I just read this article. I'm not sure I agree with it entirely, but I found it very interesting nonetheless:
http://orthodox-theology.com/media/PDF/1.2017/Alexander.Khramov.pdf
My main objections/criticisms are the following:
1) Even though the author denies the similarities of the argument to gnosticism, I think it still reeks of gnosticism.
2) It doesn't answer the question of when exactly the fallen Adam and Eve entered fallen history, and how do they relate to the genealogies of the OT.
3) I don't think what he calls "theistic evolutionism" necessarily has to put the blame of evolution, the futility of creation and the suffering of animals on God. One of my favorite theories regarding this, based on the scholastic tradition of Thomas Aquinas regarding angels (who at the same time took it from some Church Fathers such as Pseudo-Dionysius and I believe John Scotus Eriugena), is that due to the great power they were given at the beginning over the physical creation, it's not entirely unreasonable to believe that evolution was a result of the fall of angels from Heaven, who from the very beginning tried to distort and corrupt God's creation (leading up to evolution). It still has some problems, such as how to interpret the entrance of sin into the world "through one man" and the cosmic effects of original sin. But I think it's the only theistic-evolutionist position that doesn't make God look like an evil or incompetent Demiurge.
Here are some of my own thoughts after one read through...
Regarding your 1) I would agree and felt that there was a problem here. Rather than gnosticism though it struck me as being a little too close for comfort to Origenist beliefs such as the pre-existence of souls and an eternal/complete return to an original state/beginning. I don't think Khramov is teaching these, but some of the things he says seem to me to be 'in the same neighborhood,' or somewhat inspired by the ideas. There is a long history of orthodox-izing Origenist passages, so I don't have a problem with that in principle; nonetheless at times I felt like he was going a bit too far. I'm gonna have to go back and review some things on Origen before I get more specific on this though. Perhaps Berdyaev as well.
I felt like there was a bit of a 'fallacy of the excluded middle' thing going on, partly caught up in his efforts to pit Eastern vs. Western, or alterism vs. perseverism. On the one side is the Orthodox position as he understands it, which is that redemption will be more or less a return to the original state; on the other side is the Western position as he understands it, which is that the fall wasn't really that huge ontological change, and so that which will be experienced in the afterlife will be quite different than Eden. There is a third position, which I happen to hold to (in part
mentioned here), which views the fall as being a significant ontological change, but with the afterlife being more than a simple return. My own view also happens to be based largely on many of the same writers that he references (St. Maximos, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory the Theologian, etc.)
He speaks of a "state of being" before the creation of the physical universe, but I believe this runs into a problem if he is positing a purely 'spiritual' state. As St. John and others have said, only God is truly incorporeal, because only God is uncreated. Not even angels are completely 'spiritual,' nor are human souls/spirits. Or at least I do feel like he is leaning towards over-spiritualizing things, especially given how important the ontological change he describes is: how the entire physical universe was created as a result of the fall, how human biology is something post-fall, etc. But perhaps he did not mean to imply that this, and I am reading too much into it.
He says: "an alteristic interpretation offers a more satisfactory answer to the problem of natural evil," and I would agree that what he is presenting takes some things in different and helpful directions. There remain problems though, including ones that he seems to think are resolved with what he is putting forward. This is also an area where he strays into Origenist-sounding territory, for example when he says:
"God cannot immediately return human beings to Paradise without violating their freedom. On the contrary, theistic evolutionists have to admit that God placed humans in the world full of death and suffering by default, without any decisions on this matter from them, although he could have made them perfect and immortal from the very beginning."
Is he here implying that each of us coming into a world of sin is justified because he somehow merited or earned or reaped it before the existence of the universe? That would go against orthodox doctrine as I understand it. One orthodox way of putting it is that we all sinned in Adam/Eve, that we weren't just descended from them but in some way also sinned
with them and were
in them. That's all very vague, but if something like that is what he means to say, I don't see how either his POV or that he attributes to Western theology escape the problem he mentioned above. It's also worth pointing out that God does in fact violate our freedoms, at least in the manner he is discussing. Even St. Gregory of Nyssa, who he references frequently, says so explicitly in some places (such an idea in his
On Infants Early Death was mentioned not too long ago).
Another thing I wonder about is the existence of humans pre-universe, and then their eventual return. Basically he is saying that humans fell, the universe was created as a context in which created beings could exist and live, but then billions of years passed before our solar system got started, then billions more before life on earth got started, then billions more before homo sapiens got their start, then tens of thousands more before we figured out how to even make fire and language, and so on. The part I have trouble with is not the time by itself, but the idea that humans were around way back when before the universe was created, and then they
weren't around for 14 billion years, and then they came back again, but in biological form this time. Maybe this isn't so very different than various things suggested by theistic evolutionary models, and taking time out of the equation makes it less bitter, but either way it's hard for me to wrap my head around.
Anyway, despite my questions and concerns, I found certain parts of the article to be quite interesting. I think some of it also underlines where there do, indeed, seem to be differences between eastern and western theologies. Eventually I'd like to take a closer look at his sources and reread it.