The mad love of God
Article summary proposed by the Contacts review with LLM assistance
This article by Paul Evdokimov, drawn from a lecture delivered at the Sorbonne in 1967, offers an Orthodox reading of the Epistle to the Romans (Rom 8:28-30), focusing in particular on the notions of foreknowledge and predestination. Through a theological and historiosophical approach, Evdokimov brings Eastern patristic tradition into dialogue with Western Augustinianism and its Reformed extensions. The central idea is that the Eastern tradition rejects any restrictive predestination in favor of a universal call to salvation, grounded in the "mad love" of God — the *manikon eros* of Nicholas Cabasilas — which respects and even conditions human freedom. The article makes a twofold contribution: it offers an ecclesiological and universalist rereading of Romans 9, dissociating the historical destiny of Israel from individual salvation, and it puts forward Eastern theology as an ecumenical resource for moving beyond the impasses of Western determinism.
This article has not been translated yet — it is available in its French version here.
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