Vladimir Lossky (1903-1958) called created beings the thelemata logoi (intended ideas) of God, developing his cosmology from the writings of Maximos the Confessor, John of Damaskos and Gregory Palamas. This paper explores the nature of evil in relation to Lossky’s cosmology.  I approach this problematic through Lossky’s works and one other modern commentator, Kallistos Ware (1934-present).  The writings of several Orthodox Fathers are brought into dialogue with these theologians to support the conclusion that sin exists as a second ousia to human nature as defined by the thelemata logos.  The Aristotelian distinction of a hypostasis as a second ousia (meaning the actual subsistence of an ousia) is employed here to argue that sin is a hypostatic subsistence formed entirely through self-will and the passions. Sin is thus a thelemata pathos of self-creation, and evil the ‘personality’ or the subsisting hypostasis against God’s thelemata logos.  The human condition can therefore be understood as struggle for virtue in order to become a hypostasis after that ‘intended idea’ for them, or the falling away from the divine Image through sin. Finally, these developments from Lossky’s cosmology are considered against the writings of Gregory of Nyssa with respect to theodicy and universal salvation in the Orthodoxy redemptive economy.

Orthodoxy has “few explicit definitions” when it comes to the exact details about the nature of evil and the soteriological implications that problem raises (Ware 1997, p.205). This is partly a consequence of the fact that there has been no opportunity for an ecumenical council since the Great Schism. But it is also true that such mysteries are a reminder of the apophatic priority within theology. It is not for humankind to impose limits and legalisms upon divine agency; God is simply not a ‘concept’ that can be parsed and subjected to human analytical cross-examination. Only the Gnostics would present the human mind as something which could grasp the divine nature within its own ontological coils and make God surrender His secrets.[2]  Orthodoxy, on the other hand, has always upheld the belief that the cataphatic can only lead so far.  While knowledge can add profound reverence to deepen belief through contemplation of created reality, the uncreated God is always met in the darkness of apophasis (negative theognosis). Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) states it this way, “for to God pertains both incomprehensibility and comprehensibility, though He Himself is one. The same God is incomprehensible in His essence, but is comprehensible from what He creates according to His divine energies” (The Philokalia IV, p.384). The cataphatic and apophatic form a single antinomic whole; mere language shall always remain inadequate to encapsulate the entirety of this ineffable mystery.

Basil the Great (330-379) wrote that tradition is guarded both in silence and in mystery (Lossky 2001, p.146). The Scriptures define a horizon of revelation whose rays reach out to us across time through unfolding tradition (p.147). The obscurity of certain parts of Scripture is one form of silence whose secrets are revealed by the exegete through the participation of the Holy Spirit (p.151). There were also supposedly secret and unwritten teachings that were not declared publically until it was necessary to quash a heresy (p.145).  This, Lossky indicates, was to protect what is holy from being profaned by a public not capable of understanding such ‘pearls’ of truth (p.146; cf. Matt. 7:6). The mysteries that guard tradition are the innumerable antinomic harmonies of Orthodox doctrine: the divine transcendence of the Father and simultaneous immanence of the Spirit, the cosmic liturgy manifested in the works of creation known through the intellect and the personal God of revelation known through the heart, the worldly wisdom of Peter as complement to the formal education of Paul—just to name a few. Tradition is the “living breath” of the Church that transforms it into “a unique body of truth” (p.142).

All that being said, it is not improper for the theologian of today to find words appropriate to God and divine activity, so long as apophatic priority is maintained. The lay theologian has particular freedom here in this, a role that is not improper or unwelcomed within Orthodoxy (Ware 1997, p.48). This is what I set out to do in the following essay.  My interest here is to redress several theological questions ‘passed over in silence’ by theologians past and present—a silence that often seems more uncomfortable than it is reverential. This is particularly the case when it comes to discussing theodicy and the nature of evil, and especially when these questions are considered against the universal salvation hinted at in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa (et al.).  I will approach this problematic through the writings of several Orthodox Fathers and two modern commentators, Vladimir Lossky (1903-1958) and Kallistos Ware (1934-present). 

Adolf von Harnack is (in)famously remembered for his pronouncement that the spirit of Eastern Christendom died out in the seventh century, that Orthodox tradition became lifeless and ossified from then on (see the discussion of Pelikan 1974, p.1-7). My interest here as an academic is to show the coherence and dynamic ongoing developments in Orthodox doctrine, as well as redress those key issues mentioned above that have been passed over in silence for the aforementioned reasons. This project therefore represents a constructive theology in that in some cases I go beyond what these writers explicitly wrote, and in that I seek to create a meta-narrative that unites elements within the redemptive economy.  And so, for the purposes of this essay, I will at times have to shed the customary academic detachment, and in this role of an apologist adopt the theological language appropriate to doctrine and the sacred stories of Scripture. The transition to constructive theology and where I go further than the commentators themselves will be noted accordingly.

The Humanity of Christ in Atonement Theology

This analysis must begin with atonement theology to recover a key principle relating to soteriology. Gregory Nazianzus (329-391), known as Gregory the Theologian, examined redemption theology and why it was that Jesus was crucified on our behalf. He rejects the idea that the death of the incarnate God could have been a kind of payment or ransom for humankind:

“Now, since a ransom is paid to him who holds us in power, I ask whom such a price was offered and why?  If to the devil it is outrageous!  The robber receives the ransom, not only from God, but a ransom consisting of God Himself.  He demands so exorbitant a payment for his tyranny that it would have been right for him to have freed us altogether.  But if the price is offered to the Father, I ask first of all, how?”

—Quaestiones ad Thalassium, cited from Lossky 1976, p.152

Lossky concludes that the death and resurrection of Christ represents a “dispensation, whose mystery cannot be adequately clarified in a series of rational concepts” (2001, p.102). But Lossky demurred here from a point the text itself goes further to express.  For Gregory this was not a blood debt needed to propitiate an offended God, or a hostage exchange for fallen humanity held in the grips of the devil. Gregory instead points to a crucial element in the redemptive economy—the example set forth by Abraham in his willingness to sacrifice Isaac:

“Moreover, why should the blood of His only Son be acceptable to the Father, who did not wish to accept Isaac, when Abraham offered Him his son as a burnt-offering, but replaced the human sacrifice with the sacrifice of a ram?  It is not evident that the Father accepts the sacrifice not because He demanded it or had any need of it but by His dispensation?”

—Quaestiones ad Thalassium, cited from Lossky 2001, p.102 (cf. 1976, p.153)

God was moved by the unquestioning devotion of Abraham and so the human sacrifice is replaced with a ram—a dispensation that released Isaac.  The Christian antitype to this foundational covenant from the Hebrew Bible is Jesus. He likewise becomes the sacrifice as the Lamb of God (John 1:29) to take the place of fallen humanity. A lamb is of course a young sheep, just as a ram is an adult male sheep.  The scriptural allusion is here not coincidental. It is a direct reference to and re-envisioning of the Abrahamic covenant which has now become universally extended to all of humankind. That the event is also inclusive of idea of the Passover lamb is a subject I have addressed elsewhere in relation to prefiguring the eschatological messianic feast (see Goodin 2008, p.51).

Here it is important to note that the soteriological dynamic emphasized by Gregory does not hinge on the idea of the sacrificial animal itself, but rather it resides in human and divine agency working together. For Abraham, it was a test of faith. He was unflinching in his readiness to sacrifice even his beloved son Isaac if God required that it be done. Abraham demonstrated his steadfast devotion to God, and was rewarded for his faith in becoming the means by which all nations would be blessed (Genesis 22:18). Isaac’s son Jacob would later demonstrate the same single-minded fixation on God by wrestling an Angel to win God’s blessing and thereby became Israel, the Patriarch of the chosen people.  

Now, where this comes into perspective in atonement theology is that Gregory Nazianzus says that, just as human agency was shown in the willingness of Abraham, so too human agency was required to redeem fallen humanity and to form the New Covenant:

“It was necessary that man should be sanctified by the humanity of God; it was necessary that He Himself should free us, triumphing over the tyrant by His own strength”

—Quaestiones ad Thalassium (emphasis added), cited from Lossky 2001, p.102.

It took Jesus who was both fully human and fully divine at the same time to become the way and the door back to full communion with God. But it was the humanity of Jesus, says Gregory, that was key. Like with Abraham, the human element had to reach out to God first.

The full breath and significance of atonement theology and the death of God on the Cross are far beyond the scope of this paper—this is by no means an exhaustive analysis. Just one aspect is being discussed here so that it can be brought forward to support a central theme in this essay.[3]  It is the power of the human element in the cosmological redemption story. More particularly, it was in Jesus’ kenotic emptying of human self-will to do God’s will that was key. His kenosis shows exactly what is expected for all His followers—to accord their human will to the dictates of the divine will for them in their personal lives.  Only then does a human being find his or her true calling. Exactly how to do this, and not get lead astray in self-deception, is a problematic that became much of the focus of The Philokalia.  The role of self will is a particular challenge within soteriology since it is required for self-will to will itself into kenotic devotion and action. It is also the case that self-will is the very same pitfall that brought down Eden and continues to envelope creation in theodicy by the actions of those who were made in the Image of their Creator. The human element in all this—in both salvation and theodicy—is the subject of the following discussion.

The Co-creators of Eden

Vladimir Lossky synthesized elements from the writings of Maximos the Confessor, John of Damaskos and Gregory Palamas to form his concept of created beings as the thelemata logoi (intended ideas) of God (Lossky 1976, pp.94f., 98). Lossky begins with the uncreated light with which the Deity fills the entirety of the cosmological and noetic reality. This invisible energy is not God’s ousia (essence) since it is posterior to His true beingness (p.81).  Yet it is through this uncreated light that the transcendent God is communicable to His creation (p.73).  The idea of uncreated light is not an extra-scriptural invention since it is identical to God’s doxa (glory/light) “and when we speak of the divine energies in relation to the human beings to whom they are communicated and given and by whom they are appropriated, this divine and uncreated reality within us is called Grace” (Lossky 2001, p.90).

While it is the very nature of this invisible energy to create, to beget, and to transfigure with grace (see comments of Gregory Palamas and Cyril of Alexandria in The Philokalia IV, p.380), the ambient presence of this energy in the cosmos does not impose any necessity upon God, nor does it confer anything to creatures automatically.  The uncreated light remains inaccessible until it is fixed by the “sacred volitions” of God, Who combines the invisible energy with “the essence-forming logoi or inner principles of existent things” (Palamas citing pseudo-Dionysios, p.387). A new creation thereby emerges from the uncreated grace as a nexus of a specific idea or principle (logos) with a specific intention (thelemata) for its existence—to use Lossky’s terms. The cosmos itself can thus be understood as the entirety of thelemata logoi of God at any given time in their temporal expression (cf. Maximos the Confessor, The Philokalia II, no. 48, p.272).

But a quick look at the creation accounts of Genesis reveals that another dynamic is reported to take place. Through the “Let the ...” commands, the Creator is shown to empower His new creation to bring forth new life according to their inner principles. For example, the land was commanded to abound with life; thereafter, the plants become progenitors of all the subsequent generations through seeds according to their kind (Genesis 1:11-12). The same procreative principle allowed for the animals to bring forth their own offspring, filling the seas and every terrain with ongoing creation (Genesis 1:20-22).  Another established principle governs the days and nights, and the seasons of the year (Genesis 1:14-18), setting the cosmos in perpetual motion. Within these set bounds, the Creator embedded self-governing principles to allow creation itself to exercise creative autonomy (for further discussion, see Welker 1991). For animal life, this co-creative authority is limited to instinct and, in the case of the higher animals, a limited opportunity for inquisitiveness and learning (Maximos the Confessor, The Philokalia II, p.88, no.32). God saw all of this, and declared it all “good” individually, and “very good” as a collective whole (Genesis 1:31).

The case with humankind is similar with respect to creative initiative, but we were further empowered with free will after the Image of the Creator.  This special role for humanity is shown in the naming of the newly created animals, a task begun by God.  Certainly, the Creator did not require a surrogate to complete His work. This task was given by another reason, one not clarified in the texts themselves. But if we consider this question alongside the Orthodox view of Theosis, that it is the destiny for humankind to become the equal of angels (Luke 20:36), the Genesis story reveals special and particular empowerment. 

Kallistos Ware describes the vocation of the first couple as the eucharistic animals of Eden who were intended to transfigure the world, “not dominate and exploit nature” as it has come to pass (Ware 1995, p.53-4).  But not only that, “man is not just a logical and eucharistic animal, but he is also a creative animal: the fact that man is in God’s image means that man is a creator after the image of God the Creator” (p.54).  Ware points to how wheat and grapes are transformed by human creativity to become bread and wine, and how the Holy Spirit then acts co-creatively with the priest to transubstantiate the physical substances in Holy Communion.

And so, the intended role of the human species was to become priest of creation (Ware 1995, p.54), and Eden was to be the “first Church” (Lossky 1976, p.113).  Adam failed in this role because “he was unable to attain union with God, and the deification of the created order” (p.133). Instead, another course was taken. Gregory of Nyssa (335-394) indicates that sin itself became “an invention of the created will” on the part of Adam and Eve (p.135). But how is this possible? One way to envision this is that the first couple, in the role of co-creators of Eden, once had the power to combine with their wills with God’s uncreated grace to transform the created world. This is the proposal I seek to substantiate herein.

Palamas said the angles are greater than humans in that they are “secondary luminaries” of the primal doxa of God (The Philokalia IV, p. 381).  But if it is the destiny for humankind to become the equal of angels, then perhaps the un-fallen human nature was also resplendent in this same way, and likewise had immanent access to the uncreated light of God.[4]  This would explain how Eden was able to fall at all. Adam’s new invention of sin, as a by-product of human will and uncreated grace, is what could have brought about the corruption of the created world order.  Animal predation and death could then take over nature such that, for example, the lion no longer eats straw like an ox—that is, until the apokatastasis (the restoration of all things; Acts 3:21) that was foretold in Isaiah 11:7 and Isaiah 65:25 (see Irenaeus A.H. 5.33.4, p.1124f.).[5]  But before this theme is explored in more detail, the creative power of the human will must first be examined further.

Becoming Co-creators in Theosis

While salvation is not within human power to attain, it is nevertheless necessary for the human element to participate with divine agency.  This becomes a synergy (synergeia) which Lossky describes as “the cooperation of the created wills with the idea-willings of God” (1976, p.97; see also Ware 1997, p.221f.).  Now, we must consider the idea of synergy with what has been argued already. Gregory Nazianzus maintained that it was the humanity of Christ that made it possible for fallen humanity to be redeemed. He took this insight from the example of Abraham, whose devotion reached up to God first in unquestioning faith. Abraham, in effect, had to first meet God half-way before God could establish a covenant with him.  It is like the case of a drowning person who must reach out their arm in faith for a rescuer to pluck them out of the water. It is much the same in soteriology. While it is certainly within God’s power to interject Himself even against human will, as He did with Paul on the road to Damascus, the participation of personal will in the redemptive economy remains a cornerstone within Orthodoxy.  For this very reason it was necessary for Mary as the Theotokos to accept and participate with the Holy Spirit in a synergy of human and divine wills (Ware 1997, p. 258f.; Luke 1:38). And this is also why Peter of Damaskos (11^th or 12^th century) says each person stands at the crossroads between salvation and sin, and chooses for him- or herself the path they will take:

“This is the beginning of our salvation; by our own free choice we abandon our own wishes and thoughts and do what God wishes and thinks. If we succeed in doing this, there is no object, no activity or place in the whole of creation that can prevent us from becoming what God from the beginning has wished us to be: that is to say, according to His image and likeness, gods by adoption through grace ...”
—The Philokalia III, p.76 (emphasis added)

For Peter, free will exercised in kenotic humility after the example of Christ is the key to Theosis. This allows the personal will of the true self to harmonize in a participative synergy with the divine will (more on this later). In mystical contemplation and hesychastic prayer a seeker can also will him- or herself into an ontological state in which divine grace and spiritual knowledge may be bestowed on them. While this, obviously, is an elective decision on the part of God, the seeker must actively demonstrate their receptiveness and sincerity in eliciting divine gifts.  Peter says that only the animals and inanimate creation “participate passively in goodness” while humans “must deliberately and wilfully choose” the path to divine blessings (The Philokalia III, p.80).   Just as a person can sit all day in front of an icon, it will not impart grace unless the heart and intellect of the seeker earnestly attempts to penetrate its incarnated symbolism. 

Every aspect of devotional life is likewise contingent upon the conscious and volitional will of the individual. The participation in the divine allows each person to become a likeness of God—in effect, a hypostasis modeled upon the exemplar in Jesus.  The inferior can thereby become a likeness of the superior. Through virtue people can, body and soul, become progressively transfigured after the incarnated Word, as much as it is possible in this lifetime.  Complete Theosis comes only with the resurrection, with divine blessings attained commensurate with the Deity’s assessment of the person’s accumulated virtue (see Maximos the Confessor, The Philokalia II, p.181, no.75; also p.218, no.35).

As already mentioned, the “primitive righteousness” of Adam was meant to be followed by the acquisition of uncreated grace to fulfill his vocation which was the deification of the created order (Lossky 1976, p.131, 133). But the passions overthrew the original hierarchy of the divine likeness (p.132). Fallen human nature therefore required the Pentecostal gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit to be our Helper in once again accessing uncreated grace. In the words of Irenaeus and Athanasius, “God became Man in order that man may become god” (p.134). Nevertheless, while free will has a pivotal role in acquiring divine blessings in this way, free will also allows for the possibility for the creation of more sin.

Caught Between the Two Nothingnesses

All created beings, according to Lossky, exist provisionally. Creatures have no substance, no principle of existence apart from the mark of the Creator and His willed intention that sustains them.  We are the thelemata logoi of God—that is the true nature of nature.  This provisional existence is further qualified by the ex nihilo[6] from which creation was taken, and the absolute otherness of the divine ousia. In the words of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, “above them is the abyss of divine infinitude, below them that of their own nothingness” (cited from Ware 1995, p.45). We are caught between these two nothingnesses, and “these are the two extremes between which the personal destiny of man may veer in the working-out of his salvation, which is already realized in hope for everyone in the incarnate Image of the God who willed the create man in His own image” (Lossky 2001, p.139).

Image is the embedded ‘small l’ logos which is both the principle of existence and at the same time the intended purpose for that creation. Only certain creatures are imbued with any measure of volition, but only humankind has an image that also allows for the likeness of God to be attained through virtue.  But as consequence of the Fall, the passions became wedded to human nature. The passions are strong emotional impulses that pull the self away from God and toward the carnal world, but which can be transformed into virtue through discipline. Adam blamed God for his disobedience, which reveals an evil thought that was introduced by the serpent (Lossky 1976, p.130f.). In this way, Satan taught the first couple a sense of self apart from God—a self defined as an individual and not a person in communion with others as exemplified by the Trinitarian Persons. This is the same selfishness that claims not to be thy brother’s keeper and washes its hands of responsibility rather than defend politically inconvenient truths.  The journey to the secular self is a descent into a “snake-infested cellar” of selective and uncaring individualism that continues to plague the world in the theodicy of human inflicted evils (Ware 1995, p.56).

Such is the attitude and disposition of the demons and the devil. They have lost all relation to God and now willfully exist as twisted and grotesque caricatures of their former selves; the image of their angelic nature wholly distorted by self-willed sin. Passion fills the content of their lives and gives them a sense of substance and purpose to their existence. But in their renunciation of God they have chosen the path to non-existence. Nevertheless, “even though they have become spirits of darkness, the fallen angels remain creatures of God, and their rejection of the will of God represents a despairing intercourse with the nothingness they will never find. Their eternal descent towards non-being will have no end” (Lossky 1976, p.129). Like falling into a blackhole in which time itself is stretched to infinity as substance disintegrates at the quantum singularity, so too evil beings will spend an eternity forever striving for the fantasies that remain out of reach in their never-ending descent into oblivion.

This is the nature of hell which “is a point not in space but in the soul. It is the place where God is not” (his emphasis; Ware 1995, p.80). It is a turning to the ex nihilo within, and away from the Eucharistic community of fellowship.[7]  This is also the pathway by which the fallen angels wage war on God’s Image in the created order—which is to say, upon humankind (see Peter of Damaskos, The Philokalia III, p.80-1). The demons and the devil seek to trick people into similar states of self-willed obsession concerning the objects of their passions, thereby bringing about their own downfall. Maximos the Confessor (c.580-662) states it this way:

“For the things men value lack being; they only seem to exist because of mistaken judgement, but have no principle of existence at all: there is only the fantasy, which cheats the intellect and through passion supplies non-existent things with empty form but no real substance.”

—The Philokalia II, no.16, p.264

This analysis has now leads to its conclusion. Evil itself is a non-entity that exists through passion and self-will that forms a second ousia—a false and illusory substance as described by Maximos the Confessor. Sin is a thelemata pathos.  Through the volitional choices of people over the objects of carnal desire, evil is continually created in the phenomenal world. We can see examples of this dynamic every night on the evening news, and in very real and tangible artifacts of evil intent (e.g., weapons of mass indiscriminate destruction). Evil is real in this respect, and evil people really do exist. But they have no actual substance in a greater cosmological sense.  There is only in the world we create for ourselves through the second ousia of sin. This is also how the devil struggles to achieve dominion over fallen Eden—which is to say, through our birthright (Genesis 1:28; see also Goodin 2008, p.47f.).

Universal Salvation

Bishop Ware writes that, “concerning this ‘war in heaven’ (Rev. 12:7) we have only cryptic references in Scripture; we are not told in detail what happened, still less do we know what plans God has for a possible reconciliation within the noetic [angelic] realm, or how (if at all) the devil may eventually be redeemed” (1995, p.57). The Church Father Origen (3^rd century) reportedly claimed that the devil would be forced to accept the lordship of God, that to do otherwise would concede that evil does indeed have real power—if not the power to overcome God but the power to resist Him forever. Origen was branded a heretic three centuries later for this claim.[8]  Nevertheless, later theologians including Gregory of Nyssa would make statements that support the idea of universal salvation for all sinners, possibility even inclusive the fallen angels.[9]  Kallistos Ware, as noted above, points to this possibility in his own work.

Such a doctrine could be invitation to apostasy, and this implication made it necessary to anathematize Origen. So where does this leave the Orthodox theologian today with the possibility that both the devoted Christian and the unrepentant sinner will each share equally in heavenly bliss when it is all said and done?    

Orthodox has no otherworldly purgatory for a disembodied soul after death.  People were created body and soul with neither being pre-existent; the essential unity of the two is never lost.  Yet there is still a post-mortem purgatorial experience that awaits. Clement of Alexandria (d. circa 216) spoke of two fires in the afterlife.  Those of lesser culpability were destined for a sanctifying and educational punishment in a non-consumptive fire, while the irredeemable were destined for a punitive and consuming fire.  But he did not clarify the exact details of this process. Gregory of Nyssa would take up this question and go further in spelling-out what waits in the afterlife:

Whether he [a person] was the recipient of many blessings, or of many ills in a length of life; or tasted neither of them at all, but ceased to live before his mental powers were formed [i.e., still-births] … His [God’s] end is one, and one only; it is this: when the        complete whole of our race shall have been perfected from the first man to the last, — some having at once in this life been cleansed from evil, others having afterwards in the necessary periods been healed by the Fire, others having in their life here been unconscious equally of good and of evil, — to offer to every one of us participation in the blessings which are in Him … But the difference between the virtuous and the vicious life led at the present time will be illustrated in this way; viz. in the quicker or more tardy participation of each in that promised blessedness. According to the amount of the ingrained wickedness of each will be computed the duration of his cure. This cure consists in the cleansing of his soul, and that cannot be achieved without an excruciating condition, as has been expounded in our previous discussion.

—On the Soul and Resurrection, p.898

Exactly how or where this is to be achieved is still not clarified, but this particular topic is outside the scope of my investigation. What is the focus here is how to reconcile the idea of universal salvation and what has already been argued concerning the second ousia of sin. 

The second false ousia can be compared to the dross of sin that Gregory of Nyssa mentions that accumulates within the soul (On the Soul and Resurrection, p.873f.). Those who live kata sarka (according to the flesh) instead of kata pneuma (according to the Spirit) as admonished by Paul in Galatians accumulate the dross of sin through thelemata pathos.  This dross must be burned off in the purgatorial experiences to recover the pure original substance.  But there would also seem to be a point in a person’s life where sinful behaviour comes to dominate and define the personality of the individual. This is the point when a person loses themselves to their passions and wilfully forms a new ‘personality’ through the thelemata pathos. They become so consumed by, for example, greed or resentment that their lives are entirely defined by these passions. This would then be a hypostasis that no longer resembles their true self defined by his or her thelemata logos. 

If so, we can imagine that the false self (i.e., the sinful hypostasis) will suffer the same fate of the demons and devil—a conflagration of hellish dissolution in eternal descent into non-beingness. This would be the fate for that personality (hypostasis) as a self-willed creation. Nevertheless, the original idea for that person, the thelemata logos, the one who may have never had a chance to come into being through self-willed virtue, that person will be recovered and reclaimed by God as Gregory writes:

The remedy offered by the Overseer of the produce is to collect together the tares and the         thorns, which have grown up with the good seed, and into whose bastard life all the secret forces that once nourished its root have passed, so that it not only has had to remain without its nutriment, but has been choked and so rendered unproductive by this unnatural growth. When from the nutritive part within them everything that is the reverse or the counterfeit of it has been picked out, and has been committed to the fire that     consumes everything unnatural, and so has disappeared, then in this class also their humanity will thrive and will ripen into fruit-bearing, owing to such husbandry, and some   day after long courses of ages will get back again that universal form which God stamped upon us at the beginning. Blessed are they, indeed, in whom the full beauty of those ears [like of the inflorescence of wheat stalks grown from the seed, so too our body] shall be developed directly [when] they are born in the Resurrection.

—On the Soul and Resurrection, p.901f.

Concluding Statements

Such an understanding would go far to rehabilitate Gregory of Nyssa from the stain of ‘Origenism’[10] while at the same time helping to clarify issues of theodicy today.  Evil does not exist, but evil people do exist as a subsisting hypostasis formed out of the second ousia of sin. That distorted hypostasis will suffer the fullest extent of the purgatorial fire, yet at the same time the real person (who may have never had a chance to become their true self) will be recovered by God from the seed of the thelemata logos for the Kingdom of Heaven. Perhaps the same fate will befall the demons and devil.[11] 

This then raises the question of the virtuous life and what are the positive consequences of personifying the thelemata logos during one’s lifetime. The parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14-30) is perhaps illustrative here.  A person is given a particular talent to invest in their life. Some do nothing with it and will be thrown into darkness where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” as a consequence (Matt. 25:30).  But the ones who use their talents and increased them through exchange with others are greatly rewarded and then invited “to enter into the joy” of their Lord (Matt. 25: 21, 23). Obviously, I am relying here upon a most fortunate wordplay between a talent, meaning a weight of gold used as currency in biblical times, and a talent meaning a God-given purpose contained within their thelemata logos. Even so, this is not an improper reading of the parable in context of the overall discussion. Virtue is what we bring to God from our lifetimes; virtue is substantive in that it is also a second ousia and thus can accumulate in a person (e.g., as depth of character, divine blessings, the gifts of the Spirit from Isaiah 11, etc.) just like the talents in the parable.

Irenaeus said the first couple were like infants unaccustomed to perfect discipline (A.H. 4.38.1, p.1035f.).  They lacked wisdom and fell as a consequence. The human quest is Theosis through the acquisition of virtue through the willed participation in the uncreated energies of God so that we may become gods by adoption through grace. The storehouse of virtue that builds up in a lifetime is the gift we bring to God in exchange for our life. In the final hierarchy of the Kingdom of Heaven, however, not everyone will be the same. Presumably, it is virtue that defines who will greatest and who will be least in the Kingdom of Heaven. This analysis has highlighted the soteriological consequences of human intention and desires for actually creating good or phenomenally real evil in thought and in action.

Now, this raises the question of both the original good person that never came into being because of wilful participation in evil and passion, and the stillborn infants mentioned by Gregory of Nyssa. The solution I present here admittedly tries to have it both ways. Gregory says that the ‘seed’ of the person is recovered and grown into their intended expression by God in the forthcoming Kingdom. This is a comforting image for the case of the stillborn and other similar circumstances implied by the passage (e.g., child death in general, severe congenital mental defects that prevent the acquisition of virtue, etc.). But the case of the evil ‘personality’ (hypostasis) requires a somewhat schizophrenic solution: the original thelemata logos seed is recovered and re-grown under the exclusive husbandry of God, while the evil hypostasis and sinful flesh that developed under passionate self-will is thrown into the fire with the tares—a personality that will be complete with consciousness and sensibility. We can therefore imagine that they would suffer more poignantly than any pleasure experienced or pain inflicted in their misguided lifetimes.  I have addressed the larger issues of theodicy in the created order elsewhere (see Goodin 2008, p.45ff.). 

The Aristotelian distinction of a hypostasis as a second ousia (meaning the actual subsistence of an ousia) has served in Orthodox doctrine as a way to describe the Trinity without falling into either Arian tri-theism or Sabellian modalism (Lossky 1976, p.50f.). The wordplay in Greek philosophical thought that hypostasis is sometimes synonymous with ousia and sometimes denotes an actual subsistence is preserved in Orthodox doctrine to show the simultaneous unity and diversity of the Trinity (see the comments of John of Damaskos in Lossky, p.51)—again, not in the sense that human definitions can bind divine activity, but only to find words appropriate to describe the cataphatic aspect of an ineffable mystery. The proposal set out here in my essay should be considered similarly, that these are also words and conceptions appropriate to the cataphatic nature of a divine mystery.  Nevertheless, mysteries passed over in silence can do harm if the laity begin to slide into apostasy.  The secular world is rife with answers catering to the godless philosophy of self-sufficiency.  Orthodoxy is in need of a coherent narrative to redress the seeming holes in doctrine and worldview regarding theodicy.  It is hoped that this essay is a step in that direction.

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