by One of the most persistent tropes of modern European culture—and wherever in the world this type of culture reverberates—is that Christianity was a catalyst for the secular mindset that led—via the rise of science and technology—to the disenchantment of nature and that, in so doing, it facilitated the industrial exploitation of nature reduced to the status of “commodity” or “resource” suitable for economic management. It would be a truism to attempt to argue the case here, which to a large extent has merit, unfortunately, but I must clarify that the phenomenon relates to Western branches of Christianity, especially in the early modern era, not its traditional forms. Anecdotal evidence of the current Christian discourse in Anglophone settings, where salvation is of the soul from the body and against the world substantiates the case beyond any doubt. It should not come as a surprise that—within those very settings—pseudo-Christian, conservative leaders like Donald Trump, in the United States of America, and Tony Abbot, Scott Morrison, and Peter Dutton, in Australia, together with their cabals of billionaires, ideologically sponsor the greed that fuels the frenzy of economic despoiling of nature. Their “prosperity gospel” fits the bill of Max Weber’s understanding of the Calvinistic roots of accumulation of capital and plundering of nature as “means of salvation”; in the terms of traditional Christianity, that “gospel” amounts to the sin of avarice elevated to the status of virtue, with dramatic consequences for humankind and the ecosystem.
But my purpose here is to highlight that Christianity was not always insensitive and inimical to nature—as it began to be in its various Western iterations, as Georges Duby pointed out, from the 1000 CE onwards [1]—and that in its East-European, Orthodox variants it continued to maintain the “cosmic” mindset, in Mircea Eliade’s words [2], of the early Christian centuries. Indeed, apart from moments of confusion in the first two centuries of its historical existence [3], Christianity developed a decidedly “cosmic,” or environmental, cast of mind. This mentality, fuelled by a strong theology of creation, is enshrined in its theological literature and embodied in its architecture and iconography [4], beyond the folklore Eliade studied (whose expressions echo ancient worldviews) [5]. It is this mentality that, to an extent, undergirds the traditional “underdevelopment” of East-European and Near Eastern societies, where Eastern and Oriental forms of Orthodox Christianity have been influential for centuries. This is a historical fact, regardless of how “unecological” some of those Christianities, such as the Romanian one, might have recently become [6].
In this brief essay [7], I set out to sketch the early Christian worldview in its cosmic dimension, a worldview that, in theory at least, survives in strands of Orthodox Christianity [8], to then translate its main tenets into words that are familiar to us, in the form of lessons for today. It is my hope that, in the Europe of today, which has rediscovered its “cosmic” mindset, these lessons will not fall on deaf ears and that they will contribute to the revival of a genuinely ecological Christian and European culture—especially given the Anthropocene crisis of Earth’s environment.
The Early Christian “Cosmic” Mentality
The task of summarising how the early Christians viewed reality is not easy. The writers of that era did not produce systematic discourses “On the World”; their interests lied elsewhere. That said, unlike the anthropocentric, historicist, economical, and sociological focus of modern Christianity, the cosmos as they perceived and inhabited it is very much present in their writings. It is from there that we learn the extent to which the early Christian experience—unlike modern urban societies—included the environment, or nature, and the cosmos in its entirety. Another aspect worth noting is that, regardless of how nontechnical the writings of the early Christians were, many incorporated scientific information, by the standards of those times. This information often was taken as a cultural given [9], shared by various audiences, Christian and otherwise. This inclusive approach anticipates the robust conversations about faith and science of our own era, when we ask big questions and seek the nexus of all things. It would be remiss of me not to point out that the inclusivity of the early Christians in terms of adhering to the scientific knowledge of that age is as European as anything else—indeed the forgotten origin of Europe’s cultural inclusivity. The fact that contemporary science has rendered obsolete the knowledge of the ancients does not diminish the significance of the approach discussed here. Nor does the forgetfulness of most Europeans of the early Christian roots of cultural inclusiveness take away from this historical truth.
I have grappled with these and related matters in most of my research publications, since 2010 to date, including in the monograph Humankind and the Cosmos (2021), quoted above. In what follows, I present in synthesis some of my conclusions in that monograph [10]. The sources analysed therein illustrate the early Greek Christian thinking about the universe, from the second to the early fifth century. While considering topics that range from the form of the world and the infrastructure of physical reality to the contemplation of the cosmos and people’s environmental footprint, I realised that the multicoloured threads of ideas I examined ultimately form an elegant tapestry. Herein, I present my reconstruction of that tapestry, a worldview that bridges philosophical, scientific, scriptural, and theological elements. The following discussion includes also matters addressed in the volume I coauthored in the meantime with Geraint Lewis, A New Copernican Turn (2024).
The early Christians believed that the ordered universe exists due to God who creates, supports, and guides it towards the final consummation, namely, towards the perfect fellowship of God, rational beings, living beings, and the cosmos. The created universe, in all its complexity, unfolds according to a blueprint the creator Logos designed “when” the world was not. This unfolding, or evolution, depends on multiple factors, divine, cosmic, and human, natural and supernatural alike [11].
The creator differs from the creation ontologically, but is actively and continuously present in it. The creator contributes “supernaturally” to the processes put in place for the cosmos to be, to move, and to reach fulfilment. Nevertheless, these supernaturally fuelled processes are no less natural, presupposing physical forces that belong to the universe from the beginning. These physical forces first became manifest when God’s energy activated the darkness—or the chaos of created matter—as light. Light is the name of a natural energy that morphs the chaos into universe, or the name of the chaos on its way to becoming cosmos. The chaos has from the outset the potentiality of light; it contains the promise of order [12]. I am certain that this metaphorical language does not make obscure for us, modern people, the processes alluded to, here: The ancients were as concerned as we are with what we call, in technical parlance, quantum cosmology.
Activation entails supernatural and natural factors. As the divine call, nudge, or energy woke up nature’s potential in the beginning, so God continues to do throughout the universe’s course, fuelling its natural processes. Cosmic existence is an ongoing exercise in synergy. Nature itself constitutes an open field where the uncreated and the created realities interact. This fundamental interaction unfolds behind the scenes of another convergence, of created material and immaterial factors, resulting in the concrete beings that populate the cosmos [13]. It is through this fundamental interaction that the divine blueprint takes material existence [14]. Synergy exists on all levels, from the basic elements of nature to the processes at work in the earthly ecosphere to celestial mechanics to the universe in its entirety. Nature is neither purely material nor divine. Nature is complex. The universe’s movement itself is natural and supernatural, spontaneous and creative, as well as purposeful [15].
What secures purposefulness is the antecedent blueprint that sets the parameters for all things to exist, to move, and to have their being. Phenomena emerge and are finely tuned—to use a modern scientific way of addressing the situation [16]—due to infrastructural mathematical patterns—divine numbers and measures—that enable organisation and complexity. Currently we call these patterns constants of nature and big numbers [17]. And as divine conditions frame the universe’s movement in the form of laws, the dynamism, randomness, and spontaneity of nature lead to increasing complexity, not to further chaos [18]. The outcome is our ordered universe. Chaos become cosmos.
Order and complexity find expression in images, signs, and symbols [19]. The cosmos is theologically meaningful, revealing God’s activity, will, and wisdom that permeate all things. It does so by metaphorically singing the foundational symphony or ode written by the divine Logos from before the ages. Indeed, for the early Christians and their ancient sources, the multilayered cosmos is also a polyphonic instrument, an orchestra, and a chorus. While cosmic music is not consistently harmonious, salvation restores its beauty, meaningfulness, and purposefulness. Salvation is not from the world; it is of the world. It amounts to the restoration of the cosmic music disturbed by the cacophony of human ungodly activities. Restoration is possible given that the agent of salvation, Jesus Christ, is the Logos incarnate, the agent of creation and providence. As such, Christ’s salvation both leads humankind back on track and attunes the cosmic processes to the blueprint of the creation [20]. It is thus that the advancement of both humankind and the cosmos towards their shared goal—eschatological perfection—becomes possible again.
For the purposes of grasping the sense of the cosmic song, believers must learn to consider the universe through a different lens, which pertains to nature contemplation [21]. Theological meaningfulness does not transpire only as sacred music; it also constitutes an alternative scriptural narrative [22]. Scripture itself makes obvious the cosmic narrative by referring to it as such. For it shows that the universe teaches wisdom, which believers—moved by awe and wonder [23]—must learn how to read. As with Scripture itself, the cosmic narrative requires hermeneutical decoding. In principle, the message of the cosmic book corresponds to Scripture’s own discourse. And what both Scripture and nature reveal is God’s plan for a creation whose fulfilment largely depends on the “spin” of human activity.
Given its theological meaningfulness, the universe is, furthermore, a school. In the cosmic school, perceptive and diligent students learn about the creator, the universe, and their own place in the order of things. This they do through contemplative exercises [24]. They learn to understand the cosmos as God’s creation and to love both it, in its entirety, and all of its parts. Understanding leads to love because it shows that the world is meant to be their home. This realisation brings with it a sense of responsibility for their own wellbeing and for the flourishing of their home, part and whole. The cosmic school teaches that they must protect and till the garden, in the metaphorical language of Genesis. To perform this task, however, students undertake personal transformation through ascesis and progress in divine knowledge [25]. For without the caretakers adopting a corresponding lifestyle, the earthly ecosystem and the universe in its entirety will not reach the divinely set goal [26]. This is not anthropocentrism. It is an early Christian, theological articulation of the anthropic cosmological principle.
The above synthesis does not account for everything I discuss in my four-hundred page Humankind and the Cosmos, let alone in the rest of my relevant research publications, but I hope that it still gives a fair idea of how the early Christians viewed the world and their place in it. In short, they embraced a holistic sense of the universe, where there is room for divine activity, natural processes, and human impact. To make sense of all this, they borrowed from various sources, philosophical, scientific, scriptural, and theological. These they weaved together into a comprehensive and harmonious model of reality, where each perspective has its part to play, without cancelling other views. And so, together with striving to understand their world, the early Christians achieved a balanced synthesis of perspectives, interdisciplinary by all intents and purposes. This is wisdom modern Christians could still learn from with great profit, in order to articulate a theological worldview at the crossing of contemporary disciplines, including the scientific culture of our age. The ultimate significance of relearning this way of thinking about humankind and the world—rather, humankind in the world—would reveal itself in the establishment of a new European culture, whose mind would be able to balance economic rationale, meaningful living, and caretaking for the environment.
Lessons for Today
In researching this topic over many years, I have been amazed by the variety of early Christian attitudes and approaches to nature and the universe, especially by the anchoring of those attitudes in the multidisciplinary soil of philosophy, science, scriptural interpretation, spirituality, and theology. The fact that the culture of Late Antiquity—from the second to the early fifth century—has become obsolete is of no consequence. What matters is the interest of the early Christians in comprehending reality, together with the fact of doing so at the nexus of theology and science, faith and reason, idea and life. In what follows, once again drawing on the conclusions of my 2021 monograph [27] and other contributions, I outline that wisdom in the form of three lessons, relevant to contemporary experiences and aspirations. These lessons are: The cosmological framing of theological anthropology and its environmental implications; the interdisciplinary approach; and the sense of cosmic wonder.
The early Christian worldview framed theological anthropology both cosmologically and environmentally. Herein, I discuss this idea in terms that resonate with contemporary perceptions and concerns. Most early Christian and medieval, sources I considered in my 2021 monograph subscribe to the view that—while being created in God’s image and thus theologically conditioned—humankind is connected with life, the earth, and the cosmos in its entirety. This connection bears profound implications. The world is divinely purposed as humankind’s cradle. All things are useful for us human beings. All of the universe’s components conspire in our favour [28]. A similar realisation occasions wonderment to the cosmologists who consider “the goldilocks enigma” and reality’s “fine tuning,” as much as it did to the early Christians who contemplated the world’s order.
Viewed from the other end, all this amounts to saying that human nature—as a microcosm which summarises, or enfolds, to use David Bohm’s word [29], within itself all of reality—imposes anthropic restrictions upon the universe. The cosmos and the earthly ecosphere are as they are because we live here. The world is not a hostile place, despite its violent rhythms and the catastrophic events it continuously experiences. As we are still here, it seems that the accidents that occur make our existence possible. Under God’s providence and within an ordered universe, all events tend to turn out well. In the grand schema of things, therefore, all beings are there for the good of other beings, and all secure human existence [30]. To grasp this situation, people must discover the melodious rationality which traverses all the levels of reality, including areas of turbulence and disharmony. After all, people are the thinking centre where cosmic order and meaningfulness register and are processed.
It is against this backdrop that the early Christians contemplated humankind’s ecological and cosmic responsibility. Attuned to God’s wisdom—the creator of both humanity and the universe—and aware of their place in the order of things, they realised that people must live accordingly. That is, they must adopt an ascetic lifestyle and a moderate use of the world. It is only through humility and ascesis that they change from exploiters into gentle stewards [31]. Ascesis, furthermore, transforms them from within. And as the positive energies of transformed persons reverberate far and wide [32], this lifestyle does not require a modus operandi similar to contemporary environmental action. Their immanence itself constitutes a kind of mystical agency, working towards cosmic wellbeing [33]. Of course, this mystical agency does not exclude a corresponding environmental activity; on the contrary, the two aspects complement each other. It is well known that Christian saints, as profoundly transformed people, are compassionate towards the natural world and all its inhabitants, human and otherwise, sentient, sapient, and far from either sapience or sentience [34]. What matters is that—regardless of the numbers of those who achieve holiness—humankind’s solidarity with the natural world and contribution to cosmic wellbeing are part and parcel of the early Christian creed. This stance remains an inspiration over the gulfs of history, especially in times as dire for the planetary ecosphere as our age is.
Another particularity of the early Christian worldview is the interdisciplinary approach. The sources I analyse in Humankind and the Cosmos and elsewhere demonstrate a complex thinking irreducible to the narrow frame of reference of, say, doctrinal theology. True, all these sources adhere to (roughly) the same doctrine of creation. But their view of the ordered universe as a theologically meaningful and welcoming place draws on multiple disciplinary perspectives that become available in history. As such, it amounts to a continuously redrafted worldview [35].
The works I analyse describe reality as the scientific culture of Late Antiquity did, and interpret it theologically, from the vantage point of a scripturally grounded faith. They introduce a universe of fundamental elements and natural energies, of movement, change, and complex order, also one that—being continuously permeated by divine energies—evolves within the parameters of God’s wisdom. But there is more to the interdisciplinary approach of these sources. For example, they consider reality through the lens of the Christian experience. Accordingly, the universe is an alternate liturgical assembly, echoing the rhythms of a prayerful congregation. Cosmic harmony undergirds believers’ doxologies. In turn, the singing choirs of the church correspond to the many voices of the elements [36]. The mutual love of believers mirrors the cosmic solidarity of all created beings [37]. From a pedagogical angle, the universe represents a genuine school where people learn about the creator, themselves, and the meaning of all there is. In the same vein, the world and its nonhuman inhabitants inspire ethical behaviour. Behind this pedagogical worldview operates a hermeneutical approach, an ongoing activity of reading and decoding the divine wisdom in nature. Through this interpretative lens, the scientifically described, measured, and analysed cosmos becomes an object of spiritual interpretation—indeed of contemplation. To grasp its message, together with training and skills, perceptive interpreters undertake personal purification and seek fellowship with God who speaks through the universe’s harmony [38].
As it straddles a range of perspectives, from the natural sciences to scriptural wisdom to contemplative insights, the early Christian worldview suggests a superior solution to the widespread opinion in our age, that scientific and theological perspectives are incompatible. It also reveals an important task of contemporary Christians, namely, to replicate the achievements of past generations by redrafting the doctrine of creation in the framework of today’s scientific culture [39]— one that resonates with Europe’s traditional Christian values of wisdom and compassion, draws on established facts, and responds to the multiple challenges of the Earth’s ecology.
The last aspect I wish to highlight is the early Christian sense of cosmic wonder. The sources I discussed, for many years now, display deep reverence for God’s wisdom embodied in the created universe. While the universe itself is not the focus of their reverence, these sources nevertheless depict it as theologically meaningful and worthy of respect and awe. Quantitative assessments, economical calculation, and anthropocentric considerations have no say here. Nor do simplistic theological definitions of the cosmic mystery that reduce it to having been created out of nothing. I keep repeating it: That the insights of these sources into natural phenomena have become outmoded is irrelevant. Their contemplative and qualitative approach does not depend upon the ancient sciences, or any other scientific culture, for that matter [40]. This is so because these sources do not only describe reality. They marvel at the harmony and beauty of things, the fitness and usefulness of the natural processes, the meaningfulness and the purposefulness of the universe.
The world they depict is harmonious and musical; a world full of signs and messages. Their world is a welcoming place where people find shelter and enjoyment, wisdom and enrichment. The aptitude of the early Christians for wonderment led them to an overwhelming experience of cosmic fellowship, of meaningfulness and purposefulness. Their experience is the very opposite of the sense of despair, isolation, and meaninglessness felt by contemporary people, especially in urban settings, who cannot free their hectic schedules in order to see the eloquent beauty of cosmic order. A return to nature contemplation and the early Christian sense of wonder might improve their situation—especially in the wake of the pandemic [41] and in the midst of clear and present dangers to the international order, which add further angst to the sense of pointlessness that so many people experience.
There is much generosity and inclusiveness in the underestimated early Christian worldview, as well as in its modern iteration, Orthodox Christianity. This worldview emerges at the nexus of various viewpoints, and is immune to the narrowness and the hysteria of today’s culture wars. It is my hope that this different picture of the early Christian and modern Orthodox worldview will inspire others—in their research and lifestyle—as much as it does me. And I hope that it will prove to be the nudge the European culture needs—to retrieve its “cosmic” roots and to adopt a sound environmental outlook and praxis.
Notes
[1] See Georges Duby, L’An Mil, Folio Histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1980), 11–13, 283–84.
[2] See Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, three vols, trans. Willard R. Trask (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), 2: 403–407; 3: 42–45, 154, 214, 243; Mircea Eliade, Zalmoxis The Vanishing God: Comparative Studies in the Religions and Folklore of Dacia and Eastern Europe, trans. Willard R. Trask (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1972), 251–255.
[3] See Doru Costache, “Transitions in Patristic Cosmology: From Cosmophobia to Universe-(Re)Making,” Religions 15:6 (2024): 728, fourteen pages, esp. 4–5, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15060728; Doru Costache, “Astral Iconography and the Byzantine Study of the Heavens,” De Medio Aevo 13:2 (2024): 321–351, esp. 327–328, https://dx.doi.org/10.5209/dmae.96568; Doru Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos: Early Christian Representations, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 170 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021), 12–14; 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 (London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2020), 81–91.
[4] See Costache, “Transitions in Patristic Cosmology,” 5–10; Doru Costache and Geraint F. Lewis, A New Copernican Turn: Contemporary Cosmology, the Self, and Orthodox Science-Engaged Theology, Routledge Focus on Religion (London and New York: Routledge, 2024), 35–66, 78–90; Costache, “Astral Iconography,” 329–344; Doru Costache, “Abraham, the Contemplation of Nature, and Divine Vision in Clement of Alexandria,” in Knowing God in Light: Theophany and Language, ed. Nichifor Tanase, Marius Portaru, and Daniel Lemeni, Forum Orthodoxe Theologie 23 (Vienna: LIT Verlag, 2024), 127–144; Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, chapters 2–7; Doru Costache, “Mapping Reality within the Experience of Holiness,” in The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor, ed. Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 378–396; Doru Costache, “Worldview and Melodic Imagery in the Alexandrian Tradition and Certain Patristic Antecedents,” in Alexandrian Legacy: A Critical Appraisal, ed. Doru Costache, Philip Kariatlis, and Mario Baghos (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), 282–321; Doru Costache, “Meaningful Cosmos: Logos and Nature in Clement the Alexandrian’s Exhortation to the Gentiles,” Phronema 28:2 (2013): 107–130; 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): 1–28; Doru Costache, “Christian Worldview: Understandings from St Basil the Great,” Phronema 25 (2010): 21–56; Richard de Grijs and Doru Costache, “The Cosmology of David Bohm: Scientific and Theological Significance,” Theology and Science 22:1 (2024): 204–220, esp. 210–216, https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2294529. See also the still useful monograph of D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, The Greek Patristic View of Nature (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press and Barns & Noble), 1968.
[5] See Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, 3: 221–225.
[6] See Cezar Marksteiner-Ungureanu, “Eco-Theology within the Romanian Context: A Social-Ethical Approach,” Mission Studies 41 (2024): 412–427, doi:10.1163/15733831-12341990. For traditional forms of environmentalism in Eastern Christianity, see Doru Costache, “John Moschus on Asceticism and the Environment,” Colloquium 48:1 (2016): 21–34.
[7] This essay represents an expanded version of two short pieces I published on the blog of the International Society for Science and Religion, in April and June, titled “The World of the Early Christians: A Complex Worldview” and “The World of the Early Christians: Lessons for Today.” The original posts are available at https://www.issr.org.uk/blog/april-2022-blog/ and https://www.issr.org.uk/blog/june-2022-blog-post/.
[8] See Costache and Lewis, A New Copernican Turn, 2–6, 8–9, 39–43; See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 223–234; Doru Costache, “A Theology of the World: Dumitru Stăniloae, the Traditional Worldview, and Contemporary Cosmology,” in Orthodox Christianity and Modern Science: Tensions, Ambiguities, Potential, ed. Vasilios N. Makrides and Gayle Woloschak, Science and Orthodox Christianity 1 (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2019), 205–222; Doru Costache, “The Orthodox Doctrine of Creation in the Age of Science,” Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies 2:1 (2019): 43–64, https://doi.org/10.1353/joc.2019.0003.
[9] See Costache and Lewis, A New Copernican Turn, 3, 9, 37; Doru Costache, “Patristic and Neopatristic Antecedents of Scientifically Engaged Theology,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 67:1–2 (2023): 115–145, esp. 128, 144; Grijs and Costache, “The Cosmology of David Bohm,” 210–212.
[10] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 365–370.
[11] For recent iterations of this topic, see Costache and Lewis, A New Copernican Turn, 48–54; Grijs and Costache, “The Cosmology of David Bohm,” 212–216.
[12] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 309–326.
[13] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 243–254.
[14] This matter was recently discussed in regard to the cosmological thinking of Maximus the Confessor, who admirably synthesised various strands of the early Christian worldview. See Andrew P. Jackson, Maximus the Confessor and Evolutionary Biology: The Phylogenetic Logoi, Routledge Science and Religion Series (London and New York: Routledge, 2024), 16–47, 49–56; Jordan Daniel Wood, The Whole Mystery of Christ: Creation as Incarnation in Maximus the Confessor (University of Notre Dame Press, 2022), 55–83.
[15] See Costache and Lewis, A New Copernican Turn, 54–56; Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 254–258.
[16] See Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A. Barnes, A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
[17] See John D. Barrow, The Constants of Nature: From Alpha to Omega—The Numbers that Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe (New York: Pantheon Books, 2002).
[18] See Grijs and Costache, “The Cosmology of David Bohm,” 213–215.
[19] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 153–156.
[20] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 61–108.
[21] See Costache and Lewis, A New Copernican Turn, 80–90; Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 115–135, 172–177.
[22] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 153–161, 178–185.
[23] See Costache and Lewis, A New Copernican Turn, 90–94.
[24] See Costache, “Transitions in Patristic Cosmology,” 6–8; Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 258–279.
[25] See Costache, “Abraham, the Contemplation of Nature, and Divine Vision,” 130–138.
[26] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 43–48, 329–364.
[27] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 370–373.
[28] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 56–58, 357–362; Doru Costache, “Affirming Creation’s Goodness in a Time of Pandemic: Patristic Insights,” Colloquium 54:2 (2022): 9–32, esp. 12–13, 22–25.
[29] See David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge, 1980), 186–190; Grijs and Costache, “The Cosmology of David Bohm,” 206, 208, 209.
[30] See Costache, “Affirming Creation’s Goodness,” 25–30.
[31] See Costache, “Affirming Creation’s Goodness,” 28; Costache, “John Moschus,” 28–31.
[32] See Doru Costache, “Burning Hearts: Emmaus as Realised Eschatology in the Philokalic Tradition,” in God’s Grace Inscribed on the Human Heart: Essays in Honour of James R. Harrison, ed. Peter G. Bolt and Sehyun Kim, Early Christian Studies 23 (Macquarie Park: SCD Press, 2022), 61–78, esp. 66–72.
[33] See Costache, “Transitions in Patristic Cosmology,” 9–10.
[34] See Costache and Lewis, A New Copernican Turn, 80–82, 87–90.
[35] For a recent discussion of this topic, see Costache and Lewis, A New Copernican Turn, 2–7, 38–43.
[36] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 69–76, 78–80, 82–91.
[37] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 65–68.
[38] See Costache, Humankind and the Cosmos, 65–68, 91–94, 98–106.
[39] See Costache and Lewis, A New Copernican Turn, 7–10; Costache, “Patristic and Neopatristic Antecedents,” 116–125; Costache, “A Theology of the World,” 208–217; Costache, “The Orthodox Doctrine of Creation,” 49–58.
[40] See Costache and Lewis, A New Copernican Turn, 5–7, 42–43.
[41] See Costache, “Affirming Creation’s Goodness,” 30–32.
Acknowledgment Paper originally published in Italian, as ‘La complessa visione del mondo del Cristianesimo delle origini.’ In: Marcello La Matina (ed.). Europa, ovvero un sogno fatto in Grecia. Eterotopie 1088. Milano: Mimesis Edizioni, 2025: 131-144.
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