LOGOI AND PARADIGMS IN FATHER DUMITRU STANILOAES THEOLOGY Introduction My name is Bighiu Gica and I am the Orthodox priest

of Romanian community from Aalborg, Denmark. I graduated in 1999 the Faculty of Orthodox Theology, Bucharest University, Pastoral specialty. The dissertation theme was The myth in Mircea Eliades thought. I married with Ludmila Ciachir in July 1999. At the same time I was ordained for a parish at the country. I lived ten years of great pastoral missionary experiences in this parish. I graduated the Master studies from UNESCO Department for Intercultural and Inter-religious Exchanges, specialty Intercultural Communication, Bucharest University. The dissertation theme was The Orthodox spirituality and European solidarity. Meanwhile, I served in Bucharest as a delegate-priest with the task of supervising the building of a church. Since October 2008 I was appointed vicar for the Romanian Orthodox parish from Aalborg Virgin Marys Entrance in the Church and The Saints Pahomie and John of the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of Northern Europe. It is a privilege to study at Aarhus University, having the opportunity to enrich my theological knowledge with great impact on my mission at Aalborg parish. I would like to thank Professor Anders-Christian Jacobsen for his openness towards the theme I have chosen, and to my brother in Christ, Vladimir Cvetkovic, for all the encouragement. In the virtue of the traditional Orthodox-Protestant dialogue, I would like to contribute by my work to a modest overview of the Romanian Orthodox Church, to the benefit to the ecumenical dialogue. Logoi and Paradigms The research of the large and deeply theological work of Fr. Dumitru Staniloae is a complex task. This work characterizes the eastern theology analyzing the connection and complementarities between katafatism and apofatism that metaphorically speaking represents the light which warms up and the darkness which transcends the reason. Fr. Staniloae let an unprecedented mark in the Romanian Orthodox theology, introducing a unique direction between the Greek scholasticism and the Slavic mysticism, however influenced by the thoughts of St. Maxim Confessor, St. Gregory Palamas, St. Dionysius Areopagite, and St. Gregory of Nyssa. The importance of understanding the cosmos or the universe as the communion between human being and God is even greater as not only human being uses the creation, but he is also responsible for this. The human being is responsible not only for his salvation but for the salvation of the whole creation, too. Thomas Spidlik, a catholic theologian, identifies an important status of the world, as a mother: the human being isnt only the master of the world, but he is her son, he is born from the earth and he comes-back in the earth [3]. His views are shared by some Russian theologians as well. Accordingly, the human being bears a great responsibility. His metamorphosis to the deification or his transfiguration is related not only personally by the relationship with his peers, but it is done by relationship with the world like a whole. The existence of animals, plants and minerals is intensified and received its value by the deification of human being. With the help of human spiritual efforts (ascesis) depends their insertion into the Kingdom of God. This spiritual course or approach of human being has led theologians to speak about the eternally creation of the world there is no need to explain the term creation only for creative activity of God. The human beings collaborated with God, become themselves the partners to creation too, that is complementary to the divine creation. The goal of the world is to become a word into establishing of one progressive dialogue with love,
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between man and God. The created nature proves to be a word by her plasticized reason it support and which is required to be forever shaped by a rational and creative consciousness. The world exists just for human being and it has been created to be humanized, to be updated in its virtualities as a meaning of communication and its spiritual maturity. The world can be understood like a word of God-human being dialogue, as well as offering, there is like a gift. Fr. Staniloae would say: we shall understand the nature of the world merely when we shall think about it such as a gift and this is its theology [4]. There is a declaration of His Love, and is made for us by the God-Creator for our deification. On this love we have to return to the same God, with our tribute of gratitude because He loved us first. There is not the last reality itself, but is only a mean of communication between human being and God. This is used by human being as a gift which brings the sacrifice of God into his interest of spiritual development. The world will not stop there. This world together with human being is meant to co-exist forever. With the approach of the certain aspects of cosmology and anthropology, it will be always necessary to understand how these communication and communion between God and human work, through the plasticized reasons by the whole creation. If were affirming that the world has got some elements of Gods presence within her constitution, we are able to say about ontology of the whole universe. In that context of the presence of God in creation, Saint Maxim Confessor speaks about the cosmos as a house of God, like the Church takes part to the worlds life, and working in its bosom. The same, Maxim Confessor identify, without confusion the integrals of the Church, such as integrals of cosmic creation, too. The entire universe, does exist like a church but is not a handiwork, but shows the hand-made church [1]. There is inside a holy place of the priesthood, because it has the worlds from above, which was given to the angels; and it has a nave (naos gr.), including the down place, because that it was reserved for those who were destined the sensitive life. The connection between different parts of the world into one universal harmony is given by a continuous work of divine Logos, within both aspects of creation, before the fall and after that, by salvation. Therefore, the ontology of the universe was based mainly by his christcentric character (Col. I, 15-19). The Logoss act into the world opens another size, about the divine reasons, or the created reasons by all things, which are also called logoi spermatikos, and its forming rational framework of the whole created reality. Being as the expressions of Logos before His Embodiment, the reasons of all things are the ideas of the divinity concerning the elements that compose the world, the things and beings are virtual models or paradigms of all things. They dont identify with Divine Being, but reveals the theocentric depth, value and meaning of creation and its spiritual foundation of the world in God. The presence of God in creation is felt, especially that the entire cosmos is marked by the energies and life. These are the actions of God, beings around Him. With their help to produce outside, active movement of divinity and so it's shares to people and whole creation this content (life) always into a new way. These energies exist before the creation: "how can I understand those which are beyond of centuries, asked St. Great Basil. Which are His works before the creation of the intelligible world? How many graces have descended from Him over the creation? What is his power poured over the centuries that had to come? For this power exists and pre-exists and coexists with the Father and the Son before the ages". However it does not mean a presence of the divine Being, because in this case divine Being would be confused with the world being: "when I say that we know to God into His energies, we don't want to claim that may be close after Being was. Even if the His energies down to us as sunlight, Being God remains inaccessible". In this context Fr. Staniloae said about the creation of the world that is like a sum of works followed by Providence's work, all this having like the aim the driving of creation to her deification. The deification of creation will make to be a single approach inside the Person of
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God and the saints, it is because their divine energies. The righteous people will radiate like Jesus Christ on the Mountain Tabor and they showing, as other suns theyre showing through its sharing of the divine works and light. God brings the creatures into existence under a plan that it is containing forever (God's thoughts), reason of all things, who in their time have given the aspect of the creation by plasticity. Reasons of all things have their source and are eternally founded into divine Logos, like the Supreme Hypostatic Reason. These reasons do not exist in it, but are paradigms in accordance to the creation of creatures and human beings into their indefinite depth. The detachment by its spiritual message, of their rationality, the world would be a meaningless reality for the human. Because they have origins in Logos, the reasons survived unitary way into the Trinity Monad, updating through their creation or bringing into existence of the realities that represent. In this cosmogonical process the Divine paradigms remain into God's transcendent plane, whereas the reasons behind itself in temporality descend to form rational stitching of created nature. In accordance with the action and way of the unfolding, Holy Fathers had distinguished between strict reason (logos) and its sense (noema ), as well as between logos and tropos, as a way of accomplishment of the being's logos. The world is a rational connection of the logoi, namely tropoi and noema . St. Maxim identified three reasons why God had set up these reasons within the nature of His creation: a) to proclaim their Creator and to be a testimony by God's omnipotence and love, b) to be an help for humanity in finding the way to Personal Supreme Reason; c) for none of the faithful don't have the ignorance as excuse, as if the world had a unelaborated and opaque character. The world is through these three elements in its being the mean for the reflection and transparency of Transcendence. Therefore, the divine reasons that radiate in the world fill up with the light and transparency. Thereby they have given an infinite perspective for this and for our understanding. They are infinite and ceaseless internal (intimate) connection between God and His creation, the world ceased to be only a cipher of high information, but it have been the space of the inter-personalized meeting between God and the human being. The Rationality from God has the role to establish and sustains the communion between God-human, and for this, it is somehow adapted to human being. To put it differently, the divine rationality has created the rationality of the world so that it can be understood by the human mind. The thinking is given to all the people to update its resources in their application on the rational world. Every person is transcended himself through his reason applied of the world to creative Spring of all reasons and to his peers. Together, they will be able to update the rationality of the world such that the Creative Absolute can be intuited. The reasons of things are made for the human reason and that people can unite in knowledge, they're enriching so much their knowledge and by what each brings for their understanding. With his capable reason to distinguish many nuances and synthesis, the human spirit can discover under clearly and varied form all the riches of the universe. The human being is an interrogative existence. We are called by the divine Logos as partners into a permanent and infinitely conversation with God. This is because through Logos, God creates not only designed objects, but also He created the personal issues (subjects), which always have to stay into everlasting dialogue with Him. This dialogue is not a purely intellectual agreement, but is a dialogue and an agreement that becomes more and more absolute of love that it comes from the divine grace. This is able to maintain only in the base of two essential elements: a) the reasonable-intelligible comprehensible ability of the human being and b) of the reasons of world . As the writing passage implies, the genesis of these elements can be understood through God-Word, into the human capacity to be in dialogue, and to the rationality of the world as expressions of Logos. The
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rationality of the world on its substrate is to be known by people, self-conscious beings with the reason, and thus to enrich them by the light of the world and through it to know more and more infinite light of the Word. Obviously, the stunning show of the greatness from cosmos is only for communication to communion in love. The communication was needed for intelligible speech by which the world to be place into a rational presentation of one communication program. God gave to people the world to be a support and have to promote solidarity and love between them by spiritual efforts. They have to now and to use the world into brotherly way. Therefore the world as a content of the dialogue, involving that human reason to be the place where God can to speak with us and He can to work in communion with us. In accordance with the patristic tradition, the spiritual process through which the human enters by means of reason, in dialogue with God is the natural contemplation. The world is by its essence a virtual paradise full of codes, words and divine reasons. The natural contemplation discovers to human being the main message of the divinity, by which it becomes aware so much of its importance in God's plan, but also by the cosmic responsibility of their space. Through contemplation of the universe, the human feels himself involved and responsible for the world in front of God that is connected by the world. In regard to the dialogue, the necessary condition of human spiritual progress is revealed. Virtually, the universe appears as a flexible environment that is taking place and meeting two creative freedoms, of God and of the human. The world becomes a place of meeting between God and human being, a gift that they are offering reciprocally, to fully love each other. To delineate the aspects of this dialogued character of the world, theologian Charles Miller, in his work "The Gift of the world" - says that the being of the world from this level of dialogue can be understood only such as a "gift " [2]. Many times when we are speaking about the creation, says Miller, we have to meditate about it in terms of "gift" that requires more a interactional process than an immanent being, thing or object. Fr. Staniloae trying to capture this dynamic nature from the theology of the gift, by the expression "the dialogue of the gift". The beginning of this dialogue can be identified since the creation of the world through the direct action of God's Word concerning His creation. Thus, from beginning the world received the value of a word that is meant to be accessory into coherent conversation between God and the persons. God is supporting continuously the existence of the world, and that implies a permanent resumption and reinitiating by His share concerning this dialog. The real dialogue claims more than simply recognition of the person which you have to communicate. This dialogue must embody an exchange by the gifts, which essentially moves the two persons inside the other one. So, when a gift is good-looking perceived, we're guided beyond this and become a mean of the personal communication and self discovery. The meaning and purpose of the gift is revealed so therefore in fact that it is transformed into a communion of love, the dialogue of gift being at same time a dialogue of love. It has been the environment of such the dialogue of gift and the world is more than an impersonal context. It is therefore, the content of the dialogue of love between God and human being. Therefore, as a gift, the world seems to be a sine qua non reality into the process of personal communion between God and human, that concerns deify and self-fulfillment of all the created beings. CONLUSIONS Each creature carries by self-inside, in the deep of its nature, the logos as an indelible mark of God, the supreme Archetype and Paradigm that created it and that is present within itself. The logos of each creature being are defined as fundamentally. There is " the reason of to be" from inside of God's plan, in the double sense, as its principle and its purpose. It contains the common
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features of each species as well as those private, according to the individual uniqueness. He also gives to each created being the ability to be forever a potentiality by the transfiguration that makes to be transcendent, beyond itself. There is the archetypal transcendence from the immanent field of the creation, oriented to Creator. The relations between the created beings are led by the logoi. They are the ontological laws of nature they are underlying physical laws observed by scientists - the foundations of it internal order, cohesion and harmony. As St. Maxim Confessor says, logoi exist and they always remain together with Logos. The Divine verb is so the principle of the unity from creation, in the centre of its diversity and complexity, the hidden and essential centre that unites all the beings - including the human being - into a relationship of the solidarity and the permanent interdependence. There is the materialization of the divine paradigms in the dynamism of the plasticized reasons from the all creation. This is materialized in the synergism and teandrism of the human being-God relationship, or nature-man-God, which is the panentheistical approach. The Eastern Christianity had supplied a spiritual foundation for the term "panentheism" by the theology of uncreated energies. God is transcendent in His essence beyond all levels of cosmic existence. He is immanent for the world at same time, in the most deeply "inside" Him, through His energies. These energies are the structured graces of the Holy Spirit, and they are united with the Logos and the generators of life. They support the universe with their creative fire and the breath of life. They animate the creatures with a continuous movement, and giving the necessary strength for their growth and fecundity and they make the universe a big tissue woven from the flow and vibrations, where all are interdependent. The beings can participate to divine life, more or less evolved or consciously through these uncreated energies. The divine life is, plenary, the communion and harmony. The matter is more than matter; it is inhabited and the place of the Spirit. I am convinced that, once again, this project is important because it tries to throwing into relief the vector of the ontological communion between God and human being that converging to the transfiguration of human person, not at all to loss of his spiritual identity. On the other hand, I am firmly convinced that once the man identifies its purpose and mission on the earth, he will endeavour to transfigure all creation at the same time with him. This approach is beneficial because it is opposing to his attitude as the ruthless exploiter of the nature that generated environmental and climatically disasters. Then it would not be in vain the dialogue between science and theology, and theology should not be considered to be, in the secular meaning, as an isolated and abstract experience of human consciousness. Fr. Staniloae's theology is not necessarily to be a new theology, but it is the theology of the Bible and the Holy Fathers of the Ancient Church. It is very important in the approach of theological dialogue, that Christianity to be outrunning any barrier. Ecumenism is an attempt to unite in dialogue and fraternity among the Christian churches. We are all sons of God. As clergyman of the Eastern Church, I believe that it is the time for the two main areas of theology from the East and West, to converge and meet in the same way, the Christ's following. There are only two different approaches in methodology, two sides of the same theology of Christ and the purpose is the same. We can explain this convergence as one and the same way to the salvation, which is proper for a layman and a monk. There are just two different ways to the same final aim. [1] St. Maxim Marturisitorul, Mistagogia, Editura Institutului Biblic, Bucuresti, 2000 [2] Miler, Charles, The Gift of the World, T&T Clark LTD, 2000, Scotland [3] Spidlik, Thomas, The Spirituality of the Christian East, vol.2, Cistercian Publ. 2005, USA [4] Staniloae, Fr. Dumitru, TeologiaDogmatica Ortodoxa, Editura Institutului Biblic,2000
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