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“Now we have

God the Father

God the Son

God the Holy Spirit.”

A truly great modern Orthodox theologian, Panagiotis Christou, has discussed +Gregory Palamas’ theology on thethe relations between the hypostasia of the Holy Trinity and how those relationships manifest themselves in man’s natural and supra natural state and point to man’s created purpose. All of this elegant theology is at base an application of the Truth of the Trinity as expressed in the Creeds.

” Gregory gives a broad and dynamic character to the much discussed expression “according to the image”. He finds image in the whole existence of man and refers it to the Trinity. Man is a creature according to the image not vaguely of God, but concretely of the Triune God, since he has been created by the energy of the whole Trinity and may receive the divine light emitted from the whole Trinity, His intellect, reason and spirit constitute an inherent unity, corresponding to the unity of the persons of the divine Trinity, i.e. Nous, Logos, and pneuma (Intellect, Reason, and Spirit). As within divinity the Nous begets the Logos, and the Pneuma precedes as the eros of the Nous towards the Logos, so within man, ` the intellect bears the reason, and the spirit is projected as the eros of the intellect towards the reason. And as the Holy Spirit vivifies the world; so the human spirit vivifies the body[xiii]. Thus the image is extended to the whole man, including the body. The real meaning of Gregory’s teaching on this point is: the capability of man to be elevated into a genuine spiritual personality, as an image and symbol of the personality of God. One could call this image microtheos rather than microcosmos. This is the natural state of man.

Moreover the first man had received another gift: the divine spirit which is not a created thing, as are the rest of man’s elements, but an ineffable uncreated divine energy. The final destination of man is to be assimilated with the divine archetype[xiv] and united with God in one substance,[xv] so that he may be called “another God”[xvi] Now this destination could be achieved only through that infusion of the divine spirit, by which man was clothed with the divine glory and became a participant of the divine splendour.

This is the supernatural state of man. Whether man abides near or far from God depends, as it does for the rest of the reasonable beings, in his will, which means that it is a voluntary, not a natural condition [xvii] He is receptive of contrary spiritual qualities, goodness and evil, and may turn towards either[xviii]. Abiding in goodness means preservation of the divine spirit and of participation in God. Turning towards evil means moving away from God, and such a movement is equal to the death of the soul [xix] God neither created nor caused the death of the soul and of the body[xx] Death is the fruit of sin which was produced by the will of man.[xxi]