21: Essence, Energies, and the Nature of Reality (Part 3)

The Podvig with Joel Dunn

We are terrestrial beings, being made from Earth. Therefore we have physical bodies, but we are enlivened with God-breathed souls. Therefore, mankind is made from a unique combination of earth and spirit. We have physical bodies, but we are not primarily earthen.

While there is no official Orthodox dogma on the subject, Sts. John of Damascus and Gregory the Theologian thought Angels were the first things created, because, according to St. John, “it was fitting that the mental essence should be the first created, and then that which can be perceived, and finally man himself, in whose being both parts are united.”

The “spiritual” body is not a pale shadow of the material world we now know; the opposite is true. The resurrection body is the fulfillment of what God intends for our present body. It is the material fulfilled, not dematerialized.

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