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106 This paper will critically compare the creation theologies of Sergius Bulgakov, Vladimir Lossky, and John Zizioulas. I offer this critical comparison of the three most influential trajectories in contemporary Orthodox theology to discern whether, in fact, contemporary Orthodox theology has anything to offer to the wider, global discussion of Orthodoxy’s response to questions and concerns about the environment. In previous work, I have argued that, their differences notwithstanding, contemporary Orthodox theologians ground their theology in one fundamental principle: the realism of divine-human communion. The realism of divinehuman communion affirms that God exists so as to be free, as love, to create and unite Godself with what is other than God—creation. From the point of view of creation, the realism of divine-human communion means that creation exists so as to be in communion with God. Bulgakov’s, Lossky’s, and Zizioulas ’s agreement on this fundamental axiom does not necessarily lead to similar conclusions on their theologies of the Trinity, especially on the relation of apophaticism and the importance of the concept of the divine energies to the doctrine of the Trinity. In similar fashion, I will demonstrate that the principle of the realism of divine-human communion shapes the theologies of creation for these theologians, but this shared starting point does not prevent the emergence of fundamental differences in their creation theologies. Sergius Bulgakov The key to understanding Bulgakov’s theology of creation is his trinitarian theology, and the key to understanding his trinitarian theology is to deciCreation as Communion in Contemporary Orthodox Theology Aristotle Papanikolaou C R E AT I O N A S C O M M U N I O N 107 pher, literally, what he means by Sophia, which, in my estimation, has been the chief stumbling block to appreciating Bulgakov’s work fully. The question that must be posed to Bulgakov is the following: why is the concept of Sophia necessary for theology? Sophia, for Bulgakov, is entailed in the logic of the patristic affirmation that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are homoousios. In both the Latin and Greek forms of trinitarian theology, the homoousios was interpreted in terms of the attributes common to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and as what constituted the unity of the Godhead. While Bulgakov does not necessarily dispute these understandings of the homoousios, they do not fully account for the God-world relation. It is a particular understanding of the God-world relation in terms of communion that leads Bulgakov to claim that a further theological unpacking of the homoousios is needed. He states that “the dogma of consubstantiality, which safeguards the unity of the Holy Trinity, thus remains a sealed book so far as we are concerned—for in a religious sense it has been neither assimilated nor unfolded.” For Bulgakov, the unfolding of the homoousios leads logically to Sophia. The key to understanding the link between homoousios and Sophia in Bulgakov lies in his notion of the self-revelation of God. The relation between the Father and the Son is the self-revelation of the Father in the Son. This self-revelation, however, is only complete in the Holy Spirit, who unites the Father and the Son. Bulgakov identifies the Father as “the transcendent principle within the Holy Trinity . . . the divine subject, the subject which manifests itself in the predicate . . . intelligence contemplating itself, the source of being and love, that love which cannot but diffuse itself,” “Divine Depth and Mystery, the Divine Subject of self-revelation.” It seems that Bulgakov is saying that if one were to bracket the self-revelation of God in the Son and in the Spirit, the Father is Absolute Spirit, which cannot even be called God, since the latter is a relative term. This Absolute Spirit is an unknowable , impenetrable mystery. It is in the self-revelation of the Father in the Son that the Father transcends this transcendence, or reveals his transcendence as immanence, and is immanent as revealed. The Son, thus, is the Image of the Father, the Word of the Father in which is contained all words; the “objective self-revelation” of the Father, the Truth of the Father, and, as such, the divine content. As Bulgakov puts it, “the Son surrenders Himself as the Word of all and about All to the Divine world; He serves the self-revealing Divinity, and He posits Himself as the content of this self-revelation.” Bracketing...

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