Our Orthodox Christian theology views evil not as a primeval essence that is co-eternal and equal to God, but rather a falling away from good. Evil does not exist in and of itself, and was not created by God. Our Orthodox Church rejects the Gnostic teaching that the entirety of being is made up of two realms which have forever existed together: the kingdom of light, and the kingdom of darkness.
I accepted the invitation to speak with you today only with great trepidation. This was for at least three reasons. The first is that, both for self-protection in an increasingly unfree country and my growing sense that nothing I or anyone else can say will make much difference in averting the horrors I believe are coming our way, I had ceased my public writing and speaking life, such as it was. I reluctantly have made an exception to that less than momentous recusal but plan to resume it at the end of today.
This paper investigates the conditions of knowledge pertaining to science, distinguishing genuine science from pseudoscience as it relates to Covid-19. I discuss the relationship between science and socio-political structures, illustrating how science can be corrupted into scientism. I argue that the current dominating ideology of technocracy, a form of “modern gnosticism,” is incompatible with Christianity, since it sees the cosmos not as a divine order but a man-made system created by a will to power to dominate man and nature…
Archimandrite Aimilianos explains that technology is not inherently bad: “Technology per se is not, of course, harmful, being the fruit of the reasoning and intellect of Man, who was formed in the image of God. But when, unrestrained and unbridled, it rushes headlong towards its destination, then it becomes Luciferous, though not bearing light but rather pitch darkness. The danger for us is the absence of accountability in the way in which technology is administered and exploited, a way which has as its aim the stifling domination of human life and the solution of problems by technical means, regardless of moral and metaphysical principles.”
Science, as applied knowledge, requires certain goals to be…
