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Because God gave us dominion over the earth, our failing to be like God corrupts everything around us and the result of that, ultimately, is death, a permanent separation from God. In this sense, we become like the sterile fig tree, lovingly planted and given all that is necessary to thrive and fulfill its purpose of producing figs, but doesn't. It is fit only to be uprooted and burned.

Truly splendid essay/post, Kolokotronis!

God does not "exist" -- oh, I loved that! Of course, it's true; for an existing thing is a fellow captive in the net of space and time, and God is not in space or time. Thus strictly speaking, God is "non-existent reality." Yet His parousia, his eternal Presence, is ever with us, if we seek after Him. We have this insight from classic Greek philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle. God's Presence with us was made tangible, manifest in the Incarnation, in which the Son of God chose to enter into the stream of space and time in the Person of Jesus Christ, for our redemption and salvation....

Thank you for your wonderful essay/post!

Again, you bring such beautiful insights they must be repeated!

God does not "exist" -- oh, I loved that! Of course, it's true; for an existing thing is a fellow captive in the net of space and time, and God is not in space or time. Thus strictly speaking, God is "non-existent reality." Yet His parousia, his eternal Presence, is ever with us, if we seek after Him. We have this insight from classic Greek philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle. God's Presence with us was made tangible, manifest in the Incarnation, in which the Son of God chose to enter into the stream of space and time in the Person of Jesus Christ, for our redemption and salvation....

Thank you both for the kind words, but I only pass on what my family has believed for more than 1700 years. There is a great joy in Eastern Christianity. Kosta and Kawaii pointed to it when they wrote about those Eastern European Christians who hesitatingly enter the churches their grandparents and ancestors before them called their spiritual home; tears of joy shining in their eyes as they realize that what their grandmothers taught them, likely in secret, carries with it the way of eternal life which had sustained their people for more than 1500 years. Even for the rest of us who never knew the oppression they did, our voices choked with grief as we chanted the Lamentations on the evening of Great and Holy Friday and our eyes gleamed with the same tears, this time of joy, at the close of the Anastasi Service as we sang,

"It is the Day of Resurrection! Let us shine forth in splendor for the Festival and embrace one another. Let us say, 'O brethren, even to those who do not love us; let us forgive all things in the Resurrection and thus let us exclaim: Christ is Risen from the dead, trampling Death by death and bestowing life to those in the tombs!'"

God does not "exist" -- oh, I loved that! Of course, it's true; for an existing thing is a fellow captive in the net of space and time, and God is not in space or time. Thus strictly speaking, God is "non-existent reality." Yet His parousia, his eternal Presence, is ever with us, if we seek after Him. We have this insight from classic Greek philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle. God's Presence with us was made tangible, manifest in the Incarnation, in which the Son of God chose to enter into the stream of space and time in the Person of Jesus Christ, for our redemption and salvation....

I don't buy that an existing __________ [whatever construct we'd care to follow that with] must be bound by our space/time continuum/construct. Perhaps I didn't understand or follow the logic well enough but I just can't buy it in my understanding of Biblical realities.

Whether we construe eternity as having ANYTHING to do with this current space/time continuum, OR NOT, GOD AND ALL THAT "IS" does NOT just wink out of EXISTENCE at the finilization/obliteration of this time/space continuum. That would make absolutely NO SENSE, AT ALL.

GOD IS MAXIMIZED BEING, EXISTENCE--AND ALWAYS WILL BE. Nothing else makes sense, to me. And if those words don't quite fit folks notion of the math or the whatever--then whatever God filled words would best substitute will still ahve something to do with GOD BEING MAXIMIZED BEING, EXISTENCE, REALITY, PARAGON-NESS.