Approaching the Christian Worldview with St Basil the Great: Aspects Relevant to Current Conversations in Science and Theology

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleApproaching the Christian Worldview with St Basil the Great: Aspects Relevant to Current Conversations in Science and Theology
3. Language term English
4. lemma author Tampakis, Kostas
5. lemma category Modes of interaction - Patristic studies - Cosmology- Anthropic principle
6. Publication date 2009
7. lemma work Costache, Doru [Author]. Approaching the Christian Worldview with St Basil the Great: Aspects Relevant to Current Conversations in Science and Theology
8. lemma manifestations Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion
9. Keywords On the Holy Spirit - Saint Athanasius of Alexandria - Saint John Chrysostomos - Saint Basil the Great - Homilies on the Hexaemeron
10. Url Click Here
11. Lemma body

    1. This article is the first in the series on the same theme, which includes a 2010 article in Phronema 2 (5) and book chapter in 2013, titled “Christian Worldview: Understandings from St Basil the Great” in Costache, D., Kariatlis, Ph. (eds), Cappadocian Legacy: A critical appraisal, Sydney: St. Andrew ‘s Orthodox Press. While noting how St. Basil ‘s legacy has been misrepresented and oversimplified at times, this paper aims to point out a few facets of St. Basil’s contributions to the Christian worldview and their possible relevance to current attempts to bridge the traditional and the scientific representations of reality. In the first part of the article, the Hexaemeron (Hex) is presented as describing a world which is also a theological school. While the scientific knowledge of the Hex is outdated, the article points out that it still contains important flashes of insight on the interconnected character of human and cosmic realities. There are also theological features that should be seen as St. Basil’s main contributions. One is the assessment of the world as a theological school, placing the Hex in an Oriental tradition inaugurated by Origen and St. Athanasius. Another is how St. Basil attacks the fundamental atheism of ancient cosmologies, which are criticized as unable to appreciate the beauty of creation. St. Basil also shows a way to understand Genesis not as a scientific textbook, but as an interpretation of reality from the viewpoint of God. The first part ends with the recognition that St. Basil’s elaborations on the world as a theological school are consonant with a sense of an all-embracing, pan-Christian humanism that transcends religious and cultural boundaries. The second part discusses both Hex and the text of On the Holy Spirit (Spirit) as describing the world as an interactive framework. The world is seen as ontologically inconsistent and naturally mortal, and thus unable to survive and evolve of itself, without the vivifying waves and support of the divine energy. The organization of the universe, of our earth and the life on it, is made possible only in the active presence of the Logos and the Holy Spirit. Beyond all unilateral approach, i.e. beyond the famous oppositions between spiritual and material or supernatural and natural, the interactive or synergetic principle remains fundamental to the ecclesial worldview. The article then shows how such viewpoints influenced St. John Chrysostomos and then argues that, in this hermeneutical framework, Genesis does not only depict past events. Instead, it points to the reality of a world still in the making, journeying towards the eschatological term, the eighth day of creation. The article concludes by discussing how St. Basil’s elaborations can help us overcome the current hostilities between science and religion, by showing that no one-sided explanation of the history of creation can be valid