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That was a century ago. Today, while some Western theologians see the theology of Palamas as introducing an inadmissible division within God, others have incorporated his theology into their own thinking,<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=ognCKztR8a4C&pg=PA186&dq=hesychasm+catholic&hl=en&ei=uIxrTOCaOs3uOb2qoKQB&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCQQ6AEwADgo#v=onepage&q=hesychasm%20catholic&f=false Kallistos Ware in ''Oxford Companion to Christian Thought'' (Oxford University Press 2000 ISBN 0-10-860024-0), p. 186]</ref> maintaining that there is no conflict between his teaching and Roman Catholic thought.<ref>"Several Western scholars contend that the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas himself is compatible with Roman Catholic thought on the matter" ([http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks%3A1&tbo=1&q=Christensen+%22scholars+contend%22&btnG=Search+Books#sclient=psy&hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=bks%3A1&q=Wittung+%22Western+scholars%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=74612238bd021ae1 Michael J. Christensen, Jeffery A. Wittung (editors), ''Partakers of the Divine Nature'' (Associated University Presses 2007 ISBN 0-8386-4111-3), p. 243).]</ref> |
That was a century ago. Today, while some Western theologians see the theology of Palamas as introducing an inadmissible division within God, others have incorporated his theology into their own thinking,<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=ognCKztR8a4C&pg=PA186&dq=hesychasm+catholic&hl=en&ei=uIxrTOCaOs3uOb2qoKQB&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCQQ6AEwADgo#v=onepage&q=hesychasm%20catholic&f=false Kallistos Ware in ''Oxford Companion to Christian Thought'' (Oxford University Press 2000 ISBN 0-10-860024-0), p. 186]</ref> maintaining that there is no conflict between his teaching and Roman Catholic thought.<ref>"Several Western scholars contend that the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas himself is compatible with Roman Catholic thought on the matter" ([http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks%3A1&tbo=1&q=Christensen+%22scholars+contend%22&btnG=Search+Books#sclient=psy&hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=bks%3A1&q=Wittung+%22Western+scholars%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=74612238bd021ae1 Michael J. Christensen, Jeffery A. Wittung (editors), ''Partakers of the Divine Nature'' (Associated University Presses 2007 ISBN 0-8386-4111-3), p. 243).]</ref> |
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The teaching of deification or ''theosis'' in Eastern Orthodoxy refers to the attainment of ''likeness to'' or ''union with'' God, as deification has three stages in its process of transformation. Theosis as such is the goal, it is the purpose of life.<ref>[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/general/theosis-english.pdf THEOSIS as the goal human life by Archimandrite George Abbott]</ref><ref>DEIFICATION AS THE PURPOSE OF MAN'S LIFE By Archimandrite George Abbott of the Holy Monastery of St. Gregorios on Mount Athos [http://www.greekorthodoxchurch.org/theosis_purpose.html]</ref> ''Theosis'' has the ''three stages''; the first being purification (''katharsis'') and the second illumination (''[[theoria]]''). By means of purification a person comes to illumination and then [[sainthood]]. Sainthood is the participation of the person in the life of God. According to this doctrine, the holy life of God, given in Jesus Christ to the believer through the [[Holy Spirit]], is expressed through the three stages of theosis, beginning in the struggles of this life, increasing in the experience of [[gnosis|knowledge of God]], and consummated in the [[resurrection]] of the believer, when the victory of God over sin and death, accomplished in the [[Crucifixion]] and Resurrection of Jesus, is made manifest in the believer forever.<ref>"Theology and Mysticism in the Tradition of the Eastern Church" from The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, pgs 8-9, 39,126, 133, 154, 196</ref> This conception of salvation is historical and foundational for Christian understanding in both the East and the West; however, Eastern Orthodox and Western Christian conceptions of theosis are not identical. |
The teaching of deification or ''theosis'' in Eastern Orthodoxy refers to the attainment of ''likeness to'' or ''union with'' God, as deification has three stages in its process of transformation. Theosis as such is the goal, it is the purpose of life.<ref>[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/general/theosis-english.pdf THEOSIS as the goal human life by Archimandrite George Abbott]</ref><ref>DEIFICATION AS THE PURPOSE OF MAN'S LIFE By Archimandrite George Abbott of the Holy Monastery of St. Gregorios on Mount Athos [http://www.greekorthodoxchurch.org/theosis_purpose.html]</ref> ''Theosis'' has the ''three stages''; the first being purification (''katharsis'') and the second illumination (''[[theoria]]''). By means of purification a person comes to illumination and then [[sainthood]]. Sainthood is the participation of the person in the life of God. According to this doctrine, the holy life of God, given in Jesus Christ to the believer through the [[Holy Spirit]], is expressed through the three stages of theosis, beginning in the struggles of this life, increasing in the experience of [[gnosis|knowledge of God]], and consummated in the [[resurrection]] of the believer, when the victory of God over sin and death, accomplished in the [[Crucifixion]] and Resurrection of Jesus, is made manifest in the believer forever.<ref>"Theology and Mysticism in the Tradition of the Eastern Church" from The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, pgs 8-9, 39,126, 133, 154, 196</ref> This conception of salvation is historical and foundational for Christian understanding in both the East and the West; however, Eastern Orthodox and Western Christian conceptions of theosis are not identical. |
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== Western Christian theology == |
== Western Christian theology == |
Revision as of 20:44, 10 December 2010
Theosis (written also: theōsis) is a Greek word (θέωσις) – the distinct Greek words theiosis (θείωσις) and theopoiesis (θεοποίησις) are also used – that means divinization, deification, or making divine. This transformation of a believer who is putting into practice (called praxis) the spiritual teachings of Jesus Christ and his gospel is a feature of Christian theology, particularly in the Greek Orthodox and the Catholic[1][2][3][4][citation needed][5][6] theology.
Greek Orthodox theology
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/StJohnClimacus.jpg/200px-StJohnClimacus.jpg)
St. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote, "God became man so that man might become god" (On the Incarnation 54:3, PG 25:192B). His statement is an apt description of the doctrine. 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: 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 hypostasis).[citation needed] Most specifically creatures (created beings) can not become God in his transcendent essence (called ousia), hyper-being (see apophaticism). Such a concept would be the henosis or absorption into God of Greek pagan philosophy. However, every being and reality itself is considered as composed of the immanent energy (Energeia) of God. As energy is the actuality of God (his immanence), from God's being or ontology, it is also the activity of God. Thus avoiding pantheism while partially accepting Neoplatonism's terms and general concepts (but not the actual philosophy see Plotinus).
Through theoria, the contemplation of the triune God,{{dead link}} human beings come to know and experience what it means to be fully human (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 (Holy or saintly), in all ways except his divine essence (uncaused or uncreatedness). St Irenaeus explained this doctrine in Against Heresies, Book 5, in the Preface, "the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through his transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself."
St. 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)."(page 178 PHILOKALIA Volume II)
For many 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 Orthodox theologians go so far as to 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.)
This reconciliation is made actual through the struggle (podvig in Russian) to conform to the image of Christ. Without the struggle, the praxis, there is no real faith; faith leads to action, without which it is dead. One must unite will, thought, and action to God's will, his thoughts, and his actions. A person must fashion his life to be a mirror, a true likeness of God. More than that, since God and humanity are more than a similarity in Christ but rather a true union, Christians' lives are more than mere imitation and are rather a union with the life of God himself: so that the one who is working out salvation is united with God working within the penitent both to will and to do that which pleases God. Gregory Palamas affirmed the possibility of humanity's union with God in his energies, while also affirming that because of God's transcendence and utter otherness, it is impossible for any person or other creature to know or to be united with God's essence.
Yet through faith we can attain phronema, an understanding of the faith of the Church. 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. Using the head-body analogy from St Paul, every man in whom Christ lives partakes of the glory of Christ. As St John Chrysostom observes, "where the head is, the body is also; for by no means is the head separated from the body; for if it were indeed separated, there would not be a body and there would not be a head".
The journey toward theosis includes many forms of praxis. The most obvious form being Monasticism and Clergy. Of the Monastic tradition the practice of Hesychasm is most important as a way to establish a direct relationship with God. Living in the community of the church and partaking regularly of the sacraments, and especially the Eucharist, is taken for granted. Also important is cultivating "prayer of the heart", and prayer that never ceases, as Paul exhorts the Thessalonians (1 and 2). This unceasing prayer of the heart is a dominant theme in the writings of the Fathers, especially in those collected in the Philokalia. The "doer" in deification is the Holy Spirit, with whom the human being joins his will to receive this transforming grace by praxis and prayer. 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.[8]
Western rejection of the theosis of the Greek Orthodox
- See Talk:Theosis#POV subsection heading for a discussion of the neutrality and accuracy of the wording of this heading.
The practice of ascetic prayer called Hesychasm in the Eastern Orthodox Church is centered on the enlightenment or deification, theosis of man. [9] Roman Catholic theologians have generally expressed a negative view of Hesychasm.[10][11]
The (Hesychasm) doctrine of Gregory Palamas won almost no following in the West,[11] 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.[11][12] Fortescue translated the Greek words ἥσυχος and ἡσυχαστής as "quiet" and "quietist".[11] In the same period, Edward Pace's article on quietism indicated that, while in the strictest sense quietism is a 17th-century doctrine proposed by Miguel de Molinos, the term is also used more broadly to cover both Indian religions and what Edward Pace called "the vagaries of Hesychasm", thus betraying the same prejudices as Fortescue with regard to hesychasm [13] and, again in the same period, Siméon Vailhé described some aspects of the teaching of Palamas as "monstrous errors", "heresies" and "a resurrection of polytheism",[14] and called the hesychast method for arriving at perfect contemplation "no more than a crude form of auto-suggestion"[14]
That was a century ago. Today, while some Western theologians see the theology of Palamas as introducing an inadmissible division within God, others have incorporated his theology into their own thinking,[15] maintaining that there is no conflict between his teaching and Roman Catholic thought.[16]
The teaching of deification or theosis in Eastern Orthodoxy refers to the attainment of likeness to or union with God, as deification has three stages in its process of transformation. Theosis as such is the goal, it is the purpose of life.[17][18] Theosis has the three stages; the first being purification (katharsis) and the second illumination (theoria). By means of purification a person comes to illumination and then sainthood. Sainthood is the participation of the person in the life of God. According to this doctrine, the holy life of God, given in Jesus Christ to the believer through the Holy Spirit, is expressed through the three stages of theosis, beginning in the struggles of this life, increasing in the experience of knowledge of God, and consummated in the resurrection of the believer, when the victory of God over sin and death, accomplished in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus, is made manifest in the believer forever.[19] This conception of salvation is historical and foundational for Christian understanding in both the East and the West; however, Eastern Orthodox and Western Christian conceptions of theosis are not identical.
Western Christian theology
Roman Catholicism
The importance of divinization (theosis) in Roman Catholic teaching is evident from what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says of it:
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."[20]
Divinization has been taught by Catholic theologians, including the most authoritative: Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote: "The gift of grace surpasses every capability of created nature, since it is nothing short of a partaking of the Divine Nature, which exceeds every other nature. And thus it is impossible that any creature should cause grace. For it is as necessary that God alone should deify, bestowing a partaking of the Divine Nature by a participated likeness, as it is impossible that anything save fire should enkindle."[21] He also wrote of God's "special love, whereby He draws the rational creature above the condition of its nature to a participation of the Divine good".[22] And he quotes with approval the statement by Saint Augustine, "God was made man, that man might be made God",[23] saying that it was necessary for the restoration of the human race that the Word of God should become incarnate, since it is through Christ's humanity that full participation of the Divinity is bestowed on us.
Of a more modern Roman Catholic theologian it has been said: "The theological vision of Karl Rahner, the German Jesuit whose thought has been so influential in the Roman Catholic Church and beyond over the last fifty years, has at its very core the symbol of theopoiesis. The process of divinization is the center of gravity around which move Rahner's understanding of creation, anthropology, Christology, ecclesiology, liturgy, and eschatology. The importance of this process for Rahner is such that we are justified in describing his overall theological project to be largely a matter of giving a coherent and contemporary account of divinization."[24]
The Roman Rite liturgy expresses the doctrine of divinization or theosis in the prayer said by the deacon or priest when preparing the Eucharistic chalice: "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." And the same doctrine is expressed in prayer books: "Since it was the will of God's only begotten Son that human beings should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming human he might make humans gods."[25]
The Western Catholic Church teaches that God gives to some souls, even in the present life, a very special grace by which they can be mystically united to God even while yet alive: this is true mystical contemplation.[26] In a rather advanced phase of contemplative prayer (called in Greek theoria) the soul becomes "enveloped" by the Divine Nature.[26] This is seen as the culmination of the three states, or stages, of perfection through which the soul passes: the purgative way (that of cleansing or purification), the illuminative way (so called because in it the mind becomes more and more enlightened as to spiritual things and the practice of virtue), and the unitive way (that of union with God by love and the actual experience and exercise of that love).[27]
The writings attributed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite were highly influential in the West, and their theses and arguments were adopted by Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure.[28] According to these writings, mystical knowledge must be distinguished from the rational knowledge by which we know God, not in his nature, but through the wonderful order of the universe, which is a participation of the divine ideas. Through the more perfect knowledge of God that is mystical knowledge, a knowledge beyond the attainments of reason even enlightened by faith, the soul contemplates directly the mysteries of divine light. In the present life this contemplation is possible only to a few privileged souls, through a very special grace of God: it is the θέωσις (theosis), μυστικὴ ἕνωσις (mystical union).[26] Meister Eckhart too taught a deification of man and an assimilation of the creature into the Creator through contemplation.[26]
Saint John of the Cross wrote: "In thus allowing God to work in it, the soul... is at once illumined and transformed in God, and God communicates to it His supernatural Being, in such wise that it appears to be God Himself, and has all that God Himself has. And this union comes to pass when God grants the soul this supernatural favour, that all the things of God and the soul are one in participant transformation; and the soul seems to be God rather than a soul, and is indeed God by participation; although it is true that its natural being, though thus transformed, is as distinct from the Being of God as it was before."[29]
Anglican views
Out of the English Reformation, an understanding of salvation in terms closely comparable to the Orthodox doctrine of theosis was recognized in the Anglican tradition, for example in the writings of Lancelot Andrewes, who described salvation in terms vividly reminiscent of the early fathers:
- Whereby, as before He of ours, so now we of His are made partakers. He clothed with our flesh, and we invested with His Spirit. The great promise of the Old Testament accomplished, that He should partake our human nature; and the great and precious promise of the New, that we should be “consortes divinae naturae”, “partake his divine nature,” both are this day accomplished.[30]
Protestant views
Protestants are generally less aware of the doctrinal line of thought of theosis, except for Methodists and Wesleyans, whose religious tradition has always placed strong emphasis on sanctification. Generally speaking, the Methodist/Wesleyan doctrine of sanctification is roughly equivalent to the Catholic/Eastern Orthodox concept of theosis or divinization.
Early during the Reformation, thought was given to the doctrine of union with Christ (unio cum Christo) as the precursor to the entire process of salvation and sanctification. This was especially so in the thought of John Calvin.[31]
Henry Scougal's work The Life of God in the Soul of Man is sometimes cited as important in keeping alive among Protestants the ideas central to the doctrine. In the introductory passages of his book, Scougal describes "religion" in terms that evoke the doctrine of theosis:
- "... 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'."[32]
Theosis as a doctrine developed in a distinctive direction among Methodists,[33] and elsewhere in the pietist movement which reawakened Protestant interest in the asceticism of the early Catholic Church, and some of the mystical traditions of the West. Distinctively, in Wesleyan Protestantism theosis sometimes implies the doctrine of entire sanctification which teaches, in summary, that it is the Christian's goal, in principle possible to achieve, to live without any (voluntary) sin (Christian perfection). In 1311 the Roman Catholic Council of Vienne declared this notion, "that man in this present life can acquire so great and such a degree of perfection that he will be rendered inwardly sinless, and that he will not be able to advance farther in grace" (Denziger §471), to be a heresy. Thus this particular Protestant (primarily Methodist) understanding of theosis is substantially different from that of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican Churches. This doctrine of Christian perfection was sharply criticized by many in the Church of England during the ministry of John Wesley and continues to be controversial among Protestants and Anglicans to this day.[34] Most Protestants do not believe in Christian perfection as Wesley described it and most Protestants also do not use the term theosis at all, though they refer to a similar doctrine by such terms as sanctification, "adoption as sons", "union with Christ", and "filled with the Spirit". Dietrich Bonhoeffer echoed the convictions of Athanasius when he wrote "He has become like a man, so that men should be like him." (The Cost of Discipleship, 301)
Nevertheless, similarities of doctrine notwithstanding, within the whole of the conception of the Christian life which the idea of "theosis" is intended to comprehend, differences of doctrine are disclosed especially in differences of practice, between the East and West, and between Orthodoxy and Protestantism.
Non-trinitarian theologies
Latter Day Saint views
Within the Latter Day Saint movement, and particularly within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the concept or teaching of theosis is taken very literally. Latter Day Saints believe the Apostle Paul's statement in Romans 8:17 that humanity may become joint-heirs with Jesus Christ to be glorified together. This entire concept is believed to be established by scripture.[35] This view is believed to stem from the teachings of the apostles in the New Testament and the teachings of LDS prophets and apostles.
Christian Universalist views
There has been a modern revival of the concept of theosis (often called "Manifest Sonship" or "Christedness") among Christians who believe in universal reconciliation, especially those with a background in the Charismatic Latter Rain Movement or the New Age and New Thought movements.[36] The statement of faith of the Christian Universalist Association includes theosis in one of its points.[37]
Some Charismatic Christian universalists believe that the "return of Christ" is a body of perfected human beings who are the "Manifested Sons of God" instead of a literal return of the person of Jesus,[38] and that these Sons will reign on the earth and transform all other human beings from sin to perfection during an age that is coming soon (a universalist approach to millennialism).[39] Some Liberal Christian universalists with New Age leanings also share a similar eschatology.
See also
- Related terms: Apotheosis, Deification, Sanctification, Consecration
- Christian Perfection
- Entire Sanctification
- Exaltation (Mormonism)
- Holiness movement
- Christian Universalism
- Apotheosis (a non-Christian idea which compares human greatness to godlike status)
- Beatific vision
- Hesychasm
- Vladimir Lossky
- Soteriology
- Unio Mystica
- John of the Cross
- Poustinia
- Hermit
- Divine filiation
Notes and references
- ^ "The Catechism (of the Catholic Church) readily invokes the Eastern Fathers to emphasize the mystery of divinization (see §1589, 1988), which Catholic and Orthodox have affirmed together" (Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, vol. 1, article Holiness).
- ^ "catholic+church"+divinization&hl=en&ei=4lgeTNiRKI2UsQan9K36DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFQQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=%22catholic%20church%22%20divinization&f=false Timothy Drake, Richard John Neuhaus, There We Stood, Here We Stand: Eleven Lutherans Rediscover Their Catholic Roots (1stBooks Library 2001 ISBN 0-7596-1320-6), p. 21
- ^ Jennifer Ferrara, Patricia Sodano Ireland, The Catholic Mystique (Our Sunday Visitor 2000 ISBN 1-931709-91-2), p. 122
- ^ Rudolf Steiner, Christianity as Mystical Fact (Anthroposophic Press 1997 ISBN 0-88010-436-8), p. 99
- ^ Francis J. Caponi, Divinization in Roman Catholicism
- ^ Thomas Langan, The Catholic Tradition (University of Missouri Press 1998 ISBN 0-8262-1183-6), p. 409
- ^ "Theology and Mysticism in the Tradition of the Eastern Church" from The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church by V Lossky
- ^ Theosis-The deification of man. According to the Orthodox Tradition, man’s purpose in life is to achieve union with God, and to become god by grace. Acquisition of the Holy Spirit; self-realization.[1]
- ^ Hesychasm, then, which is centered on the enlightenment or deification (Θέωσις, or theosis, in Greek) of man, perfectly encapsulates the soteriological principles and full scope of the spiritual life of the Eastern Church. As Bishop Auxentios of Photiki writes: [W]e must understand the Hesychastic notions of ‘theosis’ and the vision of Uncreated Light, the vision of God, in the context of human salvation. Thus, according to St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite (†1809): ‘Know that if your mind is not deified by the Holy Spirit, it is impossible for you to be saved.’17 Before looking in detail at what it was that St. Gregory Palamas’ opponents found objectionable in his Hesychastic theology and practices, let us briefly examine the history of the Hesychastic Controversy proper. English version: Archbishop Chrysostomos, Orthodox and Roman Catholic Relations from the Fourth Crusade to the Hesychastic Controversy (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2001), pp. 199‒232 [2]
- ^ Coming back to theological and anthropological problems, we can see at once that Hesychasm is indeed such a field, in which theology and anthropology meet and almost merge together. It is spiritual or mystico-ascetic practice, and, as I explain in my other Hongkong lecture, spiritual practice is such anthropological strategy that is oriented to a goal, which does not belong to the horizon of man’s empiric existence. This goal is, in other words, meta-anthropological, and so it obtains its characteristics not from usual experience of empiric being, but from basic postulates of the religious tradition, to which the corresponding practice belongs. In the case of Hesychasm, the goal is defined by the Orthodox doctrine as deification (theosis, in Greek), which is conceived as the perfect union of all man’s energies with the Divine Energy (God’s grace). This concept has a specific dual nature: it belongs to dogmatic theology, but at the same time it represents the goal, to which ascetic works are oriented and which they approach actually, according to all the rich corpus of ascetic texts with the first-hand descriptions of hesychast experience. Thus it is both theological and anthropological concept. CHRISTIAN ANTHROPOLOGY AND EASTERN-ORTHODOX (HESYCHAST) ASCETICISM Prof. Dr. Sergey S. Horujy [3]
- ^ a b c d Hesychasm article on the Catholic Encyclopedia online
- ^ Andreas Andreopoulos, Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography (St Vladimir's Seminary Press 2005, ISBN 0-88141-295-3), p. 215
- ^ Edward Pace, "Quietism" in The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911) Retrieved 10 September 2010
- ^ a b Church Edward Pace, "Quietism" in The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911) Retrieved 10 September 2010
- ^ Kallistos Ware in Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (Oxford University Press 2000 ISBN 0-10-860024-0), p. 186
- ^ "Several Western scholars contend that the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas himself is compatible with Roman Catholic thought on the matter" (Michael J. Christensen, Jeffery A. Wittung (editors), Partakers of the Divine Nature (Associated University Presses 2007 ISBN 0-8386-4111-3), p. 243).
- ^ THEOSIS as the goal human life by Archimandrite George Abbott
- ^ DEIFICATION AS THE PURPOSE OF MAN'S LIFE By Archimandrite George Abbott of the Holy Monastery of St. Gregorios on Mount Athos [4]
- ^ "Theology and Mysticism in the Tradition of the Eastern Church" from The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, pgs 8-9, 39,126, 133, 154, 196
- ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 460
- ^ Summa Theologiae I-II.112.1
- ^ Summa Theologiae I-II.110.1
- ^ Summa Theologiae III.1.2
- ^ Michael J. Christensen, Jeffery A. Wittung (editors), Partakers of the Divine Nature (Associated University Presses 2007 ISBN 0-8386-4111-3), p. 259
- ^ Catholic Book of Prayers, Pg. 92, Large-Print Edition; Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. 2005 copyright. Catholic Book Publishing Corp. New Jersey.
- ^ a b c d George M. Sauvage, "Mysticism" in Catholic Encyclopedia
- ^ Arthur Devine, "State or Way" in Catholic Encyclopedia
- ^ Joseph Stiglmayr, "Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite" in Catholic Encyclopedia
- ^ Ascent of Mount Carmel, chapter V
- ^ Ninety-six Sermons by Lancelot Andrewes, page 109
- ^ http://www.quodlibet.net/tan-union.shtml
- ^ The Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Scougal, page 13
- ^ Our True Final Hope -The Theosis / Divinization / Deification Web Page
- ^ Book Information | Christian Classics Ethereal Library
- ^ http://scriptures.lds.org/gs/m/4
- ^ See http://greater-emmanuel.org/jg/2006/jg_06_02.html, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYCO8Gv4PP8, and http://www.christianuniversalist.org/articles/beyondhell.html
- ^ http://www.christianuniversalist.org/faq.html#faith, http://www.christianuniversalist.org/articles/divinization.html
- ^ See http://www.hearingthetruthofgod.com/id69.html and http://www.hearingthetruthofgod.com/id349.html
- ^ September 5
- Anstall, Kharalambos (2007). "Juridical Justification Theology and a Statement of the Orthodox Teaching," Stricken by God? Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ". Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
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(help) - Lossky, Vladimir (1997). The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 978-0-913836-31-6.
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(help) - Gross, Jules (2003). The Divinization of the Christian According to the Greek Fathers. A & C Press. ISBN 978-0-7363-1600-2.
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(help) - Catechism of the Catholic Church. Pauline Books & Media. 1994. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-8198-1519-4.
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External links
- Book extract Nonviolent Atonement and the Victory of Christ by Brad Jersak, 2007
- Eastern Orthodoxy and Theosis
- Orthodoxwiki article
- Theiosis
- Some themes in Christian Mysticism
- Deification - online issue of Affirmation & Critique devoted entirely to the topic of theosis
- Luther and Theosis by Kurt E. Marquart (Concordia Theological Quarterly, July 2000)
- Theosis & Sanctification: John Wesley's Reformulation of a Patristic Doctrine by Michael Christensen
- God and Mankind Have Become One Race by NIKOLAOS P. VASSILIADIS
- Partakers of God by Panayiotis Christou
- King Follet Discourse at Brigham Young University
- Journal Of Discourses archive, Brigham Young University
- Partakers of the Divine Nature by Norman Russell