And God Created Man in His Own Image. Mosaic of the Cappella Palatina. Palermo, Italy Spiritual knowledge is far superior to scientific knowledge as it leads us to the Truth. If it were true that man evolved from apes, Christ would have said to St. Paisios:
“I created you from an ape to humble you.”
God did not do this. If we assume that God accidentally chose only two chimpanzees, apes, or hominids out of hundreds of thousands and gave them an immortal soul in His image and likeness, then we would implicitly consider God extremely unjust. He would be a tyrant if he denied hundreds of thousands of hominids (except two) the sublime gift of theosis, which would not be consistent with His love. After all, animals have no freedom to choose.
God created man as a new being, not one produced from an animal, even if He used the same matter—earth—and the same principles of creation and design. A special act was required for this. Even if God used the same principles, man is fundamentally different. Through man, God manifests Himself in the world in a special way, by means of the intensity of His grace, which animals do not have, and particularly by His incarnation. This is the most important thing. God had to create man as a new being for this reason, as animals are unable to attain human reason. And when I say “reason”, it mysteriously applies to the body as well.
In addition, the “garments of skin”—that is, an animal body, which far from God, were given to our ancestors after they had fallen into sin through disobedience. Before the fall people had bodies similar those of the angels, to quote Sts. Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus. In other words, the human body was once spiritual and immortal, but after the fall it became biological, “animal”, corruptible, and mortal. The Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, who were personally enlightened by God and had knowledge far superior to science, said this. Spiritual science has been shown to be superior to modern science in many cases, which focuses on the immanent.
God, Science and error
There are many cases of errors in science, both intentional and unintentional, because mortal man is not immune from mistakes. However, in divine revelation, there are no errors. You should know that the saints were enlightened by God, and even if they might not have comprehensive knowledge of problems unrelated to salvation, scientific or other problems, then Divine Providence enlightened them in problems related to human salvation, and the Church recognized them as reliable. This is because the Church is concerned with the salvation of man. And the problem of human origins is strictly related to human salvation.
I personally know of two cases in the Church today that I still cannot define. In the first instance, a person had problems with the devil because he had unknowingly agreed with so-called Christian evolutionism, which accepts the possibility of man's evolution from animals. In the second instance, a monk who had previously had the gift of unceasing prayer could no longer pray, because he had the thought: “Well, what if it [evolutionism] is true?” The thought of species evolving from one to another caused him to freeze in a state of demonic stupor, and prayer stopped in his heart. He was unable to do anything with himself until he chased away the thought.
In fact, brethren, Holy Mount Athos and all the saints, both modern and ancient, have opposed evolutionism, including the theistic version that acknowledges Divine intervention in Creation. That is, they are against evolution from one species to another. Some confessors of the faith languished in Communist prisons for this, and the Communists were unable to refute their position. Of course, they were tortured, but that’s another subject.
One of these was a very famous theologian who, at a public meeting, after lengthy calculations by Communists who tried to prove that man evolved from apes, was asked in an insulting and derogatory manner:
“Well, what do you say now, comrade?”
The theologian replied calmly, saying something along the lines of:
“Those who believe that their mother is an ape have an ape as their mother, and those who believe that their Father is God have God as their Father.”
And since we are talking about theology, I don’t know if you are aware that there is a canon from a very important Council, the Council of Carthage, which states:
“Whosoever says that Adam, the first man, was created mortal, so that whether he had sinned or not, he would have died in body—that is, he would have gone forth of the body, not because his sin merited this, but by natural necessity, let him be anathema.”
No one, brethren, wants to go against the holy canons and the experience of the Holy Fathers just to say that we as the eternal image of God evolved from generations of mortal hominids. Because evolutionism presupposes death. The mortal body presupposes death. Man was surely immortal before the fall.
The arguments of science are generally the deductions of learned men, based on what we observe today. They themselves say that these are theories. Sometimes they have no serious theories at all, only experiments. For example, experiments explaining why African pygmies are so short. This is an example.
The Truth is a Person
These are mysteries. Even for believers, much of this world is a mystery. The Risen Christ is most important, as only He can lead us out of the horror of loneliness and insecurity, and the chaotic monotony of meaninglessness. He is the Truth. The Truth is a Person, and absolutely compatible, capable of interpenetration, of full perichoresis [see below], for which man craves and which is in fact a Paradisiacal state.
The truth of interpenetration, global Adam and human perichoresis must be explained as it is essential for finding the truth. There is a clear difference between us and animals, although I have already explained in older videos what this means.
Perichoresis and Creation
Unlike the rest of Creation, which was created by command, at the creation of man all the Persons of the Holy Trinity held counsel and took part in the creation of man when God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (Gen. 1:26). You see that the plural is used in relation to God, whereas the singular is used in relation to man: Let us make man (singular) in Our image (plural).
The Holy Scripture continues to use the same disagreement between the singular and the plural, stating: So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them (Gen. 1:27). This disagreement, which may seem strange at first glance, is actually very accurate. Why?
What do we know about God? We know that God is one in three Persons. These Persons are so closely connected to each other that They make one God. This is called perichoresis in theology—the indwelling relationship of the Persons.
There is no image in the material world that would precisely describe this spiritual reality. However, it is possible to imagine three beams of light interpenetrating each other, forming one new beam. There are three of them, and yet it is one. You can imagine three sounds produced by three different musical instruments. There are three of them, but the music is one.
Since one God in three Persons created man in His Own image and likeness, it means that God created a single man in His image and likeness, consisting of many personalities of two sexes—male and female. This means that God did not create eight billion people currently living on earth. God created one giant mind in His image, in which all these personalities will be inter-penetrable so that they may know each other’s thoughts, share experiences with one another and all of them, each preserving its uniqueness, may work together as one common mind in order to attain a single common goal, which is theosis, the eternal perfection of the person. That’s the aim, you see.
You can imagine how this synergy takes place by looking at how the parts of the body work together, consciously and in full natural coordination. You can see that I am now talking, breathing, keeping my balance, and all of this is in natural coordination. All parts of my body are cooperating for one purpose—to try to speak to you and help you with God's help.
Thus, when the holy Apostle Paul spoke several times about the Church as a body with many different parts, of which Christ is the Head, it was not a metaphor or a figure of speech. He spoke about a tangible reality. Unfortunately, we no longer live in this reality today, as we are separated by sin. As a result of the catastrophe of sin, one Adam fell and split into composite personalities. The one mirror of one God fell and was shattered into smithereens. This is the fall of Adam.
On the gift of reading minds
Yes, brethren, the gift of reading minds is a natural gift that was lost after Adam’s fall. Once someone draws closer to God, this gift appears within him. For example, St. Joseph the Hesychast—he would be sitting at a table with his disciple and at some point begin to cry, saying:
“Now the soul needs prayer and help.”
St. Ephraim of Katounakia possessed the gift of clairvoyance as well. A young man once battled with thoughts about whether St. Ephraim had a particular gift or not. Driven by these thoughts, he found out where the elder’s cell was and decided to go there and ask the elder if he was clairvoyant or not. Of course, he did not tell anyone about his inner struggle, because he was ashamed. The elder was already waiting for the young man at the gate of his cell. He asked him, either jokingly or angrily:
“What is it to you if I’m clairvoyant or not?”
You see? But, of course, the most famous possessors of this grace-filled gift on Holy Mount Athos were Sts. Paisios and Porphyrios are associated with too many cases of clairvoyance to tell about them all here. Whole books have been written about them, and I personally know quite a few such cases, which I have heard about from people who have experienced them.
In fact, Christ came to do this—to reunite one global Adam, to assemble him from his fragments, from composite personalities. Christ tells us:
“Well, okay, you have sinned, broken away, and that is why you suffer. Let's restore everything! Those of you who want can unite with Me and through Me with one another.”
Do you understand? This is salvation, brethren. This is Paradise. It is the revival of global Adam through the unity of love and the interpenetration of personalities in the image and likeness of the most blessed, eternal and loving God.
Conclusions
This is the truth, this is humility—to be conscious of the fact that each one of us is only an infinitesimally small cell of this cosmic body of global Adam, of which Christ is the Head. If we live by ourselves and break away from the body, we rot, suffer, and are worthless. You can see that in the example of the body. When a part is removed, it begins to rot, loses its value, and is discarded. Brethren, we are nobody on our own. When we are united with Christ, we become children of God and are transformed into beings that are omnipotent, omniscient, blessed, and eternal. We only need to want it and try to put it into practice.
When we said at the beginning that humility is accepting the truth as it is, and not as we would like it to be, I meant exactly that. This is a mystery—the experience of full unity with Christ and unity, interpenetration with the personalities of the other people, and for this reason humility cannot be described, as St. John Climacus said. It must be experienced.
No species of ape or other animal has access to this existential level or has this purpose in life. Our drama is that, although we did not evolve from apes, our civilization is moving in that direction. And if we accept this truth for what it is, it is humility as well.
May the Good God help us fulfill our mission, brethren!
Thank you for so kindly staying with me for so long!
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. Amen.
