divinization or
growth towards the perfection in the image of God brings about proper
fellowship of men and women.
1.5. Freedom as Fullness of Life
By detecting
humans’ danger of overthrowing all kinds of authority hoping for freedom, PMG
attempted a deeper analysis of the meaning of human freedom. The titles of his
books like ‘The Joy of Freedom’, ‘The Freedom of Man’, ‘Freedom and Authority’, ‘Love’s Freedom a Grand Mystery’ etc.
refer to his special concern for freedom and dignity of humans. It seems that a
proper understanding of his concept of freedom will disclose the beauty of the
major portion of his theology and especially his understanding of man.
‘Freedom’ came
to be accepted as a widely accepted watchword of modern scientific
civilization. From the time of Renaissance onwards, people in the West
struggled hard to free themselves from the extreme authority of the church and
also from the sovereign God as presented by the western church. In the
post-renaissance, secularist phase of human civilization, the centrality of God
was ruled out and an anthropocentric worldview was overemphasized. What PMG
tried was to uphold the dignity and freedom of man by rejecting the vision of a
freedom hating sovereign God and highlighting a God who is basically love and freedom.
PMG develops his
theology of freedom mainly based on the teaching of St. Gregory of Nyssa who saw the freedom of man as the
central element to which everything was to be related. Being created in the
image of God, man should have all the good things in God and among these the
most important is freedom. God is free. He is not bound by his creation; he is
transcendent because of the difference of his essence from that of the
creation. God is independent in other dimensions also. He chooses and do good
without any external pressure. Since God is free, humans who are His images can
also be free and independent. Modern de colonization struggles, womancipation
movement, liberation struggles etc. endorse this human thirst for freedom. Freedom from personal evil, from socio-economic
oppressions, from parochialism, bold access into the presence of God and doing
good or shaping a world of justice and peace are expressions of human freedom.
1.6. Grace as constituent of nature
Opposition
between grace and nature is one of the fundamental defects of the western
Christian teaching. PMG traces its history back to St. Augustine whose theology
contributed enormously to the development of this bane of the Christian
theology. PMG presents this root issue in very simple terms thus: “In Western Christian anthropology, the
distinctive thing about man is that he is a sinner by nature. Nothing good can
come from him by nature. Only grace can produce the first movements towards the
good. By nature he is not free. Grace coming from outside humanity, outside
nature liberates him to will the good and thus restores to him the limited
freedom of being able to do good.”[9] As a remedy to this PMG highlights the grace
in creation: “It is the double grace – the grace of simple creation by will (of
God)and of the second creation after His own image- that constitutes our being
as body and soul. Grace is thus not opposed to nature, but is the constituent
of nature.”[10] This
grace in nature or creation is further strengthened by sacramental grace or the
grace received through spiritual exercises.
2. Fulfillment of Human Potential
2.1. Vision of the whole
Interconnectedness
of the reality is a recurring insight in PMG’s writings. He refers to the
worldview of various religions to affirm the vision of the whole. The point is
that there is a continuum of four levels of reality-inorganic matter-energy,
organic level or bio level, the level of consciousness, and the transcendent
level. It is when he explains the impact of whole in healing process that we
get a clear picture about his vision of the whole, which contributes, to the
human fulfillment. “The human system is a subsystem of the whole universe, and
is integrally related to it. Disturbance in that integral relation constitute
disease. Restoration of that relation to the whole is healing, and the whole
itself is the healing force –the whole is the energy source from which matter,
life and consciousness all originate. …We need a framework for modern medicine
in which we see matter, life and consciousness as a single continuum.
…Consciousness, and its various levels, including the transcendent and
hypnotic, should also be engineered positively in the interest of healing.”[11]
2.2. Christological dimension
Already we
noticed PMG’s view of faith basically as a trust. When he explains personal
salvation in Christ it becomes more evident: “To have personal faith in Christ
is not simply to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but to be secure
in Christ. It is to be aware that our life in Christ is already a risen life,
no longer subject to the final death of extinction. …Neither are we afraid of
condemnation. It is to know the joy of realizing that our life is identical
with the life of Christ. Neither national defeat nor global catastrophe,
neither personal disaster nor the machinations of the enemy, neither disease
nor poverty –nothing at all can separate us from the life that Christ lives in
us. Personal salvation is thus the end of all anxious concern about oneself. It
liberates us to live without fear. It gives us a sure foundation on which to
live, to live in the community of joy and hope, to live with and for others.”[12]
2.3. Ecclesiological dimension
2.3.1. Becoming the Body of
Christ
Each one
initiated into this community can have a unique union with Christ. In other
words each one is growing in Christ and becoming like Christ through the
church. Church’s ministry in the world is a transforming ministry of a
community being transformed in Christ. So in the ultimate analysis building up
of the church is for the fulfillment of humans in the church and through the
church.
There are various references in PMG
to the cultivation of human life in the church, which is primarily through the
worship and prayer and discipline. It is not merely the preaching but the body
and blood of Christ that nourishes the church. An ordained minister who is a
sacramental presence rather than a vicar of Christ in the church is used by
Christ to facilitate the growth of the community in freedom
2.3.2. Worship
Among the various
important themes in PMG’s theology, worship seems to be one of the most important
ones. He emphasizes the need of authentic worship as part of his fight against
the negative impact of secularism and a deep concern for the fullness of life.
It seems that he describes worship
primarily as a duty rather than for getting anything special. “The ministry of
prayer and worship is primarily our due response to God’s mercy and grace,
ancillary to no other purpose. Secondly, it is a ministry of intercession on
behalf of the whole creation. Only in the third place should we regard any personal
benefits that may accrue to us through worship and prayer.”[13]
Worship is a special prerogative of the children of God. It is an important
mission of the church, which is the priest of the creation.
Worship or
prayer is for the fulfillment of humans. His definition of prayer is noteworthy
in this regard: “Prayer is communion or communication with God – opening
ourselves to Him and receiving His love. It is by living consciously in this
relationship of love that we can be transformed into the image of God. By
prayer we become more like God, more loving, more wise, more powerful, more
kind and good.”[14] So by communion with God man becomes like
God. Prayer is to fulfill the human potentiality for divinization: “Prayer is
therefore a way of training the will to desire the good, as well as of turning
our wills towards the highest concentration of all good, namely God.”[15]
2.3.3. Theosis
PMG’s understanding of theosis (becoming like God) is very
significant to know his anthropology. He describes it as the key to the Asian
African Christian tradition. In western Christian tradition the goal of
mystical life seems to be the vision or knowledge of God where as this eastern
Orthodox tradition emphasizes the human participation in God and becoming like
God. Being created in the image of God man has the potentiality for this
process of becoming like God. Quoting Gregory of Nyssa, PMG describes it as an
eternal progress. Being liberated from
evil, humans can progress through spiritual discipline by participating in God.
Personal cultivation and participation in the church are facilitating this
process of divinization.
So becoming like God means
becoming like Christ, which is the vocation of man on earth. Thus man becomes
true image of God or presence of God. So in the ultimate analysis theosis means becoming fully human which
is the result of cooperation of God and man
2.4. Pneumatological dimension
PMG’s pneumatology (Understanding
of the Holy Spirit) is not limited to the church or the individual Christian.
Along with the Logos the Holy Spirit is also immanent in the creation imparting
wisdom and power to all and at the same time transcend in the Trinitarian
eternal realm. So the Holy Spirit is playing a role in human evolution and in
all his creative activities. [16]
He goes on to say that the Holy Spirit works in humans by respecting their
freedom: “the Spirit of God does not act compulsively on the agent. The Spirit
of God groans and struggles with the human spirit, seeking to persuade rather
than to compel, to illumine than to teach.”[17]
In the second
level he focuses on the presence of the
Holy Spirit in the Church. Baptism is an initiation into this community of the
Spirit. Pentecostal experience imparted mainly three virtues or powers to the
community namely courage to stand before God and men with confidence, unity and
obedience to Gospel. This means in short worship, fellowship and service to the
needs of fellow human beings.
In the third
level PMG explains the special and personal charismata of the Spirit. The
presence of Spirit in the Church does not mean that all the operations of the
Spirit go on automatically. That is why the church prays for special operation
of the Spirit in all the sacraments. He also makes a distinction between the general operation
of the Spirit, which is common to all members of the Church, and the special
gifts, which are differently distributed, to various members, all for the
common good.
3. Global Management: Human Vocation to Shape the World
3.1. Corporate Existence of Man
Unity
of the reality and especially the corporate nature of mankind is a recurring
theme in PMG. “Man is primarily corporate. His individuality is secondary. Body
is the principle of individuation in an entity called man who is essentially
corporate. Perfection itself belongs ultimately to the whole of mankind; the
individual’s free goodness is contributory to the perfection of all good.”[18] He
believes that God who works in the world is constantly encouraging us to think
beyond the personal, group or national interests. Thus the mankind is in
progress towards its perfection. But it will be complete at the end of history
when evil ceases to exist. His Christology always presupposes this unity of
mankind and verbalizes Christ’s cosmic impact. In an article on the finality of
Christ he writes: “We must get an image of humanity past, present, and future
as a single unit, the Great Adam, flowing through time, and of the presence of
the Incarnate Christ in this Adam as a continuing phenomenon affecting the life
of humanum in perceptible and imperceptible ways.”[19]
3.2. Man as co-creator with God
Showing Nyssa’s
theology as a corrective to the general Christian anthropology, PMG writes
about the human calling to be co creator
with God: “Christian theology has been generally reluctant to accept this idea
of Gregory’s – that Man is not simply a creature pure and simple, but a
co-creator of himself and his world. … To see the human enterprise as a joint
operation between God and Man is neither dishonoring God’s sovereignty nor
exalting Man above his created limit. It is in this context that both the
notion of virtue as rectification and the free cooperation of man as a
necessary element in God’s plan for the creation have to be understood in
Gregory’s thinking.”[20]
Overcoming the
limited views of Augustine, Luther, Barth, etc. PMG gives due importance to the
role of human efforts to shape this world which is integral to the human
vocation to be the image of God. So it is the human responsibility to mediate for the world before God and bring
the blessings of justice and unity to the world.
With science and
technology humans have enormous power to recreate this world. While
appreciating the positive contributions of them for the welfare of humanity he exposes
the misuse of them for exploitation and injustice. Humans, being the image of
God, are to use these extensions of power to address the enslaving threats of
humans. He upholds a pure vision of a “science and technology liberated from
the shackles of bondage to war and profit and redeployed for the elimination of
poverty, for wiping out ignorance and want, redeployed for helping humans to
find meaning and fulfillment through serving each other, so that all of us can
live dignified human lives.”[21]
3.3. Environmental concern
PMG develops his
vision of a sustainable ecosystem mainly based on a holistic creation
theology. For him the concept of nature
as alienated from man is harmful to a healthy eco system. Human being is
integral part of the creation and he is supposed to handle the creation as an
extension of his body. The energia of
God is the source, goal and dynamic of creation that has no self-existence. So
his holistic vision completely rules out the concept of nature as a separate
entity. He thinks that nature as the non –human part of creation plays a more
central role in human perception when the transcendent dimension of reality
becomes recessive. It is noticeable that it is in the post renaissance
secularist phase that the concept of nature became prominent. So PMG recommends
that “the idea of an objective world independent of man has thus to be
abandoned, and there are no two realities called Man and Nature which can
somehow be separately observed.”[22] When man fulfills his being by participating
in divine nature he will be a healing presence of God in the creation. Being
the image of God man ought to share God’s concern for the welfare of the
creation and develop a reverent receptive approach towards the creation.
4.
Man beyond History
In line with the
patristic understanding PMG believes that history has a temporary value serving
as a training centre of humanity for its fullness in eternity. History is not
final reality; it is a time of freedom, when the fashioning of man is
completed, by the human choices. PMG, while interpreting Gregory of Nyssa’s
views on the fullness of man, says: “Man
in the world of history is like a seed in the ground, an embryo in the womb.
His full potential is not at all evident here. …no amount of biology,
psychology, sociology and history, can reveal to us the true nature of man.
…The exaltation of human nature (by Christ)to the right hand of God thus
determines its true locale-not in history, but in meta-history. History is the
womb in which the embryo is formed, but it is being prepared to go out of the
womb, through the trauma of death into meta-history. The First –Born, the Protokos, Christ, is that precisely
because he was the first to be born this way through death and resurrection.”[23] So the fullness of man is not achieved in
history. And Christ’s life is the point of verification for eschatological
fullness of humans. In the eschaton there is no place for male-female
distinction, the passions that rage in the body, birth and death. For him, man being created as an integral body-soul
organism, achieves fullness not by rejecting body but by the right use of the
material body and its feelings and desires that becomes the basis of virtue.[24]
The point is that our historical existence has a role to play even in eternal
existence because humans have capacity to determine, by free choice, the
essential nature of their beings.
5. Conclusion
Gregorian
anthropology overcomes the drawbacks of traditional western theology. Mar Gregorios,
with the support of eastern patristics affirm the fundamental goodness of
humnabeings and does not hide the fact that man can do good with the grace integral to his creation. He emphatically teaches that there is no
conflict between grace and human effort. Since he has overcome the nature grace
conflict, human efforts to shape himself and the world are not against
Gregorian understanding of Christianity.
Being created in God’s image, man fulfills his being in communion with
God as power, wisdom and love. The Holy
Trinity uses the church also to fulfill humans. Worship is essential to
this growth towards perfection . To be
fully human is to be freedom because freedom is one of the most important
characteristic of God the original in whose image man was created. This freedom
that is not merely liberation from personal and social evil but also the power
to do good. So shaping of the world through good choices and actions is
integral to one’s own shaping. Thus the
use of science and technology to recreate this world is closely related to
human progress towards perfection. Divinization of humans which the church
highlights as the supreme goal of all spiritual exercises and to be fully human
and humanization of the world are closely related and
identical. In other words Gregorian understanding of man is the key to understand his Christian self
identity and commitment to Global peace. To become the manifest presence of God
or to be fully human means to be
committed to the welfare of the whole world which is inclusive of sustainable
ecosystem and a just and peaceful world.
[1]
Gregorios, Freedom and Authority, Madras : CLS, 1974, p41.
[2]
Gregorios, Paurasthya Christhava
Darsanam, Kottayam: 2000,pp 150-165.
[3]
Gregorios, quotes here St. Paul
who says the same in his prayer for the Colossians (1:10) that they may “lead a
life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good
work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
[4]
Gregorios, Freedom and Authority, Madras : CLS, 1974, p56.
[5]
Gregorios, Be Still and Know, Madras : CLS, 1974, p9.
[6]
Gregorios, Be Still and Know, Madras :
CLS, 1974, p9. “Even if some of these were to give us support so long as we
live, at the moment of death these begin to fall apart, and we plunge into an
abyss where these can not provide us with a foothold. Also while we love in
this world with these elements in creation as our footholds, there is a growing
uncertainty about their strength, which makes us vaguely anxious. And life
itself puzzles us.”
[7]
Gregorios, Science for Sane Societies,
Madras : CLS,
1980, p98. PMG further explains: “The fact that many of these advantages and
possibilities are not always appropriated and realized by persons in the
community of faith points to the phenomenon of sin which invades also the
community of faith and persons participating in it.”
[8]
Gregorios, Cosmic Man, Delhi : Sophia
Publications, 1980, p 230.
[9]
Gregorios, “Humanisation as a World Problem”, Study Encounter, Vol.5, No.1, 1969, p7
[10]
Gregorios, “Humanisation as a World Problem”, Study Encounter, Vol.5, No.1, 1969, p 9
[11]
Gregorios, Healing a Holistic Approach,
Kottayam: MGF, 1992, pp28, 29.
[12]
Gregorios, Be Still and Know, Madras : CLS, 1974, p38.
[13]
Gregorios, Worship in a Secular Age,
p127.
[14]
Gregorios, Worship in a Secular Age,
p10.
[15]
Gregorios, Worship in a Secular Age,
p11.
[16]
Gregorios, Be Still and Know, Madras : CLS, 1974, p18.
[17]
Gregorios, Be Still and Know, Madras : CLS, 1974, p19.
[18]
Gregorios, “What is man”, p 5, Orthodox Seminary Archives, Kottayam.
[19]
Gregorios, “The Finality of Christ”, p 25, Orthodox Seminary Archives,
Kottayam.
[20]
Gregorios, Cosmic Man, Delhi : Sophia
Publications, 1980, p154.
[21]
Gregorios, Religion and Dialogue, Delhi : MGF and ISPCK,
2000, p147.
[22]
Gregorios, Religion and Dialogue, Delhi : MGF and ISPCK,
2000, p7.
[23] Gregorios, Cosmic Man, Delhi : Sophia Publications, 1980, p 191,192.
[24]
Gregorios, Cosmic Man, Delhi : Sophia
Publications, 1980, p 196.
