| Bishop Basil (Rodzianko)
The world in which we
now live is not the way it was when God created it in the beginning.
God did not create evil and, as we know, there is more than enough
evil in this world. God is not the source of that evil. It is
the "prince of this world".
But there is a True World
which also exists - the real world fashioned by God with His own
"hands" in a Divine creative act at the very beginning of everything,
and after which He said "It is good".
Then where did this "mixed"
world come from, in which good and evil, life and death are so
intermingled?
We know from Holy Scripture
about the Fall and the exile of the first people from Paradise.
This tragic event can be understood today from a natural and scientific
point of view as part of the "Big Bang" theory that is accepted
by modern science as a model of the universe which was formed
as a result of some sort of "blow" or "shock". But the question
of what existed before the "Big Bang" - what kind of world existed
before this shock - is unknown to science because it is within
another realm of knowledge not recognized by scientific researchers.
For us, Christians, the answer to this question is in the Bible:
there was in the beginning a beautiful world created by God which
was the dwelling place of the first human beings.
I am often asked: "but
if our world is not the ’true’ world, if it is just a result of
the tragic fall away from God’s creation, then what should be
our attitude toward it? Can it - and should it - be accepted and
loved , or should it be rejected as completely evil and the dwelling
place of the prince of this world" ? My answer lies in the "golden
median" - an awareness of the light of God’s Providence within
this world. This can be acquired through the development of a
prayerful ability to discern the spirits. This is taught in Holy
Scripture and is an essential part of the theological tradition
of the Holy Fathers.
The Fall was the result
of an act which was the manifestation of the free will of man
in the freedom given to the creature by the loving Creator. This
freedom was given so that there would not be any kind of force,
but rather full freedom of choice in pure and holy love.
The Fall was a collapse
and falling away from God’s world and His will. When this happened,
in the vortex of Satanism, the Creator, in His boundless love
for His creation, stopped the satanic vortex with a powerful hand
- His Providence, which descended to the earth and with it, salvation.
God’s Providence differs
from God’s Will in that He does not will any kind of evil, but
in His Providence, He acknowledges the presence of evil as a fact
and battles it with His sacrificial love. The highest form of
God’s Providence is the Cross, which is both the greatest evil
that ever existed in the world and also the greatest good, because
the Life-creating Cross of Christ saves, restores and resurrects
the fallen world.
The cornerstone of God’s
Providence in the fallen world is the Most Holy Virgin Mary. Through
her sinless-ness and purity, through her un-fallen state and her
response to the Archangel at the Annunciation: "Behold the handmaid
of the Lord, be it done unto me according to His Word", she became
the Mother of God Himself in His sacrifice for the world. Thanks
to the Mother of God and to the fact that she is the only one
out of all mankind who did not "fall away", but fulfilled the
will of God, our world is neither the incarnation of hell, nor
completely evil. There is hope for us.
The Providence of God
is the process of the way back from destruction, setting into
place a Divine evolution and the development of Good, of Life
and Eternal Life.
One of the visible testimonies
to this Providence is the existence of beauty in our world - beauty
of nature, relations of human souls and deeds, etc. Through this
beauty one can discern, perceive and feel the unspeakable beauty,
harmony and love in the world that was fashioned by the Creator.
It is this beauty which in its essence is the Beauty of Divine
Providence that will "save the world", as Dostoevsky said.
In order to see the clear
difference between "that" higher world and "this" lower world,
and to understand what is from God and what is from the "prince
of this world" - that is, what God Himself created and what He
simply allowed to happen - one must first see the unity of God’s
creation in all things, the power of the Holy Spirit.
"This" world and "that"
world are one and the same, but of a different quality. The Spirit
of God is "there" and the evil spirit is "here". The mind alone
cannot perceive this antimony without prayer and the acquisition
of the Holy Spirit! One must be able to discern the spirits, as
the Holy Apostle Paul says, in order to struggle against evil
and seek the Kingdom of Heaven.
The world is not only
interesting, the world is endlessly beautiful and one must love
its beauty, its development, its evolution towards perfection
and goodness, one must love mankind as well as all of God’s lower
creatures - everything and everybody - struggling with evil both
in oneself and outside.
Translated from Russian
by Marilyn Swezey.
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