The creaturely Sophia is, in this sense, the kenosis of the Divine Sophia.
God's creation of the world is a kenotic act in divinity, first in the general sense that God, by placing alongside His absoluteness the relative being of creation, kenotically places Himself into a correlation with the latter by the voluntary sacrifice of love for it. Insofar as He is the Creator and Provider, He becomes correlative to the world, receives this correlativeness into the depths of His self-determination.
This is a hypostatic kenosis.
The central problem of sophiology is the question of the relationship between God and the world, or — which is essentially the same — God and man. In other words, the
[central problem]
of sophiology is
the question of the power and significance of God-manhood
and, moreover, not only the God-man as the incarnated Logos, but precisely God-manhood as
the unity of God with the entire created world
— in man and through man.
Is there a ladder between heaven and earth by which angels ascend and descend?
Or is it only a springboard from which one who wants to
"be saved"
must push off — in order to escape from the world. Is the Ascension of the Lord the last and, so to speak, a generalizing act of our salvation, or will it be followed by a new coming of Christ — Parousia, which will be not only a judgment, but also the beginning of a new eternal presence of Christ on earth?
… The created world is connected with the divine world. In divine Wisdom the sky bowed (descended)
to the earth.
The world exists not only in itself, but also in God, and God dwells not only in Heaven, but also on earth — in the world and in man.
God always provides for creation, has a positive relation to the latter, lives a joint life with it, however imprecise the expression
"the joint life of the Creator and creation"
may be. The foundation of this joint life consists in the very creation of the world, which, in creation, receives the full power of being, reality for God. The reality of the world is the reality of the creaturely Sophia,
ens realissimum.
That is, this reality comes from God himself,
who cannot diminish it without diminishing His own reality.
… God is always the Creator;
that is, He creates creation and therefore has it for Himself. Therefore, He always maintains a relationship to creation: for creation, He is not only the Creator but also the Provider.
