The human being as ‘animal’: Aspects of the Orthodox anthropology

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleΟ άνθρωπος ως «ζώον»: Πτυχές της Ορθόδοξης ανθρωπολογίας
3. Language term Greek, Modern (1453-)
4. lemma author Koutalis, Vangelis
5. lemma category Orthodox Anthropology
6. Publication date 12-5-2017
7. lemma work Kounouses, Georgios [Author]. The human being as ‘animal’: Aspects of the Orthodox anthropology
8. lemma manifestations Ενατενίσεις
9. Keywords Descartes, René - Human nature - deification
10. Url Ενατενίσεις, τεύχος 6
11. Citations
    1. <p>Kounouses, G. [Κουνούσης, Γ.] (2008). Ο άνθρωπος ως «ζώον»: Πτυχές της Ορθόδοξης ανθρωπολογίας. <em>Ενατενίσεις</em>, <em>6</em>, 66-67</p>
12. Lemma body

    1. The human being, according to the author is a twofold being: it is both a being endowed with consciousness and capable of union with God and a being with a material body, expressive of an interpersonal love through the sexual ‘one-flesh’ union. Heavenly and at the same time terrestrial, the human being is a microcosm playing the role of the mediator, the bridge and the conjunction of God’s creation.

       The growing rationalization of the human being and of its civilization, a development for which the philosophy of Descartes served as a starting point, has led to the de-spiritualization of the material creation and of human life as well. The excessive emphasis on reason has overshadowed the ‘spirit of life’ by which the human being is pervaded.

       In the Patristic Literature, frequently we come across the idea that the human being is a ‘rational animal’ created in the image of God. It would be rather more appropriate to think of the human being as a rational being created in the image of Chist, of the hypostatic Word of the Father. Seen under this prism, any human being is essentially two-dimensional. Its life has an horizontal dimension, corresponding to its relation with the other human beings and a vertical one, corresponding to its relation with God. Ontologically and theologically, the magnificence of the human being lies beyond the fact of its being the highest biological existence. The human being is magnificent in so far as it is destined to become deified, to cover the distance from its being created ‘in the image’ of God to a being living ‘in the likeness’ of God.