Deification and Ecology

Abstract The chapter considers how the perspective of deification colors people’s relationship with the material world: the Orthodox monastic tradition, intensely focused on deification, also affords outstanding contemporary examples of ecological living. The Greek patristic tradition establishes the “greater arc” of creation for deification, God’s presence in creation through the logoi of beings (St. Maximus), and matter deified through God’s incarnate presence. The ascetic emphasis on bodily transformation extends transfiguration through the material world. The legacy of Russian religious philosophy is a cosmic vision, but also the idea of deification as human task. Themes of “humanizing” and technological mastery in Bulgakov, Teilhard de Chardin, and, later, Stăniloae are contentious; but they and others, notably Clément, also highlight the progressive transfiguration of the material world through the church and especially the Eucharist. Deification is thus a reality already glimpsed—dependent however not on humans nor on pristine nature, but on God alone.