...Faith... unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh [Ephesians 5:31-32]. And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage... it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own... By the wedding ring of faith [Christ] shares in the sins, death, and pains of hell which are his bride's... The believing soul by means of the pledge of its faith is free in Christ, its bridegroom-- free from all sins, secure against death and hell-- and is endowed with the eternal righteousness, life, and salvation of Christ its bridegroom. Who then can fully appreciate what this royal marriage means? Who can understand the riches of the glory of this grace?

-- Martin Luther (1520) The Freedom of a Christian. Translated by W. J Lambert, revised by Harold Grimm.

Villagers acquainted with the debates surrounding Tom Wright's readings of St Paul may be puzzled by the quotations from Luther and Calvin just below. As Wright reads St Paul, union with Christ entails both "vertical" forgiveness of sin and "horizontal" acceptance into the covenant with Abraham, but pauline "justification" is just the latter half of this. His critics have feared that this "sociological" understanding of "justification" was a grave departure from the Reformation teaching, which they took to have been founded on a correct reading of St Paul. And of course Wright himself has criticised both Luther and Lutheran exegesis and the scholasticism of much Reformed exegesis both past and present. Yet here we have the reformers themselves in the C16 saying much the same thing that Wright insists in the C21 that St Paul said in the C1. If we want to explore the further implications of Wright's reading of St Paul, we could do worse than to re-read the reformers with its insights in mind.

These reformers got to their results by following different influences down different exegetical paths that have been tracked by different scholars. For Luther, Tuomo Mannersmaa and his Finnish School have found explicit metaphysical reasoning in Luther that was not recalled in the later neo-Kantian understandings of Lutheranism (eg Ritschl). The impetus for much of this study among Lutherans was a searching dialogue with their Orthodox neighbors in Finland, though there have long been those who defied Lutheran scholasticism to read Luther as a mystic. For Calvin, several scholars including Richard Gaskin and J. Todd Billings have seen that Calvin was influenced by St Thomas a Kempis and St Bernard of Clairvaux more than had been thought, and that the Westminster divines had followed him less in this than his Continental and Scottish colleagues had done. There has always been a tradition of Reformed theology (eg Germany, Scotland, and in America, Mercersburg) that dissented from the Westminster hegemony, insisting on a Calvin who stressed even sacramental union with the Person of Christ, not just mental appropriation of the Work in an ordo salutis. As the ecumenical reintegration of theology progresses, theologians in both tendencies find themselves in a dialogue with St Maximus the Confessor and, indirectly, with St Thomas Aquinas.

Which leads us to the title of Roger's thread. Though the East-West dialogue is all the more fruitful with clearer and better developed positions on all sides of it, we now see that the Western parties have plenty to discuss among themselves, and that as this dialogue approaches writings of St Paul we will have to reckon with Tom Wright's reading of them. That may be of interest to a few villagers.

Being admitted to participation in him, though we are still foolish, he is our wisdom; though we are still sinners he is our righteousness; though we are unclean, he is our purity; though we are weak, unarmed, and exposed to Satan, yet ours is the power which has been given him in heaven and in earth, to bruise Satan under our feet, and burst the gates of hell (Mt. 28:18); though we still bear about with us a body of death, he is our life; in short, all things of his are ours, we have all things in him, he nothing in us. On this foundation, I say, we must be built, if we would grow up into a holy temple in the Lord.

--John Calvin, Institutes, III, 15, 3. Beveridge translation of the Latin 1559 edition.

Just as the Word of God has become flesh, in the same way it is certainly necessary that the flesh becomes Word. Namely, the Word becomes flesh precisely in order that the flesh might become Word. In other words: God becomes a man, so that man might become God. In this way, power becomes weak, so that weakness might become powerful. The Logos clothes Himself with our form, shape, image and likeness, in order to clothe us with His image, form and likeness. Thus, wisdom becomes folly, so that folly might become wisdom. This applies to everything that is in God and in us, to the extent that He takes upon Himself everything that is
ours, in order to confer to us that which is His.*

--Martin Luther (1515) In Natali Christi [Christmas Sermon], WA 1:28, 25-32. Translated by Tuomo Mannermaa.

___________________

* Sicut verbum Dei caro factum est, ita certe oportet et quod caro fiat verbum. Nam ideo verbum fit caro, ut caro fiat verbum. Ideo Deus fit homo, ut homo fiat Deus. Ideo virtus fit infirma, ut infirmitas fiat virtuosa. Induit formam et figuram nostram et imaginem et similitudinem, ut nos induat imagine, forma, similitudine sua: ideo sapientia fit stulta, ut stultitia fiat sapientia, et sic de omnibus aliis, quae sunt in Deo et nobis, in quibus omnibus nostra assums it ut conferret nobis sua.

Without having understood all of what you are saying, I get the impression that you see the doctrine of the Christian’s union with Christ as central to the Eastern view. Have I got that right? If so, what is the Eastern view, the Theosis view on how and when the Christian becomes united with Christ?

Hi Phil-- Yes. There is no salvation without union with Christ in the Eastern churches, including not only the Orthodox, but the various non-Chalcedonian churches as well, although they necessarily interpret some things differently.

Your scriptural queries are apt, but basic answers to them are more complex than one might think, since they are entangled in post-Chalcedonian doctrinal controversies that were conducted in a rather pseudo-Dionysian idiom. Below, I've drafted a sort of "basic" Byzantine account of theosis that avoids Maximian or Palamite complications and makes only the most sparing use of Chalcedon or the pseudo-Dionysius. My thought is that this might serve as a base for answering your other questions and for looking at scriptural, patristic, and liturgical texts, including the ones you pose. Hope you find it interesting!

Christ, as the Logos, is the pattern for human nature, so that there is already, between Christ and every human creature, a relationship of ideal form and particular existent. In that sense, we are all "images" of the Logos. However, because of the disobedience of Adam, the pattern was broken, and thus broken, it is mortal. To continue the metaphor of Genesis, we remain images of the Logos, but have lost his "likeness." In this mortal condition, human beings sin. Sin is not in accord with God's creative intent, which cannot be in vain. God's remedy for sin is to reverse the death that occasions sin, and then to repair the broken pattern, until we also recover our "likeness" to the Logos, Christ. With the restored pattern, being both image and  likeness of the Logos, we participate in the Logos and so in the life of God. This is salvation.

When the Logos assumed humanity, died on the Cross, and rose from the dead, the power of death was broken for all human creatures, all who bear his image. death was vanquished precisely because God himself had experienced it in the humanity which he had assumed. Death continues to occur, of course, but the power of it is nullified by the general resurrection and the world to come. This is the Easter faith of Christianity.

Therefore any human being is ontologically able to be strengthened against sin, and to be repaired according to the pattern of the Logos as God intended. However, the healing of the passions that lead to sin, and the repair of the broken pattern in any individual only commences with life in Christ, in which Christ himself heals the effects of sin and repairs his own likeness in each believer. Because all dimensions of human nature were damaged in the Fall, all aspects of human nature must be united to Christ. Certainly both faith and sacramental participation are ways of joining ourselves to Christ and participating, as we are able, in his life. Likewise, martyrs are, in a special way, images and likenesses of the Logos, and all persons in Christ practise some degree of ascetic discipline in union with him. Some prefer to pursue this as hermits or monastics, others in the world, but the healing of the passions and the restoration of the pattern of the Logos is the life in Christ of every human creature who will be saved.


 

Bowman

Clearly this is a profound area linked to other profound areas. For instance, the question of what Calvin taught and whether later Calvinists remained faithful to, or modified, his teaching has been extensively debated in recent decades. I have not followed those debates and, with respect to Theosis and the Eastern view in general, I admit I am trying to short-circuit the debate without having to try to master the view by doing a lot of reading. It may be that I will have to abandon this short-circuit attempt. But just to persevere with it for a while. I need to return to an earlier discussion about Original Sin and some comments you made about Romans 5 and the eastern view. But not yet. In this post I just want to ask a couple more short-circuit questions if I may.

In Matthew 26:27-28 Jesus is recorded as saying, ‘And taking a cup and giving thanks he gave to them saying: Drink ye of it all; for this is the blood of me of the covenant the[blood] concerning many being shed for the forgiveness of sins’. What is the Eastern view, the Theosis view, on how the shedding of Christ’s blood secures (that might not be the best word – perhaps ‘enables’?, or ‘brings about’?) forgiveness of sins? And perhaps I could link with this an associated question. What is the Eastern view of the highlighted part of 1 Corinthians 5:7-8: ‘Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’.

Without having understood all of what you are saying I get the impression that you see the doctrine of the Christian’s union with Christ as central to the Eastern view. Have I got that right? If so, what is the Eastern view, the Theosis view on how and when the Christian becomes united with Christ?

Phil Almond

Salvation, as Warfield points out in ‘Counterfeit Miracles’, is a process... Does the Theosis view reject any of this? Is there anything essential in the Theosis view which is not included in this? How does Theosis deal with the penalty God’s justice pronounces against all of us as guilty law-breakers? How does Theosis map onto Article 17?

Blessings Phil. I myself am still situating Orthodox theosis doctrines with respect to the Reformers on one hand and St Paul on the other, but the relation of theosis through Calvin to Old Princeton is fairly clear. First, to get from Hodge and Warfield to Calvin, one would distinguish the historia salutis from the ordo salutis, and see union with Christ as comprising all of the several "steps" of the latter as it does in part 3 of the Institutes. Next, the question is-- can Calvin's doctrine of union with Christ be counted as a theosis doctrine? Since the usual criterion of that is that the salvation of the believer is wrought through the believer's partaking of the divine nature (2 St Peter i 4), Calvin's doctrine does seem to pass. The second sentence of part 3 makes this fairly clear-- First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us.

So then finally, what of the distinctives of Byzantine theosis doctrines as e.g. the distinction between essence and energies in St Gregory Palamas? At this point, it seems that Calvin cannot simply be treated as a Western echo of the East. He attempts various solutions of the problem of defining "partaking" in a strong sense that nevertheless preserves the distinction between Creator and creature, but none of them look anything like neo-Palamism.  Moreover, Calvin, in opposition to Osiander, insists that divine pardon is the condition of the union with Christ as he conceives it, gives faith the prominence that St Bernard of Clairvaux had given to hope, and is careful to insist on the trinitarian nature of this union. Finally, Calvin stresses that participation in Christ necessarily engages the believer in the joys and tribulations of the Body of Christ around him.

Some of these are differences of context. Calvin, like other Western theologians, is haunted by the memory of Pelagianism, just as the Eastern fathers, despite their fascination with Origen, were vigilant against recurrent outbreaks of Platonism. Conversely, Calvin, though wary of philosophers, actually praises Plato, and the Byzantines, though stern enough about sin, see it in less exclusively forensic ways. Orthodoxy has never known a crisis of doctrinal authority quite like the one that overtook the West at the close of the Middle Ages. In a time of shifting, sinking sand, Calvin wanted to show believers a rock on which to build with assurance.

Salvation, as Warfield points out in ‘Counterfeit Miracles’, is a process... Does the Theosis view reject any of this? "Reject" is not the word. The Westminster Larger Catechism at Q. 69 is tolerably close to Calvin's view as it explains "the communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ," tells us that "their justification, adoption, sanctification, and whatever else, in this life, manifests their union with him." And that idea that the benefits we have in Christ are dependent on union with him is typical of theosis doctrines generally.

Is there anything essential in the Theosis view which is not included in this? As you might by now suspect, theosis doctrines, especially Calvin's, see participation in Christ as the forest of which these are the trees.

How does Theosis deal with the penalty God’s justice pronounces against all of us as guilty law-breakers? That is one of the most fascinating questions, since forensic metaphors for sin, though not at all unknown in the East (cf. the Lenten Triodion!), did not control doctrinal development there as they did in the West after Pelagius. Calvin incorporates pardon into his own doctrine, viewing it as a presupposition of union with Christ. Osiander held that union with Christ is itself remission of sin, which both Calvin and Lutheran orthodoxy condemned.

Following your apparent interests, I have confined my answers to Reformed sources. Theosis in Luther, the Lutheran scholastics, and the contemporary re-evaluations of the Finnish School is another story.

How does Theosis map onto Article 17 [Of Predestination and Election]?

If we see the leaves, can we infer the tree? Though Christ is mentioned seven times in Article 17, it does not explicitly use the words "union with Christ," and appears to be structured around the ordo salutis, in order to reassure persons unsure of their election and call. Although a description of union with Christ is submerged in this guidance--

As the godly conideration of Predestination and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the Works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things; as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal Salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God...

--it is no longer situated in the believer's participation in the Person of Christ. Thus Calvin's preference for ontology over mechanics has already faded, and in its place we glimpse the scholastic notion of salvation as a collection of benefits purchased by the merits of Christ and applied to the elect believer by efficacious means of grace. In this article, scarcely changed from the 42 Articles, the age of Beza's famous table of the saved and the damned has arrived. Though individual Reformed theologians will occasionally recall the earlier theosis soteriology (e.g. Schaff and Nevin), four centuries will pass before it returns to view in the reign of another Elizabeth.

Salvation, as Warfield points out in ‘Counterfeit Miracles’, is a process. This process began in eternity and is kicked off in time by God’s act of regeneration and God’s verdict of justification in the blood and resurrection of Christ. God’s everlasting purpose, followed by this act and this verdict, guarantee that the process – maybe through many ups and downs, sins and graces, joys and sorrows, doubts fears and assurances, quarrels and reconciliations, blessings and woes, fightings, strugglings, agonisings (both the KJV and the NIV have Paul exhorting Timothy ‘Fight the good fight of (the) faith’; interestingly, Marshall’s literal translation gives ‘Struggle the good struggle of the faith’, and the Greek verb for struggle is agonizou), chastenings, siftings, backslidings and restorations – will be completed. But it is only completed in its full effects, as Warfield puts it, ‘when at the Judgment Day they stand, sanctified souls, clothed in glorified bodies, before the throne of God, meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.’

Does the Theosis view reject any of this? Is there anything essential in the Theosis view which is not included in this? How does Theosis deal with the penalty God’s justice pronounces against all of us as guilty law-breakers? How does Theosis map onto Article 17?

Phil Almond

Being admitted to participation in him, though we are still foolish, he is our wisdom; though we are still sinners he is our righteousness; though we are unclean, he is our purity; though we are weak, unarmed, and exposed to Satan, yet ours is the power which has been given him in heaven and in earth, to bruise Satan under our feet, and burst the gates of hell (Mt. 28:18); though we still bear about with us a body of death, he is our life; in short, all things of his are ours, we have all things in him, he nothing in us. On this foundation, I say, we must be built, if we would grow up into a holy temple in the Lord. --John Calvin, Institutes, III, 15, 3. Beveridge translation of the Latin 1559 edition.

Roger and Dave-- Although many discussions have seen theosis as a way to avoid imputation altogether, Billings (p. 209, discussing the French 1548 edition in Partakers of the Divine Nature, edited by Michael J Christensen and Jeffery A Wittung) notes that in this passage Calvin is presenting a theosis that is indissolubly bound to imputation. As Billings sees it, Calvin's own doctrine of union in Christ has acquired a hybrid vigor from its synthesis of imputation motifs common to the Reformers and theosis motifs in SS Thomas a Kempis (ultimately from St Nicholas Cabasilas's Life in Christ?) and Bernard of Clairvaux (especially the Sermones super Cantica canticorum). An immediate question is whether this weakens either element of the compound or, on the contrary, remedies deficiencies in both. Beyond that, can preachers, teachers, and counselors in the renewing evangelical centre use this?
 

Many thanks, Bowman, for the reference to Partakers of the Divine Nature, edited by Michael J Christensen and Jeffery A Wittung.  It looks most comprehensive and I have made a note of it for possible reading at some stage.  And yes, thanks, the holiday was an excellent break!

Roger-- I hope you enjoyed your holiday! Your interest in the Western variants of theosis doctrine has been anticipated. Scholarship has moved on from the early investigations of the Cappadocians, and SS Maximus, Symeon, and Gregory Palamas to retrievals of similar yet contrasting doctrine from Western sources. For example, the Finnish School of Luther scholarship has argued that Luther held a view similar to, yet different from, that of Maximus. Some Calvinists have compared theosis to the ideas of "union with Christ" in SS Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas a Kempis, and John Calvin. Methodists have traced the Byzantine influence on the hymns of John and Charles Wesley. Etc. Obviously these investigations are fascinating, but raise many issues of terminology. Examples of some recent approaches to theosis in Western theology can be found here.

Bowman, we have been on holiday for a while so I have delayed responding to your last post.  Many thanks, though, for referring me to Daniel Clendenin's paper on the eastern orthodox understanding of theosis.  He helpfully points out that

1. there is a greater emphasis on mystical union with God in the east, whereas the west majors on juridicial categories of the atonement;
2. there is no necessity that forces us to choose between these two approaches;
3. there is the need to affirm the great range of NT salvation motifs.  For Athanasius the work of Christ is ' so multifaceted that trying to number the many and various benefits of Christ is like trying to gaze at the open sea and count the endless waves of the ocean'.
4. there is great difficulty in describing theosis, the divinization of our humanity in Christ, even among eastern orthodox believers.
5. there is a pivotal text in 2 Peter 1:4 in support of theosis, wherein we participate in God although we remain distinctly human by nature;
6. this participation can be summarized as the movement from divine image to the theosis of divine likeness;
7. theosis comes about through the cooperation between the grace of God and human effort.