The Divine Fire in All Things”- Orthodox Cosmology in Dialogue with Science

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleThe Divine Fire in All Things”- Orthodox Cosmology in Dialogue with Science
3. Language term English
4. lemma author Delli, Eudoxie
5. lemma category Integration - Modes of interaction - Orthodox Anthropology - Key thinkers
6. lemma work Munteanu, Daniel [Author]. “The Divine Fire in All Things”- Orthodox Cosmology in Dialogue with Science
7. lemma manifestations International Journal of Orthodox Theology
8. Keywords cosmology - Divine Fire - interdisciplinary dialogue - Staniloae, Dumitru - Maximus the Confessor - St. John of Damascus - St. Gregory Palamas - Saint Gregory of Nazianzus - Light
9. Citations
   1. <p>Munteanu, D. (2013).“The Divine Fire in All Things”- Orthodox Cosmology in Dialogue with Science. <em>International Journal Of Orthodox Theology</em>, <em>4/2</em>, 21-42.</p>
10. Lemma body

    1. Daniel Munteanu argues that the Orthodox cosmology has a great conceptual potential for the future dialogue between theology and science. Mainly the relationship between Creation and information could act as a bridge for their dialogue, given that information that is nowadays described as a ‘hinge category between science and theology’, useful to overpass dichotomies such as subject and object, mind and matter.

       According to Maximus the Confessor’s cosmology, there is a “divine fire in the nature of all things” describing the divine presence at the heart of all being, while ''fire'' in Creation is conceived as a medium of the divine Revelation. The author analyses the meaning of a perichoretical worldview - based on the Trinitarian pattern of communion and communication - as an exemplary contribution to the dialogue of theology and science, providing the idea of a holistic connectivity in the physical world. The relational ontology of the world could be approached in the light of the Trinitarian relationality and the perichoretic exchange. One of the most important questions, treated bu the author, concerns the link between matter and divine light. At the end, he presents a set of eleven criteria for the dialogue between theology and science and he concludes by highlightening that scientists and theologians have to assume this dialogue as a transfer of information and (trans)formation of the future cultural identity towards a humanization of the world by dialogue, communication, self-transcendence, trust and philanthropy.