The Incarnation of God: the Cause of Man's Theosis The Church Fathers say that God became man in order to make man a god. If God had not taken flesh, man would not be able to achieve Theosis. In the years before Christ, many wise and virtuous people had appeared. For example, the ancient Greeks had reached quite high standards of philosophy about the good and about God. Their philosophy, in fact, contained seeds of the truth, the so-called ‘spermaticos logos’. Moreover, they were very religious people, but of course they did not know the true God; they were idolaters, yet very pious and god-fearing people. They were not atheists, as certain ill-informed contemporaries of ours represent them; those who do not know enough about these things. For this reason, by attempting to remove its faith in God from the psyche of our devout people even without their consent, educators, teachers, politicians and civil governors act in a way inconsistent to the memory of the Greek race, and so they commit ‘hybris’ in the ancient meaning of the word. In essence, they attempt to de-hellenise our people, because the Tradition of the Greeks, throughout our ancient, recent and modern history, is a Tradition of piety and respect for God. All the worldwide cultural contribution of Hellenism was and is based on this piety and respect for God. In the philosophy of the ancient Greeks we can perceive a certain yearning for the unknown God … for the experience of God. They were faithful and devout, but they did not have the true and completed knowledge of God, as they still lacked communion with God, so that Theosis was not possible for them. In the Old Testament, we also find many just and virtuous people, but the full union with God, Theosis, only becomes possible ... is only achieved ... with the incarnation of the Divine Logos. This is the purpose of the incarnation of God. If the purpose of man's life was simply to become morally better, there would be no need for Christ to come into the world, or for all these events of divine Providence to happen; for the incarnation of God; the cross, the death and resurrection of the Lord, and all that we Christians believe to have happened by Christ. The human race could have been taught to become morally better by the philosophers, by the righteous men and teachers, or by the prophets. We know that Adam and Eve were beguiled by the devil and did not want to collaborate with God; they desired to become gods not through humility, obedience, or love; but based on their own power, their own willfulness, egotistically and autonomously. That is to say that the essence of the fall is egotism. Thus, by adopting egotism and self-assertion they separated themselves from God, and instead of attaining Theosis, they attained exactly the opposite: spiritual death. As the Church Fathers say, God is life. So whoever separates himself from God separates himself from life. Therefore, death and spiritual necrosis (i.e. physical and spiritual death) are the outcome of the disobedience of the first-created.
Hybris has the same root as hybrid. Hybris originally meant to go against nature. In ancient Greece, the whole of nature was intimately connected with the divine, so by transgressing nature divine harmony was severed. Its modern meaning of overweening pride is also implied in that classical context. |
