released 7/29/2026
In this December 1, 2018 lecture, Orthodox theologian John Behr draws from the book of Genesis and early Church Fathers Irenaeus, Ignatius, Maximus to answer the question, What is a human being? The answer Behr unfolds takes as its starting point Christ, the One both fully human and fully God, completing his mission on the cross. A complete human being, Behr says, is one who voluntarily lays down his life with Christ in baptism and for others in self-sacrifice. The new Adam is a model for the old, who was a type, or a “sketch,” of the One to come. In this way, Behr argues, Creation is eschatological, not “proctological.” It moves “from the sketch to the reality, from the breath to the Spirit, from Adam to Christ.” Behr then concludes with implications of this paradigm for what it means that we are created male and female.
This lecture is provided courtesy of the James M. Houston Centre for Humanity and the Common Good.
53 minutes
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