Evangelical belief in the doctrine of Theosis:

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There has been considerable discussion as well as considerable misunderstanding recently surrounding the doctrine of Theosis, what it means and what it doesn't mean, particularly with respect to paragraph 460 of the CCC which says:

460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":"For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."


Part of the misunderstanding, in addition to not understanding the meaning of the doctrine, is the mistaken idea that belief in it is limited to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Hopefully, the following will put all the myths to bed. First, a non-Catholic Evangelical perspective:


[size=+1]BECOMING LIKE GOD: AN EVANGELICAL DOCTRINE OF THEOSISJETS 40/2 (June 1997) 257-269Robert 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."[size=-2]{1} In his great work, On the Incarnation, he wrote similarly that Christ "was made man that we might be made God."[size=-2]{2}[/size] This is the doctrine of theosis, also known as deification, divinization, or, as some prefer, participation in God.[size=-2]{3}[/size]

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."[size=-2]{4}[/size] 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[size=-2]{5}[/size] and in his book on Eastern Orthodox Christianity.[size=-2]{6}[/size] 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.[size=-2]{7}[/size]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."[size=-2]{8}[/size]

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."[size=-2]{9}[/size] 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).[size=-2]{10}[/size]

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. . ."[size=-2]{11}[/size]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."[size=-2]{12}[/size]


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."[size=-2]{13}[/size]

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."[size=-2]{14}[/size] The object for Christ's continuance in the incarnation was "that man might become God."[size=-2]{15}[/size]

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.[size=-2]{16}[/size]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.[size=-2]{17}[/size]


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."[size=-2]{18}[/size]

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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.[size=-2]{19}[/size] 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'."[size=-2]{20}[/size]

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.[size=-2]{21}[/size]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.[size=-2]{22}[/size]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."[size=-2]{23}[/size]

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.[size=-2]{24}[/size]

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."[size=-2]{25}[/size]



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.[size=-2]{26}[/size]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.[size=-2]{27}[/size]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."[size=-2]{28}[/size]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.[size=-2]{29}[/size] 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."[size=-2]{30}[/size]



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,[size=-2]{31}[/size] 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.[size=-2]{32}[/size]

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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.[size=-2]{33}[/size]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."[size=-2]{34}[/size]

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.'"[size=-2]{35}[/size] "I know not how the nature of religion can be more fully expressed, than by calling it a divine life."[size=-2]{36}[/size]

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.[size=-2]{37}[/size]

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.[size=-2]{38}[/size]

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."[size=-2]{39}[/size] 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 . . . [size=-2]{40}[/size]

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."[size=-2]{41}[/size]



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."[size=-2]{42}[/size]



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.



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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.[size=-2]{43}[/size] 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.[size=-2]{44}[/size] 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.[size=-2]{45}[/size]

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.[size=-2]{46}[/size] 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,[size=-2]{47}[/size] and a negative attitude, at least by some, toward sexual desire, sexual union, and even biological birth.[size=-2]{48}[/size]

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.[size=-2]{49}[/size]

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."[size=-2]{50}[/size]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.[size=-2]{51}[/size] 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.[size=-2]{52}[/size]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.[size=-2]{53}[/size]



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."[size=-2]{54}[/size] 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.[size=-2]{55}[/size]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.

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NOTES

[size=-1]* Robert Rakestraw is professor of theology at Bethel Theological Seminary, St. Paul, MN.[/size] [size=-1]1. Athanasius, Letter 60, to Adelphius, 4. See also sect. 3 and 8. NPNF, 2nd Series, IV, pp. 575-578.[/size]
[size=-1]2. Athanasius, On the Incarnation 54. NPNF, 2nd Series, IV, p. 65.[/size]
[size=-1]3. A. M. Allchin titles his book on theosis Participation in God: A Forgotten Strand in Anglican Tradition (Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow, 1988).[/size]
[size=-1]4. Daniel B. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity: A Western Perspective (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), p. 120.[/size]
[size=-1]5. Daniel B. Clendenin, "Partakers of Divinity: The Orthodox Doctrine of Theosis, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 37:3 (1994):365-379.[/size]
[size=-1]6. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity.[/size]
[size=-1]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.[/size]
[size=-1]8. Karl Barth, The Christian Life: Church Dogmatics IV, 4, Lecture Fragments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), p. 28.[/size]
[size=-1]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.[/size]
[size=-1]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.[/size]
[size=-1]11. Irenaeus, Against Heresies V, I, 1. ANF I p. 527.[/size]
[size=-1]12. Irenaeus, Against Heresies III, X, 2. ANF I, p. 424.[/size]
[size=-1]13. Epistle to Diognetus X. ANF I, p. 29.[/size]
[size=-1]14. St. Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity IX, 4-5. NPNF, 2nd Series, IX, p. 156.[/size]
[size=-1]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).[/size]
[size=-1]16. Williams, "Deification," p. 107.[/size]
[size=-1]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).[/size]
[size=-1]18. Williams, "Deification," p. 106.[/size]
[size=-1]19. See articles in G. W. H. Lampe, ed., A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961-68).[/size]
[size=-1]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.[/size]
[size=-1]21. Basil Krivocheine, St. Symeon the New Theologian (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1986), p. 389.[/size]
[size=-1]22. Philip Edgecumbe Hughes, The True Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), p. 281.[/size]
[size=-1]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).[/size]
[size=-1]24. Georgios I. Mantzaridis, The Deification of Man (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984), pp. 12-13.[/size]
[size=-1]25. Mantzaridis, The Deification of Man, p. 31.[/size]
[size=-1]26. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976), p. 196.[/size]
[size=-1]27. Krivocheine, St. Symeon, pp. 389-390.[/size]
[size=-1]28. John Meyendorff, The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1982), pp. 188-189.[/size]
[size=-1]29. Bray, "Deification," p. 189.[/size]
[size=-1]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.[/size]
[size=-1]31. See, e.g., Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 8-9.[/size]
[size=-1]32. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, pp. 135-137.[/size]
[size=-1]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).[/size]
[size=-1]34. Quoted in Scougal, The Life of God (Bethany edition), p. 13.[/size]
[size=-1]35. Scougal, The Life of God (Sprinkle edition), p. 40.[/size]
[size=-1]36. Scougal, The Life of God (Sprinkle edition), p. 34.[/size]
[size=-1]37. Quoted in A. M. Allchin, Participation, pp. 26-27.[/size]
[size=-1]38. Allchin, Participation, pp. 32-33.[/size]
[size=-1]39. Allchin, Participation, p. 33.[/size]
[size=-1]40. Allchin, Participation, pp. 38-39.[/size]
[size=-1]41. Allchin, Participation, pp. 44-45.[/size]
[size=-1]42. Allchin, Participation, p. 46.[/size]
[size=-1]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).[/size]
[size=-1]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.[/size]
[size=-1]45. This is the interpretation of Maximus. See Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, Vol. 2,[/size]
[size=-1]p. 10.[/size]
[size=-1]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.[/size]
[size=-1]47. Nellas, Deification in Christ, p. 120; Krivocheine, St. Symeon, pp. 387, 389.[/size]
[size=-1]48. Nellas, Deification in Christ, p. 73.[/size]
[size=-1]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).[/size]
[size=-1]50. Nellas, Deification in Christ, p. 39.[/size]
[size=-1]51. See Oden, Life in the Spirit, pp. 205-212.[/size]
[size=-1]52. Aden, "Justification and Sanctification," pp. 98-99.[/size]
[size=-1]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.[/size]
[size=-1]54. Leech, Experiencing God, p. 258.[/size]
[size=-1]55. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 39.[/size]

Full text of Evangelical perspective found here: http://www.bethel.edu/~rakrob/files/THEOSIS2.html

 

[Skripper]

A Catholic perspective:



GRACE AND THE DIVINIZATION OF HUMANITY



Note: Please read this page in its entirety to fully understand this ancient Christian doctrine. The author fears that skimming through it would cause one to miss important points and so perhaps misunderstand this essential belief.

You may download or print it out if you like, as with any other article on this website. You may also quote from it, but please, for the sake of Christian honesty, quote passages in context or at least explain the context fully. This doctrine can be easily misunderstood if not explained carefully. Updated 1/99



The most wonderful thing about grace is that it makes us "partakers in the divine nature" through Christ (II Pt 1:4). The little-known Scriptural teaching that we can actually share in the intimate life of the Godhead has many names, including deification, the divinization of humanity and theosis.

What Theosis is Not

Now, we must not confuse this ancient orthodox Christian belief with Pantheism which claims that human beings are essentially divine. Christianity does not teach that we are part of God; we are creatures through and through. Human nature and Divine Nature are infinitely different, not one and the same. So theosis is not an identification of creatures with God.

Since divinity and humanity are infinitely different, the latter cannot evolve into the former either. So theosis has nothing in common with the Mormon doctrine of Eternal Progression, that is, the belief that men can achieve "Godship". Human nature is not embryonic Divine Nature. Finite creatures cannot be transformed into Uncreated, Infinite Divinity.

Nor, for that matter, can God change into humanity or absorb part of creation into the Divine Essence. Even in the Hypostatic Union, which is the closest possible union

between God and a creature, Jesus' Sacred Humanity does not become God or visa versa. The Eternal Word remains fully God when He assumes human nature so that the two natures unite in one Divine Person "without confusion, without change, without division and without separation....The difference of the natures is not removed through the union but the property of each nature is preserved" (as the Definition of the Council of Chalcedon states).

A similar heresy to the Mormon one was once taught by a sect called the Worldwide Church of God (they have since repudiated it, but some breakaway groups may still hold it). They once believed that the Godhead is not a Trinity, but a "family" or "kingdom" headed by the Father, Who (allegedly) created human beings as a means of "reproducing himself" and extending the "God Family" to include others. When the faithful are resurrected (according to this heresy) they will be divine persons and God will incorporate them into the Godhead itself!

Yet created persons cannot become Divine Persons any more than created nature can become Divine Nature. God does not change (Malachi 3:6); there always has been and always will be only three Persons in God: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No divinized creature could ever become another Member of the Godhead!

So theosis does not entail our humanity becoming divine. It also does not come about by some kind of "annihilation" of our personality or will, as was taught by a seventeenth-century heterodox movement called Quietism. The Quietists believed that the "self" is opposed to God, is the source of all evil, and thus bars us from mystical union with God. So God must annihilate it and replace it with the Divine Will in order to save and divinize us.

But orthodox Christianity rejected the notion that the self is essentially evil - God created it so it must be good. Moreover, grace does not destroy nature, but elevates and perfects it. God intends to divinize-not destroy!-our wills along with the rest of our humanity!

To summarize, theosis is not the belief that we are God, nor that we change into God, nor that God replaces part of us. Like the Incarnation, divinization occurs "without confusion or change" of both human nature and the Divine Nature. If we keep this in mind while discussion theosis, we can avoid any misunderstanding of this truth.

What Theosis Is

Theosis is a union of grace which mysteriously "assimilates" a rational creature to the Creator. The divinized creature is conformed perfectly to the divine image and likeness, permeated with the Life and Love of God and possesses an immediate (though not comprehensive) vision of the Divine Nature and an intimate relationship with the Three Divine Persons. Yet despite the profound intimacy of this union, the creature always remains essentially distinct from God.



Many people have never heard of this ancient Christian teaching, even though Scripture mentions and alludes to it numerous times. Here are some examples:

(By Christ, God) hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world." (II Peter 1:4)


"For whom (God) forknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn amongst many brethren." (Romans 8:29)

"We all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory into glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." (II Corinthians 3:18)

"We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known." (I Corinthians 13:12) "It hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that, whe he shall appear, we shall be like to Him because we shall see him as he is." (I John 3:2)


​

Early Christians saw evidence of theosis in the passages where the LORD calls the judges of Israel "gods" (cf. Exodus 22:28; Psalm 82:1-7; Jn 10:34-36). If the judges of Israel, even the corrupt ones, could receive the title "gods", how much more those who partake of the divine nature by grace?




At the end of the first century, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons writes that, in God's plan for us "we are not made gods from the beginning; first we are mere humans, then we become gods"1. Three centuries later, Saint Augustine says that God "hath called men gods that are deified of His Grace, not born of His Substance" 2.

Some Church Fathers even state that theosis makes the elect "God", so to speak. (As we saw above, we cannot become God by nature,; yet in a certain sense the divinized do "become God" by grace since they participate in the Divine Nature). Saint Basil the Great taught that "the highest of all things desired (is) to become God" by the power of the Holy Spirit 3. According to Saint Gregory Nazianzen, the Risen Christ "still pleads even now as Man for my salvation, for He continues to wear the Body which He assumed, until He makes me God by the power of His Incarnation" 4.

Saint Athanasius of Alexandria mentions theosis often in his writings. He even uses it as an argument against Arianism (the heterodox belief that Jesus Christ is not God), by pointing out that Jesus could not divinize us were He not God; "Man could not be deified unless the Word who became flesh had been by nature from the Father and true and proper to him" 5. Theosis must have been a very important and widely believed doctrine among the early Christians for it to be used as a proof of the Deity of Christ!

Athanasius also provides us with perhaps the most concise description of theosis when he writes: "God became human that we might become God" 6.

In the seventh century, Saint Maximos the Confessor writes "let us become the image of the one whole God, bearing nothing earthly in ourselves, so that we may consort with God and become gods, receiving from God our existence as gods" 7. The twelfth century Church Doctor, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, asks "Why should we not become 'gods' for Him who for love of us became man?" 8.

The liturgies of both the Eastern and Western Churches mention theosis as well. On Holy Thursday Eastern Christians sing "In My kingdom, said Christ, I shall be God with you as gods" 9. A prayer before Holy Communion written by Symeon Metaphrastes states "The Body of God deifieth and nourisheth me, it deifieth the spirit and wondrously nourisheth the mind" 10.

In the Western liturgy, as the priest mingles the water and wine at the Offertory of every Mass, he prays "By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity" 11. The Preface for Ascension Thursday states that Christ ascended into heaven "to claim for us a share in his divine life" 12.



Finally, the Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions theosis numerous times:

"The Word became flesh to make us 'partakers of the divine nature'...'For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.' 'The only begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods'" (CCC 460).​

(See also paragraphs 1129, 1265, 1812 and 1988).




So theosis clearly has a firm basis in Scripture and Tradition, and is thus an important aspect of our faith.

Incarnation and Divinization



Note how many of the patristic texts cited above associate our divinization with the Incarnation of Christ. This is because the latter is both the cause and model of the former. As Jesus assumed our human nature while remaining fully God, so we similarly come to partake of His Divine Nature while remaining fully human. As St. Maximos explains it, "It is clear that He who became man without sin...will divinize human nature without changing it into the divine nature, and will raise it up for His own sake to the same degree as He lowered himself for man's sake" 13. Athanasius makes the same point in reverse:

The Word was made flesh in order to offer up this body for all, and that we, partaking of His Spirit, might be deified...But as we by receiving the Spirit, do not lose our own proper substance, so the Lord, when made man for us, and bearing a body, was no less God; for He was not lessened by the envelopment of the body, but rather deified it and rendered it immortal" 14.​

Please don't misunderstand; the divinized are not "incarnations" of God just like Jesus. "Incarnation" occurs when a Divine Person assumes a human nature. We are not divine persons, nor does Jesus personally assume the nature of an individual Christian. Theosis simply means that we participate as creatures in God's very nature and life. It parallels the Incarnation because, as the Divine Person of the Word assumed a created nature, so mere created persons may partake of the Divine Nature by theosis.


[Continued in next post]

 

[Skripper]

Created to be "Gods"

Some think that the belief that we can become gods is a lie first taught by the devil in the Garden of Eden: "Ye shall be as gods" he promised Adam and Eve (Gn 3:4). In actuality, theosis is the God-ordained purpose of human existence. God created Adam and Eve in His image so that they could participate in His life. Satan did not make theosis up; he simply convinced our first parents to seek it apart from God. "Created in a state of holiness," explains the Catechism, "man was destined to be fully 'divinized' by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to 'be like God,' but 'without God, before God, and not in accordance with God'" (CCC 398).

As we saw in the last chapter, the Fall damaged, but did not destroy, the divine image in humanity. In redeeming us, Jesus Christ both repairs the damage of the Fall and fills us with sanctifying grace, which elevates us to the state of union with God which our first parents enjoyed before they disobeyed.

The Process of Theosis

God has predestined all the elect to divinization. Theosis is not a special achievement for a "chosen elite", nor does it involve participation in arcane rituals or reception of secret gnosis. There is nothing occult about our divinization; it is simply salvation in full bloom, the natural culmination of our life in Christ.

Divinization begins at Baptism, when God-as-Uncreated Grace elevates the soul by means of sanctifying grace, making her a partaker in the divine nature. The devout soul will grow in grace and deepen her relationship with God through prayer, the Mass, fasting, alsmgiving, works of mercy, devout use of sacramentals, etc. If she practices contemplative prayer she may experience a foretaste of theosis in the "unitive state", the highest state of prayer and the closest one can come to full divinization in this life.

Yet even the unitive state cannot compare with the Beatific Vision, the immediate knowledge of God which the angels and saints enjoy in heaven, and which we may enjoy, God willing, if we persevere in Grace. Since creatures cannot naturally contemplate Divinity, God elevates our minds by means of the light of glory and then unites our elevated intellects directly to the Divine Nature, so that we may see God "face-to-face".

Our intimate union with God will enable us to participate to a limited degree in God's own Knowledge of creation. We will perceive in God the mysteries of the faith, the divine plan for our salvation, and the lives of our loved ones on earth. We, like the rest of the saints, will be able to hear any prayers they address to us and can pray for their needs. And since our divinized wills will be in perfect conformity with the Will of God, we will pray according to God's will for them (I John 5:14-15).

Since the divinized always act according to God's will, their actions are not merely their own, for God works in them "both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil 2:13). Thus their actions have a certain "divine" quality. Even as "the actions of Christ are both divine and human, theandric actions, so those of the just man are Godlike, performed at once by God and by man" 15.

(This does not mean that God overrides or replaces the creature's will, as the Quietists thought. It means that the will of a divinized person submits to and perfectly conforms to the Divine Will. It still exists and acts; the Divine Will neither annihilates nor renders it passive. Nor does the limited participation in God's Knowledge make the creature omniscient, for it is only a partial participation. A divinized soul only comprehends that which pertains to herself and to her place in the Divine Plan; the infinite Mystery of God's Nature remains incomprehensible to her finite mind.)

The deified soul is filled with God, permeated with Divine Light, Life, Power, Glory and Love. Yet no confusion or change occcurs between her created substance and the Uncreated Substance of God.Though in intimate contact they remain distinct, so that the creature may enjoy the Beauty of God without the violation of her nature or selfhood.

The Church Fathers compared theosis to the casting of metal in a furnace. As the metal will take on the color and heat of the fire while remaining metal, so the divinized soul radiates the Glory of God and resembles the Holy One as closely as a creature possibly can, yet she remains a creature, essentially distinct in both nature and person.

But theosis will not only affect the soul. At the resurrection the divinized soul will rejoin her former body which, now glorified and incorruptable, will be divinized with the soul and both will enjoy the bliss of Heaven forever.

No Divine Worship

Now theosis does not make us worthy to receive divine worship (latria), for we only participate in divinity, while remaining mere creatures by nature. As we noted above, there are only Three Persons in the Godhead: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They alone are God by very nature, and Mother Church tells us that They alone are worthy of divine worship. No one else - not Mary, nor the angels nor saints - can receive latria.

Though the angels and saints all partake of the divine nature that does not make them Divine Persons! Divinized creatures remain created persons; theosis does not add them to the Godhead as new Members. The Triune God alone deserves our supreme worship, for God is our First Beginning and Last End, who is infinite goodness and perfection. Since no creature, not even a divinized one, fits that description, no mere creature deserves divine worship.

Conclusion



When we reflect on the beauty and glory of these blessed creatures who are immersed and transfigured in God, we can understand why the Church Fathers called them "gods". C. S. Lewis uses the same word to describe such beings in his book Mere Christianity:

(God) said that we were "gods" and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him-for we can prevent Him if we choose-He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said 16.​

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​

WORKS CITED

1. St Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies IV:38:4. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 8 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 1:522).
2. St Augustine, Exposition of the Psalms L:2, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, first series, 14 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), : .
3. Quoted by Christoforos Stavropoulos, Partakers of Divine Nature (Minneapolis, MN: Light and Life, 1976), 32.
4. St Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 30:14. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, second series, 14 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 7:315.
5. St Athanasius, Second Discourse Against the Arians, par. 70, ibid 4:386.
6. On the Incarnation I:108.
7. St Maximos the Confessor, "Various Texts on Theology, the Divine Economy, and Virtue and Vice", The Philokalia, The Complete Text, 5 vols. trans. G. E. H. Palmer et. al, (Boston: Faber, 1981), 2:171.
8. The Kolbe Reader, ed. Anselm W. Romb (Libertyville, IL: Marytown, 1987), 81n.
9. Canon for Matins of Holy Thursday, ode 4, Troparion 3; see Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (New Edition) (New York: Pelican, 1993), 231.
10. A Prayer Book for Orthodox Christians, trans. from the Greek by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1987) 353.
11. Translation of the Order of Mass, (C) 1973 by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL).
12. Ibid.
13. Philokalia 2:181.
14. Ware 236.
15. Adolphe Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life: A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology, trans. Herman Branderis (Westminister, MD: Newman, 1947), 61.
16. Clive Staples Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1952 (New York: Macmillan, 1984), 174-5)

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FOR MORE INFORMATION ON:

Pantheism

See the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Pantheism.

The "Exaltation" Doctrine of Mormonism

For an Evangelical critique of this belief, check out "Can Man Progress to Godhood?". This article even acknowledges the doctrine of deification, a rare occurance in Evangelical circles.

Quietism

The Catholic Encyclopedia article on Quietism is pretty good, although I personally disagree with the association of "Hesychasm" (Eastern Christian mysticism) with Quietism.

For an Evangelical response to Quietism (which is making a minor comeback in American Evangelicalism under the guise of "the deeper Christian life"), check out the article "Christian" Mysticism from Darkness to Light. Though the article overlooks the biblical doctrine of Theosis, it still presents a fine critique of Quietist philosophy and practice.

Word-Faith Movement

Though not mentioned in my article, this heterodox offshoot of Pentecostalism preaches a variation on the "humans are gods" theme which also conflicts with the orthodox Christian concept of theosis. For a critique of their heterodox theology, see An Examination of the Word-Faith Movement.

RELATED LINKS

Divinization
Becoming God
If you knew the Gift of God (A page dedicated to Theosis)
The Spirit Enables Us to Share in Divine Nature; by Pope John Paul II.



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Full text found here: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/5743/grace3.html

 

[bigsierra]

THEOSIS IN CHRYSOSTOM AND WESLEY: AN EASTERN PARADIGM ON FAITH AND LOVE

THEOSIS AND SANCTIFICATION: JOHN WESLEY'S REFORMULATION OF A PATRISTIC DOCTRINE

JOHN WESLEY'S EXEGETICAL ORIENTATION: EAST OR WEST?

 

[geocajun]

Dave, do you know where I can find a really long article about Theosis?

 

[Polycarp1]

I tried to get discussion started on this here back in March, but there was very little interest in discussing it.

 

[Skripper]

Dave, do you know where I can find a really long article about Theosis?

Actually, the one's I posted aren't very long at all, both of which can be read in 10-20 minutes, by an average reader. Also, both articles are easy to grasp. If you want long, technical articles, click on the links Scott provided! :o

 

[Skripper]

I tried to get discussion started on this here back in March, but there was very little interest in discussing it.

Poly,

Quite honestly, I doubt there will be much interest here, either. In fact the only reason I even started this thread is because a particular poster over in the non-denominational forum was really, really mangling and garbling Catholic teaching surrounding paragraph 460 of the CCC, and I mean badly mutilating it, to the point of trying to equate Catholic/Orthodox teaching on this subject with the same sense that Mormons believe in humans becoming God (which is simply utter nonsense to equate the two). All the while at the same time seemingly failing to realize that this doctrine, properly understood, is a Christian doctrine and not limited to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy but, historically, taught and believed within Protestantism as well, although modern Protestants seem to be, for the most part, unaware of this. But that thread was removed. So I started this one in the hope of presenting the truth to those who were interested but who may have been misled by the other poster in the other thread who was, basically, just venting against what he perceives to be another "error" of the Catholic Church.

 

[artnalex]

Noce job, Dave.

 

[Maggie893]

Thank you for posting those pieces. It's always a wonder to me that the OSAS gang can be satisfied with that theory. I am currently preparing a talk for youth on the soul in eternity, the talk will benefit from these works. I find that many people seem to think of eternity as though they live this life then die, then, I guess they think their soul starts up again but clean and pure without attachments to the world. Odd really. If you truly believe in eternal life you have to see the base logic that the condition of your soul the moment before death is exactly that the moment after physical death. No magic wands. And since nothing impure can enter heaven.... purgatory is must for cleansing.

These articles present a great case for striving for perfection (yes I spent some years in the Methodist church!) in our daily life with such desire of God's presence in every moment that we are cleansed and unified in Him in our current state.

Beautiful stuff! Thank you!!

 

[Benedicta00]

I think what you posted should be moved to a sticky.

 

[marciadietrich]

Dave, do you know where I can find a really long article about Theosis?

lol Jason ... I was about to post that I'd have to come back every day this week and read a bit to get thru it all.

But to add something half substantive, in Mere Christianity Lewis does mention something of the idea of that God will make us gods if we let him ... around the line about our needing to be perfect isn't just 'idealistic gas.'

Marcia

 

[Skripper]

lol Jason ... I was about to post that I'd have to come back every day this week and read a bit to get thru it all.

But to add something half substantive, in Mere Christianity Lewis does mention something of the idea of that God will make us gods if we let him ... around the line about our needing to be perfect isn't just 'idealistic gas.'

Marcia

C'mon now, both you and Jason have written posts, to each other in some of your debates, that were almost as long as the individual posts that make up those articles. Like I said, 10-20 minutes worth of reading is all those articles require . . . okay . . . maybe 30 minutes, tops, for a slow reader. (Or possibly a few hours for a certain hick who shall remain unnamed. )

 

[Groovy]

Looks good skripper, I will read it when I get back from my tour
When I was discussing in the Sprit-filled/Charismatic forums, I found that there are a lot of people who despise the belief of us being "Gods", that belief is mainly (but not restricted) WoF, and Mormon. The rest of the Protestant world (with some exceptions) reject that teaching.
Although, the word God could be used in a number of ways of meaning. Which I can not elaborate now...

keep it up skripper,
?Groovy

 

[marciadietrich]

Just giving you a hard time Dave. I have been trying to limit my time on the forums and the initial posting was a wee bit longer than I expected.

God bless you.

Marcia