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The West is accustomed to seeing itself as a carrier of freedom, progress and rationality. However, behind this narrative lies a deep identity crisis, which is not a product of the present era but has roots that go far back. In the Christianity of Late Antiquity, whose worldviews largely shaped Western civilization.

If we want to understand today’s confusion – from political polarization to the debate over gender identity – we must go back to the beginning and see how Western man was ontologically constituted. More specifically, the ancient Greek tradition saw man as a psychosomatic unity. From Homer to the Church Fathers, the soul without the body was not complete. In the Odyssey, the souls of the dead are shadows, a “remnant” of life. Man was supposed to seek truth and freedom, not cut off from his body but within its unity. In the West, however, with Augustine, another path began to emerge.

Under the influence of philosophers like Plotinus and spiritual currents like Gnosticism, man is defined as a hierarchical and antagonistic dipole. Soul/spirit versus body. The higher soul must dominate the lower body and its passions, freeing man from its burden and leading him to perfection. Thus, the body is treated as a field of weakness and submission, while salvation is linked to its transcendence or even contempt.

This scheme did not remain a theological detail but shaped the way the West understands itself to this day. The body presents resistances that must be overcome. The higher spirit must overcome the lower body through power. Power and will are therefore placed at the core of man's ontology, having already been placed in the ontology of God.

Specifically, Professor Father Nikolaos Loudovikos, is the one who first spoke of the “theology of power”, which characterized a large part of the Western Christian tradition. According to it, God is understood primarily as absolute will and power and man is called to imitate this sovereignty. This perception reinforced the cultural emphasis on the will, on the overcoming of limits, on the conquest of nature. In contrast, the Orthodox tradition presents God as a relationship of love, as a community of persons, and man as a sharer in this community.

Augustine meets Judith Butler

From the medieval domination of the spirit to the postmodern choice of gender. Returning to the body-spirit distinction, we should say that this did not remain only in the sphere of theology. In the Middle Ages it took on political and social dimensions. If man is called to dominate his body, that is, nature, then societies are also called to dominate nature, other peoples, the world itself. The willful spirit is transformed into a power of domination in the material world. The Augustine talks about the “city of God”, but in practice the West built a “city of the will to power”.

This background explains why Western modernity turned so strongly to science and technology, not simply as knowledge but as a tool of control. Since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, nature has been treated as an object to be conquered. Colonialism was not only an economic or political phenomenon but also an anthropological extension of the need to impose the spirit on the body. Thus, the superior “spirit” of the West had to be imposed on the inferior “body” of other cultures.

The logic of power undoubtedly brought impressive results: technological progress, economic development, political freedoms. At the same time, however, it also caused disasters, wars and colonial crimes. The result was a crisis of guilt. Thus, the West began to doubt itself and from self-admiration it ended up in an irrational self-loathing. This reversal also extended to the relationship between mind and body. Thus, today the relationship of domination tends to be reversed. The body, which for centuries was oppressed or marginalized, has explosively returned to the forefront: in the sexual revolution, in the emphasis on individual rights, in the culture of consumption.

And yet, the crisis was not resolved. Instead of restoring the balance of soul and body, the West moved from one extreme to the other: from contempt for the body to the absolutization of the body. From ascetic denial to the worship of desire. The 21st century finds the West divided between two voices: the old legacy of the will to power and the new obsession with the autonomy of the body.

The debate over gender identity is a prime example. Rights gurus like Judith Butler argue that gender is a social construct, the result of discourses and practices that can be changed. In essence, these notions are a new version of the same old pattern: the mind, the will, the desire is called upon to redefine and “rewrite” the body. Biology, the limits of nature, are seen as obstacles to be overcome.

Thus, the West does not distance itself from the legacy of St. Augustine but transfers it to a new field. The body continues to be seen as something to be transcended, no longer through ascetic denial but through technological and social redefinition. In the age of biotechnology and artificial intelligence, this logic finds new footing: the promise of “improving” man, of transcending natural limits, is nothing more than the continuation of a centuries-old process.

Body, soul and geopolitical dimension

The identity crisis also has geopolitical consequences. The West today appears divided in the face of the rise of other civilizations, such as China and other Eastern cultures. While it has technological and military superiority, it has difficulty articulating a convincing narrative about who it is and what path it proposes for humanity.

If the West was historically defined by the dominance of the will, today, this narrative seems increasingly empty. The world is searching for meaning, not just power. And here lies the greatest challenge: can the West rediscover an identity that combines body and spirit, freedom

The solution cannot be a return to an ideal past. But neither can the flight towards an unlimited autonomy without ties. What is needed is a new anthropological vision that recognizes the unity of man. To see the body not as an enemy or as an object of manipulation, but as an integral part of personal existence. To recognize that freedom is not absolute arbitrariness but a relationship: with the other, with the community, with the world.

The West at a crossroads

Some see in this vision elements that the Orthodox tradition, with its emphasis on the person as a relationship and on theosis as a unity of soul and body. Others seek inspiration in Asian traditions, which emphasize harmony and collectivity. In any case, the key is to overcome the old dichotomy that the West has carried for centuries.

In conclusion, we can say that the West is at a critical cultural turning point. From Augustine to Judith Butler, the basic pattern remains the same: the will is called to dominate, to overcome, to reconstruct the body. This pattern has brought progress but also crisis, power but also dead ends. Today, humanity needs a new narrative that reconciles body and spirit, freedom and limits, individual and community.

If the West does not find such a path, it will continue to oscillate between extreme denial and extreme apotheosis, never reaching true unity. And then perhaps other cultures will take on the task of offering the vision that it seems to have forgotten.

From Augustine to Judith Butler – The Inner Rift of the Western Spirit