Part of a continuing series in response to the Protestant Reformed publication Credenda / Agenda

What does the Orthodox Church intend to convey when it speaks of "deification" or "divinization" (from the Greek words theosis or theopoie—‘to make divine’)? Because such terminology is used by groups that espouse non-orthodox teachings, such as Mormonism, qualification is necessary to avoid the possibility of misunderstanding. The Orthodox doctrine of theosis neither impugns Trinitarian doctrine, nor entails a loss of humanity. Robert M. Bowman, Jr., a Protestant, explains: "In keeping with monotheism, the Eastern Orthodox do not teach that men literally become "gods" (which would be polytheism). Rather, as did many of the church fathers, they teach that men are "deified" in the sense that the Holy Spirit dwells within Christian believers and transforms them into the image of God in Christ, eventually endowing them in the resurrection with immortality and God’s perfect moral character" [1; see also Note-B].

Historically, the word theosis was employed both in pre-Christian Greek antiquity, and also in pagan quarters existing contemporaneously with the early Christian Church, as F.W. Norris notes: "The use of theosis was daring. Non-Christians employed it to speak of pagan gods deifying creatures. The philosophers Iamblichus and Proclus, the poet Callimachus and the dreaded Julian the Apostate had used theoo in that way. It was not first a Christian word nor always employed by only Christians after they made it central. From within his deep contemplative life and from previous Church Tradition the Theologian picked it up, cleaned it up and filled it up with Christian sense. He and his fellow theologians took it captive and used it to speak about Christian realities" [2].

So the Church Fathers were careful to contrast their views with those of pagan thinkers who spoke in similar language (see Note-C). For example, St. Athanasius, who, as we shall see, testifies to theosis on innumerable occasions in his writings, notes that "We are as God by imitation, not by nature" [3]; and "Albeit we cannot become like God in essence, yet by progress in virtue imitate God" [4]. Jaroslav Pelikan, Church historian, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University and recent convert to Orthodoxy, explains that: "All of this Christian language about a humanity made divine was a part of a total Cappadocian system in which the Classical religion of deified men and women and of anthropomorphic gods and goddesses was described as ‘the superstition of polytheism’ and as the error of those mere mortals who had ‘turned aside the honor of God to themselves.’ Therefore, the Cappadocians insisted that it was as essential for theosis as it was for the incarnation itself not to be viewed as analogous to Classical theories about the promotion of human beings to divine rank, and in that sense not to be defined by natural theology at all; on such errors they pronounced their ‘Anathema!’" [5].

Despite all of this, however, Douglas Jones, in the Volume 6 No. 5 issue of Credenda / Agenda, unambiguously rejects the Eastern Orthodox incorporation of theosis into its understanding of salvation, arguing that: "by making Neoplatonism central to their doctrine of salvation, they come into direct conflict with apostolic warnings against mixing pagan and Christian thought (Col. 2:8)." He outlines his reasons for believing that elements of Hellenic philosophy has caused Orthodoxy to apostatize from the Christian Faith in the Non Est article "Salvation by Plotinus" (hereafter SBP), but also touches on it in the Thema piece "Eastern Heterodoxy" (hereafter EH). This paper will focus on the claims made in SBP, with particular attention given to the historic Christian witness to theosis and its relationship to grace and justification by faith.

According to the thesis of SBP, it is the understanding of salvation as coming from the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross that has been compromised by theosis, and to this charge we shall soon turn in detail. A good bit of the problem in SBP is that Jones translates the Orthodox emphasis on theosis and the transfigured life into a harmful neglect of the saving work of Christ on the Cross. This is reminiscent of the popular misconception that the Eastern Church is the Church of the Transfiguration and Resurrection; exalting the divinity of Christ, whereas Western Christianity is the Church of the Cross; exalting His humanity. Historically speaking, it is possible that this notion has been fueled by the fact that it was in the Christian East where the conflict with the fourth century Arian heresy, which denied the full divinity of Christ, was waged. Orthodox Christian opposition, culminating in the First Œcumenical Synod (325), was to leave an indelible imprint upon Eastern Christian consciousness. We can see why, then, to this day Christ is often referred to in the Divine Liturgy as "Christ our God."

But it must not be forgotten that it was also in the Christian East where Synods assembled (fifth through seventh centuries) to set forth orthodox doctrine concerning the full humanity of Christ; insisting on a true human nature, soul and will. Moreover, when one carefully sifts through the Eastern spiritual tradition, much more balance than often supposed between the Cross and the Resurrection is found to exist. To be certain, Orthodoxy is absolutely clear that our salvation is secured for us on Calvary, as Fr. Georges Florovsky, eminent priest, theologian and scholar rightly notes: "Salvation is completed on Golgotha, not on Tabor, and the Cross of Jesus was foretold even on Tabor (Cf. Luke 9:31)." Indeed, "the Tabor light which surrounds the risen Christ in His glorious victory over death, i.e., in His saving resurrection, is the light which enters the world by way of the cross, and no other way" [6]. As we shall see later, the liturgical service books employed in Orthodox worship are packed with references to the redemptive work of Christ on Calvary. Most Western Christians are accustomed to catechisms, and while they do not play as great a role in Orthodoxy, they nonetheless exist, and easily provide corroboration of this. For example, in A New Style Catechism on the Eastern Orthodox Faith for Adults, after quoting 1 John 2:2—‘He is the expiation of our sins, and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world’—it states: "The Sacrifice of Christ is offered because of His love for mankind. He replaced the penalties of man, and by His Sacrifice reconciled man with God. Man’s finite mind cannot comprehend the ‘economy’ of this God-saving deed, which remains a mystery of the ages in that the highest penalty was imposed on the Innocent One instead of the guilty" [7].

Moreover, Orthodoxy, in discussions of redemption, in fact employs many other salvific metaphors besides theosis, and in doing so follows an eclectic approach that, as we shall see later, one finds operative in the early Church. Evangelical Professor and scholar Daniel Clendenin offers some much needed corrective to the distorted picture given in SBP: "Theosis and other biblical metaphors for the work of Christ need not be understood as contradicting one another. There is no reason that they cannot be seen as complementary. The East emphasizes the crucial idea of mystical union and divine transformation, while the West tends to stress the believer’s juridical standing before a holy God. Both conceptions, and others beside, find biblical support and deserve full theological expression" [8]. It will be shown in this essay that themes of theosis and justification not only are not mutually exclusive, but in fact flow one from the other.

Reading SBP, the reader hears echoes of nineteenth century liberal Protestant scholar Adolf Von Harnack’s contention that Christianity’s encounter with the surrounding Hellenic culture in its formative years compromised Christian dogma to the point of obscuring the basic truths of the Gospel (see Note-A). Harnack argued that this was especially true of the Eastern Orthodox Church, as its theology was expounded largely by theologians shaped by Hellenic modes of thought, such as St. Athanasius, St. Gregory of Nazianzus and St. Basil the Great. The utilization of Greek philosophy to help enunciate matters of faith naturally led Harnack to reject the dogmas of the Œcumenical Synods that convened to address heterodox christology and pneumatology. Despite the surface similarities between Harnack and Jones, however, the latter does not treat theosis and the accompanying charge of hellenization in a systematic way as the former did, as neither topic is addressed within the context of the Church Fathers. But those who have argued that a hellenization of Eastern Christianity occurred have always framed their assertions within the context of the early Church, and Jones’ failure to address his claims in like manner only serves to weaken the foundation of the charges made against Orthodoxy in his paper.

So despite the fact that "Deification, as God’s greatest gift to man and the ultimate goal of human existence, had always been a prime consideration in the teachings of the Church Fathers on salvation" [9], one could read SBP and be quite unaware that the theme of theosis is interwoven throughout the Patristic writings. This was explicitly stated as early as the second century by St. Irenaeus, who was the spiritual grandson of the Apostle John. In his famous work Against Heresies he writes in the preface of the fifth discourse that "If the Word is made man, it is that men might become gods" [10]. Jones includes several quotes pertinent to theosis, but without exception they are drawn from contemporary Orthodox writers; for example, Bishop Kallistos (Ware). Of course, the emphasis is on Orthodoxy selling out the Faith to Plotinus, and so the reader is left to interpret Jones’ statement that theosis is "drawn from a long development of Eastern/Hellenistic theological reflection" accordingly.

It is not difficult to understand why Protestant statements relative to theosis are not addressed in the context of the Church Fathers: this "long development" includes Saints that many Evangelicals hold up as pillars of the Faith. Many will, in fact, attempt to demonstrate that the Fathers were doctrinally synonymous with their own teachings on any number of subjects. Jones and the editors of Credenda/Agenda are no exception, devoting sections (Patres and Verbatim) that include selected quotes from the Fathers that relate to a particular issue’s theme (see Note-Q). But it is woefully inadequate to merely cut and paste statements made by the Fathers, as if to suggest that these Fathers had the same phronema, or mindset. As Georges Florovsky pointed out: "The Church always stresses the identity of her faith throughout the ages. This identity and permanence, from Apostolic times, is indeed the most conspicuous token and sign of right faith. In the famous phrase of Vincent of Lerins, in ipsa item catholica ecclesia magnopere curandum est ud id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est. However, ‘antiquity’ by itself is not yet an adequate proof of the true faith. Archaic formulas can be utterly misleading. Vincent himself was aware of that…The true tradition is only the tradition of truth, traditio veritatis. And this ‘true tradition,’ according to St. Irenaeus, is grounded in, and guaranteed by, that charisma veritatis certum, which has been deposited from the very beginning in the Church and preserved in the uninterrupted succession of Apostolic ministry: qui cum episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum acceperunt (Adv. Haereses IV.40.2). Thus, ‘tradition’ in the Church is not merely the continuity of human memory; the permanence of rites and habits. Ultimately, ‘tradition’ is the continuity of divine assistance, the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. The Church is not bound by ‘the letter.’ She is constantly moved forth by ‘the Spirit.’ The same Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, which ‘spake through the Prophets,’ which guided the Apostles, which illumined the Evangelists, is still abiding in the Church, and guides her into the fuller understanding of the divine truth, from glory to glory" [11]. Credenda / Agenda’s use of the Fathers amounts to little more than a "sola Patera" exercise, for when the Fathers are stripped from their traditional, ecclesial context, they can be made to say anything.

Jones levels some heavy indictments against Orthodoxy for its adoption of theosis. One who has read the Fathers in context wonders why he does not level the same charges against many of the Fathers which are quoted approvingly in the Credenda/Agenda issue in question. For example, St. Athanasius could hardly escape blame, since theosis figured prominently in his soteriology [12]. In his masterpiece On the Incarnation of the Word of God (54:3), he wrote the classic statement for theosis: "He, indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God" [13]. In fact, theosis was used by him in his defense of the full deity of Christ against the Arians: "The Word could never have divinized us if He were merely divine by participation and were not Himself the essential Godhead, the Father’s veritable image" [14]. He argues in like manner against the Tropici sect concerning the Holy Spirit’s divinity, stating that "If, by a partakability of the Spirit we shall become partakers of the divine nature, it would be madness then afterwards to call the Spirit an originated entity, and not of God; for on account of this also those who are in him are made divine. But then if he makes man divine, it is not dubious to say his nature is of God" [15]

Of course, others have realized the implications of all of this, as Bowman explains: "It should not be argued that anyone who speaks of ‘deification’ necessarily holds to a heretical view of man. Such a sweeping judgment would condemn many of the early church’s greatest theologians (e.g. Athanasius, Augustine), as well as one of the three main branches of historic orthodox Christianity in existence today" [16]. This statement truly cuts to the heart of the matter. There is no logical reason why charges of pagan perversion should be leveled against the Orthodox Church—which has preserved unadulterated the teaching of these Holy Fathers, but not against the Fathers themselves. It is a glaring inconsistency to label Orthodoxy apostate and ignore the centuries of theological formulation of the very doctrines one is attacking. In fact, from a scholarly perspective, it is nothing short of baffling how the Orthodox Church could even be doctrinally studied—let alone condemned—outside of a Patristic context. No reputable Church historian could dispute the theological continuity between the Eastern Church of the first eight centuries and the present Eastern Orthodox Church.

Moreover, it is this essential unity that provides the very basis for understanding how Orthodox doctrine flows from a right understanding of who Christ is as God and Man (see Note-S). Pelikan, commenting on the importance of Ephesus and Chalcedon, observes that "a false understanding of the relation between the divine and human in Christ deprived human nature of the hope of salvation, for salvation could have come only through a distinct human hypostasis" [17]. It is no accident, then, that theosis was discussed by the Fathers within the context of the early christological and pneumatological heresies that culminated in the Œcumenical Synods that convened to address them. We have seen how theosis formed a part of Nicene theology; St. Gregory of Nyssa likewise did with regard to later christological issues: "The God who was manifested mingled himself with the nature that was doomed to death, in order that by communion with the divinity human nature may be deified together with him" [18]. Vladimir Lossky, one of the premier Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century of Blessed Memory, sums up this all-important point: "The Fathers of the ‘Christological centuries’, though they formulated a dogma of Christ the God-Man, never lost sight of the question concerning our union with God. The usual arguments they bring up against unorthodox doctrines refer particularly to the fullness of our union, our deification, which becomes impossible if one separates the two natures of Christ, as Nestorius did, or if one only ascribes to Him one divine nature, like the Monophysites, or if one curtails one part of human nature, like Appolinarius, or if one sees in Him a single divine will and operation, like the Monothelites. ‘What is not assumed, cannot be deified’ – this is the argument to which the Fathers continually return" [19; see also Note-R].

Now, many Evangelicals accept the dogmatic definitions of these Œcumenical Synods that set forth orthodox doctrine on the Person of Christ – definitions which Harnack and others have denounced as eclipsing the "Biblical" Christ. Now if this is not true, then why say the same thing about Orthodoxy? Is there a departure in Orthodoxy’s christology or trinitarianism from that which we find in them? Of course not, and in EH Jones even acknowledges Orthodoxy’s strict adherence to the work of these Synods. It would seem that Jones is so intent on portraying Orthodoxy as a Neoplatonic cult that he has not taken time to mull over the implications of his assertions. As Pelikan notes, "There are many writers, and not only skeptical writers, but Christian theologians—including, indeed, the most important school of German theology in recent times—who hold that the great controversies of the early Church about the Trinity and the Incarnation were…about subtleties introduced by Greek philosophy into the Christian religion" [20]. The burden of proof is upon Jones to demonstrate how oft-cited Fathers like Sts. Athanasius, Basil the Great and Augustine—all of whom accepted theosis and utilized Greek philosophical elements in their theology—can evade his own thesis that these elements "come into direct conflict with apostolic warnings against mixing pagan and Christian thought (Col. 2:8)." Actually, Jones’ Calvinist tradition is not entirely immune from this charge, for "Indirectly, through the works of Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius and others Neoplatonism exerted great influence not only on medieval Christianity but on all Christians who ever since, consciously or not, have been indebted to these thinkers" [21].

And yet according to Jones (EH), any such presence of Hellenic concepts within Orthodox theology renders the Godhead a "paganized deity." Jones is evidently unaware that this accusation would impugn St. Augustine, for he used some of Plotinus’ ideas about three hypostases in his own trinitarian theology, and others besides, as J.P. Farrell notes: "As in Neoplatonism, where the being, will and activity of the One were ‘wholly indistinguishable,’ so it is in Saint Augustine when he considers what the definition of simplicity implies for the attributes. The essence and attributes of God are identified: ‘The Godhead,’ he writes, ‘is absolutely simple essence, and therefore to be is then the same as to be wise.’ But Saint Augustine carries the logic beyond this to insist also on the identity of the attributes amongst themselves" [22].

Despite the admission in SBP that the Orthodox "reject simplicity as a basis for God’s unknowability and Plotinus’ exclusive concern for the intellect," all Jones can say of this is that "By claiming that such trifling adjustments remove Hellenism from their theology, these thinkers show how deeply ingrained their neo-Platonism truly is" (see Note-A). Jones also appears to be unaware that the Greek concept of the simplicity of God is not a minor issue: "Emil Brunner considers that the most perilous of all Greek concepts is that of the absolute ‘simplicity’ of God, derived from Neo-Platonism by way of Pseudo-Dionysius. Strictly speaking, this concept not only forbids all anthropomorphism in the idea of God (such as is common in the Old Testament) but all distinguishable attributes whatsoever. It tends, we may say, to replace the God Paul preached to the Athenians with the Unknown God they had ‘ignorantly worshipped’ before hearing the Gospel at all" [23].

It would seem that the hapless pursuit of a "pure" Christianity that only acknowledges its Hebraic roots (see Note-O) must be taken into consideration here. This, of course, is historically untenable on a number of counts. First, it is clear from the New Testament that Judaism also posed a threat to some of the emerging church communities—just as St. Paul warned the nascent church community at Collosae about the potential dangers of Greek philosophy (Col. 2:8), so too did he warn the Galatians about slipping back into Judaic practices (Gal. 3). Secondly, the very core dogmas of Christianity concerning the nature of God were formulated amidst a Hellenic culture in light of previous monotheistic beliefs inherited from Judaism, as Pelikan explains: "The congruence of Cappadocian trinitarianism, this ‘chief dogma,’ with Cappadocian apologetics, was summarized in their repeated claim that the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity was located ‘between the two conceptions’ of Hellenism and Judaism, by ‘invalidating both ways of thinking, while accepting useful components of each.’ Gregory of Nyssa put this claim boldly: ‘The Jewish dogma is destroyed by the acceptance of the Logos and by belief in the Spirit, while the polytheistic error of the Greek school is made to vanish by the unity of the [divine] nature abrogating this imagination of plurality.’ In sum, therefore, ‘Of the Jewish conception, let the unity of the nature stand; and of the Hellenic, only the distinction as to the hypostases, the remedy against a profane view being thus applied, as required, on either side’" [24]. Similarly, Lossky notes that "It required the superhuman efforts of an Athanasius of Alexandria, of a Basil, of a Gregory of Nazianzen and of many others, to purify the concepts of Hellenistic thought, to break down the watertight bulkheads by the introduction of a Christian apophaticism which transformed rational speculation into a contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity" [25].

The twin experiences of Judaism and Hellenism in the history of Orthodoxy are masterfully counterbalanced by Lossky: "Christianity at once fulfills and scandalizes. But whatever may be the attitude of the ‘Greeks’ and the ‘Jews’ who deny Christ, in the Church—that is to say in the body of this Word which reclaims all things, makes anew, purifies and puts every truth in its proper place—there should be no difference between Greek and Jew. Two dangers appear here: the first is that the theologian may be a ‘Greek’ in the Church, that he may allow himself to be dominated by his forms of expression to the point of intellectualizing revelation, and to lose at once the biblical sense of the concrete and this existential character of the encounter with God which is concealed in the apparent anthropomorphism of Israel. To this danger, which goes from the Scholastics to the intellectuals of the nineteenth century, corresponds in our age an inverse danger: that of a somewhat ‘structured’ biblicism which wishes to oppose the Hebrew tradition to ‘Greek philosophy,’ and attempts to remake theory in purely Semitic categories. But theology must be of universal expression. It is not by accident that God has placed the Fathers of the Church in a Greek setting; the demands for lucidity in philosophy and profundity in gnosis have forced them to purify and to sanctify the language of the philosophers and of the mystics, to give the Christian message, which includes but goes beyond Israel, all its universal reach" [26].

Although theosis is presented in Jones’ articles as a strictly Eastern Christian phenomenon, it is important to note that the doctrine is found in several Western Church Fathers, as well as in isolated strands of Western Christian thought throughout the ages [27]. St. Hilary of Poitiers, known as the "Athanasius of the West" and the most respected Latin theologian of the mid-fourth century, writes in his work On the Trinity that "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." He further writes that our Lord came to earth for the purpose "that man might become God" [28]. St. Jerome testifies "That we are gods is not so by nature, but by grace. ‘But to as many as receive Him he gave power of becoming sons of God" [29].

The second century Latin theologian Tertullian provides an interesting case, for although arguing against any synthesis of Christianity and philosophy (in similar manner to Jones), asking "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" nonetheless has no problem with a concept of theosis! In the fifth chapter of his writing Against Hermogenes, he states that "Truth, however maintains the unity of God in such a way as to insist that whatever belongs to God Himself belongs to Him alone. For so will it belong to Himself if it belong to Him alone; and therefore it will be impossible that another god should be admitted, when it is permitted to no other being to possess anything of God. Well, then, you say, we ourselves at that rate possess nothing of God. But indeed we do, and shall continue to do—only it is from Him that we receive it, and not from ourselves. For we shall be even gods, if we, shall deserve to be among those of whom He declared, ‘I have said, Ye are gods,’ and ‘God standeth in the congregation of the gods.’ But this comes of His own grace, not from any property in us, because it is He alone who can make gods."

A very significant Patristic witness against Jones’ conception of theosis as an exclusively Hellenized view of salvation is the fourth century "lyre of the Holy Spirit," St. Ephrem the Syrian. As Sebastian Brock points out: "It has sometimes been said that the divinization, or theosis, of humanity is something that crept into Christianity, especially Eastern Christianity, under Hellenic influence. It is clear, however, that St. Ephraim, whom Theodoret described as ‘unacquainted with the language of the Greeks,’ and whose thought patterns are essentially semitic and biblical in character, is nonetheless an important witness to this teaching. Moreover in this context it should be recalled that, since the term ‘son of’ implies ‘belonging to the category of,’ the title ‘children of God’ to which Christians attain at baptism would suggest to the Semitic mind that they had, potentially, the characteristics of divine beings, in other words, immortality. Once again the theological content of St. Ephraim’s poetry is remarkably similar to his Greek contemporaries—only the mode of expression is different. Just as St. Athanasius expressed this mystery epigrammatically (‘God became man so that man might become God’), so too, in his own way, does St. Ephraim: ‘He gave us Divinity, we gave Him humanity’" (Hymn on Faith V.17). Similarly, St. Ephrem writes in his Genesis commentary that, had Adam and Eve not disobeyed God’s command, "they would have acquired divinity in humanity." And from the hymn "On Virginity": "Divinity flew down and descended to raise and draw up humanity. The Son has made beautiful the servant’s deformity, and he has become a god, just as he desired" [30].

St. Augustine has historically enjoyed wide admiration within Protestantism. And while his views of grace and predestination are most familiar to Protestants, he is nonetheless an important witness to theosis (see Note-E), as Gerald Bonner explains: "There is, however, in Augustine’s spirituality another element, perceived as a consequence of Christ’s taking human nature upon himself; for it is in Christ and through Christ, and only in and through Christ, that man becomes a partaker of God’s nature: ‘He who was God was made man to make gods those who were men’ (serm. 192.1, 1). These words, which parallel the more-often-quoted words of St Athanasius in his De Incarnatione, show that Augustine did not shrink from using the language of deification, often said to be peculiar to the Greek Fathers" [31]. In fact, as G.W.H. Lampe points out, "Augustine repeats more often, perhaps, than any of the Greek theologians, the theme of the ‘interchange of places.’ ‘The Word,’ he says, became what we are that we might attain what we are not. For we are not God; but we can see God with the mind and interior eye of the heart’… ‘God hates you as you are, in order to make you what you are not yet. You will be what he is;’ but Augustine hastens to add that this means that we shall be God’s image in the sense in which a man’s reflection in a mirror is his image inasmuch as it is like him, not in the sense in which a man’s son is his image inasmuch as he is actually what his father is ‘according to substance’" [32].

Bonner stresses that "the notion of deification is to be found in Augustine, not as something added to his system as an afterthought, but as an integral whole. In itself, the notion of deification is no more than what is implied by the New Testament term uiothesia – sonship by adoption – by grace, that is to say, and not by nature. It is, indeed, the consequence of human flesh being assumed by the divinity in the Incarnation: that flesh has been taken into heaven by the ascended Christ, and if men participate in Him through membership of the Church, the Body of Christ, they too may hope, after death, to enjoy the divinisation effected by His flesh-taking. So Augustine writes, in the last chapter of the last book of The City of God: ‘We ourselves shall become that seventh day [i.e. the eternal Sabbath], when we have been replenished and restored by His blessing and sanctification. There we shall have leisure to be still, and we shall see that He is God, whereas we wished to be that ourselves when we fell away from Him, after listening to the seducer saying: You will be like gods. Then we abandoned the true God, by whose creative help we should have become gods, but by participating in Him, not by deserting Him" [33].

C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963), the popular author of numerous apologetic, theological and fictional works, provides a good example of a contemporary Western writer—much beloved of Evangelicals—who makes use of the idea of theosis. In his famed Mere Christianity, he basically recites the famous Athanasian theosis statement into more modern language: "He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has – by what I call ‘good infection.’ Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else" [34]. He spells this out more succinctly a little later in the book: "The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) 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 [35]. Finally, Lewis talks about God "turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity" [36].

As we have already seen in Evangelicals like Daniel Clendenin and Robert Bowman, the attitude taken by many scholars within this tradition to theosis is quite different than that of Jones. Robert Rakestraw of Bethel Theological Seminary testifies that: "I am convinced that we may receive considerable benefit from a judicious understanding and appropriation of the doctrine," and calls attention to the eminently Scriptural witness to theosis: "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." Rakestraw goes on to discuss theosis in several other Scriptural contexts as well (1 Cor. 2:13, 16; 1 Thes. 2:13; 1 Pet. 4:11; Col. 1:15, 28, 2:9-10, 3:3-4; Gal. 2:20, 4:19, 1 John 4:16, etc.) [37].

So while theosis has historically been a much more prominent Eastern Christian theme, is has been voiced by Western Christians since ancient times. In addition to the individuals sampled above, theosis has been a part of Anabaptist spirituality [38]; it formed a part of Wesley’s views on sanctification [39], and as we shall see in the next section, it has also been found to exist in Martin Luther’s writings. Theosis has recently been experiencing a ‘rediscovery’ of sorts by many within the Protestant tradition, who find it to be a neglected yet significant means of understanding the salvation we have in Christ. Norris correctly notes that "Because significant Western theologians confess this deep sense of sharing in the divine nature and others like John Calvin and Bernard of Clairvaux speak of the beautific vision and mystical union with God, deification should be viewed by Protestants not as an oddity of Orthodox theology but as an ecumenical consensus, a catholic teaching of the Church, best preserved and developed by the Orthodox" [40].

In SBP Jones sets theosis over and against themes of justification by faith, atonement, etc., insisting that they are mutually incompatible. The first point that could be made is that nowhere in early Christian history (East or West) do we find anyone arguing against the teaching of theosis. Secondly, the notion that redemption should be rigidly interpreted in one particular way is itself foreign to early Christian thought: "The seven ecumenical councils avoided defining salvation through any [one model] alone. No universal Christian consensus demands that one view of salvation includes or excludes all others" [41]. J.N.D. Kelly further explains: "Scholars have often despaired of discovering any single unifying thought in the Patristic teaching about the redemption. These various theories, however, despite appearances, should not be regarded as in fact mutually incompatible. They were all of them attempts to elucidate the same great truth from different angles; their superficial divergences are often due to the different Biblical images from which they started, and there is no logical reason why, carefully stated, they should not be regarded as complimentary" [42]. And this is precisely what we find in Orthodoxy: "While insisting in this way upon the unity of Christ’s saving economy, the Orthodox Church has never formally endorsed any particular theory of atonement. The Greek Fathers, following the New Testament, employ a rich variety of images to describe what the Savior has done for us. These models are not mutually exclusive; on the contrary, each needs to be balanced by the others. Five models stand out in particular: teacher, sacrifice, ransom, victory and participation" [43].

In fact, the entire cleavage of justification and sanctification into two different themes—the former said to occur instantly, and the latter being a life-long process—is of relatively recent origin in the history of the Church. It was only in the first era of the Reformation, as the eminent Protestant scholar Allister McGrath points out, that "A deliberate and systematic distinction is made between the concept of justification itself (understood as the extrinsic divine pronouncement of man’s new status) and the concept of sanctification or regeneration (understood as the intrinsic process by which God renews the justified sinner)." He goes on to explain that: "The significance of the Protestant distinction between iustificatio and regeneratio is that a fundamental discontinuity has been introduced into the western theological tradition where none had existed before…The Reformation understanding of the nature of justification – as opposed to its mode – must therefore be regarded as a genuine theological novum [44].

Interestingly enough, this unjustifiable cleavage has never been a part of Orthodoxy. After discussing the subject of theosis, Bishop Kallistos (Ware) explains: "By this time it will be abundantly clear that, when we Orthodox speak about salvation, we do not have in view any sharp differentiation between justification and sanctification. Indeed, Orthodox usually have little to say about justification as a distinct topic. I note, for example, that in my own book The Orthodox Church, written thirty years ago, the word ‘justification’ does not appear in the index, although this was not a deliberate omission. Orthodoxy links sanctification and justification together, just as St. Paul does in 1 Cor. 6:11: ‘You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.’ The references to justification in the opening chapters of Romans (for example 3:20, 24, 28), we understand in the light of Romans 6:4-10, which describe our radical incorporation through baptism into Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. We Orthodox, then, ‘see justification’ and ‘sanctification’ as one divine action…one continuous process,’ to use the words of the Common Statement issued by the Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue in North America" [45].

Even St. Augustine, despite the proto-Protestant conception of him held by many within the Calvinist tradition, had this view [see Note-D]. McGrath notes that it is "the Augustinian understanding of justification as both event and process, embracing the beginning, continuation, and perfection of the Christian life, and thereby subsuming regeneration under justification [46]. More specifically, St. Augustine integrated theosis within his concept of justification, as Lampe explains: "Augustine makes much use of the idea of deification which he equates with sonship towards God. Justification implies deification, because by justifying men God makes them his sons; if we have been made sons of God (Jn. 1:12) we have also been made gods, not through a natural begetting but through the grace of adoption." In Augustine’s one words, "God wishes to make you a god, not by nature like him whom he begat, but by his gift and adoption. For as he through humanity became partaker of your mortality, so through exaltation he makes you partaker of his immortality" (serm. 166.4) [47]. And similarly: "It is clear that He (i.e. God) calls men gods through their being deified by His grace and not born of His substance. For He justifies, who is just of Himself and not of another; and He deifies, who is God of Himself and not by participation in another. Now He who justifies, Himself deifies, because by justifying He makes sons of God. For to them gave He power to become the sons of God. If we are made sons of God, we are also made gods; but this is by grace of adoption, and not by generation (Ennar. In Ps. 49, 2)’ [48].

Perhaps one might expect that Martin Luther—who led the "justification by faith" battle cry in the sixteenth century—would have pointed out the apostate nature of theosis in the Fathers and in what he called "the Greek Church." His writings indicate a familiarity—albeit a superficial one—with the Greek patristic tradition. Yet we find no such censures; in fact, theosis imagery is testified to in his very writings! This has been known for some time. As Marc Lienhard pointed out nearly twenty years ago: "One is not able to exclude entirely the idea that the theme of divinization was present to a certain extent in the mind of Luther. The contrary would have been astonishing when one remembers how familiar he was with the patristic writings" [49]. Indeed, "For Luther deification is the movement between the communicatio idiomatum and the beatum commercium. This leads straight into the heart of the concept of justification by faith. This faith has to be understood as taking part in the life of Christ and through Christ in the life of God. Luther designates this movement as deiformitas, in which the believer becomes identical ‘in shape’ with God justifying her or him in Christ. Herewith is underlined that deification and justification assume, amplify, and deepen each other" [50].

In his commentary on Galatians 3:9, Luther unequivocally states that "The one who has faith is a completely divine man, a son of God, the inheritor of the universe. He is the victor over the world, sin, death, and the devil" [51]. It is in Luther’s Dictata super Psalterium that a group of Finnish scholars have focused much attention recently, finding within it strong deification imagery. Spearheading this new scholarship is Simo Peura’s groundbreaking Mehr als ein Mensch?, which traces the theme of deification in Luther between the time period 1513 – 1519. Taking a critical look at this effort, Beilfeldt [see Note-G] summarizes some of the findings in the Dictata. In the scholion on Psalm 117 (118):12, Luther writes concerning the Christian: "On account of faith in Christ who dwells in him, he is God, the son of God and infinite (est deus, dei filius et infinitus), for God already is in him." And "In the commentary on Psalm 84 (85) Luther speaks of a ‘mystical incarnation of Christ’ in the ‘new people of faith’" and that "he uses an image strongly associated with deification. The righteousness of Christ looking down from heaven actually elevates believers by ‘making them heavenly’ (coelestus): ‘Therefore Christ came to the earth so that we might be elevated to heaven.’" In a final sample, Beinfeldt explains that "If Luther were interested in deification at all, it can hardly be imagined that he would miss the opportunity provided by verse 6 of Psalm 81 (82) (‘Dii estis, et filii Excelsi omnes’). In the interlinear gloss he distinguishes between ‘being gods’ and ‘being sons of God’: ‘I say to you who are good: You are gods because you are born of God from the Holy Spirit, not through nature: and you are all sons through the adoption of the most high God the Father.’ To be a god is thus to be born from the Holy Spirit, the spirit which makes one just before God. Luther adds in the marginal gloss that here the speaker ‘passes from the deceitful body to the true one;’ he moves from his own goodness to that of God’s. The imagery of the scholion is even stronger: ‘…you are of God and are not men…gods and sons of the most high are recalled by him to his own condition (statum).’ To be deified is to be called back from human sinfulness to God’s own state. Through the birth of the Holy Spirit in the believer, God adopts the person, and brings them up to his own state" [52].

Indeed, there have been recent fruitful discussions between Lutheran and Orthodox scholars on the subject of salvation (see Note-H) that reach the exact opposite of Jones’ conclusion in SBP that theosis is incompatible with justification. The Rt. Rev. Michael C.D. McDaniel testifies that "the Lutheran emphasis on justification in light of the Orthodox emphasis on deification has revealed that, while Lutherans speak of ‘faith’ and Orthodox speak of theosis, both understand the Christian’s hope as ‘belonging to God.’ The Lutheran concern to specify the means of salvation and the Orthodox concern for its meaning are two insights into the one unspeakably wonderful reality that God, by grace alone, for the sake of Christ alone, has forgiven our sins and given us everlasting salvation" [53]. Echoing these sentiments, Paul Hinlicky testifies that "As a Lutheran, I want to say that the Orthodox doctrine of theosis is simply true, that justification by faith theologically presupposes it in the same way that Paul the Apostle reasoned by analogy from the resurrection of the dead to the justification of the sinner." He further explains that "The Lutheran doctrine of justification offers an Eastern answer to a Western question: Jesus Christ, in his person the divine Son of God, is our righteousness. He is the one who in obedience to his Father personally assumed the sin and death of humanity and triumphed over these enemies on behalf of helpless sinners, bestowing on then his own Spirit, so that, by the ecstasy of faith, they become liberated children of God in a renewed creation" [54]. Dialogue between the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Russian Orthodox Church concluded that "the traditional Lutheran doctrine of justification contains the idea of the deification of man. Justification and deification are based on the real presence of Christ in the word of God, the sacraments and in worship" [55]. "When justification and sanctification are properly modulated," Henry Edwards explains, "neither excluding justification by faith alone nor the fruits of that faith, a coherent message results which can be translated into the Orthodox term theosis…The Lutheran catechisms, the Augsburg Confession, its Apology, and the Formula of Concord all contain statements compatible with theosis" [56].

Essentially, Orthodoxy’s understanding of salvation fails Jones’ criterion of orthodoxy for the following reasons: (1) salvation is not exclusively explained in the juridical/forensic language inherent to Calvinism; (2) it is tacitly assumed that theosis can in no wise exist alongside such legal categories, and (3) the misunderstanding that Orthodox only understand salvation in terms of theosis. As for point (1), it is first worth pointing out that "a case cannot be made for the patristic provenance of the Protestant concepts of imputed righteousness or forensic justification" [57; see also Note-I]. Nevertheless, juridical language—although not used nearly as much as in Western traditions—can be found in Orthodox writers. Vladimir Lossky, for example, states that "The very idea of redemption assumes a plainly legal aspect: it is the atonement of the slave, the debt paid for those who remained in prison because they could not discharge it. Legal also is the theme of the mediator who reunited man to God through the cross" [58]. Conversely, participation imagery is not entirely foreign to Calvin, as Clendenin explains: "the West has a well-developed concept of the Pauline idea of union with Christ. In the opening pages of book 3 of his Institutes Calvin, for example, before he raises the issue of justification by faith, speaks of believers’ being engrafted into or bonded with Christ through the ‘secret energy of the Holy Spirit’" [59].

The work of scholars within Evangelicalism and other Protestant traditions amply demonstrates the falsity of point (2). As Clark Pinnock correctly notes, "The key thing is that salvation involves transformation. It is not cheap grace, based on bare assent to propositions, or merely a change of status. Romans 5 with its doctrine of justification is followed by Romans 6 with its promise of union. It is not just a matter of balancing two ideas; it is a matter of never conceiving of the former without its goal in the latter. For the justified person is baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If there is no newness of life, if there is no union with Christ, if there is no coming out from under the dominion of sin, there is no salvation" [60]. Concerning (3), we saw the reluctance in Orthodoxy to formally endorse any one model or metaphor for our salvation – which of course would include theosis. In fact, in a reversal of (3), Orthodox Karmiris "warns about overemphasizing theosis," as does Stanilaoe [61]. According to Clendenin, "We can say, then, that in addition to theosis Eastern theologians affirm any number of biblical metaphors for salvation, including juridical ones. They acknowledge that the work of Christ cannot be reduced to any single metaphor. Thus, while legal metaphors are truly Pauline and should be affirmed, they should not be allowed to dominate, but should be ‘relocated’ among the host of other biblical images" [62].

Thomas Torrance provides in conclusion an interesting Protestant perspective on the fundamental unity of Christ’s saving work and the appropriation of that work to us: "It becomes clear, therefore, that what we require to recover is an understanding of justification which really lets Christ occupy the centre, so that everything is interpreted by reference to who He was and is. After all, it was not the death of Jesus that constituted atonement, but Jesus Christ the Son of God offering Himself in sacrifice for us. Everything depends on who He was, for the significance of His acts in life and death depends on the nature of His Person. It was He who died for us, He who made atonement through His one self-offering in life and death. Hence we must allow the Person of Christ to determine for us the nature of His saving work, rather than the other way around. The detachment of atonement from incarnation is undoubtedly revealed by history to be one of the most harmful mistakes of Evangelical Churches. Nowhere is this better seen, perhaps, than in a theologian as good and great as James Denney who, in spite of the help offered by James Orr and H.R. Mackintosh, was unable to see the essential interconnection between atonement and incarnation, and so was, on his own frank admission, unable to make anything very much of St. Paul’s doctrine of union with Christ. This has certainly been one of the most persistent difficulties in Scottish theology. In Calvin’s Catechism we read: ‘Since the whole affiance of our salvation rests in the obedience which He has rendered to God, His Father, in order that it might be imputed to us as if it were ours, we must possess Him: for His blessings are not ours, unless He gives Himself to us first.’ It is only through union with Christ that we partake of His benefits, justification, sanctification, etc. That is why in the Institutes Calvin first offered an account of our regeneration in Christ before speaking of justification, in order to show that renewal through union with Christ belongs to the inner content of justification; justification is not merely a judicial or forensic event but the impartation to us of Christ’s own divine-human righteousness which we receive through union with Him. Apart from Christ’s incarnational union with us and or union with Christ on that ontological basis, justification degenerates into only an empty moral relation. That was also the distinctive teaching of the Scots Confession. But it was otherwise with the Westminster Confession, which reversed the order of things: we are first justified through a judicial act, then through an infusion of grace we live the sanctified life, and grow into union with Christ. The effects of this have been extremely damaging in the history of thought. Not only did it lead to the legalizing, or (as in James Denney’s case) a moralizing of the Gospel, but gave rise to an ‘evangelical’ approach to the saving work of Christ in which atonement was divorced from incarnation, substitution from representation, and the sacraments were detached from union with Christ; sooner or later within this approach where the ontological ground for the benefits of Christ had disappeared, justification became emptied of its objective content and began to be re-interpreted along subjective lin