THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE A Lecture by Protopresbyter George Dion Dragas PhD, DD, DTh.

Delivered at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki On the Occasion of his receiving the Aristeion 2005 of the above University

Your Eminence Metropolitan of Tyroloi and Serention Reverend Representative of His Holiness the Metropolitan of Thessalonica, Esteemed General Secretary of Research and Technology of the Ministry of Development Esteemed Vice-Rectors Esteemed Deans and Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen Scholars and Friends, Fathers and Brother in the Lord

1. The Anthropic Principle: The topic I have chosen to present to you on this official occasion is the so-called Anthropic Principle which has become quite popular in modern science, because of the new physics that was developed after Einstein and the overturning of Newtonian physics and Neutonian cosmology. The universe now looks quite different, because relativity theory and other related developments have radically altered the perspectives of science. This has given rise to a new philosophy which is based on the new physics a philosophy which is pursued not only by philosophers but also by other scientists, including theologians. It all comes under a new heading: the anthropic principle, which is variously described, but begins with a specific starting-point, the relation of man to the cosmos. A search in the web on this theme reveals countless entries and titles

related to it. It all started a good number of years ago by scientists, mainly physicists and mathematicians, who developed a new philosophical perspective on the basis of relativity theory, and especially the realization that the universe is not infinite but contingent and we can measure it, observe it in a way that reveals its limits and relativity in spite of its seemingly infinite magnitude. 2. The position of Stanley Jaki: Here is how a contemporary scientist theologian whom I had the privilege to meet personally at a Conference in Princeton has put it: The anthropic principle, says Stanley Jaki, is certainly indicative of the extent to which man is able to conquer the universe as an object of scientific cognition and not this only. This cognitive ability which man has developed vis--vis the cosmos that surrounds him constitutes a proof that the universe cannot conquer man. Jaki develops his thought in a chapter entitled The Unconquered Man, and opens with the words of Pascal: The universe surrounds me and swallows me like a spot within its infinite space. But I also surround it with my thought![30] Jaki also points out that the anthropic principle is the very opposite to anthropocentricism because it eliminates the most sophisticated form of subjectivism, embodied in a priori theories about mans knowledge of the world It is one thing to pour idealism into scientific cosmology and quite another to face the cosmic facts in their enormous singularity and specificity as modern science has done. The specificity of the universe (in its macrocosmic and microcosmic perspectives) as a quantitative feature which is measurable and knowable, is a very telling aspect of cosmic existence. It tells nothing less than that man can literally measure the universe. For this reason the anthropic principle has an all-important epistemological significance and caries, by the same token, a far-reaching message for an anthropology which has the courage to face head-on the question: what is man in the last analysis?[31] 3. The position of T. F. Torrance: In his Templeton Prize Lecture For Advancement in Science and Theology my Professor from Edinburgh University, Tom F. Torrance, gave the following definition or, better, description of the anthropic principle in his distinctively lucid style: This vast universe is the kind of universe it is because it is necessary for the existence of man: somehow man and the universe are profoundly bracketed together. Many years ago when Einstein first formulated the general theory of relativity Hermann Weyl pointed out that light occupies a unique metaphysical place in the universe. But now even from the way that astrophysical science is developing it appears that man occupies a unique metaphysical place in the universe.[32] The anthropic principle, then, has to do with the

interconnection of man and the universe and especially with mans distinctive or key position in it.[33] 4. The Theological viewpoint: Suffice this much with regard to a general definition of the anthropic principle. I want now to approach this theme in a theological way, in order to point out that this contemporary scientific and philosophical perspective not only does not contradict orthodox theology but is actually embedded, so to speak, in its very bowels. The universe, in spite of being so vast, magnificent and incomprehensible, actually has a human face! The human being as the key to the universe is a principle that the Fathers of the Church had already explained from a theological perspective and on theological premises. I have worked out my own view or perception on this, following the clues that I was given by my professor in Scotland under whom I started my doctoral research. That was a time when discussions on the anthropic principle were new and fresh. Since then, as I pursued my own research and studies in Patristics (the Theology of the Fathers) I realized that this principle was always central to Patristic Orthodox Theology. This led me to formulate my own ideas and perceptions and these are what I want to present to you on this auspicious occasion in an introductory manner. 5. Mans relation to the Universe: The first point to put down has to do with the relation of man and the universe: the fact that man is the highest being in the universe, the pinnacle of creation. This Biblical and patristic view is now affirmed both by modern science and by our own present experience and perception. It is true that there have been all kinds of speculations about other life higher than the human that might exist in the universe. But nobody has proven it. The highest life that we know is the human one, because of human intelligence. The intelligence of the universe is actually related to the intelligence of the human being. The mind of creation is the human mind. One, of course, might respond to this by saying that it sounds quite egotistical; or that it is rather an arrogant claim that man, a little being in the vast magnitude of the universe, is the key to it. This would have been right but for the fact of the Incarnation of God. The fact that God, who created the universe, not only created man in his image, but actually became himself a human being by taking to himself the human form of being, i.e. human nature. If God himself has become a human being, then the human being has not only been confirmed as the highest in the universe, but has also been further upgraded! He has certainly been confirmed as the key to the universe, because the creator who is this key has become a man. 6. The Incarnation of the Word of God: The above theological conclusions are based on theological science. Theologically

speaking, we cannot any more think about man and the world apart from the event of the Incarnation. Theologians cannot go behind the theandric and zoarchic person of the Lord Jesus Christ, to search for God and his relation to the universe and man, for He is the ultimate, the final revelation of God. We read in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the various revelations of God in many different ways and at different times, have found their eschatological and final meaning in the revelation of Gods Son. Now the Son is the incarnate Son, the Son of God who became Son of Man without ceasing to be Son and Word of God and the Creator of the cosmos. Man was originally made in the Image of the Word and Son of God, but now through His Incarnation this creation in His Image has been taken up by the Word Himself who is the unaltered Image of God, in order to redeem, human existence and to restore and renew its superior position in the universe. So when we think from a starting-point in Christ, then we inviolably and justifiably understand and confess what we mean when we say that man is the key to the universe. We literally envisage the humanity of Christ and our humanity in Christ the man in Christ! This is the heart of the science of Theology. Here we are concerned not with manin-himself, and not just with man-in-the-universe, but with the man-inChrist. It is he who is the key to the universe. 7. The Patristic Tradition: This Christocentric approach to the anthropic principle is the basis of patristic cosmology.[34] The center of gravity in patristric cosmology is the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son and Word of God, who differentiates it from the kind of cosmologies that were developed by the ancient Greeks, the Jews and the Hellenistic Jews which represented a combination of Greek and Jewish perspectives. The patristic view is characterized by a radical shift from a cosmos-centered perception to a man-centered one. This is due to the Incarnation of the Creator, through which mans position in the created universe was restored. The event of the Incarnation has reconfirmed the theological dimension of the human existence, which is connected with mans capacity to communicate with God and to participate in Gods uncreated energies and properties that perfect creation. This is the reason that places man in a superior position in the universe and makes him a key to its life and development. The world too has become through the incarnation the realm of the presence of God, whereby it is renewed and is set on its final course of development towards perfection. To use theological language, the world has entered its eschatological face, because the event of the Incarnation that was injected in it has revealed the eschatological face of man. 8. The Eschatological Dimension: The Incarnation and Inhomination of God the Creator, which constitutes the basic chapter of

Theology, makes the cosmos the context of the revelation of God and of Gods renewing action upon it whereby it is brought back to its natural evolution towards its final fulfillment. Speaking theologically, we would say that the cosmos has entered its eschatological orbit, its final phase, because the Inhomination of God, which has been ingrafted or transplanted, as it were, within it, reveals its eschatological image, which is the risen human existence. The Lord Jesus Christ is the eschatos Adam, the ultimate man, towards whom the whole of mankind is moving and with it the entire universe. Our days are the ultimate days, as we move from the old to the new which is the ultimate. This transposition is in the language of St. Paul, the consummation of all things in Christ, which is traveling towards their final restoration. This is what Patristic and Orthodox Theology teach and this is indeed the anthropic principle from a theological perspective! The humanity of Christ and our humanity in Christ, i.e. the redeemed (justified) and perfected (sanctified) human nature, is actually the basis for the future of the world which is at work. The world is being reconstructed by God, although we cannot yet fully see it, because we are caught in the process of being transformed from the old to the new anthropic principle. We still lie in the shadow of death, although death has been conquered. We are still in the process of moving towards the resurrected body, while we are being resurrected in spirit. This is why the death of the body is the sign of our first resurrection. In other words when we die, we die in order to rise again, to rise in body. In a real sense we rise, when we die we rise to our first renewal and spiritual resurrection which leads us on to the final and complete resurrection. This is the perspective drawn by the Fathers of the Church, which helps us see the universe in a different, anthropic perspective. It is the eschatological perspective of the final resurrection of man, which introduces him into the heavenly places. Death is no longer a dreadful and indecipherable mystery. The Fathers see it as a step that brings man closer to the Lord of glory, who is the Risen and ultimate Adam, the aparche (first-fruits), i.e. the perfect fruit of the Incarnation, the final and normative form of the resurrected and restored humanity. [35] This is the anthropic principle from a theological perspective. It is connected, as we said, not with man per se, but with man as he is in Christ. We belong to it because we are made in the image of Christ, and with it we shall be perfected through assimilation. To the extent that we are assimilated with this anthropic principle, which constitutes the key to the universe, we too become its proleptic manifestations and witnesses.

9. The eager longing of the Universe: If a human being is indeed great in this life, how much greater this being will be when it reaches the fullness of its potential which is revealed in Christ? This fullness is the future glory which St. Paul presents in his Epistle to the Romans,[36] which becomes perceptible when it is accepted that the world was made for man and not man for the world; that man is the key to the world and not the other way round; that the entire universe is impatient about man reaching his fulfillment so that it may also be perfected with him, and not vice versa. This is what St. Paul means when he speaks about the eager longing (hope) of creation, as it awaits the revelation of the sons of God;[37] or when he says, that this very creation will ne delivered from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the children of God.[38] And continues: For we know that the whole of creation groans and is in travail along with us until now.[39] Our failure to see this is due to the fact that we have willingly subjected ourselves to the world and we accept uncritically that we were made by the world for the world (secularism). The result is that we subordinated both ourselves and the world to corruption and death. Theological science, however, assures us that the opposite is the case. As the Gospel puts it: the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.[40] In other words, it was not man that was made for the world the world for man. The reason for this, again according to Theological science, is that man was made by God for God, and he is the one who opens up, as it were, the world to the beneficiary and perfecting energy of God. So, man is the real soul and leader of the world. This basic truth is derived from the most important datum of Theological science: the Incarnation. Humanity and its position in the universe, or its relation to the universe, has been specified by the incarnate God and Creator, Jesus Christ. As He Himself put it: For the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.[41] Christ, then, expresses the true man and at the samew time the true icon of the world, which is the Church, His body. The Church is in turn the true person of the world, while its soul is our humanity as it was restored by the Creator Himself through His Incarnation.[42] 10. The scientific and theological perception: I believe that this perception is the anthropic principle, which was recovered by modern physics in its natural cosmic dimension through the theory of relativity. Einstein proved, when he produced the revolutionary equation E=mXc, that energy (spirit) is not superior to matter, but in the last analysis matter is energy, energy that has been condensed or compressed, and can be decompressed and even transelementated.

However spatially vast the material cosmos may seem to be, it is in the last analysis proven that it is in constant motion and expectation to evolve and be transformed through expansion, as modern astrophysics has shown. Theologians call this creation continua. Also, however vast the space-time dimensions of the material universe seem to be, they are finally quite limited, measurable and detectable (as Jaki says) and, more importantly, are inferior to the spiritual dimensions of the human existence. The noetic or spiritual place, as St. John Damascene says, is not bodily but spiritually (noetically) contained.[43] The following text of St. John Damascene is particularly relevant here: God is not in place, for He is the place of Himself, filling all things and being above all, and holding together all things. When, however, He is said to be in place, this place of God clearly specifies where His energy is at work. This is because He pervades all things without mingling, and is in all through His own energy according to the fitness and receptivity of each.[44] In other words, the spiritual (noetic) place of God, which transcends the material (somatic) space of the created beings of the universe, is the divine energy. For this reason, says the Damascene, Place of God is anyone who partakes of His energy and grace.[45] And who are those that partake of the energy and grace of God? They are the angels in heaven, hence the description of heaven as throne of God because this is the place where the angels act according to His will. The earth is also a place of God, because God appeared and walked on it with his flesh, hence the description of the earth as footstool of His feet. The Church is also place of God because in it God is praised, glorified and is partaken through His uncreated energy and grace.[46] Generally speaking, says the Damascene, places of God are those in whom Gods energy is clearly manifested to us.[47] Put otherwise, the noetic (i.e. spiritual and not somatic) energy of God embraces and transcends the somatic space-time parameters of the universe and refashions them. This is the principle that the human nature which is deified through the Incarnation actually confirms. This is also confirmed by Einsteins equation and general theory of relativity. This is why the entire mass of the cosmos is measurable and its somatic existence is contingent even though it is seemingly infinite. At this point, I wish to recall that the ancients believed in a universe that was infinite and eternal and a vast container containing all things. The Christian theologians first, and more recently the modern scientists demonstrated that this is inaccurate. The universe is both limited and relative. Its mystery is not its vastness, but its expansion and, above all, its basis. As regards its basis, it seems today that it hangs on air, or floats in a void, i.e. is based on a empty space that lacks existence, the nothing! We fail, of course, to make sense of

this because being and non-being (nothingness) are rationally opposite to each other and antinomian. For Theology, however, the basis of the universe is the uncreated energy of God and the will of God which transcends nothingness, the empty space that lacks existence and on which the limited existence of the created universe is established and floats. This is confirmed by the stunning event of the Incarnation of the Creator Word, whereby not only God communicates with man, but also this communication enters into the creaturely space of human existence and is expressed mystically with human terms, human thought, language and symbolism. It is with this astonishing connection of God and man that I wish to close this lecture, offering three examples from Orthodox hagiography and patristic theological doctrine, selected out of the many that are embedded in the Orthodox tradition. 11. The Witness of Hagiography: At the outer narthex of the Church of Chora (14th c.) in Constantinople we encounter two icons (mosaics) which reveal the two basic perspectives of the anthropic principle as I have been outlining it on the basis of patristic theology. [48] The first icon is that of Christ above the entrance to the inner narthex and is called The Dwelling-Space of the Living (H ) taken from Ps. 116:9.[49] The other icon, which is directly opposite, above the entrance to the outer narthex (from the inside), is an icon of the Theotokos and bears the name The Dwelling-Space of the Spaceless ().[50] The first Icon symbolizes the fact that Christ as the Incarnate Creator is the embodiment of life which is the basis of all life in creation. In other words, that humanity has become in Christ the key to all life in the universe. The second icon symbolizes the instrument of the Incarnation, human nature, which has received the coming of God and has provided the human basis for Gods transcendence becoming immanent in humanity through the birth of Christ! Here, then we find a hagiographic confession concerning the opening up of the entire cosmos to the divine energy from man and the condescension of God to man and through him to the entire cosmos. This is indeed the case of establishing the eschatological orbit that leads to the recapitulation and restoration of all things in accordance with the good, perfect and agapetic will of God. 12, The Witness of the Great Fathers Athanasius and Basil: The hagiographic presentation of the anthropic principle is from a theological ecclesiastical perspective a reflection of patristic dogmatics, which refers to the economy of Christ, the incarnated and

inhominated Son and Word of God with all its human and cosmic eschatological implications. St. Athanasius, following earlier theologians, expressed the anthropic principle very succinctly in several places in his writings. [51] In a profound text of St. Athanasius, which seems to be based on a text from St. Pauls Letter to the Ephesians, it is stated: that the Son of God had been laid as the foundation of the economy (dispensation) our renovation before human beings were created Our life was established upon Gods design for the Lord Jesus Christ, which means the Incarnation, i.e. the assumption of human existence by the Creator![52] As Savior, Jesus Christ is said to be the Life of all even though he is like all men by nature etc; and he concludes with the well known statement: Through the becoming man of the Word of God, Gods providence for the whole universe was revealed, and its leader and creator the Word of God himself through the Word of God Himself. Indeed He became man that we may become gods.[53] The other great father of the Church, St. Basil, offers important formulations of the anthropic principle, although he does not refer this term in his renowned work on the Hexaemeron (the Six days of Creation). In my study of this work I reached certain conclusions which I may repeat here as a fitting witness to what I have been articulating as the patristic (theological) anthropic principle.[54] St. Basils nine Homilies of the Six Days of Creation is one of the most important patristic works on Christian cosmology. This work combines biblical revelation with Greek science, yet the theological perspective with its anthropological corollary, remain the fundamental parameters of the entire course of lectures. Theology and anthropology are interrelated through science and philosophy. The magnificence of the universe and especially the magnificence of the Creator are expounded in a way that man retains a pivotal position and supreme value as the connecting bond between God and the world.

First and foremost St. Basil traces the existence of the world beyond itself to the free will and act of God. The universe is not based on itself but on the will of God. It is a divine miracle and there is no other basis for it but the will of God. God wanted it and created it out of nothing. By stressing this point St. Basil opposes cosmological monism and dualism. Monism considers the world as being the ultimate cause of itself a point of view which is often connected with atheists and agnostics who are ignorant or deny the existence of God and think of the creation as a result of a big bang or something else like it. Dualism arises from the experience of good and evil in the world, which is

explained of two ultimate principles or cosmic forces which oppose each other, such as spirit and matter, or physics and metaphysics, or the Gnostic theological dualism. These two principles share a common basis because the one often leads to the other and vice versa. St. Basil maintains, of course, a distinction between God who is uncreated and the world which is created, emphasizing the transcendence and eternity of God, and the transient and temporary character of the other. This distinction means that the Creator does not need the creation in order to exist, but creation needs the Creator in order to exist. On the other hand he speaks of the unity of the world, even though he distinguishes two existential dimensions: one pertaining to angels and being spiritual and invisible; and the other pertaining to things and being visible and material. It is in man that these two dimensions are united, not only because he participates in both, but because he his destiny is to be the key to the entire creation, according to the Creators design. This last point is absolutely crucial and constitutes the pivot to St. Basils doctrine. The primacy of God and man in the cosmos is St. Basils lasting legacy, to Christian theology, Christian thought in subsequent generations. This is in the last analysis the anthropic principle, which includes Gods providence and the salvation in Christ of man and the world. As he expresses it in the Hexaemeron, there is nothing that is deprived of Godas providence and care, for all things are watched by the sleepless eye and He is present before all, furnishing each with salvation.[55] St. Basils work is particularly important for the relation between Theology and Science. It demonstrates that, far from being hostile or negative to Science, Theology is prompted by its divine-humanism to engage vigorously and decisively in the scientific enterprise. Indeed man is a theologian in his relation to God and scientist in his relation to the universe, whilst the universe is the laboratory of God in which man has been placed as custodian. This combination of the theologian with the scientist, i.e. theology and science, is crucial and very significant, because it allows man to bypass falsehood and recover the truth. For example the theologian-scientist transcends false astrology through true astronomy, or he is in a position of distinguishing the nature of light from the light of the stars and to recognize the properties of the former. In other words he is called to demythologize the world from fanciful theories which do not correspond to reality and to perceive the transparency of the universe, which in turn indicates the transcendental basis of its existence which is the ceaseless and inexhaustible energy of the Creator Word. This is achieved when man is not based on mere appearances but on what is explained rationally; when, in St. Basils words, one does not measure the moon with his

eye but with rational thought;[56] and when the mind, as Scripture teaches, does not fantasize when it crosses the limits that God placed for created existence.[57] So the scientist finally becomes a theologian, because he traces Gods providence which provides salvation to every creature.[58] St. Basil gives us two basic messages in his Hexaemeron: a) that there can be no right cosmology without placing the Creator as the ultimate and transcendent principle of all and without placing man as its rational investigator and interpreter; and b) that man has the Godgiven calling to be the scientist of the world, not as if the world were the ultimate purpose of his existence, but as a means of his communication and communion with his Creator and God. In other words the Saint has left us with his theologfical and scientific exposition the anthropic principle of Creation. Conclusions: My point in this lecture is that from a theological point of view the anthropic principle, which provides today a convergent perspective in the various sciences and theology is based on the Incarnation of the Creator, His becoming man. Gods becoming man by uniting the divine and the human realities in Christ, is the key for the investigation and understanding of the universe. It reveals to us that the universe has a human face; that it is the natural home and natural environment of man, from within which man is expected to communicate with God. The Fathers of the Church regard man in this conjunction as the priest of the cosmos, who offers the universe to the Creator Eucharistically. In this sense man is the voice of the whole cosmos that gathers together and offers the world to God, asking Him not only to sustain it, but also to renew it and to perfect it with His divine grace and energy. Without this prospect we cannot understand the world and our position in it, because in that case our existence has no meaning but is rather shrouded in darkness, incomprehensibility and despair. The assurance for this perspective is granted not only by the providence which pervades the universe and which we investigate and recognize with the help of science, but mainly and chiefly (and here I speak as a theologian) when we experience in our life the mystery of the Incarnation and Inhomination of God our Creator in the person of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ, as the Fathers and Saints did. These are the true theologians of the Church who reveal the astounding event that gives to the anthropic principle, that is, to the conjunction of man and the universe, its true existence and perspective. Thank you!

[1]

Penses No 265.

[2]

Stanley L. Jaki, The anthropic principle in his Angels, Apes and Men, Peru Illinois 1990, pp. 80-81. SetonHallUniversity, SouthOrange, NewJersey ... , .
[3]

. The Address of the Sixth Presentation of The Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion, Guildhall, London Tuesday 21st March 1978, Lismore Press, Dublin, Ireland 1978 p. 15. T.F. Torrance Alister E. McGrath, T.F. Torrance: An Intellectual Biography, T.&T. Clark, Edinburgh 1999 . 9 McGrath, TheologyandtheNaturalSciences, pp. 105-236. , Space, TimeandIncarnation, OxfordUniversityPress, London 1969, - .
[4]

. : , , . : . () .
[5]

. G.D. Dragas, Patristic Perspectives on the Creation, , 19:1-2 (1987) 1991, . 45-53.
[6]

. T.F. Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection, The Handsel Press, Edinburgh 1976.
[7]

8:18. . . 8:19. . . 8:21. . . 8:22.

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

2:27. . 12:8.

[12]

[13]

. . 5, What is the Church? Saint Maximus Mystagogical Answer, Ecclesiasticus I: Introducing Eastern Orthodoxy , by G.D. Dragas, Rollinsford NH 2004, . 29-49.
[14]

. , , PG 94:852A. . . 852. . . 852.

[15]

[16]

[17]

. . . . 852C. Ilhan Aksit, The Museum of Chora: Mosaics and Frescos, Istanbul, Turkey 2000.

[18]

[19]

[20]

., Paul A. Underwood, The Kariye Djami, I: Historical Introduction and Description of the Mosaics and Frescoes (New York, 1966), 39-411.
[21]

. Robert Ousterhout, "The Virgin of the Chora: An Image and Its Contexts," The Sacred Image East and West, ed. Robert Ousterhout & Leslie Brubaker (UrbanaChampaign, IL, 1995), 91-109.
[22]

. G.D. Dragas, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria: Original Research and New Perspectives, Orthodox Research Institute, Rollinsford New Hampshire, 2005, . 80, 1.
[23]

, 76. . Saint Athanasius of Alexandria... . ., . 87-88, 14.

[24]

. G.D. Dragas, St. Athanasius Contra Apollinarem, Athens 1985, . 430445.

[25]

. Academie internationale des Siences religieuses (, 1982), The doctrine of Creation in St. Basils Hexaemeron, Church and Theology, 3 (1982) 1097-1132, , La doctrine de la creation d aprs lHexaemeron de saint Basil le Grand, Istina 3 (1983), 281-308.
[26]

, 7:5. , 6:11. , 3:4. , 7:5.

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

Penses No 265.

[31]

From Stanley L. Jakis The anthropic Principle, in his Angels, Apes and Men, Peru Illinois 1990, pp. 80-81. The distinguished Hungarian physicist Stanley Jaki is a Roman Catholic Benedictine hieromonk and distinguished professor at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey in the USA. As a holder of doctorates in physics and theology, Jaki is a specialist in the history of science and author of many books in this field.
[32]

Cf. The Address of the Sixth Presentation of the Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion, Guildhall, London Tuesday 21st Mar5ch 1978. Lismore Press, Dublin, Ireland 1978, p. 15. For this internationally renowned and prolific Scottish theologian see, Alistair E. McGraths T.F. Torrance: An Intellectual Biography , T.&T Clark, Edinburgh 1999, which provides a full bibliography of his writings. For Torrances position on Science and Theology see chapter 9 of McGraths book, Theology and Natural Sciences, pp. 195-236. Particularly important is Torrances classic book, Space, Time and Incarnation, Oxford University Press, 1969, which provides answers to basic theological and epistemological questions and especially to those referring to the relation of the Incarnation to the space-time structures of the cosmos and the projection of this cosmogonic event within the contemporary context of scientific research.
[33]

I should mention here that this exceptional position of man within the universe was expressed in various ways by the ancient Greek sages. The Abderite Sophist Protagoras dictum which regards man as the measure that measures what beings are what the non-beings are not is characteristic: , , . In his Antigone Sophocles regards man the most awesome of world miracles: . There are many such examples in the context of the so-called ancient (classical) Greek enlightenment.
[34]

Cf. G.D. Dragas, Patristic Perspectives on the Creation, , 19:1-2 (1987) 1991, . 45-53.
[35]

See T.F. Torrances extensive study, Space, Time and Resurrection, The Handsel Press, Edinburgh 1976.
[36]

Rom. 8:18. Ibid. 8:19. Ibid. 8:21. Ibid. 8:22. Mark 2:27. Matth. 12:8.

[37]

[38]

[39]

[40]

[41]

[42]

See chapter 5, What is the Church? St. Maximus Mystagogical Answer, in G.D. Dragas, Ecclesiasticus I: Introducing Eastern Orthodoxy, Rollinsford, NH 2004, pp. 2949.

[43]

See Accurate Expoisition of the Orthodox Faith, 13, PG 94:852A. Ibid. 852AB. Ibid. 852B. Ibid. Ibid. 852C. Ilhan Aksit, The Museum of Chora: Mosaics and Frescos, Istanbul, Turkey 2000.

[44]

[45]

[46]

[47]

[48]

[49]

Cf. Paul A. Underwood, The Kariye Djami, I: Historical Introduction and Description of the Mosaics and Frescoes (New York, 1966), 39-41.
[50]

Robert Ousterhout, "The Virgin of the Chora: An Image and Its Contexts," The Sacred Image East and West, ed. Robert Ousterhout & Leslie Brubaker (UrbanaChampaign, IL, 1995), 91-109.
[51]

For references see, G.D. DRAGAS, St. Athanasius of Alexandria: Original Research and New Perspectives, Orthodox Research Institute, Rollinsford, New Hampshire 2005, p. 80, footnote 1. Cf. Contra Arianos II, 76. See also , G.D. Dragas, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria... op. cit., pp. 87-88, footnote 14.
[52] [53]

Cf. G.D. Dragas, St. Athanasius Contra Apollinarem, Athens 1985, pp. 430-445.

See my communication to the Academie Internationale des Siences religieuses, Princeton Meeting (1982), published as The doctrine of Creation in St. Basils Hexaemeron, Church and Theology, 3 (1982) 1097-1132, and in French, La doctrine de la creation d aprs lHexaemeron de saint Basil le Grand, Istina 3 (1983), 281308.
[54]

[55]

Hexaemeron 7:5. Hexaemeron 6:11. Hexaemeron 3:4. Hexaemeron 7:5.

[56]

[57]

[58]

[http://www.saintjohnthebaptist.org/articles/ANTHROPIC_PRINCIPLE.htm]