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BECOMING LIKE GOD: AN EVANGELICAL DOCTRINE
OF THEOSIS
JETS 40/2 (June 1997) 257-269
Robert V. Rakestraw
In one of his letters, Athanasius, the fourth-century defender of the faith,
made his famous statement that the Son of God became man "that he might
deify us in himself."{1} In his
great work, On the Incarnation, he wrote similarly that Christ "was
made man that we might be made God."{2}
This is the doctrine of theosis, also known as deification, divinization,
or, as some prefer, participation in God.{3}
While the concept of theosis has roots in the ante-Nicene period, it
is not an antiquated historical curiosity. The idea of divinization, of
redeemed human nature somehow participating in the very life of God, is
found to a surprising extent throughout Christian history, although it
is practically unknown to the majority of Christians (and even many theologians)
in the West. In Orthodox theology, however, it is the controlling doctrine.
Furthermore, "it is not too much to say that the divinization of humanity
is the central theme, chief aim, basic purpose, or primary religious ideal
of Orthodoxy."{4} With the growing
interest in Eastern Orthodox/Evangelical rapprochement, it is essential
that theosis studies be pursued. Evangelicals may receive considerable
benefit from a clear understanding and judicious appropriation of the doctrine.
This is so particularly in light of the crying need for a robust, biblical
theology of the Christian life that will refute and replace the plethora
of false spiritualities plaguing Church and society.
Daniel Clendenin has introduced our topic in a very helpful article
in this journal{5} and in his book
on Eastern Orthodox Christianity.{6}
In my supplement to his work, I will draw upon different materials--both
primary and secondary. After presenting some of the key ideas and proponents
of divinization theology, I will offer an introductory critique of the
concept.
BIBLICAL THEMES
Two Scriptures, more than any others, provide the basis for theosis theology:
Genesis 1:26 and 2 Peter 1:4. The Genesis text speaks of men and women
as created in the image and likeness of God. The Greek Fathers taught that,
in the fall, humanity lost the likeness but retained the image. In their
view, according to G. L. Bray,
the Christian life is best conceived as the restoration of the lost
likeness to those who have been redeemed in Christ. This is a work of the
Holy Spirit, who communicates to us the energies of God himself, so that
we may become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). The energies
of God radiate from his essence and share its nature; but it must be understood
that the deified person retains his personal identity and is not absorbed
into the essence of God, which remains for ever [sic] hidden from his eyes.{7}
Whether the focus is placed on the image or the likeness of God being restored,
or whether one sees these terms as synonymous, the concept of the Christian's
reintegration into the life of God remains central in all understandings
of theosis.
Peter writes in his second epistle that our Lord's "divine power has
given us everything we need for life and godliness," so that through his
promises we "may participate in [literally, "become sharers (koinonoi)
of"] the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by
evil desires" (2 Pet. 1:4). This text is quoted extensively by divinization
writers, who do not believe, as Karl Barth does, that Peter is speaking
of nothing more than "the practical fellowship of Christians with God and
on this basis the conformity of their acts with the divine nature."{8}
There are numerous other biblical texts that provide, in the view of
theosis theologians, scriptural grounding for the doctrine. The high priestly
prayer of Jesus in John 17, that all may be one as the Father and Son are
one (vss 11, 21-23), is frequently utilized, as is the Pauline theme of
the Christian life being a life "in Christ."{9}
Many texts in Ephesians and Colossians are drawn upon, especially those
speaking of Christ as the image of God (Col. 1:15-18) and Christians as
those who put on the image of the heavenly man, being renewed in the likeness
of God (I Cor. 15:49; Eph. 3:16-19; 4:13-15).{10}
PATRISTIC DEVELOPMENT
As with most areas of theology, the doctrine of theosis began to develop
indirectly at first, and then became more explicit. Irenaeus, the first
systematic theologian of the Christian church, writing in the latter years
of the second century, closely connects Christ's incarnation with human
redemption, the Holy Spirit, immortality and communion with God. He writes
that
the Lord . . . has redeemed us through His own blood, giving His soul
for our souls, and His flesh for our flesh, and has also poured out the
Spirit of the Father for the union and communion of God and man, imparting
indeed God to men by means of the Spirit, and, on the other hand, attaching
man to God by His own incarnation, and bestowing upon us at His coming
immortality durably and truly, by means of communion with God. . ."{11}
According to Irenaeus, the Son of God determined "that He would become
the Son of man for this purpose, that man also might become the Son of
God."{12}
The author of the Epistle to Diognetus writes in the second or third
century: "Do not wonder that a man may become an imitator of God. He can,
if he is willing." By loving God and neighbor, especially by distributing
to the needy, he "becomes a god to those who receive [his benefits]: he
is an imitator of God."{13}
Hilary of Poitiers (c. 315-367), the most respected Latin theologian
of the mid-fourth century, and called the "Athanasius of the West," writes
more explicitly. In the incarnation, "the assumption of our nature was
no advancement for God, but His willingness to lower Himself is our promotion,
for He did not resign His divinity but conferred divinity on man." Christ
sought "to raise humanity to divinity. While on earth, Jesus taught his
disciples "to believe Him the Son of God, and exhorted [them] to preach
him the Son of Man; man saying and doing all that belongs to God; God saying
and doing all that belongs to man."{14}
The object for Christ's continuance in the incarnation was "that man might
become God."{15}
Deification played a major role in the Christological debates of the
fourth and fifth centuries, since, it was argued, Christ must be God if
what he imparts to us is divine life. Rowan Williams observes that
this made it necessary for the Eastern Christian world from the Council
of Nicaea onwards to distinguish carefully between Christ's `natural' sonship
and our incorporation into it by will and grace. Maximus the Confessor,
in the seventh century, claimed that we may be by grace all that God is
by nature; but this occurs only through God's free self-emptying in the
incarnation, enabling and prompting our self-emptying in reply. So in Christ
and in Christ's people there is a movement of mutual interpenetration (perichoresis)
between divinity and humanity; not that the natures are confused or mingled--the
acts (energeia) of both interrelate, and human nature is transfigured
by being permeated with the loving, self-giving action of God.{16}
Williams observes that for Maximus, as for early writers like Gregory of
Nyssa in the fourth century, deification meant taking on God's modes of
activity, such as compassion and self-surrender, rather than simply sharing
a set of abstract and static attributes, such as incorruptibility. Shared
attributes are only significant as a dimension of shared activities, or
else deification means fusion directly with the transcendent divine nature.{17}
It is helpful to realize that there are two strands to the classical
patristic view of deification, one emphasizing the communication of divine
attributes to Christians, the other concentrating on the Christian's participation
in intra-divine relationship. Williams notes that "these are not seen as
contradictory by the Fathers, though we can learn a good deal about the
general cast of a writer's thought by observing which strand predominates."{18}
DEFINING THEOSIS
It is not easy to give a definition of theosis, since so many aspects
of Christian truth are utilized by those who advance the teaching, and
different writers and traditions emphasize different truths. The word "theosis"
is the transliteration of the Greek word meaning "deification"--being made
God. Our English word "apotheosis" has much the same meaning.{19}
In his definition, contemporary Anglican priest Kenneth Leech builds upon
the words of Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662), considered to be perhaps
the most creative of Byzantine theologians and the most helpful formulator
of the doctrine of theosis. Leech writes that according to Maximus, "deification
is the work of divine grace by which human nature is so transformed that
it `shines forth with a supernatural light and is transported above its
own limits by a superabundance of glory'."{20}
Archbishop Basil Krivocheine, expressing the thought of St. Symeon the
New Theologian, writes:
Divinization is the state of man's total transformation, effected
by the Holy Spirit, when man observes the commandments of God, acquires
the evangelical virtues and shares in the sufferings of Christ. The Holy
Spirit then gives man a divine intelligence and incorruptibility. Man does
not receive a new soul, but the Holy Spirit unites essentially with the
whole man, body and soul. He makes of him a son of God, a god by adoption,
though man does not cease being a man, a simple creature, even when he
clearly sees the Father. He may be called man and god at the same time.{21}
A more Westernized definition comes from Philip Edgecumbe Hughes, the deceased
evangelical Anglican clergyman, biblical scholar and theologian in the
Reformed tradition. Like a fair number of older Anglicans, he understood
and saw considerable value in the doctrine of theosis. Commenting on the
words of Athanasius that we quoted at the start of this paper, Hughes notes
that while Athanasius did not clarify in every reference what he intended
by his concept of deification, he made it quite clear from his writings
as a whole that he did not have in mind a transformation of the human into
the divine, an ontological or essential change of humanity into deity.
Hughes goes on to explain, correctly I believe, what Athanasius did
mean, and in so doing gives us a useful definition of theosis as
the reintegration of the divine image of man's creation through the
sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit conforming the redeemed into the likeness
of Christ, and also of the believer's transition from mortality to immortality
so that he is enabled to participate in the eternal bliss and glory of
the kingdom of God.{22}
Above all, theosis is the restoration and reintegration of the "image"
or, as some prefer, "likeness" of God, seriously distorted by the fall,
in the children of God. In this life Christians grow more and more into
the very likeness and character of God, as God was revealed in the man
Jesus Christ.
This is more than the customary Protestant concept of sanctification,
however. In theosis, while there is no ontological change of humanity into
deity, there is a very real impartation of the divine life to the whole
human being--body and soul. Lutheran Ross Aden observes that Orthodox theologians,
such as John Breck, use the expression "communion with God" to mean "ontological
participation." In contrast to Lutheranism, "the Orthodox hope of salvation
in its broadest sense is more than hope of a divine sentence of 'not guilty'
or even of a beatific vision; it is `human participation in the being of
God . . . a total sharing in the Triune life.' . . . Created in the image
of God, human beings are called to become like God by realizing
the potential for ontological sharing in the life of God," yet never in
such a way that theosis means sharing in God's essence (nature). "Lutherans
and Orthodox would agree that the essence of God is utterly transcendent
and therefore inaccessible to any created reality."{23}
G. I. Mantzaridis of the University of Thessaloniki writes in a recent
work that deification is God's greatest gift to man and the ultimate goal
of human existence.
It is that which from the beginning has constituted the innermost
longing of man's existence. Adam, in attempting to appropriate it by transgressing
God's command, failed, and in place of deification, met with corruption
and death. The love of God, however, through His Son's incarnation, restored
to man the possibility of deification:
Adam of old was deceived:
wanting to be God he failed to be God.
God becomes man,
so that He may make Adam god.{24}
The Greek Fathers and St. Gregory Palamas incorporate a strongly "physical"
view of theosis, which derives the deification of human nature from its
hypostatic union with the incarnate Logos of God. This view "does not imply
any mechanical commutation of humanity, but an ontological regeneration
of human nature in the hypostasis of the incarnate Logos of God, accessible
to every man who participates personally and freely in the life of Christ."{25}
Concerning the time factor in divinization, Vladimir Lossky writes:
The deification or theosis of the creature will be realized
in its fullness only in the age to come, after the resurrection of the
dead. This deifying union has, nevertheless, to be fulfilled ever more
and more even in this present life, through the transformation of our corruptible
and depraved nature and by its adaptation to eternal life.{26}
With regard to those who receive this gracious gift, Krivocheine gives
the thought of Symeon:
While remaining a spiritually conscious state and clearly felt by
the one who receives it, divinization will always remain an awesome mystery,
surpassing all human understanding and unobserved by most people. Indeed,
the ones who are granted it are rare, although all the baptized are called
to it. It is their fault if they deprive themselves of it.{27}
John Meyendorff speaks of the never ending nature of deification.
Man is not fully man unless he is in communion with God. . . . However,
because God remains absolutely transcendent in his essence, man's communion
with Him has no limit. It never reaches an End, which would be a dead end.
God is both transcendent and inexhaustible. . . . In Christ [according
to Palamas], man enters into communion not with "the God of the philosophers
and the savants" but with the one who in human language can only be called
"more than God."{28}
While the doctrine of divinization or theosis is associated primarily with
the Orthodox churches of the East, it has similarities with the teaching
about sanctification in the West. As noted above, however, the two are
not identical. In the Western churches, as Bray notes, the concept of the
imitation of Christ is the closest analogy to the theosis doctrine of the
East. In Orthodox theology, while we are called to imitate Christ, we are
also called to manifest the energies of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit who
proceeds from the Father rests on the Son and becomes his energies. The
Spirit then, by adopting us as sons of God, makes accessible to us the
spiritual power which belongs to Christ.{29}
Eastern writers stress, however, the distinction between God's essence
and his energies. According to theosis proponent Timothy Ware (Bishop Kallistos
of Diokleia), "union with God means union with the divine energies, not
the divine essence: the Orthodox Church, while speaking of deification
and union, rejects all forms of pantheism."{30}
Orthodox churches also work more with the incarnation than with the
crucifixion of Christ as the basis for man's divinization. This is not
to say that Christ's atonement is minimized in the work of redemption,{31}
but that the intention of the Father in creating humanity in the first
place, and of joining humanity to divinity in the incarnation, is so that
human beings might assume Godlikeness, and be imagers of God in his divine
life, character, and actions.
Regarding the manner in which one attains theosis in this life, Clendenin
is quite helpful. He notes that the Philokalia (literally, "love
of the beautiful") is considered by many to be the chief instrument or
means of deification. This multi-volume work, containing writings of Orthodox
Christians from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries, teaches that theosis
is bestowed by grace through faith, not by works. Yet there is a definite
synergism in the path to theosis. While the grace of God is mightily at
work, the Christian’s nepsis is essential. Nepsis is the
Greek word for vigilance, watchfulness, intensity, zeal, and spiritual
wariness. Some ways it is expressed include asceticism (fastings, vigils,
prostrations, tears, repentance), contemplation, continual utterance of
the name of Jesus in prayer, participation in the sacraments, keeping the
commandments of God, and, above all, loving one another.{32}
BRITISH TEACHING
The Protestant Churches in Great Britain have sustained a strand of
theosis teaching that incorporates both Eastern and Western emphases. In
the eighteenth century, Henry Scougal, professor of divinity at the University
of Aberdeen, wrote what has become a classic: The Life of God in the
Soul of Man.{33}The evangelist
George Whitefield spoke of this book as having changed his life: "Though
I had fasted, watched, and prayed, and received the sacrament so long,
yet I never knew what true religion was till God sent me that excellent
treatise by the hand of my never-to-be-forgotten friend."{34}
That friend was Charles Wesley. Scougal explains why he chose the name
he did for his book. He speaks of true religion as "a resemblance of the
divine perfections, the image of the Almighty shining in the soul of man:
. . . a real participation of his nature, it is a beam of the eternal light,
a drop of that infinite ocean of goodness; and they who are endued with
it, may be said to have `God dwelling in their souls,' and `Christ formed
within them.'"{35} "I know not
how the nature of religion can be more fully expressed, than by calling
it a divine life."{36}
Charles Wesley understood the Christian life similarly. Brought up by
Samuel and Susannah in the Church of England, and surrounded by the works
of the Puritans and other theological writers in his home, Wesley longed
continually for the life of God in his soul. In his music he expresses
the theosis doctrine. For example, in one hymn he writes:
He deigns in flesh to appear,
Widest extremes to join;
To bring our vileness near,
And make us all divine:
And we the life of God shall know,
For God is manifest below.{37}
In the expression, "to make us all divine" the word "all" may refer to
either all people or the extent of the divinization. Wesley would agree
with both. Whatever his primary understanding, his thought is clear: in
the incarnation God adds to himself human flesh, so that human flesh may
actually become transformed as it is changed by the very life of God indwelling
it.
At the end of one of his eucharistic hymns, Charles Wesley prays:
Thy Kingdom come to every heart
And all thou hast, and all thou art.
Wesley desires not only God's gifts, but also his life and perfections--all
that can be conjoined to human beings. In another hymn he is even more
explicit:
Heavenly Adam, Life divine,
Change my nature into thine;
Move and spread throughout my soul,
Actuate and fill the whole;
Be it I no longer now
Living in the flesh, but thou.{38}
As A. M. Allchin, an advocate of divinization theology, notes, "the
whole text celebrates the nowness of eternity. Already, here and now, the
Son has set me free. I can triumph through the grace and gift of God. Already
I am free to ask with boldness for the whole fulness of the divine life."{39}
Thus, while these hymns do indeed focus on our eternal life in glory, they
also contain a strong element of the life of God in our souls now. Even
the more popular "Love Divine all Loves Excelling" presents theosis teaching.
In eighteenth-century Welsh Methodism, which theologically was predominantly
Calvinist rather than Arminian, the hymn writers William Williams and Ann
Griffiths are noteworthy for the inclusion of theosis into their music.
Williams (1719-1791), an Anglican deacon and popular preacher, referred
to as the "Watts of Wales," writes: "It is everlasting love [that] has
made God and myself to be one." He prays:
Plant in my soul every one
Of those principles which are like spices
In your nature . . . {40}
According to Williams, the Christian's reintegration into God is accomplished
through the union of God with humanity in the incarnation. Allchin remarks
about Williams' message:
In Christ we see the true destiny of every human being. The bond which
links man to eternity is immeasurably more powerful than all the bonds
which bind him to earth, for he was made for God and can only find himself
in God. . . . In terms of classical Christian theology our union with God
is made possible because both the Son and the Spirit are of one substance
(homo - ousios) with the Father. We are united with the Father in the Son
who at once is both man and God through the power of the Spirit who is
also truly God, and who makes us participant in God."
In Williams, as in other theosis teachers, "the doctrines of Trinity, incarnation
and deification belong together in an indissoluble knot."{41}
Ann Griffiths (1776-1805), who died at the age of 29, is another Welsh
Methodist hymnwriter who gloried in her union with God. In one of her hymns,
which, it is said, she composed while riding home over the hills from a
Sunday communion service, she writes:
O blessed hour of eternal rest
From my labour, in my lot,
In the midst of a sea of wonders
with never a sight of an end or a shore;
Abundant freedom of entrance, ever to continue,
Into the dwelling places of the Three in One.
Water to swim in, not to be passed through,
Man as God, and God as man.
The "blessed hour of eternal rest" refers, most likely, to the communion
time, where she enjoys soul-rest of an eternal quality because of her union
with God. She is not saying, as some commentators have thought, that she
is simply absorded into the sea of the divine being. Rather, she speaks
of the union of her nature with that of God, not so that human nature is
annihilated by merging with the divine, but that the two natures are united
without separation. The last line of the hymn, in Welsh, is actually stronger
than it appears in English. Instead of "man as God, and God as man," it
could read "man being God, and God being man."{42}
To the names of Henry Scougal, Charles Wesley, William Williams, and
Ann Griffiths, we may add, among others, the names Richard Hooker, Lancelot
Andrewes, and E. B. Pusey as representatives of the British tradition of
deification.
CRITIQUE OF THE DOCTRINE
Having presented some of the significant themes and advocates of theosis
teaching, I would like to make a few observations. First, some areas of
concern. Perhaps the most obvious deficiency is the terminology itself.
To speak of divinization, deification, and human beings "becoming God"
seems to violate the historic Christian understanding of the essential
qualitative distinction between God and the creation. "Becoming like
God" appears to express more biblically the concept of the Christian's
union and communion with God in sanctification.{43}
Why use terminology that, at first glance at least, will alienate those
unfamiliar with this line of thinking in Christian theology, and thus miss
what might be of benefit to them? Some may reply, however, that the shock
value of the terms may be just what is needed to awaken lethargic or defeated
Christians to the truth of their union with Christ.
Another area of concern has to do with the interpretation of Scripture.
Some writers, in their eagerness to present what to them has become a very
precious teaching, incorporate texts that have, at best, a remote bearing
on the topic, and possibly no connection at all. Frequent allusions to
Psalm 82:6, for example, where the psalmist states "I said, `You are gods',"
are unwarranted in light of the context.{44}
Similarly, to identify the good wine kept until last at the wedding of
Cana with the word of God by which we are made divine, is to distort the
meaning of the text.{45}
Then, too, the repeated emphasis upon humanity, rather than human beings,
being divinized seems to put the focus more on generic human nature rather
than individual men and women. Unless one is a universalist, "humanity"
will not be totally deified.{46}
In addition, there are no scripture texts that, to my knowledge, use the
language of humanity, as generic essence, participating in the life of
God.
Other weaknesses of deification thought, particularly in the Orthodox
versions, include a heavier than necessary emphasis upon the sacraments
as a principal means of theosis,{47}
and a negative attitude, at least by some, toward sexual desire, sexual
union, and even biological birth.{48}
The strengths of theosis theology outweigh these weaknesses, however.
The most significant benefit is that the concept as a whole, if not the
specific terminology, is biblical. Pauline teaching supports much that
is emphasized by theosis theologians. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul writes that
Christians, "who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are
being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes
from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:17-18). The Christian who experiences
this transformation develops a remarkable God-given assurance that she
is actually thinking the thoughts of God, doing the works of God, and,
at times, even speaking the words of God. These energies and ministries
of God in the Christian yielded to her Lord are the natural outcome of
the life of God in the soul.{49}
In his discourse on wisdom from the Spirit, Paul states that the spiritual
person has "the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:16). We learn to think the thoughts
of God. We also speak "words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual
truths in spiritual words" (1 Cor. 2:13; see also 1 Thess. 2:13; 1 Pet.
4:11). What we say in significant moments of teaching, preaching and encouraging
can have the quality and effect of God's words themselves. Concerning our
doing the works of God, Jesus said that his followers would do greater
works than he himself did, because he was going to the Father (Jn. 14:12).
Because the ascension of Christ brought the Spirit to earth in increasing
measure (Acts 1-2), the Christian may now participate in the acts of the
risen Christ by the energy of the indwelling Spirit. Panayiotis Nellas
writes:
The real anthropological meaning of deification is Christification.
It is no accident that in his Letter to the Colossians, where he hymns
Christ as "the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation"
(Col 1:15), St Paul calls on "every man" to become "mature in Christ" (Col
1:28), and adds that the faithful "have come to fullness of life in Him"
(Col. 2:10). When he urges the faithful to show that they are attaining
"to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ"
(Eph 4:13), and to acquire "the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:16), the heart
of Christ (cf. Eph 3:17) and so on, St Paul does not do so for reasons
of external piety and sentiment; he speaks ontologically. He is not advocating
an external imitation or a simple ethical improvement but a real Christification.
For, as St [sic] Maximos says, "God the divine Logos wishes to effect the
mystery of His incarnation always and in all things."{50}
The Pauline concept of our being "in Christ" may take on new meaning as
we realize more and more our genuine participation in the life and energies
of God. Indeed, as we read in John Wesley's favorite preaching text, "it
is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom
from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore,
. . . let him who boasts boast in the Lord" (1 Cor. 1:30-31).
Paul also writes that "you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ
in God," and speaks of Christ as "your life" (Col. 3:3-4; also Gal. 2:20).
He also exhorts us to "put on the new self, created to be like God in true
righteousness and holiness" (Eph. 4:24). "For in Christ all the fullness
of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in
Christ" (Col. 2:9-10). John's great section on our union with Christ as
vine and branches (John 15:1-17) has a direct bearing on the topic, as
does his teaching that the one born of God has "God's seed" living in him
(1 Jn. 3:9). Many other Scriptures relate to the subject.{51}
While much exegetical work on these and related texts needs to be done
by evangelicals in developing a high view of participation in God, there
is a solid scriptural foundation on which to build.
Another strength of theosis teaching is that it may offer hope to some
Christians who despair of finding the truly abundant life here on earth.
Many of us are weary of the expression "paradigm shift." Yet, while we
may not care for the term because of its familiarity, we dare not ignore
the significance of fundamentally new ways of perceiving reality. Perhaps
some Christians today will be helped considerably by a paradigm shift in
their view of holiness and ministry. Rather than seeing our progressive
sanctification as something done for us by God from outside, by God's acting
upon our minds and wills from some external habitation, or as something
we do from below as we pray to God above and seek to obey God here on earth,
we may take a kind of quantum leap forward by understanding sanctification
as the very life and energy of God in us. We are becoming increasingly
like God because we are participating more and more in his divine nature.
As Christians, our bodies are in very truth temples of the indwelling Spirit,
who radiates his presence and power through us to others. Lutheran Ross
Aden correctly notes that, to the Orthodox,
grace is not a divine pardon, attitude, or promise as it is for the
Lutherans, who tend to focus grace primarily on justification. It is the
divine dynamic (energy) that comes from God, unites us to Christ, and changes
us so that "Christ is formed in us" (Gal. 4:19). Thus deification is a
process of transformation and driven by deifying grace.{52}
Rather than viewing grace as either pardon or energy, however, it is more
biblically comprehensive to understand grace as both pardon (favor) and
energy (inner strengthening). Orthodox theologians rightly stress the actual
empowering nature of grace, but the New Testament emphasis on grace as
God's abundant forgiveness and unmerited favor through Christ must be kept
equally prominent.{53}
A final benefit pertains to the art and science of theology itself.
As Kenneth Leech writes, "so central is the theme of deification in Eastern
tradition that it is seen as the meaning of theolgy itself. For according
to Orthodox theologians there can be no theology apart from the process
of transformation. The work of theology involves a radical re-creation
of the human person."{54} In the
words of Vladimir Lossky, theology
is an existential attitude which involves the whole man: there is
no theology apart from experience; it is necessary to change, to become
a new man. To know God one must draw near to him. No one who does not follow
the path of union with God can be a theologian. The way of the knowledge
of God is necessarily the way of deification.{55}
While there are weaknesses in theosis theology, these strengths are considerable.
The doctrine of divinization merits the ongoing attention of Scripture
scholars, theologians and pastors who desire to provide significant resources
to Christians in their quest to become like God. For this is indeed why
we were created.
NOTES
* Robert Rakestraw is professor
of theology at Bethel Theological Seminary, St. Paul, MN.
1. Athanasius, Letter 60, to Adelphius,
4. See also sect. 3 and 8. NPNF, 2nd Series, IV, pp. 575-578.
2. Athanasius, On the Incarnation
54. NPNF, 2nd Series, IV, p. 65.
3. A. M. Allchin titles his book
on theosis Participation in God: A Forgotten Strand in Anglican Tradition
(Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow, 1988).
4. Daniel B. Clendenin, Eastern
Orthodox Christianity: A Western Perspective (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1994), p. 120.
5. Daniel B. Clendenin, "Partakers
of Divinity: The Orthodox Doctrine of Theosis, Journal of the Evangelical
Theological Society 37:3 (1994):365-379.
6. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox
Christianity.
7. G. L. Bray, "Deification,"
in Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, J. I. Packer, ed., New Dictionary
of Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1988), p. 189.
8. Karl Barth, The Christian
Life: Church Dogmatics IV, 4, Lecture Fragments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1981), p. 28.
9. Timothy Ware, The Orthodox
Church (Baltimore: Penguin, New ed., 1993), pp. 231. See also Rowan
Williams, "Deification," in Gordon S. Wakefield, ed., The Westminster
Dictionary of Christian Spirituality (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983),
p. 106.
10. Other theosis texts are Gal.
2:20 and I John 4:16. See Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ
(Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1987), pp. 23-25, 35-39,
127, 139. Books published by St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press are strongly
supportive of theosis theology.
11. Irenaeus, Against Heresies
V, I, 1. ANF I p. 527.
12. Irenaeus, Against Heresies
III, X, 2. ANF I, p. 424.
13. Epistle to Diognetus
X. ANF I, p. 29.
14. St. Hilary of Poitiers, On
the Trinity IX, 4-5. NPNF, 2nd Series, IX, p. 156.
15. St. Hilary of Poitiers, On
the Trinity IX, 38. NPNF, 2nd Series, IX, p. 167. See also X, 7 (pp.
183-184). A very helpful work on Hilary is by Philip T. Wild, The Divinization
of Man According to Saint Hilary of Portiers (Mundelein, IL: Saint
Mary of the Lake Seminary, 1950).
16. Williams, "Deification,"
p. 107.
17. Williams, "Deification,"
p. 107. Thomas C. Oden notes that the traditional distinction between incommunicable
and communicable attributes clarifies how the soul may partake of the divine
nature: there can be godlikeness by participation in the communicable attributes,
such as grace, mercy, and longsuffering, but there is no possibility of
finite creatures being made infinite, invisible, pure spirit, etc. (Life
in the Spirit [Harper San Francisco, 1992], pp. 208-209). Winfried
Corduan similarly explains how in Eckhart the believer is said to possess
the nature of God ("A Hair’s Breadth From Pantheism: Meister Eckhart’s
God-Centered Spirituality," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
37:2 [1994], pp. 263-274, esp. pp. 269-271).
18. Williams, "Deification,"
p. 106.
19. See articles in G. W. H.
Lampe, ed., A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961-68).
20. Kenneth Leech, Experiencing
God: Theology as Spirituality (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985),
p. 258. Theosis writers speak often of the concept of glory--the supernatural
light of God's essence that may be, in some way, manifested in the children
of God. See Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God (Bedfordshire: The
Faith Press, 1963), pp. 129-137; and Kallistos Ware, "The Hesychasts: Gregory
of Sinai, Gregory Palamas, Nicolas Cabasilas," in Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey
Wainwright, and Edward Yarnold, ed., The Study of Spirituality (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 251-53.
21. Basil Krivocheine, St.
Symeon the New Theologian (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press,
1986), p. 389.
22. Philip Edgecumbe Hughes,
The True Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), p. 281.
23. Ross Aden, "Justification
and Sanctification: A Conversation Between Lutheranism and Orthodoxy,"
St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 38:1 (1994):96-98. See also
John Meyendorff and Robert Tobias, ed., Salvation in Christ: A Lutheran-Orthodox
Dialogue (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1992). While theosis theologians do
not espouse a fusion of deity with humanity in deified believers, they
at times do speak of ontological change in them. Jaroslav Pelikan observes
that in the Cappadocians there does seem to be some sort of a fundamental
ontological change in the theosis experience (Christianity and Classical
Culture [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993], p. 318. Krivocheine
states that in the thought of St. Symeon, deification refers to "an ontological
rather than to a purely spiritual transformation, although Symeon does
not pretend that man abandons his created nature when he becomes a god
through adoption" (St. Symeon the New Theologian, p. 390). On the
distinction between God and man, Johannes Quasten writes that while for
Athanasius one of the major themes in his divinization theology is Christ's
granting of immortality to humankind, this is not accomplished by changing
humanity into deity, but by suffering death for us in his body and by conjoining
the divine nature with the human (Patrology, Vol. III: The Golden Age
of Greek Patristic Literature [Utrecht: Spectrum, 1975], pp. 71-72.
Andrew Louth notes how basic the ontological gulf between God and humankind
was to Athanasian theology ("The Cappadocians," in Jones, et al., ed.,
The Study of Spirituality, pp. 161-162).
24. Georgios I. Mantzaridis,
The Deification of Man (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press,
1984), pp. 12-13.
25. Mantzaridis, The Deification
of Man, p. 31.
26. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical
Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary
Press, 1976), p. 196.
27. Krivocheine, St. Symeon,
pp. 389-390.
28. John Meyendorff, The Byzantine
Legacy in the Orthodox Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary
Press, 1982), pp. 188-189.
29. Bray, "Deification," p. 189.
30. Ware, The Orthodox Church,
p. 232. For Gregory Palamas' thoughts on the essence and energies of God
see Lossky, The Vision of God, pp. 127-129, and Ware, "The Hesychasts,"
pp. 250-251.
31. See, e.g., Athanasius, On
the Incarnation, 8-9.
32. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox
Christianity, pp. 135-137.
33. Henry Scougal, The Life
of God in the Soul of Man (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications,
1986); or Scougal, ed. Winthrop S. Hudson (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship,
1976).
34. Quoted in Scougal, The
Life of God (Bethany edition), p. 13.
35. Scougal, The Life of God
(Sprinkle edition), p. 40.
36. Scougal, The Life of God
(Sprinkle edition), p. 34.
37. Quoted in A. M. Allchin,
Participation, pp. 26-27.
38. Allchin, Participation,
pp. 32-33.
39. Allchin, Participation,
p. 33.
40. Allchin, Participation,
pp. 38-39.
41. Allchin, Participation,
pp. 44-45.
42. Allchin, Participation,
p. 46.
43. E. C. Miller, Jr. observes
that Michael Ramsey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, while he does not
use the actual terms "deification" or "theosis," nevertheless expounds
the doctrine that "salvation consists in an actual participation in the
life of God wherein we become by grace what Christ is by nature." Because
Ramsey insists on adhering to biblical categories, he prefers the terms
"Godlikeness" and "Christlikeness" (Toward a Fuller Vision: Orthodoxy
and the Anglican Experience [Wilton: Morehouse Barlow, 1984], p. 122).
44. See Symeon Lash, "Deification,"
in Alan Richardson and John Bowden, ed., The Westminster Dictionary
of Christian Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), p. 147; and
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, Vol. 2, The Spirit
of Eastern Christendom (600-1700) (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1974), p. 10.
45. This is the interpretation
of Maximus. See Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, Vol. 2,
p. 10.
46. David Cairns notes that from
some statements of Irenaeus, "it might be thought that [he] conceived of
human nature as a kind of substance existing in its own right, apart from
the human beings who share in it, and that he believed that since Christ
had taken hold of it, it was automatically transformed. . . . [T]he danger
of this line of thought is, that if it is carried to its logical conclusion,
Irenaeus will have to say that as, owing to our organic connection with
Adam, we are all fallen; so by the fact of the incarnation we are all automatically
saved. But he never even comes near to saying this" (The Image of God
in Man [New York: Philosophical Library, 1953], p. 104). Cairns is
quite negative toward the doctrine of theosis, primarily because he understands
it (mistakenly) to mean fusion of the believer or the Church with Christ
(pp. 41-43, 102-109). He admits, however, that 2 Peter 1:4 does teach that
believers actually share in the nature of God, and that Galatians 2:20
comes close to saying this also. He dismisses Peter's statement, however,
as an "off the record" remark (p. 42). An Orthodox perspective on the divinization
of human nature is presented in Georgios I. Mantzaridis, The Deification
of Man: St. Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood,
NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984), pp. 25-33.
47. Nellas, Deification in
Christ, p. 120; Krivocheine, St. Symeon, pp. 387, 389.
48. Nellas, Deification in
Christ, p. 73.
49. Pelikan writes that, according
to Maximus: "Part of the process of salvation as deification was the gradual
assimilation of the mind of man to the mind of God. Through the grace of
prayer it was joined to God and it learned to associate only with God,
becoming ever more godlike and withdrawing itself more and more from the
dominance of this mortal life" (The Christian Tradition, Vol. 2,
p. 14).
50. Nellas, Deification in
Christ, p. 39.
51. See Oden, Life in the
Spirit, pp. 205-212.
52. Aden, "Justification and
Sanctification," pp. 98-99.
53. On grace as God's power and
energy in the believer see Acts 4:33; 6:8; 14:26-27; I Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor.
12:9-10.
54. Leech, Experiencing God,
p. 258.
55. Lossky, Mystical Theology,
p. 39.
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