‘A Theology of the World: Dumitru Stăniloae, the Traditional Worldview, and Contemporary

Cosmology.’ Pages 205-22 in Orthodox Christianity and Modern Science: Tensions, Ambiguities,
Potential. Edited by Vasilios N. Makrides and Gayle Woloschak. Science and Orthodox Christianity
1. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2019.

A Theology of the World: Dumitru Stăniloae,

the Traditional Worldview, and Contemporary
Cosmology

Doru Costache

St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College

Sydney College of Divinity

Introduction
The greatest Romanian Orthodox theologian ever, Father Dumitru Stăniloae (d. 1993) was a
traditional thinker guided by patristic wisdom, whose theological enterprise, ecclesially minded,
was ultimately motivated by the pursuit of holiness. Scholars have emphasized his holistic cast of
mind and nuanced approach to all things, together with his contributions to a variety of fields.1
Given the complexity of his thinking, it is difficult to shelve his innumerable works according to
current disciplinary taxonomies.2 In the footsteps of the Church Fathers whom he so loved,

1 Maciej Bielawski, The Philokalical Vision of the World in the Theology of Dumitru Stăniloae (Bygdoszcz:
Homini, 1997); Olivier Clément, ‘Allocution à la remise du diplôme de Docteur honoris causa au P. Dumitru Staniloae
à l’Institut de Théologie orthodoxe Saint-Serge, le 29 mai 1981’, La Pensée Orthodoxe, vol. III (Lausanne: L’Age
d’Homme, 1983), pp. 117–26; Marc-Antoine Costa de Beauregard, Dumitru Staniloae: Ose comprendre que je t’aime.
Témoins spirituels d’aujourd’hui (Paris: Cerf, 1983); Andrew Louth, ‘The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology of Dumitru
Stăniloae’, Modern Theology, 13/2 (1997), pp. 253–67; Danut Manastireanu, A Perichoretic Model of the Church: The
Trinitarian Ecclesiology of Dumitru Staniloae (Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2012); Charles Miller, The
Gift of the World: An Introduction to the Theology of Dumitru Stăniloae (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000); Dumitru
Popescu, ‘Dumitru Stăniloae: Omul, opera și impactul ei contemporan’[Dumitru Stăniloae: The Man, His Work, and Its
Contemporary Impact], Caietele Universității ‘Sextil Pușcariu’ Brașov, 2/2 (2002), pp. 16–25; Ștefan L. Toma, ‘Father
Dumitru Stăniloae (1903–1993) and his Contribution to Theology: Recognitions and Commentaries’, Review of
Ecumenical Studies, 6/1 (2014), pp. 8–27; Ștefan Lucian Toma, π. Δηµήτριος Στανιλοάε: Ο πατερικός Θεολόγος της
Οικουµένης [Father Dumitru Stăniloae: The Patristic Theologian of the Oecumene] (Collecta Academica, 14)
(Thessaloniki: Ostracon Publishing, 2014).
2 For an exhaustive list of Stăniloae’s published output before 1993, see Gheorghe Anghelescu and Ioan I. Ică Jr,

‘Părintele Prof. Acad. Dumitru Stăniloae: Bibliografie sistematică’ [Father Prof. Acad. Dumitru Stăniloae: A Systematic
Bibliography], in Persoană şi comuniune: Prinos de cinsitire Părintelui Profesor Academician Dumitru Stăniloae la
împlinirea vârstei de 90 de ani [Person and Communion: Essays in Honour of Father Prof. Acad. Dumitru Stăniloae on
Reaching 90 Years of Age] ed. by Ioan I. Ică, Jr (Sibiu: Editura Arhiepiscopiei Ortodoxe a Sibiului, 1993), pp. 15–66.
See also the list under ‘Stăniloae, Dumitru’, which contains many of his posthumously republished works together with
various studies on his contributions, in Mircea Păcurariu, Dicționarul teologilor români [Dictionary of Romanian
Theologians] (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică, 2002), pp. 456–60.
 ………206………

apart from his earliest publications he had never written systematic theology purely and simply – or
history, or biblical theology, or spirituality, or liturgical theology for that matter, though he
contributed to all these areas and more. In what follows we shall discover several proofs of his
encompassing vision. In addressing matters of science and theology, of interest here, he followed
the same interdisciplinary and multilayered approach, consistent with his overall complex outlook.
Notwithstanding his traditional cast of mind, he was a man of his time, who paid attention,
like other Neopatristic theologians with whom he held much in common, particularly Vladimir
Lossky (d. 1958), Paul Evdokimov (d. 1970), Panayiotis Nellas (d. 1986), John Meyendorff
(d. 1992), Olivier Clément (d. 2009), and Christos Yannaras (b. 1935), to trends in society and
culture.3 Given the scope of this volume, namely, the Orthodox engagement of contemporary
science from various cultural traditions and perspectives, below I refer to his approach to scientific
knowledge. This thread is fairly well represented in his imposing corpus of writings. His interest in
bridging the worlds of science and theology did not escape careful observers,4 but, to date, no
extensive analysis of this aspect of his creativity has become available. Stăniloae, however, openly
stated his appreciation for the potential of contemporary science to facilitate a deepened human
awareness of the world and an enriched experience of it – or towards erecting what he called ‘a
theology of the world’.5 The fact of the matter is that his writings abundantly display direct and
indirect references to chemistry, relativity, quantum physics, complexity, the expansion of the
universe, evolutionary biology, and the anthropic cosmological principle.6 By means of the
available scientific information he translated into contemporary idiom elements pertaining to the
traditional patristic discourse about the world, life, and humankind.

………207………

Nevertheless, like his confrères in the Neopatristic movement, Stăniloae never indulged in
doing science. Nor did he quote scientific works. A particularity of his way of handling scientific
information, with which I cannot deal at length here, is that he preferred to make use of it
unobtrusively, referring to it as a contextual given and readily including it into his otherwise
traditional discourse. The result was not a syncretism. Theology and science are harmoniously
integrated in his thinking, but there is no trace of confusion between them in his works. This

3See Metropolitan Daniel Ciobotea, ‘O dogmatică pentru omul de azi’ [‘Dogmatics for the Modern Man’], in
Dumitru Stăniloae sau Paradoxul Teologiei [Dumitru Staniloae or The Paradox of Theology], ed. by Theodor Baconsky
and Bogdan Tătaru-Cazaban (Bucharest: Anastasia, 2003), pp. 87–107.
4Clément, ‘Allocution’, p. 123; Louth, ‘The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology’, p. 262; Miller, The Gift of the World,
pp. 61–62, 67; Popescu, ‘Dumitru Stăniloae’, p. 21; Toma, ‘Father Dumitru Stăniloae’, pp. 15, 16, 26; Toma, π.
Δηµήτριος Στανιλοάε, pp. 22, 35, 36, 64, 86, 89.
5 Dumitru Stăniloae, Theology and the Church, trans. by Robert Barringer (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1980), pp. 216, 224–26. His position was reiterated by Christos Yannaras, Elements of Faith: An
Introduction to Orthodox Theology, trans. by Keith Schram (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), p. 38.
6 Alongside the scientific references discussed below, see, for example, Dumitru Stăniloae, Sfânta Treime sau La

început a fost iubirea [The Holy Trinity or In the Beginning was Love] (Bucharest: Editura Institutului Biblic și de
Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1993), pp. 58–59. For a broader overview, see Doru Costache, ‘At the
Crossroads of Contemporary Cosmology and the Patristic Worldview: Movement, Rationality and Purpose in Father
Dumitru Stăniloae’, Studii Teologice (3rd series), 9/2 (2013), pp. 141–63 and the Romanian, shortened, version of the
same, ‘Raționalitate și Mișcare la Părintele Dumitru Stăniloae’ [Rationality and Movement in Father Dumitru
Stăniloae’], Tabor, 7/11 (2013), pp. 59–69.
achievement discloses something fundamental about his method. More specifically, he seems to
have worked with a distinction between the theological core of the ecclesial message, anchored in
patristic wisdom, and the channels by which this message was to be disseminated to contemporary
audiences, represented by the scientific data. In so doing, he consistently applied, particularly in
matters of the Christian representation of reality, criteria already sketched by Lossky for related
matters and which Nellas successfully implemented in anthropology.7 Of course, this method
entailed, from beginning to end, an assessment of new data within the framework of Stăniloae’s
theological thinking. In short, by referring to the contemporary sciences both consistently and
inconspicuously, he illustrated a way in which the Orthodox should appropriate scientific
knowledge, discerningly, for the sake of the Church’s mission today. Appropriation entailed the
assessment and interpretation of the relevant data from a theological vantage point. It likewise
demanded a reappraisal of the ways in which the theological message was supposed to be
communicated to contemporary audiences. This methodology would deserve an analysis of its own.
In what follows I am interested however only in discussing the outcomes of these presuppositions
with reference to the Christian worldview, of immediate interest here.
I consider Stăniloae’s approach to the cosmological topics of motion and change, the
rationality of the universe, and the anthropic principle, which resonated with his appreciation for the
early Christian worldview sketched by patristic theologians such as Saint Athanasius, the
Cappadocians, and Saint Maximus. His interest in such topics originated, according to Clément, in
his notion of le sens cosmique du christianisme (‘the cosmic sense of Christianity’).8 I propose that
in bridging the theological worldview and scientific cosmology, Stăniloae proved to be a genuine
heir of patristic wisdom. His contributions in this area represent a perfect embodiment of the spirit
of the Orthodox tradition in the parameters of contemporary culture – an achievement to be
appreciated and emulated.

………208………

The Movement of the Universe

Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike understand the Orthodox representation of reality as
primarily, if not entirely, conditioned by transcendent and eschatological considerations. This
perception has to do with its customary interest in things above and beyond the current frame of
reference, which it draws from its Byzantine roots. Also, because of the emphasis of the ascetic
tradition on stillness and deification, the same Orthodox worldview is taken, again by Orthodox and
others, as wholly interiorized and static. When they have to give account for these underpinnings,
namely, regarding the transcendental, eschatological, and static figures, the supporters of such views

7 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press,
2002), pp. 104–06; Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ: Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person
(Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), pp. 41–42, 97–104.
8 Clément, ‘Allocution’, p. 118.
point to Origen and Evagrius Ponticus who seem to have judged movement as evil.9 I am not
interested in discussing what Origen and Evagrius actually meant when they condemned movement
and praised stillness. Relevant is that, against this backdrop, an Orthodox representation of reality
able to accommodate the contemporary notion of universal movement, as Meyendorff advocated,10
or to ‘Christify’ movement, as Nellas suggested,11 would be unthinkable in many quarters. Yet
Stăniloae maintained just that possibility. In what follows, I consider aspects of his theology of the
world, specifically, his musings on movement, bringing to the fore the skilful integration of patristic
theology and contemporary science which his thinking illustrates.
In the introductory study to his Romanian translation of Athanasius’s Against the Gentiles,
Stăniloae observed that the Alexandrian saint (d. 373) proposed the dynamic vision of the cosmos
that moved towards eschatological fullness.12 There, likewise, he suggested that the Athanasian
thinking on movement and nature anticipated contemporary cosmology, which describes a universe
fundamentally unstable, contingent, and in perpetual motion.13 Within the same context,
furthermore, he pointed out that the Alexandrian’s intuitions and those of other Church Fathers

………209………

deserved to be developed into a contemporary theology of movement – as a way to bridge the

ecclesial worldview and scientific cosmology. In his words,
Se impune ca o sarcină pentru gândirea de mâine dezvoltarea unei teologii a mișcării, ca o
explicație teologică a ei, după ce științele naturii au pus în evidență importanța universală a mișcării
și a energiilor care o susțin în legile descoperite de ea în toată realitatea creată.14 (Subsequent to the
highlighting, by the natural sciences, of the universal importance of movement and the energies that
sustain it within the laws which they have discovered throughout the created reality, a task for the
thinkers of tomorrow is to develop a theology of movement, its theological appraisal.)
The report in this passage, together with its context, runs entirely opposite to the perception
that the Orthodox worldview is inescapably static, wholly focused on things transcendent and
eschatological. The passage, furthermore, alludes to the author’s conviction that contemporary
science could have a positive impact upon the understanding of patristic thinking: the current
dynamic paradigm elicits a new appreciation for the pioneering work of certain Church Fathers on

9 Recent scholars have offered useful overviews of such misrepresentations of the Orthodox worldview and its

Byzantine roots. Archbishop Chrysostomos and Hieromonk Patapios, ‘Science and Knowledge in the Patristic and
Monastic Traditions of the Eastern Orthodox Church’, Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion, 2 (2007), pp. 183–
94; Peter Harrison, ‘Science, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism’, Isis, 107/3 (2016), pp. 587–91; Peter Harrison,
‘Subduing the Earth: Genesis 1, Early Modern Science, and the Exploitation of Nature’, Journal of Religion, 79 (1999),
pp. 86–109; Alexei V. Nesteruk, ‘Eastern Orthodox Theological Commitment in the Modern Science-Religion Debate’,
Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion, 4 (2008), pp. 225–47; Efthymios Nicolaidis and others, ‘Science and
Orthodox Christianity: An Overview’, Isis, 107/3 (2016), pp. 542–66; Efthymios Nicolaidis, Science and Eastern
Orthodoxy: From the Greek Fathers to the Age of Globalization, trans. by Susan Emanuel (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2011).
10 John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham
University Press, 1979), pp. 132–34.
11 Nellas, Deification in Christ, pp. 124–30.
12 Dumitru Stăniloae, ‘Introduction’ to Sfântul Atanasie cel Mare: Scrieri [St Athanasius the Great: Writings], first
part, Părinţi şi Scriitori Bisericeşti Series [Church Fathers and Writers Series] (henceforth: PSB), vol. XV (Bucharest:
Editura Institutului Biblic și de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1987), pp. 5–26, esp. p. 24. All translations from
Romanian are mine.
13 Stăniloae, ‘Introduction’ (PSB XV), pp. 19–25.
14 Stăniloae, ‘Introduction’ (PSB XV), p. 24.
the theology of movement. In addition, since what he discussed within this context were the
Athanasian musings on nature and movement, the traditional Orthodox worldview cannot be
reduced to the picture of a petrified world and an interest in things above and beyond the here and
now.
As we have seen in the above excerpt, Stăniloae expressed in unequivocal terms his
appreciation for the scientific research of his time, particularly the discovery that the universe
experiences a continuous movement, evolution, and development. Here and elsewhere, we shall
soon see, there is no sign that he had any qualms with the evolutionary paradigm of the universe’s
expansion and the motion of all things. Instead, taking it as a given, he alerted the next generation
of theologians that in order to find a common ground with contemporary science they must develop
an appropriate interface for the dialogue, namely, a theology of movement. That said, although he
identified relevant foundations for such a theology within the Athanasian work he considered, as
well as in the thought of Maximus, to whom he referred just before the quoted passage, in the
remaining part of the study he did not elaborate on this topic further. He addressed the matter in
various other places, however, depicting the cosmos, life, and humankind as moving and changing
through the ages, on their way to the eschatological fulfilment.15 In so doing, he actually produced a
mature

………210………

theology of movement, built on a positive assessment of nature as God’s creation.16 To the latter I
must now turn.
The positive assessment of nature is obvious within the same introduction, where Stăniloae
affirmed that the existence of the universe was grounded in gândirea, puterea și voința lui
Dumnezeu (‘God’s thinking, power, and will’), without which it cannot be.17 This view was
consistent with Athanasius’s own theocentric cosmology, where the ῥευστή τις καὶ ἀσθενὴς καὶ
θνητή (‘fluid, weak, and mortal’) or again ῥευστὴν […] καὶ διαλυοµένην (‘fluid and dissolving’)
universe depended on the ongoing providential activity of the Logos in order to exist and move.18
Stăniloae surmised from here that, since natural phenomena were divinely supported, then motion
and change were positive occurrences.19 This realization led him to another, that whereas God was

15 Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă [Orthodox Dogmatic Theology], three vols, third edition
(Bucharest: Editura Institutului Biblic și de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 2003; first edition 1978), vol. I,
pp. 344, 346–47, 350, 389. Stăniloae’s friend, Nellas, reached the same evolutionary understanding in anthropology. See
Doru Costache, ‘Ὁλισµός, δυναµισµὸς καὶ σύνθεση: Ἡ ἀνθρωπολογικὴ σκέψη τοῦ Παναγιώτη Νέλλα’ [Holism,
Dynamism, and Synthesis: The Anthropological Thought of Panayiotis Nellas], Synaxi, 140 (October-December 2016),
pp. 30–40, esp. pp. 37–39.
16 Stăniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 225. For a discussion of the ontological optimism of Stăniloae, see
Ivana Noble, ‘Doctrine of Creation within the Theological Project of Dumitru Staniloae’, Communio viatorum, 49/2
(2007), pp. 185–209, esp. pp. 192–94.
17 Stăniloae, ‘Introduction’ (PSB XV), p. 20; cf. also pp. 21–22. See also Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă,
vol. I, p. 347.
18See Athanasius, Against the Gentiles, 41.10–12, 16–17, in Athanasius: Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione, ed.
and trans. by Robert W. Thomson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), pp. 112, 114. For older studies of Athanasian
cosmology, see Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius (The Early Church Fathers) (London/New York: Routledge, 2004),
pp. 32–35, 49–51, and Athanasius: The Coherence of his Thought (London/New York: Routledge, 1998). More recently,
Doru Costache, ‘Worldview and Melodic Imagery in the Alexandrian Tradition and Certain Patristic Antecedents’, in
Alexandrian Legacy: A Critical Appraisal, ed. by Doru Costache, Philip Kariatlis, and Mario Baghos (Newcastle upon
Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), pp. 282–321, esp. pp. 310–19.
19 Stăniloae, ‘Introduction’ (PSB XV), p. 22. See also Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 349.
active throughout the movement of the world in time,20 nature itself was dynamic, efficient, and
fertile.21 The latter conclusion was consistent with his commitment to the scientific concept of
natural laws. In referring to this concept, he pointed out that the constants of nature performed a
double function, namely, to sustain the very existence of the universe and to facilitate its ongoing
progress. In his words, legile conservă și dezvoltă în mod dinamic creația (‘the laws preserve and
develop the creation in a dynamic way’).22 Natural agency was as important as the divine input with
which it synergized. In emphasizing the generative power of the universe and the synergy between
the created and the uncreated, more than on Athanasius, he perhaps drew on Basil (d. 379),23
certainly on Maximus (d. 662).24 What matters is that he made no allowance for the reductionist
views discernible behind the contemporary

………211………

warfare of creationism and evolutionism, especially the notion that either the divine or the natural is
inactive. Stăniloae believed that the rapport between God and the cosmos presupposed that active
are și creatul și necreatul (‘the created as well as the uncreated’).25 Said otherwise, the synergy
between created and uncreated forces operated everywhere in the cosmos.
Significant is that, echoing the contemporary paradigm of the universe’s expansion and
evolution, for him onticul e dinamic (‘existence is dynamic’).26 The created being is characterized
by ongoing movement and change. Continuous movement entailed innumerable transformations of,
and within, the universe. Stăniloae was convinced that neither the cosmos nor humankind can exist
forever în forma lor actuală, sau în cea în care pot evolua prin ei înșiși (‘in their present form or
that into which they could evolve by themselves’).27 This was tantamount to saying that,
notwithstanding that they depended on divine agency for their existence, created beings did evolve
naturally în ordini noi de existență (‘in new orders of existence’).28 Evolution meant progressive
change and the attainment of further complexity – a phenomenon that continued throughout the

20 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 346.

21 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 339 and vol. II, p. 7.
22 Stăniloae, ‘Introduction’ (PSB XV), p. 24.
23 Basil’s dynamic and synergetic theology is fairly well researched. Doru Costache, ‘Christian Worldview:

Understandings from St Basil the Great’, in Cappadocian Legacy: A Critical Appraisal, ed. by Doru Costache and
Philip Kariatlis (Sydney: St Andrew’s Orthodox Press, 2013), pp. 97–126, esp. pp. 119–22; Nicolaidis, Science and
Eastern Orthodoxy, p. 22; Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, pp. 133–34.
24 Dumitru Stăniloae, ‘Natură și har în teologia bizantină’ [‘Nature and Grace in Byzantine Theology’], Ortodoxia,
26/3 (1974), pp. 392–439, esp. pp. 392–93.
25 Stăniloae, ‘Introduction’ (PSB XV), p. 22.
26 Stăniloae, ‘Introduction’ (PSB XV), p. 24.
27 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 342. See also Stăniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 226, and
‘Natură și har’, p. 393. He believed that humankind and the cosmos shared the same eschatological destination. See the
personal testimony of Marc-Antoine Costa de Beauregard, ‘Le Cosmos et la Croix’, in Dumitru Stăniloae: Tradition
and Modernity in Theology, ed. by. Lucian Turcescu (Iași/Oxford: The Centre for Romanian Studies, 2002), pp. 147–66,
esp. pp. 151–52. For the anthropocosmic continuum in Stăniloae, see also Louth, ‘The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology’,
p. 262 and Noble, ‘Doctrine of Creation’, pp. 192–93.
28 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 347.
universe’s journey towards the eschaton. Indeed, according to the testimony of Marc-Antoine Costa
de Beauregard, Stăniloae was convinced that the world’s creation was not yet achieved.29
Stăniloae believed that evolution and transformation characterized all things created within
the universe, including life. In a scholion referring to Maximus’s vision of the Logos diversified
into the λόγοι (reasons to be, principles) of all things, which branched out into the informational
structure of all creation, he pointed out that o anumită evoluție a animalelor se poate explica prin
implicarea potențială a unor specii noi în cele vechi (‘a certain evolution of animals could be
explained by the potential presence of new species within the old ones’).30 Here, obviously, the
Romanian theologian attempted to make sense of evolution and the emergence of new species in the
parameters of the Maximian worldview. He therefore agreed with the contemporary theory of
natural evolution,31 which he interpreted in patristic fashion

………212………

by offering the hypothesis of a divine blueprint which prescribed and regulated the natural
emergence of species from other species.
Furthermore, given the divine parameters in which movement unfolded, evolution was not a
theologically irrelevant, purposeless happening. The universe aimed to reach a deified state at the
eschaton. But, again, this was impossible without divine support. In his words, tot dinamismul sau
mișcarea creației spre îndumnezeire își are cauza în dinamismul lucrărilor dumnezeiești (‘the whole
dynamism or movement of the creation towards deification has its cause in the dynamism of the
divine energies’).32 He entwined here natural evolution and the theological perspective of a divinely
guided, cosmic trajectory towards the final perfection. This was another illustration of the
synergetic forces at work within the universe. For him, therefore, cosmic evolution was how a
divinely sustained and eschatologically driven creation marshalled towards perfection – from forma
actuală a lumii (‘the current form of the world’) to un plan de existență superior (‘a higher plane of
existence’).33
Apart from its theological overtones, by and large Stăniloae’s dynamic worldview was
consistent with contemporary cosmology. Instead of clinging to the ancient image of a static cosmos
to be left behind by the soaring soul, he incorporated the scientific description of a moving universe,
which he reinterpreted within the theological framework of a purposeful cosmos, full of divine
presence and intention. What made possible this integration of theology and science was the
patristic notion that the ongoing dynamism of the cosmos unfolded in the parameters of God’s
wisdom – or due to the universe’s divine rationality. To this aspect I must now turn.

29 Costa de Beauregard, ‘Le Cosmos et la Croix’, p. 152. See for instance Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I,
pp. 347.
30Sfântul Maxim Mărturisitorul: Scrieri [St Maximus the Confessor: Writings], first part, PSB, vol. LXXX
(Bucharest: Editura Institutului Biblic și de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1983), p. 294 n. 369.
31 My understanding corresponds to the testimony of Costa de Beauregard, ‘Le Cosmos et la Croix’, p. 155.
32 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 154.
33 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 343.
The Rationality of the Universe
In the above we have seen that, alongside depicting a universe of continuous movement and
change, Stăniloae maintained, paradoxically, that divine parameters conditioned existence from
within, including nature’s random occurrences. Whereas the evolving cosmos continued its
dramatic race towards the eschaton and further complexity, it remained fundamentally ordered,
rational, and meaningful – the universe was lume (‘world’, from Lat. lumen, ‘light’). It was
enlightened, structured beauty.34 Taking a different route, by assessing the outcomes of
contemporary physics, more recently Yannaras observed, similarly, that matter was energy and
therefore light.35 Although the Greek thinker seems to have not been aware of Stăniloae’s musings
about the cosmos as light, their efforts correspond in that they bring to the fore the dynamic order of
reality. Apart from the Romanian etymology, Stăniloae’s understanding

………213………

of the ordered universe primarily depended on the wisdom of Maximus, which, according to
Andrew Louth, he creatively appropriated and developed.36 He shared in common with Yannaras
both an appreciation for the thinking of Maximus and an interest in contemporary physics. We shall
see immediately below that, indeed, his development of Maximus’s insights took place in the
parameters of quantum physics. A comparison between his and Yannaras’s ways of handling
Maximus’s wisdom is, however, beyond the scope of this study.
Before I turn to Stăniloae’s understanding of cosmic rationality, a summary of the Maximian
worldview is in order. Maximus proposed a vision of the divine Logos that permeated the creation
through the constitutive principles of beings, the λόγοι, the ultimate informational ground of the
cosmos. As ontological parameters, the divine principles determined the universe’s structure and
movement, defining the eschatological purpose of its becoming. More than information, the
principles were energies, divine thoughts that enlivened and shaped the universe from within. In
turn, the cosmos experienced a continuous tension between its natural possibilities, the divine
energies that suffused it, and the movement which led it – through successive extensions and
contractions – to the actualization of its potential. The universe experienced therefore movement
and morphological changes during a process that was framed by rational principles and fuelled by

34 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 362. See also his Reflecţii despre spiritualitatea poporului
roman [Reflections on the Spirituality of the Romanian People] (Craiova: Scrisul românesc, 1992), p. 161, and Iisus
Hristos, lumina lumii şi îndumnezeitorul omului [Jesus Christ, the Light of the World and the Deifier of Man]
(Bucharest: Anastasia, 1993), pp. 27–28, 31.
35 Yannaras, Elements of Faith, p. 39.
36 Andrew Louth, ‘The patristic revival and its protagonists’, in The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian

Theology, ed. by Mary B. Cunningham and Elizabeth Theokritoff (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008),
pp. 188–202, esp. p. 197. This aspect has not escaped the attention of contemporary scholars. Adrian Marinescu, ‘Logos
şi logoi: Gândirea teologică a Sf. Maxim Mărturisitorul († 662) cu privire la raţiunile dumnezeieşti (plasticizate),
potrivit comentariului său la rugăciunea “Tatăl nostru”, şi receptarea ei la Pr. Dumitru Stăniloae’ [‘Logos and logoi: The
Theological Thinking of St Maximus the Confessor († 662) on the Divine (concretized) Reasons, according to his
Commentary on the Prayer “Our Father”, and its Reception by Fr Dumitru Stăniloae’], Tabor, 7/11 (2013), pp. 78–93;
Toma, π. Δηµήτριος Στανιλοάε, pp. 84–90.
the active presence of God. In so depicting reality, Maximus achieved a synthesis of logos/thought/
information and becoming/energy/movement, thus depicting a complex universe.37
Taking this Maximian synthesis as his framework, Stăniloae undertook to integrate aspects
pertaining to contemporary science, particularly quantum physics, into his thoroughly theological
worldview. Given the precedent set by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Lars Thunberg suggested the
possibility of bridging certain

………214………

Maximian intuitions and contemporary physics.38 Whether or not in response to his suggestion,
Stăniloae consistently translated Maximus’s vision of reality in terms that evoke quantum
mechanics. The untold presupposition of his endeavour must have been the conviction that, even
though methodologically incommensurable, the Maximian worldview and quantum physics were
compatible in their outlook of reality. What matters is that, at the crossroads of the Maximian
worldview and quantum physics he construed a rational and dynamic universe, emergent of a
natural energie care are în ea un sens sau o complexitate de sensuri și include tendințele unor
indefinite interferări producătoare ale atâtor unități legate între ele (‘energy that contains a sense
or a complexity of meanings, open to indefinite connections which produce many interrelated
units’),39 namely, the created beings. Thus, the energetic, rational, and relational infrastructure of
the universe – corresponding both to the Maximian λόγοι and the quantum reality of contemporary
physics – became the inextricable web and prodigious polymorphism of created beings at a
macrocosmic level. In turn, the beings moved and changed in harmony with the rational patterns the
Logos established for them, advancing towards further interaction, coherence, and complexity. In
Stăniloae’s words,
Lucrurile sunt chipurile create ale rațiunilor divine plasticizate, chipuri pline de putere și purtate
de tendința unor nenumărate referiri între ele. În starea lor plasticizată se reflectă sensul, puterea și
viața rațiunilor divine în unitatea lor din Logosul divin.40 (The beings are created images of the
plasticized divine principles, yet images full of power and moved by the tendency of innumerable
mutual references. Their plasticized state manifests the meaning, the power, and the life of the divine
principles in their unity within the divine Logos.)
The phrase rațiuni plasticizate (‘plasticized principles’) borrows from Gregory of Nyssa’s
(d. after 395) perception that, on a fundamental level, matter consists of ideal or immaterial

37 See Maximus, Difficulties, 7, in Maximos the Confessor: On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua,
two vols, ed. and trans. by Nicholas Constas (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library) (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard
University Press, 2014), vol. I, pp. 74–141. For recent overviews of Maximian cosmology, see Torstein T. Tollefsen,
‘Christocentric Cosmology’ and Doru Costache, ‘Mapping Reality Within the Experience of Holiness’, in The Oxford
Handbook of Maximus the Confessor, ed. by Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015),
pp. 307–21, 378–95. See also Doru Costache, ‘Being, Well-being, Being for Ever: Creation’s Existential Trajectory in
Patristic Tradition’, in Well-being, Personal Wholeness and the Social Fabric, ed. by Doru Costache, Darren Cronshaw
and James Harrison (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), pp. 55–87, esp. 71–85. For a
broader analysis, see Paul M. Blowers, Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World
(Christian Theology in Context) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 101–283.
38 See Lars Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY:
St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), pp. 136–37. For a more recent attempt to draw parallels between the Maximian
worldview and contemporary cosmology, see Alexei V. Nesteruk, The Sense of the Universe: Philosophical Explication
of Theological Commitment in Modern Cosmology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015), pp. 417–23.
39 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. II, p. 7.
40 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. II, p. 7.
qualities41 – a quantum-like intuition of reality. Whether Stăniloae found this concept directly in
Gregory or borrowed it from Maximus is of no consequence here.42 Relevant is that for him matter
was, infrastructurally, information and power, or energy, a flexible medium endowed with indefinite
potentialities or, as he preferred,

………215………

virtualities,43 the field of ineffable interactions between created and uncreated factors conditioned
by divinely established rational parameters. These parameters coincided, we have seen already, with
the natural laws of the cosmos. The universe emerged out of these ‘rational’ interactions; it was
their very embodiment.
It is transparent that, alongside the theological dimension, namely, the reference of all
strands of reality to the Logos, Stăniloae’s statement quoted above echoes the contemporary
quantum perception for which the energy, the movement, and the interactions occurring at the
fundamental level of the universe are governed by algorithms that make possible the existence of
order and complexity at the grand scale of the macrocosm, including our own existence.44 Faithful
to his custom, earlier discussed, he made use of this scientific insight without referring to it
explicitly, or its sources, or its technical vocabulary. Instead, he assimilated this information within
the framework of the patristic worldview, particularly the contributions of Maximus, as a matter of
common knowledge. What matters, once again, is that at some level quantum cosmology and the
traditional Christian worldview were for him compatible. Given this sense of compatibility, he
rendered the intuitions of Maximus in an intelligible manner for contemporary audiences and also
interpreted the scientific representation of the universe through the lens of patristic cosmology. And
so, together with offering a theological interpretation of quantum cosmology, Stăniloae redrafted the
patristic worldview along the lines of that very paradigm. In a passage where he focused on the
revolutionary approach of the early Church Fathers to ancient science, he came very close to
disclosing the fact that his grasp of this contribution was conditioned by his awareness of
contemporary science, particularly quantum physics. Here is the text:
Pentru Sfinții Părinți, materia era o masă amorfă, întru totul neluminată, a cărei transfigurare era
greu de înțeles. Ei moșteniseră din filosofia elină noțiunea unei materii opusă Logosului divin, deci
oricărui logos. Unii dintre ei – ca Sfântul Maxim Mărturisitorul – au ajuns totuși la idea rațiunilor
lucrurilor cu originea lor în Logosul divin. Astăzi noi vedem raționalitatea deplină și totuși maleabilă
a materiei, transparența ei rațională, capacitatea ei de a fi flexionată de rațiunea și fapta conștientă
umană – asemenea metalului căruia i se pot da multe forme – și descoperită în lumina ei de această
rațiune.45 (For the Holy Fathers, matter was an amorphous mass, wholly unenlightened, whose

41 Doru Costache, ‘Making Sense of the World: Theology and Science in St Gregory of Nyssa’s An Apology for
the Hexaemeron’, Phronema, 28/1 (2013), pp. 1–28, esp. pp. 17–22; Nicolaidis, Science and Eastern Orthodoxy, p. 15;
Susan Wessel, ‘The Reception of Greek Science in Gregory of Nyssa’s De Hominis Opificio’, Vigiliae Christianae, 63
(2009), pp. 24–46.
42 Maximus developed a similar theory of matter, very likely inspired by Gregory. See Maximus, Difficulties, 41,
ed. Constas, vol. II, pp. 114–19. For the relevant views of the two Church Fathers, succinctly, see Yannaras, Elements of
Faith, pp. 39–40.
43 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, pp. 374–91.
44John D. Barrow, The Origin of the Universe (Science Masters Series) (New York: Basic Books, 1994), p. XIV;
Paul Davies, The Mind of God: Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning (London: Penguin Books, 1993), p. 69;
Henry P. Stapp, Mindful Universe: Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer (Berlin and Heidelberg:
Springer-Verlag, 2011), pp. 6–7, 11–12.
45 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 376. See also Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. III, pp. 404–

20. For further notes on this matter, see Costache, ‘At the Crossroads’, pp. 154–55.
 transfiguration was difficult to comprehend. They inherited from Greek philosophy the notion of a
matter that was opposite to the divine Logos, and to any logos at that. Nevertheless, some of them –
like Saint Maximus the Confessor – reached the notion of the

………216………

principles of beings that have their origin in the divine Logos. Today, we are able to see the
rationality, both full and flexible, of matter, its rational transparency, its capacity to be moulded by
the conscious human reason and action – like a metal that can be given many shapes – and whose
light is discovered by this reason.)
The passage discusses the redefinition of matter by Maximus and other Church Fathers, among
whom we should include, we have seen in the foregoing, Gregory of Nyssa. The early Christian
theologians inherited from the classical culture a philosophical concept of matter disconnected from
the rational or intelligible aspect of reality, so phrased in Platonic idiom. This concept represented
an obstacle for the proper articulation of the mystery of incarnation, resurrection, and
transfiguration. We know from at least Athanasius how difficult it was in some philosophical
quarters to accept that the Logos took flesh.46 Nevertheless, compelled by the evidence of Christ’s
glorified body and the enlightenment of the saints, as we read little after the above passage in
Stăniloae’s work,47 the early Christian theologians redefined the ancient concept of matter so that it
accounted for the experience of transfiguration. For him, indeed, it is primarily in the light of the
transfigured, risen, and glorified Christ that the Fathers revisited the ancient concept of matter and
proceeded to redefine it. This achievement, I would suggest, matched their reinterpretation of
Hebrew Scripture as a prophecy about Jesus Christ, post hoc, that is in the light of the ecclesial
experience with the Lord.48 In so doing, abandoning the ancient dualism of reason and matter, the
Church Fathers have arrived at a view of matter as rationally structured and flexible. It is to this
redefined concept that Stăniloae referred by way of his catchphrase, plasticized principles or
rationality, but through the lens of quantum physics. In the last sentence of the above passage the
allusion to a quantum perception of reality is undeniable. He echoed there something like
Heisenberg’s perception that reality emerges from the interaction between the subject and the object
or between humankind and the quantum virtualities of fundamental reality.49 This nuance leads to
the final stage of my analysis.
To conclude this section, I propose that, for Stăniloae, the theological worldview of
Maximus and quantum cosmology agreed in that they represented the universe as both emergent
and rationally structured. By establishing a rapport between theology and science, he seems to have
conveyed that as much as quantum physics can facilitate the understanding of Maximian
cosmology, Maximus’s intuitions about the nature of the universe anticipated the contemporary
representation of reality. His approach was not far-fetched. Closer to our days, Paul Davies asserted
the relation between certain cosmological ideas of our age and medieval intuitions.50 But what
matters is

46 Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 41.17–30 (ed. Thomson, p. 236).

47 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, pp. 376–77.
48 For the patristic reinterpretation of Hebrew Scripture, see John Behr, The Formation of Christian Theology,
vol. I: The Way to Nicaea (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), pp. 17–48.
49See Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (London: George Allen &
Unwin, Ltd., 1971), pp. 55, 127.
50 Barrow, The Origin of the Universe, pp. 109–10.
 ………217………

that for him matter and the universe in its entirety were characterized by rationality. On this note,
I turn to the construal of the universe’s purpose and its relation with the anthropic principle.

The Anthropic Dimension of the Universe

Drawing on the above, one may confidently infer that the world contemplated by Stăniloae was
ordered, meaningful, and purposeful – denoting an ‘underlying rationality’ which, as Barrow had it,
transcended the material universe.51 Founded on divine principles and being tantamount to
plasticized rationality, his universe and everything within it was not the Cartesian res extensa,
measurable only in quantitative terms and terrifying to human conscience. His universe, once again,
was lume (‘light’). Created beings were complex accretions of energy and information, embodied
manifestations of divine principles, structures of potentiality on their way towards full actualization,
engaged in innumerable mutual references, and ultimately pointing to the transcendent Logos. The
rational infrastructure of the universe became obvious through dynamic qualities by virtue of which,
naturally yet within God, the creation experienced movement and change. The movement of the
universe was a purposeful one, aiming to reach further complexity and immortality, conditioned by
the divine principles, the parameters of nature, and, of immediate interest here, the human factor.52
For Stăniloae, as for Nellas,53 the movement of the universe reached a peak when it arrived at a
level of complexity that allowed for a conscious expression in the form of humankind.54 The latter,
in turn and very likely drawing from Maximus’s views,55 was the mouthpiece of the cosmos before
God.56 He believed that the purpose of creation was to communicate with God and to participate in
God’s life, and so be granted immortality.57 This purpose was not achievable without a cosmic
representative – namely, humankind engaged in conversation and communion with

………218………

51 Barrow, The Origin of the Universe, p. 45.

52 This summary is based on my previous explorations of Stăniloae’s cosmological thinking. See my ‘Colocviul

fără sfârșit: Rațiunea de a fi a creației în gândirea Părintelui Dumitru Stăniloae’ [The Endless Conversation: Creation’s
Reason to Be in the Thought of Father Dumitru Stăniloae], in Dumitru Stăniloae sau Paradoxul Teologiei, pp. 183–241,
esp. pp. 187–89; ‘Virtualitate şi actualitate: De la ontologia cuantică la cosmologia antropică a Părintelui Dumitru
Stăniloae’ [Virtuality and Actuality: From Quantum Ontology to the Anthropic Cosmology of Father Dumitru
Stăniloae], in Dumitru Popescu, Doru Costache, and others, Știință și Teologie: Preliminarii pentru Dialog [Science and
Theology: Preliminaries for a Dialogue] (Bucharest: XXI Eonul dogmatic, 2001), pp. 202–20, esp. pp. 212–19.
53 Nellas, Deification in Christ, pp. 31–32. See also Costache, ‘Ὁλισµός, δυναµισµὸς καὶ σύνθεση’, pp. 31–32.
54 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 378.
55 See Costache, ‘Mapping Reality’, pp. 383, 388–90.
56 Stăniloae, ‘Introduction’ (PSB XV), p. 19; Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, pp. 352–54, 379–80.
57 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, pp. 353–54.
God58 – a representative which, paraphrasing John Wheeler, was as much adapted to the universe as
the universe to it.59 He articulated these understandings in the following dynamic, that is,
evolutionary, description of the history of creation from inorganic to conscious existence and from
the latter’s mere existence to its dialogue with the uncreated.
Conştiinţa creată este adusă la existenţă în legătură ontologică cu raţionalitatea plasticizată a
lumii, pe care Logosul, după creare, continuă să o gândească eficient şi să o conducă spre starea în
care conştiinţa umană va putea să existe şi să funcţioneze în ea. El se foloseşte spre aceasta şi de un
impuls de dezvoltare pus în însăşi raţionalitatea plasticizată a lumii. Creaţia ajunge astfel la starea de
organizare complexă, apropiată celei a trupului adecvat sufletului conştient adus la existenţă de
Spiritul conştient suprem. Atunci sufletul conştient este adus la existenţă prin actul special creator şi
iniţiator al dialogului Logosului cu el. Scopul creaţiunii se împlineşte astfel prin aducerea la existenţă
a persoanei conştiente create, pentru că şi Creatorul este persoană şi pentru că creaţiunea are ca scop
realizarea unui dialog între persoana supremă şi persoanele create.60 (Created consciousness is
brought into existence in an ontological connection with the plasticized rationality of the world,
which the Logos continues to think efficiently after creation and to lead towards a state in which
human consciousness is able to exist and function within it. For this reason, he [i.e., the Logos: D.C.]
also makes use of an impulse of development infused in the very plasticized rationality of the world.
This is how the creation reaches a state of complex organization, close to that of a body suitable to
the conscious soul, which [in turn: D.C.] is brought into existence by the supreme conscious Spirit.
Then the conscious soul is brought into existence through a special act of the Logos, which also
initiates a dialogue with it. The purpose of the creation is achieved therefore through the bringing
into existence of the created conscious person, since the Creator is likewise a Person and since the
creation has as a goal a dialogue between the supreme Person and the created persons.)
Apart from outlining the history of the universe as ongoing creation under the divine Logos,
which lends further substance to Costa de Beauregard’s view that Stăniloae believed in a world still
in the making, the above passage addresses the anthropic potential of the cosmos. True, he
mentioned the special divine act by which the human ‘conscious person’ was brought into
existence, but he was more interested in pointing out, on the one hand, that the calling of
humankind into being amounted to an invitation to dialogue with the creator, and, on the other hand,
that humankind

………219………

was ontologically linked with the universe. Thus, whereas he affirmed the theological dimension of
human existence and its prominent position within creation, he subscribed to the patristic standpoint
concerning the anthropocosmic continuum, a notion that resonates with the current scientific

58 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, pp. 337–38, 387. See also Costa de Beauregard, ‘Le Cosmos et
la Croix’, p. 162, and Costache, ‘Colocviul fără sfârșit’, pp. 194–201.
59 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, pp. 394–95. See also John A. Wheeler, ‘Foreword’, in John D.
Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1986),
pp. VI–IX, esp. p. VII.
60 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, pp. 394–95. For another way of stating the same, see Stăniloae,

Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 349.

representation of reality.61 More specifically, in tune with a point made by Nellas,62 Stăniloae
expressed the view that the universe endowed with an ‘impulse of development’ was designed to
evolve in the parameters of divine rationality and to be led by the Source of this rationality. The
immediate goal of cosmic evolution was the rise of human consciousness, which in turn, was to
attain the ultimate goal of creation – the eschatological perfection and union with God.63 The
achievement of the cosmic purpose therefore depended on what contemporary cosmologists call the
anthropic principle, which is in fact typical of Stăniloae’s theanthropocosmic thinking.64
Seemingly aware of the various formulations of the anthropic cosmological principle, 65
Stăniloae affirmed a connection between the human presence and the parameters or the constants of
the universe, and so the human conditioning of the cosmos. He referred to this conditioning as
anthropocentrically effected. His notion of anthropocentrism is not akin to the modern ideology
known as anthropocentrism; it denotes the shaping of the universe by and with reference to human
existence. For example, echoing the strong formulation of the anthropic principle,66 he affirmed:
Lumea ca natură e creată pentru subiectele umane. Ea are un caracter antropocentric. Numai în ele
își descoperă și-și împlinește lumea sensul ei (‘The world as nature is created for the human
subjects. It has an anthropocentric character. Only in them [i.e. the human subjects] the world
manifests and accomplishes its purpose’).67 Elsewhere and in the same vein, he added:
Raţionalitatea lumii este pentru om şi culminează în om; nu omul este pentru raţionalitatea lumii.
O persoană s-a gândit la persoana omului când a creat lumea (‘the rationality of the world is for
the human being and culminates in the human being; it is not the human being that exists for the
rationality of the world. A person [i.e. God] thought of the human person upon creating the
world’).68

………220………

This is no anthropocentrism in the conventional sense. Throughout his works, Stăniloae

discussed the theme of the human conditioning of the creation within the framework of the
evolving, rational, and complex universe of contemporary cosmology, a universe that was
nevertheless theocentric and divinely led. In addition to this theological backdrop, which represents

61 For the compatibility between the patristic notion of anthropocosmic continuum and contemporary science, see

Doru Costache, ‘The King, the Palace, and the Kingdom: Anthropic Thinking in Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom,
and Other Witnesses’ in John Chrysostom: Past, Present, Future, ed. by Doru Costache and Mario Baghos (Sydney:
AIOCS Press, 2017), pp. 235–65.
62 Talking about the making of humankind in Genesis 1–2, Nellas observed: ‘Created matter, the “dust of the

earth”, was thus organized for the first time theologically; the material creation acquired a form and structure in the
image of God; life on earth became conscious, free and personal.’ Nellas, Deification in Christ, p. 32.
63 See Costache, ‘Virtualitate şi actualitate’, pp. 214–15.
64 Costache, ‘Colocviul fără sfârșit’, pp. 201–07; Costache, ‘Virtualitate şi actualitate’, pp. 214–15.
65 Barrow and Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, pp. 15–23; Brandon Carter, ‘Large Number
Coincidences and the Anthropic Principle in Cosmology’, in Confrontation of Cosmological Theories with
Observational Data, ed. by M. S. Longair (Dordrecht/Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1974), pp. 291–98;
Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics (New York:
Penguin Books, 1991), pp. 354, 433–44.
66 Barrow and Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, pp. 21–23.
67 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 354. See also Stăniloae, Iisus Hristos, pp. 31–32.
68 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 366 (italics in original).
the ultimate qualifier of Stăniloae’s entire discourse, his notion of anthropocentrism as
anthropocosmism must have once again originated in the wisdom of Maximus, who defined the
centrality of humankind in the cosmos as a task and function, not a privilege. For Maximus human
beings were by nature related to everything within the universe and endowed with a unifying
capacity, for this reason being called to cooperate with God and so bring the universe to unity and
harmony. In the footsteps of Christ, this task was performed by the saints, who worked in agreement
with the informational background of the universe, the principles, which secured the capacity of the
cosmos for coherence. However, for Maximus, the full impact of human agency on the universe
was to become obvious only in the eschaton.69 It is noteworthy that the contemporary promoters of
the anthropic principle suggest, similarly, the possibility of a macrocosmic impact of our race in the
distant future.70 No wonder, therefore, that Stăniloae, who believed that humankind had already left
its mark in the universe, not only at the eschaton,71 found in Maximus an excellent platform for his
theological integration of contemporary anthropic cosmology. Thus, he shared with Maximus the
conviction that, although the world was created în vederea omului (‘in view of the human being’),72
the anthropic conditioning could not be reduced to the creation of the universe for humankind. Even
though the latter represented an immediate goal of the cosmic evolution, humankind itself
performed an active function within the cosmos and for it.
That said, precisely given the assimilation of certain elements pertaining to contemporary
physics within his theanthropic cosmology, the understanding of Stăniloae went beyond that of
Maximus. He noted, legile au în ele o posibilitate elastică sau contingentă pusă la dispoziția omului
pentru a o actualiza în diverse moduri, conform trebuințelor și conținutului de sensuri la care el a
ajuns (‘the [natural] laws possess an adaptable potential or a contingency that serve the human
being, so that one can variously actualize them according to one’s needs and the understandings that
one has reached’).73 Corresponding to Heisenberg’s ontology, earlier mentioned, here Stăniloae
asserted the impact of human presence upon the universe as facilitated by the very matrix of reality.
But, faithful to Maximus’s ascetic theology and perhaps echoing his emphasis on the need of virtue
for the achievement of the human task,74 he pointed out the importance of one’s awareness of reality
and manner of handling things – ‘according to one’s needs and the understandings that one has
reached’.

………221………

Somewhere else, Stăniloae expressed this conviction in a clearer way, namely, that at least in part
human beings made the world anew only when they recreated themselves spiritually.75 Therefore,
the anthropic principle worked in his case both ways: from the fundamental strands of reality
towards humankind and from the latter to the former. Once again, this correspondence echoes
Wheeler’s point about a universe adapted to humankind and a humankind adapted to the universe.

69 Maximus, Difficulties, 41 (ed. Constas, vol. II, pp. 104–08). See also Costache, ‘Mapping Reality’, pp. 381–85.
70 Barrow and Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, pp. 22–23, 613–25, 658–77.
71 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. III, pp. 371–73.
72 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 349.
73 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 378.
74 Costache, ‘Mapping Reality’, pp. 383–84, 392–93, 394.
75 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 375. See also my ‘Virtualitate şi actualitate’, p. 217. See also

the comments of Clément, ‘Allocution’, p. 123.

In fact, Stăniloae emphasized that omul nu se poate concepe în afara naturii cosmice (‘the human
being cannot be considered outside cosmic nature’) and likewise that nici natura nu-și împlinește
rostul ei fără om (‘neither can nature fulfil its purpose without the human being’).76
Behind the traditional, theological, and ascetic grounds of Stăniloae’s thinking, one can
recognise in the above, if not certainties, at least the hopes of a growing body of scientists who no
longer feel comfortable with a cosmology insensitive to humankind, particularly a humankind
concerned with spiritual matters. By his anthropic elaborations, Stăniloae presented himself as an
ally of those scientists – not unlike the early Christian apologists who, in borrowing concepts from
classical philosophy in order to better articulate and communicate the Christian worldview,
catalyzed, for instance, the philosophical quest for the Logos through their own elaborations on the
topic.
Through the contributions considered above, the anthropic principle, the rationality of the
cosmos, and the movement of the universe, Stăniloae proved to be a worthy heir of patristic wisdom
that prescribes the need for the Christian worldview to be ever rephrased in conversation with the
scientific theories of the day, for the purpose of disseminating more efficiently the message of
traditional theology. That he consciously and purposely worked according to this standard – shared
by other Neopatristic thinkers of last century, but implemented as consistently as he did by none
other – appears with clarity in the preface of his monumental treatise, Orthodox dogmatic theology.
Here is the relevant passage:
Ne-am silit să înțelegem învățătura Bisericii în spiritul Părinților, dar în același timp să o
înțelegem așa cum credem că ar fi înțeles-o ei astăzi. Căci ei n-ar fi făcut abstracție de timpul nostru,
așa cum n-au făcut de al lor. 77 (We have endeavoured to understand the teaching of the Church in the
spirit of the Fathers, but also to understand it the way we believe that they would have understood it
today. For they would have not ignored our time, the way they did not ignore their own.)
This study offered glimpses of where this eminently patristic and therefore traditional
method led Father Dumitru Stăniloae, particularly in terms of his approach to contemporary
science. His engagement of science resulted in a new translation of old ecclesial stances in
contemporary idiom. In turn, this retranslation meant also a deepening and enrichment of traditional
wisdom.78 His interdisciplinary effort resulted in a profound theology of the world, which he
submitted to the attention of his successors as a task to continue.79 His contributions are yet to be
digested by theologians and scientists alike. One thing is clear however, namely, that considered
through his eyes there is nothing uneasy about the rapport between the Orthodox representation of
reality and the contemporary sciences.

76 Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, pp. 337–38.

77Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I, p. 6. In adopting this approach, he gave a concrete example of
how to proceed further, which he programmatically announced in Theology and the Church, p. 224.
78 Stăniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 216.
79 Stăniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 225; Stăniloae, ‘Introduction’ (PSB XV), p. 24.