Theosis (Eastern Christian theology)
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Theosis (
According to Metropolitan
Deification
Athanasius of Alexandria wrote, "He was incarnate that we might be made god" (Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν).[4] What would otherwise seem absurd—that fallen, sinful man may become holy as God is holy—has been made possible through Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate. Naturally, the crucial Christian assertion, that God is One, sets an absolute limit on the meaning of theosis: even as it is not possible for any created being to become God ontologically, or even a necessary part of God (of the three existences of God called hypostases), so a created being cannot become Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit nor the Father of the Trinity.[5]
Most specifically creatures, i.e. created beings, cannot become God in his transcendent essence, or
Maximus the Confessor wrote:
A sure warrant for looking forward with hope to deification of human nature is provided by the Incarnation of God, which makes man God to the same degree as God Himself became man. ...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. For it is clear that He Who became man without sin (cf. Heb. 4:15) 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. This is what St[.] Paul teaches mystically when he says, "that in the ages to come he might display the overflowing richness of His grace" (Eph. 2:7)[6]
Theoria
Through theoria (illumination with or direct experience of the Triune God), human beings come to know and experience what it means to be fully human, i.e., the created image of God; through their communion with Jesus Christ, God shares himself with the human race, in order to conform them to all that He is in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. As God became human, in all ways except sin, he will also make humans "God", i.e., "holy" or "saintly", in all ways except his Divine Essence, which is uncaused and uncreated.
As a patristic and historical teaching
For many Church Fathers, theosis goes beyond simply restoring people to their state before the fall of Adam and Eve, teaching that because Christ united the human and divine natures in Jesus' person, it is now possible for someone to experience closer fellowship with God than Adam and Eve initially experienced in the Garden of Eden, and that people can become more like God than Adam and Eve were at that time. Some Byzantine Christian theologians say that Jesus would have become incarnate for this reason alone, even if Adam and Eve had never sinned.[7]
All of humanity is fully restored to the full potential of humanity because the Son of God took to himself a human nature to be born of a woman, and takes to himself also the sufferings due to sin (yet is not himself sinful, and is God unchanged in being). In Christ the two natures of God and human are not two persons but one; thus a union is effected in Christ between all of humanity in principle and God. So the holy God and sinful humanity are reconciled in principle in the one sinless man, Jesus Christ. (See Jesus' prayer as recorded in John 17.)[8]
This reconciliation is made actual through the struggle to conform to the image of Christ. Without the struggle, the
"If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)
A common analogy for theosis, given by the Greek fathers, is that of a metal which is put into the fire. The metal obtains all the properties of the fire (heat, light), while its essence remains that of a metal.[9] Using the head-body analogy from Paul the Apostle, everyone in whom Christ lives partakes of the glory of Christ. As John Chrysostom observes, "where the head is, there is the body also. There is no interval to separate between the Head and the body; for were there a separation, then were it no longer a body, then were it no longer a head."[10]
Stages
Theosis is understood to have three stages: first, the
Ascetic practice
The journey toward theosis includes many forms of
The "doer" in
This synergeia or co-operation between God and Man does not lead to mankind being absorbed into the God as was taught in earlier pagan forms of deification like henosis. Rather it expresses unity, in the complementary nature between the created and the creator. Acquisition of the Holy Spirit is key as the acquisition of the Spirit leads to self-realization.[14]
Western attitudes
Western attitudes have traditionally been negative, not towards divinization itself (which is also part of the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church), but towards the ways in which divinization is supposed to happen according to Byzantine theology. In his article, Bloor highlights various Western theologians who have contributed to what he calls a "stigma" towards theosis.[15] Yet, recent theological discourse has seen a reversal of this, with Bloor drawing upon Western theologians from an array of traditions, whom, he claims, embrace theosis/deification.[15]
The practice of ascetic prayer, called
Hesychasm is directed to a goal that is not limited to natural life alone and goes beyond this to deification (theosis).[17]
In the past, Roman Catholic theologians generally expressed a negative view of Hesychasm. The doctrine of Gregory Palamas won almost no following in the West,[18] and the distrustful attitude of Barlaam in its regard prevailed among Western theologians, surviving into the early 20th century, as shown in Adrian Fortescue's article on hesychasm in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia.[19] Fortescue translated the Greek words ἥσυχος and ἡσυχαστής as "quiet" and "quietist".[20]
In the same period, Edward Pace's article on
Different concepts of "natural contemplation" existed in the East and in the medieval West.[a][23]
The twentieth century saw a remarkable change in the attitude of Roman Catholic theologians to Palamas, a "rehabilitation" of him that has led to increasing parts of the Western Church considering him a saint, even if uncanonized.[24] Some Western scholars maintain that there is no conflict between Palamas's teaching and Roman Catholic thought.[25] According to G. Philips, the essence–energies distinction is "a typical example of a perfectly admissible theological pluralism" that is compatible with the Roman Catholic magisterium.[25] Jeffrey D. Finch claims that "the future of East–West rapprochement appears to be overcoming the modern polemics of neo-scholasticism and neo-Palamism".[26] Some Western theologians have incorporated the theology of Palamas into their own thinking.[27]
Pope John Paul II said Catholics should be familiar with "the venerable and ancient tradition of the Eastern Churches", so as to be nourished by it. Among the treasures of that tradition he mentioned in particular:
the teaching of the Cappadocian Fathers on divinization (which) passed into the tradition of all the Byzantine Churches and is part of their common heritage. This can be summarized in the thought already expressed by Saint Irenaeus at the end of the second century: God passed into man so that man might pass over to God. This theology of divinization remains one of the achievements particularly dear to Byzantine Christian thought.[28]
Some Lutherans argue that theosis is compatible with Lutheran theology.[29]
See also
- Apotheosis
- Beatific vision
- Christian perfection
- Christian universalism
- Consecration
- Divine filiation
- Eastern Orthodox Christian theology
- Exaltation (Mormonism)
- Glorification
- Hermit
- Holiness movement
- John of the Cross
- Vladimir Lossky
- Mysticism
- Poustinia
- Sanctification
- Soteriology
Notes
- ^ John Meyendorff wrote:
The debate between Barlaam and the hesychasts can probably be best understood in the light of their different interpretations of what St. Maximus the Confessor used to call "natural contemplation" (physikē theōria) or the new state of creative being in Christ. Barlaam – and also medieval Latin tradition – tends to understand this created habitus as a condition for and not a consequence of grace. Palamas, on the contrary, proclaims the overwhelming novelty of the Kingdom of God revealed in Christ, and the gratuitous nature of the divine and saving acts of God. Hence, for him, vision of God cannot depend on human "knowledge".[23]
References
Footnotes
- ^ Bartos 1999, p. 253; Kapsanis 2006.
- ^ a b Vlachos 1994.
- ^ Lossky 2002, p. 39.
- ^ Athanasius 2011, sec. 54.3, p. 167.
- ^ a b Lossky 2002, pp. 29–33.
- ^ PHILOKALIA, Volume 2, page 178).
- ^ Lossky 2002, ch. 1.
- ^ Mathewes-Green 2009, p. 12.
- ^ Popov 2012, p. 48.
- ^ Chrysostom 2012, p. ???.
- ^ Lossky 2002, pp. 8–9, 39, 126, 133, 154, 196.
- ^ Kotsonis, John (2010). "Unceasing Prayer". OrthodoxyToday.org. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
- ^ Maloney 2003, p. 173.
- ^ Kapsanis n.d.
- ^ a b Bloor 2015.
- ^ Chrysostomos 2001, p. 206.
- ^ Fortescue 1910; Horujy 2005.
- ^ Fortescue 1910.
- ^ Andreopoulos 2005, p. 215; Fortescue 1910.
- ^ Fortescue 1910, p. 301.
- ^ Pace 1911.
- ^ Vailhé 1909, p. 768.
- ^ a b Meyendorff 1983, pp. 12–13.
- ^ Pelikan 1983, p. xi.
- ^ a b Finch 2007, p. 243.
- ^ Finch 2007, p. 244.
- ^ Ware 2000, p. 186.
- ^ "Pope John Paul II, Orientale Lumen". vatican.va. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
- ISBN 9781625646163.
Bibliography
- Andreopoulos, Andreas (2005). Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography. Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 978-0-88141-295-6.
- ISBN 978-0-88141-427-1.
- Bartos, Emil (1999). Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology: An Evaluation and Critique of the Theology of Dumitru Stăniloae. Paternoster Biblical and Theological Monographs. Paternoster Press. ISBN 978-0-85364-956-4.
- Bloor, Joshua D. A. (2015). "New Directions in Western Soteriology". Theology. 118 (3): 179–187. S2CID 170547219.
- ISBN 978-3-8496-2097-4.
- Chrysostomos (2001). "An Overview of the Hesychastic Controversy" (PDF). Orthodox and Roman Catholic Relations from the Fourth Crusade to the Hesychastic Controversy. Etna, California: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies. pp. 199–232. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
- Finch, Jeffrey D. (2007). "Neo-Palamism, Divinizing Grace, and the Breach between East and West". In Christensen, Michael J.; Wittung, Jeffery A. (eds.). Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deificiation in the Christian Traditions. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-4111-8.
- Fortescue, Adrian (1910). . In Herbermann, Charles G.; Pace, Edward A.; Pallen, Condé B.; Shahan, Thomas J.; Wynne, John J. (eds.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Encyclopedia Press (published 1913). pp. 301–303.
- Horujy, Sergey S. (2005). "Christian Anthropology and Easter-Orthodox (Hesychast) Asceticism" (lecture). Orthodox Fellowship of All Saints of China. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
- Kapsanis, George (n.d.) [1992]. Deification as the Purpose of Man's Life. Retrieved 11 June 2017 – via www.greekorthodoxchurch.org.
- ——— (2006). Theosis: The True Purpose of Human Life (PDF) (4th ed.). Mount Athos, Greece: Holy Monastery of St. Gregorios. ISBN 960-7553-26-8. Retrieved 8 May 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-913836-31-6.
- Maloney, George A. (2003). The Undreamed Has Happened: God Lives Within Us. Scranton, Pennsylvania: University of Scranton Press. ISBN 978-1-58966-017-5.
- Mathewes-Green, Frederica (2009). The Jesus Prayer: The Ancient Desert Prayer That Tunes the Heart to God. Brewster, Massachusetts: Paraclete Press. ISBN 978-1-55725-659-1.
- ISBN 978-0-8091-2447-3.
- Pace, E. A. (1911). . In Herbermann, Charles G.; Pace, Edward A.; Pallen, Condé B.; Shahan, Thomas J.; Wynne, John J. (eds.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Encyclopedia Press (published 1913). pp. 608–610.
- ISBN 978-0-8091-2447-3.
- Popov, Ivan V. (2012). "The Idea of Deification in the Early Eastern Church". In Kharlamov, Vladimir (ed.). Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology. Vol. 2. Chapter translated by Jakim, Boris. Cambridge, England: James Clarke and Co. pp. 42–82. JSTOR j.ctt1cgf30h.7.
- Vailhé, Siméon (1909). Herbermann, Charles G.; Pace, Edward A.; Pallen, Condé B.; Shahan, Thomas J.; Wynne, John J. (eds.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Encyclopedia Press (published 1913). pp. 752–772. . In
- ISBN 978-960-7070-20-3. Retrieved 10 June 2017 – via Orthodox Christian Information Center.
- ISBN 978-0-19-860024-4.
Further reading
- Anstall, Kharalambos (2007). "Juridical Justification Theology and a Statement of the Orthodox Teaching". In Jersak, Brad; Hardin, Michael (eds.). Stricken by God? Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-8028-6287-7.
- ISBN 978-0-8028-4442-2.
- Christou, Panayiotis (1984). Partakers of God. Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press. ISBN 978-0-916586-67-6. Retrieved 11 June 2017 – via Myriobiblos.
- Clendenin, Daniel B. (1994). "Partakers of Divinity: The Orthodox Doctrine of Theosis" (PDF). Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. 37 (3): 365–379. ISSN 0360-8808. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
- Gleason, Joseph (2012). "What Is Theosis?". The Orthodox Life. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
- Gross, Jules (2003). The Divinization of the Christian According to the Greek Fathers. Translated by Onica, Paul A. Anaheim, California: A & C Press. ISBN 978-0-7363-1600-2.
- ISBN 978-0-8146-2971-0.
- Kangas, Ron (2002). "Becoming God" (PDF). Affirmation & Critique. 7 (2): 3–30. ISSN 1088-6923. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
- ——— (2002). "Creation, Satanification, Regeneration, Deification. Part 3: Regeneration for Deification, Regeneration as Deification" (PDF). Affirmation & Critique. 7 (2): 71–83. ISSN 1088-6923. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
- Keating, Daniel A. (2007). Deification and Grace. Naples, Florida: Sapientia Press. ISBN 978-1-932589-37-5.
- Mantzaridis, Georgios I. (1984). The Deification of Man: St Gregory Palmas and the Orthodox Tradition. Translated by Sherrard, Liadain. Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 978-0-88141-027-3.
- Marks, Ed (2002). "Deification by Participation in God's Divinity" (PDF). Affirmation & Critique. 7 (2): 47–54. ISSN 1088-6923. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
- Marquart, Kurt E. (2000). "Luther and Theosis" (PDF). Concordia Theological Quarterly. 64 (3): 182–205. ISSN 0038-8610. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
- Marshall, Bruce D. (2002). "Justification as Declaration and Deification". International Journal of Systematic Theology. 4 (1): 3–28. ISSN 1468-2400.
- Meconi, David Vincent (2013). The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification. Washington: Catholic University of America Press. ISBN 978-0-8132-2127-4.
- Mosser, Carl (2002). "The Greatest Possible Blessing: Calvin and Deification". Scottish Journal of Theology. 55 (1): 36–57. S2CID 170140878. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
- Nellas, Panayiotis (1987). Deification in Christ: Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person. Translated by Russell, Norman. Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 978-0-88141-030-3.
- S2CID 170904062.
- ISBN 978-0-226-65373-0.
- Pester, John (2002). "The Gospel of the Promised Seed: Deification According to the Organic Pattern in Romans 8 and Philippians 2" (PDF). Affirmation & Critique. 7 (2): 55–69. ISSN 1088-6923. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
- Robichaux, Kerry S. (1996). "... That We Might Be Made God" (PDF). Affirmation & Critique. 1 (3): 21–31. ISSN 1088-6923. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
- ——— (2002). "Can Human Beings Become God?" (PDF). Affirmation & Critique. 7 (2): 31–46. ISSN 1088-6923. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
- Russell, Norman (1988). "'Partakers of the Divine Nature' (2 Peter 1:4) in the Byzantine Tradition". ΚΑΘΗΓΗΤΡΙΑ: Essays Presented to Joan Hussey for Her 80th Birthday. Camberley, England: Porphyrogenitus. ISBN 978-1-871328-00-4. Retrieved 15 June 2018 – via Myriobiblos.
- ——— (2006). The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-920597-4.
- Shuttleworth, Mark (2005). Theosis: Partaking of the Divine Nature. Ben Lomond, California: Conciliar Press. Retrieved 15 June 2018 – via Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.