by In this paper, I discuss the quest for perfection as integral to Orthodox Christian anthropology, the forms this quest can take, what makes it possible, and why certain technological enhancements hinder the quest. [This version does not include all the references.]
Humankind, made “after God’s image” (Genesis 1:26-27) out of “dust from the earth” (Genesis 2:7), becomes, moves, and changes. Thus, humanity, being theologically conditioned and naturally mutable, is a work in progress, dynamic and purposeful. Its becoming is integral to what modernity calls evolution. But, while it unfolds within the confines of nature—that is, physically, chemically, and biologically—human becoming is planned, guided, and constantly supported from within by God’s will, presence, and energy. And so, humanity, being recapitulated from before the ages in Christ—the ἀρχή of the cosmic body, of all things in heaven and on earth (Colossians 1:15-18)—grows like the offshoots of the grapevine (John 15:5), heavenwards. It moves from being “after God’s image” to becoming “Godlike”—and from “dust from the earth” to ascending “from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18) by “partaking of the divine φύσις, life” (2 Peter 1:4).
As Panayiotis Nellas notes in regard to the “breath” of God in Genesis 2, being divinely sealed and permeated, humankind constitutes the form into which the “created matter, the dust from the earth” was “theologically structured” “after God’s image.”[1] However, he continues, being given access to a “new mode” of existence in Christ, a “theanthropic” or divinehuman way of life, humankind “is called to transcend the finite boundaries of the creation and to become infinite.” This amounts to a transformative experience of “real christification,” to becoming Christlike truly, and to participate in the divine glory through deification. This, precisely, is the message of Orthodox Christian theological anthropology. But let me rewind the tape a little.
When human becoming gains conscious and purposeful depths—as it does in some, though not all, human beings—this metamorphic process entails striving to attain perfection. This view matches Nicholas Kabasilas’ understanding that all creation moves from imperfection to perfection, a view articulated by earlier saintly theologians as a triadic trajectory, “being, wellbeing, and being for ever.”[2] However, perfection can take various forms. It goes vertically and horizontally, corresponding to different dimensions of human existence. Our tradition works with these dimensions since many centuries.
Thus, Gregory of Nyssa observed that the human being is layered, being “after the image of the creator’s nature” and a biological entity, integral to this world, bearing “the imprint and likeness of the cosmos.”[3] Nellas captures this complex human constitution—what Gregory calls κατασκευή—in the phrase that gave the title of his book, ζῶον θεούμενον, “deified animal.” What this means is that, while humans are biological entities naturally empowered to attain fulfilment within their creaturely condition—personally, communally, professionally, etc.—they are theologically destined to undertake a journey of transformation, to attain glory divine. Many Orthodox theologians, from the early Christian era to our time, have been discussing perfection in both senses. In short, together with pointing to the goal of godlikeness and christification through participation in God’s life, our theologians pondered people’s pursuit of creaturely fulfilment and the cultivation of their aptitude for discovery and innovation.
The backdrop of this multidimensional view of humankind is Orthodox Christianity’s capacity for grounding its theological message in the cultural realities of given times and places.
Orthodox theology consistently engaged the cultural paradigms—including scientific—it encountered throughout history. Regardless of sporadic uneasiness, diachronically, Orthodox theology interacted successfully with trends in culture. From its early Christian instantiations until the end of the Byzantine era, Orthodox theology accomplished extraordinary cultural feats, adopting philosophical idioms and scientific ideas inherited from the Classical era and, in time, achieved amazing syntheses. It also proved to possess an immense potential for research and creativity. Monks and humanists alike contributed to research, discovery, and technological invention in various fields. No wonder that through its émigrés to the West it generated the Renaissance that, in turn, led to the rise of modern science. For studies on the history of Orthodox Christian engagement of and contribution to various scientific frameworks, suffice it to mention, here, in chronological order, Paul Magdalino and Maria Mavroudi’s edited volume The Occult Sciences in Byzantium (2006); Efthymios Nicolaidis’s Science and Eastern Orthodoxy (2011); Stavros Lazaris’ edited volume A Companion to Byzantine Science (2020); the three volumes Orthodox Christianity and Modern Science, of the project Science and Orthodoxy around the World at the Institute of Historical Research, Athens (2019, 2021, 2022); and the special issue on Byzantine science and technology I recently edited for De Medio Aevo (2024). All these and related literature provide information about the traditional commitment of Orthodox Christianity to knowledge, research, science, and innovation.
It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that the faith-based, scripturally anchored Orthodox Christian discourse on cosmic reality consistently mediates its major theological tenets—the doctrine of creation—in culturally conditioned and scientifically articulated ways, from the beginning to date.[4] The same goes for Orthodox anthropology, which considers the human phenomenon at the crossing of scriptural wisdom and other perspectives.
I must now turn to the two dimensions of human existence mentioned earlier. Thus, vertically, or spiritually, perfection means advancement from being “after God’s image” to becoming “Godlike” through participation in the divine life. This amounts to deification in Christ, christification. We know this from Paul’s references to being crucified together with and being made alive in Christ (Galatians 2:20), from Ignatius of Antioch’s reference to himself as θεοφόρος, “God-bearer,” and from Kabasilas’ view of Christian life as christomorphic, namely, achieved in Christ and in likeness to him. Translating this vertical perspective in terms that are relevant here, Gregory the Theologian, followed by Maximus, discussed this dimension in relation to the paradise narrative in Genesis 2. In short, he called it “nontechnological life,” a mode of existence that draws on God, not on tools. But this overarching theological view of human perfection does not exclude the second dimension. To be more specific, horizontally—within the confines of nature and culture—human becoming entails progress in various areas, artistic, biological, cognitive, epistemological, social, technological, etc. While not many early Christian and Byzantine theologians considered this second dimension, references are not missing. For example, Clement of Alexandria points out the following (my translation):
The human being was made primarily for the knowledge of God, as well as for tilling the soil, making geometrical measurements, and philosophising. Of these, one is needed for living, another for living well, and yet another for studying whatever can be demonstrated.[5]
This passage shows that the human journey unfolds on different dimensions and that the theological quest for perfection does not preclude development of this earthly life, for instance through science and technology. The same holistic perspective received a deeper anthropological foundation in Gregory of Nyssa’s point about human beings who—while irreducible to nature insofar as they are “after God’s image” and called to the royalty of virtuous life—are also natural beings. In the latter capacity, most times people find themselves at a disadvantage compared to other living beings on earth, but, Gregory adds, they circumvent all adversity through ingenuity, study, learning, skills, and technology.[6] Clement and Gregory discuss the above in regard to the current state of things, but others consider it a paradisal mandate for humankind. Thus, John Chrysostom points out that “the cultivation of the soil” was divinely encouraged from the outset, being a “school of virtue and sobriety.” The same goes for Maximus, who speaks of Christ fulfilling the divine plan as humanity’s representative, by unifying paradise and civilisation—spirituality and technology, if you will.[7] While humankind was supposed to bridge these worlds—or modes of existence—its sins precluded this achievement.[8] Christ had to step in for us, to achieve what we did not and cannot do by ourselves. His work is continued by the saints.[9]
Thus, Orthodox anthropology operates with a hierarchical schema that prioritises the vertical dimension, but its preeminence does not mean exclusion of the horizontal dimension. As the divine transformation brings with it a range of enhancements of human nature, the vertical complements the horizontal. We contemplate these supernaturally effected enhancements in the saints, in their extraordinary ways of perceiving and managing material reality. Hagiography provides innumerable examples of such exploits, the evidence of which cannot be ignored. To refer to a known Chrysostomian trope, the way reading Scripture is the second best course when it comes to drawing on divine wisdom after the saints’ direct reception of the Spirit’s whisper, so the cultivation of the horizontal dimension is the second best course for a humanity that is slow to progress in holiness.
But, simply put, this dual sense of seeking perfection, within nature and culture, on the one hand, and through divine participation, on the other hand, corresponds to the dual constitution of the human being. And, as our constitution cannot be reduced to either being “after God’s image” or “dust from the earth,” so, too, perfection entails the development of both dimensions. In principle, therefore, Orthodox theology encourages scientific research and technological advancements, as well as other forms of cultivating humankind’s natural talents.
That said, Orthodox Christianity is a wisdom tradition. It cherishes discernment and assesses all things, including technological progress, through a complex lens—theological, spiritual, and ethical. This filtering system enables it to adopt certain innovations and to draw attention to the harmful potential of others. For example, and to conclude, while Orthodox theology encourages procedures meant to heal and to improve wellbeing, such as transfusions and organ transplantation, and welcomes the use of artificial intelligence for diagnosing illnesses, I believe that it cannot condone the production of human and technological hybrids, such as the recently trumpeted Neuralink brain-computer interfaces, which, pursuing the transhumanist agenda, transform the human subjects into computational information-processing devices. Our natural and trained mechanisms facilitate accessing and processing information beyond the rational level—existentially, emotionally, socially, and spiritually, for example. A collection of essays on artificial and spiritual intelligence, published in a 2024 special issue of Christian Perspectives on Science and Technology,[10] brought to light similar concerns. Orthodox anthropology concurs with the findings of the contributors to that issue—for it does not reduce the human quest for perfection to any one of its sides.
Notes
[1] For more on Nellas’ multidimensional anthropology, see Doru Costache, “Theological Anthropology Today: Panayiotis Nellas’s Contribution,” in Orthodox Christianity and Modern Science: Past, Present and Future, ed. Kostas Tampakis and Haralampos Ventis, Science and Orthodox Christianity 3 (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2022), 167-182.
[2] 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. Doru Costache, Darren Cronshaw and James Harrison (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), 55-87.
[3] For a relevant discussion, see Doru Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos: Early Christian Representations, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 170 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021), 335-340.
[4] See Doru Costache, Nature Contemplation in Clement of Alexandria: Elements of the Method (London and New York: Routledge, 2025); Doru Costache, “One Description, Multiple Interpretations: Suggesting a Way Out of the Current Impasse,” in Orthodox Christianity and Modern Sciences: Theological, Philosophical, Scientific and Historical Aspects of the Dialogue, ed. Christopher C. Knight and Alexei V. Nesteruk (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2021), 33-49; Doru Costache, “Maximus the Confessor and John Damascene’s cosmology,” in The T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Theology and the Modern Sciences, ed. John Slattery (Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2020), 81-91; Doru Costache, “The Orthodox Doctrine of Creation in the Age of Science,” Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies 2:1 (2019), 43-64; Doru Costache, “Mapping Reality within the Experience of Holiness,” in The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor, ed. Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil (Oxford University Press, 2015), 378-396.
[5] For an analysis of this text, see Costache, Nature Contemplation, 14-15.
[6] See on this, Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 341-343.
[7] See Costache, “Mapping Reality,” 385-393.
[8] See Costache, “Mapping Reality,” 381-385.
[9] Costache, “Mapping Reality,” 393-394.
[10] See https://journal.iscast.org/news/cposat-volume-3-2024-special-issue.
Acknowledgment Paper presented for “Orthodox Theology and the ‘Ontology’ of Technology: Anthropological, Political, Economic, Social, and Cultural Consequences,” the second International Conference of the Journal Θεολογία, organised with the blessing of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece, Thessaloniki, 29 September – 1 October 2025..
5 October 2025 © AIOCS
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