Theosis and the Doctrine of Salvation

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Theosis or Deification

The Christian Doctrine of Salvation

What does the Eastern Orthodox Church mean when it speaks of

"deification" or "divinisation" (from the Greek for: ‘to make divine’)?

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

Historically, the word was employed both in pre-Christian Greek antiquity,

and also in pagan quarters existing contemporaneously with the earlyChristian Church.

"The use 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 it 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 Tertullian the Theologian picked it up, cleaned it up and

filled it up with Christian sense. He and his fellow theologians took itcaptive and used it to speak about Christian realities."2

1 Robert M. Bowman, Jr, "Ye Are Gods? Orthodox and Heretical Views on the Deification Of Man".

Christian Research Journal, Winter/Spring 1987 (18).2 Norris, F.W., "Deification: Consensual and Cogent". Scottish Journal of Theology, 49, No. 4, 1996.



Therefore, Church Fathers were observant to contrast their views with

pagans that used similar language. For example, Athanasius testifies to

theosis on innumerable occasions in his writings.

"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:

"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 honour of God to themselves.’ Therefore, theCappadocians 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.

It must be remembered that it was in the Christian East where Synods

assembled (fifth through seventh centuries) to establish orthodox doctrine

about the full humanity of Christ; insisting on a true human nature, soul and

will. When one carefully sifts through the Eastern spiritual tradition, much

more balance than is 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, ie, in

His saving resurrection, is the light which enters the world by way of thecross, and no other way". 6

3 Athanasius, Orat 3.20.4 Athanasius, Ad Afros 75 Pelikan, Jaroslav, Christianity and Classical Culture. Yale University Press, 1993, p. 318.6 Allen, Joseph J. (ed.), Orthodox Synthesis: The Unity of Theological Thought. St. Vladimir’s Seminary

Press, 1981, p. 162.



The liturgical books used in Orthodox worship are replete 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. Hereplaced 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 penaltywas imposed on the Innocent One instead of the guilty." 7

Orthodoxy, in discussions of redemption, employs many other salvificmetaphors besides theosis, and in doing so follows an eclectic approach that

was operative in the early Church. Evangelical Professor and scholar Daniel

Clendenin offers some much needed corrective to the distorted picture given

by some Evangelical commentators:

"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 emphasises 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

Christian themes of theosis and justification not only are not mutually

exclusive, but in fact flow one from the other.

Historical Treatment?

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 inthe teachings of the Church Fathers on salvation,"9 one could read some

Evangelical theologians and commentators and remain unaware that the

7 Mastrantonis, George, A New-Style Catechism on the Eastern Orthodox Faith for Adults. The OLOGOS

Mission, 1969, p. 90.8 Clendenin, Daniel, Eastern Orthodox Christianity: A Western Perspective. Baker Books, 1994, p. 159.9 Mantzaridis, Georgios I., The Deification of Man. SVS Press, 1984, p. 12.



theme of theosis is interwoven throughout the Patristic writings. St.

Irenæus, who was the spiritual grandson of the Apostle John, explicitly

stated this as early as the second century. 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

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,

and Anti-Mormon ministries are no exception, devoting sections (Patres and

Verbatim) that include selected quotes from the Fathers that relate to a

particular issue’s theme. 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 Lérins, 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.11

Thus, ‘tradition’ in the Church is not merely the continuity of human

memory; the permanence of rites and habits. Ultimately, ‘tradition’ is thecontinuity 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

10 Adv. Haer V (pref), in Clendenin, p. 12711 Adv. Haereses IV.40.2



still abiding in the Church, and guides her into the fuller understanding of

the divine truth, from glory to glory."12 Anti-Mormon’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, it is claimed, be

made to say anything.

Some Evangelicals bring heavy indictments against Eastern Orthodoxy for

its adoption of theosis, not realising that it is not an adopted doctrine, but the

continuation of the early Church’s central belief in the nature of salvation.

One who has read the Fathers in context wonders why they do not level the

same charges against the many Fathers that are quoted approvingly by

Evangelicals and Anti-Mormons.

For example, Athanasius could hardly escape blame, since theosis figured

prominently in his soteriology.13 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."14

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." 15

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." 16

12 Florovsky, Georges, "Following the Holy Fathers: Father Georges Florovsky and the Patristic Mindset".13 Athanasius, Ad Serap 1.24; De decret 14; Vita Ant 74; Orat 1.38-39; Orat 3.38-39.14 Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God (54:3).15 Athanasius, Contra Arianos 2.24-6; 2.29f, (in Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines (Rev. Ed.), Harper

& Row, 1978, p. 243).16 Athanasius, Ad Serap 1.24.



Others have realised the profound implications of all of this:

"It should not be argued that anyone who speaks of ‘deification’ necessarilyholds to a heretical view of man. Such a sweeping judgement 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 orthodoxChristianity in existence today." 17.

Bowman’s statement truly cuts to the heart of the matter. There is no logical

reason why charges of pagan perversion should be levelled against

Christians that hold tenaciously to the Christian doctrine of theosis or

divinisation as the correct term for salvation, for it is the unadulterated the

teaching of the the New Testament and the Holy Fathers. It is a glaring

inconsistency to label theosis as apostate yet ignore the history of the

theological formulation of the very doctrines one is attacking. From ascholarly perspective, it is baffling how Christianity could be doctrinally

studied outside of Patristic context.

Moreover, it is this essential unity with the earliest Christian doctrines that

provides the basis for understanding how proper salvic doctrine flows from a

right understanding of who Christ is as God and Man. Pelikan, commenting

on the importance of Ephesus and Chalcedon, observes:

"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."18

It is no accident 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. Theosis formed an

essential 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 wasdoomed to death, in order that by communion with the divinity human

nature may be deified together with him." 19

17 Bowman, Ye Are Gods?…18 Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700), University of Chicago Press, 1974, p.

46.19 Coniaris, Anthony, These Are the Sacraments. Light & Life Publishing, 1981, p. 126.



Vladimir Lossky, one of the premier Orthodox theologians of the twentieth

century, 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, likethe Monothelites. ‘What is not assumed, cannot be deified’ – this is the

argument to which the Fathers continually return." 20

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.

As Pelikan notes,

"There are many writers, and not only sceptical writers, but Christian

theologians—including, indeed, the most important school of German

theology in recent times—who hold that the great controversies of the earlyChurch about the Trinity and the Incarnation were…about subtleties

introduced by Greek philosophy into the Christian religion." 21

The burden of proof is upon Anti-Mormons to demonstrate how oft-cited

Fathers like Athanasius, Basil the Great, and Augustine—all of whom

accepted theosis and utilised 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, Evangelical Calvinist tradition is not entirely immune from thischarge, for,

"Indirectly, through the works of Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius and others Neoplatonism exerted great influence not only

20 Lossky, Vladimir, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. SVS Press, 1976, p. 154-155.21 Pelikan, Christianity, p. 21.



on medieval Christianity but on all Christians who ever since, consciously

or not, have been indebted to these thinkers." 22

And yet Anti-Mormon Devangelicals insist that any presence of Hellenic

concepts within Latter-day Saint theology renders the Godhead a "paganized

deity," evidently unaware that this accusation would impugn Augustine, who

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 theattributes amongst themselves." 23

“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 UnknownGod they had ‘ignorantly worshipped’ before hearing the Gospel at all." 24

It would seem that the hapless pursuit of a "pure" Christianity that only

acknowledges its Hebraic roots 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).

22 O’Meara, Dominic J. (ed.), Neoplatonism and Christian Thought. International Society for Neoplatonic

Studies; SUNY Press, Albany, 1982, intro-x.23 Farrell, Joseph P. (Tr.), Saint Photios: The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit. Holy Cross Orthodox Press,

1987, p. 26-27.24 Horton, Walter M., Christian Theology: An Ecumenical Approach. New York, Harper, 1955, p. 94.



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 theorthodox 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 claimboldly: ‘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 thisimagination 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, asrequired, on either side.’" 25

Lossky also 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." 26

The twin experiences of Judaism and Hellenism in the history of Orthodoxy

are masterfully counterbalanced by Lossky:

"Christianity at once fulfils and scandalises. But whatever may be theattitude 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 allowhimself to be dominated by his forms of expression to the point of

intellectualising revelation, and to lose at once the biblical sense of the

concrete and this existential character of the encounter with God which isconcealed in the apparent anthropomorphism of Israel.

25 Lossky, Mystical…, p. 50.26 Pelikan, Christianity…, p. 244-245.



“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 byaccident 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 themystics, to give the Christian message, which includes but goes beyond

Israel, all its universal reach." 27

Theosis Used in the Western Church

Although theosis is often presented by Anti-Mormons as either a pagan or a

strictly Eastern Christian phenomenon, it must not be overlooked that the

doctrine is found in several Western Church Fathers, as well as in isolated

strands of Western Christian thought throughout the ages.28

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 Hisdivinity but conferred divinity on man." He further writes that our Lord

came to earth for the purpose "that man might become God." 29[28].

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." 30

The second century Latin theologian Tertullian provides an interesting case,

for although arguing against any synthesis of Christianity and philosophy,

27 Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction. SVS Press, 1978, p. 30-3128 Clendenin, p. 12429 Rakestraw, Robert V., "Becoming Like God: An Evangelical Doctrine of Theosis". Journal of the

Evangelical Theological Society, n11-12.30 Homilies of St. Jerome. Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964, p. 106-107.



asking "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" nonetheless has no

problem with a concept of theosis!

"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 beimpossible 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 congregationof the gods.’ But this comes of His own grace, not from any property in us,

because it is He alone who can make gods." 31

A significant Patristic witness the Anti-Mormon conception of theosis as an

exclusively Hellenized view of salvation is the fourth century "lyre of the Holy Spirit," 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 thecategory 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 thetheological 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

31 Tetullian, Against Hermogenes, cap. v.



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." 32

Augustine has historically enjoyed broad respect 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 asa 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 tomake gods those who were men’ (Augustine, 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." 33

In fact, as GWH 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 youas 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 imageinasmuch 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.’" 34

[32].

Bonner stresses that

"[T]he 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 υ ι ο θ ε σ ι α – sonship by adoption – by grace, that

32 Brock, Sebastian (Tr.), Saint Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns on Paradise. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press,

1990, p. 73-74.33 Bonner, Gerald, God’s Decree & Man’s Destiny: Studies in the Thought of Augustine of Hippo.

Variorum Reprints, London, 1987, p. 157.34 Cunliffe-Jones, Hubert (ed.), A History of Christian Doctrine. Fortress Press, 1978, p. 153-154.



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 throughmembership 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." 35

CS Lewis, the popular author of numerous apologetic, theological andfictional works, provides a good example of a contemporary Western writer

—much beloved of Evangelicals—who makes use of the idea of theosis. In

his Mere Christianity, basically he 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 simplynothing else" 36

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 stainlessmirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller

scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will

35 Bonner, p. 291-292.36 Lewis, Clive Staples, Mere Christianity. Macmillan Publishing Co., 1952, p. 153.



be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing

less. He meant what He said.”37 [35].

Finally, Lewis talks about God

"turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new littleChrist, a being which, in its own way, has the same kind of life as God;

which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity" 38 .

With Evangelicals such as 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 judiciousunderstanding 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 emphasised 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 aremarkable 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.).39 .

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 partof Anabaptist spirituality;40 it formed a part of Wesley’s views on

37 ibid., p. 174-175.38 ibid., p. 164.39 Rakestraw, p. 1-3; 14-17.40 "Anabaptism and Eastern Orthodoxy: Some Unexpected Similarities" in Journal of Ecumenical Studies

31 (1994) p. 67-91.



sanctification;41 and 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 anecumenical consensus, a catholic teaching of the Church, best preserved

and developed by the Orthodox." 42

Justification vs. Theosis?

Some Anti-Mormon Evangelicals make attempts to contrast theosis with

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." 43

JND 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 mutuallyincompatible. 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

41 McCormick, K. Steve, "Theosis in Chrysostom and Wesley: An Eastern Paradigm on Faith and Love"42 Norris, FW, p. 422.43 ibid., p. 412.



reason why, carefully stated, they should not be regarded as

complimentary" 44.

And this is precisely what we find in Orthodoxy:

"While insisting in this way upon the unity of Christ’s saving economy, theOrthodox 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 modelsare 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." 45

In fact, the entire cleavage of justification and sanctification into two

different themes—the former said to occur instantly, and the latter being alife-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 thewestern theological tradition where none had existed before…The

Reformation understanding of the nature of justification – as opposed to itsmode – must therefore be regarded as a genuine theological novum.”46

Interestingly enough, this unjustifiable cleavage has never been a part of Orthodoxy. After discussing the subject of theosis, Bishop Kallistos (Ware)

explains:

44 Kelly, JND, p. 376.45 (Ware), Kallistos, How Are We Saved? The Understanding of Salvation in the Orthodox Tradition . Light

& Life Publishing, 1996, p. 48-49.46 McGrath, Alister E., Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification-Vol. 1. Cambridge

University Press, 1986, p. 182, 184, 186-187.



"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, whichdescribe 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 thewords of the Common Statement issued by the Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue

in North America." 47

Even St. Augustine, despite the proto-Protestant conception of him held by

many within the Calvinist tradition, had this view.i

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/í 48

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 throughthe grace of adoption."

In Augustine’s own words,

47 (Ware), …Saved?, p. 66-67.48 McGrath, Alister, Forerunners of the Reformation? Harvard Theological Review 75:2 (1982), p. 225.



"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 hisimmortality" (serm. 166.4).49

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 becomethe 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).”50

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." 51

Indeed, "For Luther deification is the movement between the communicatioidiomatum 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 isunderlined that deification and justification assume, amplify, and deepen

each other." 52

49 Cunliffe-Jones, p. 153-154.50 Bonner, p. 512.51 Bielfeldt, Dennis, Deification as a Motif in Luther’s Dictata super psalterium. Sixteenth Century Journal,

28/2, 1997, p. 405.52 Zwanepol, Klaas. "Luther and Theosis". Luther Digest, Vol. 5 (1997), p. 179.



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 animage 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 onthen 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 outthat "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 amatter 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 Christoccupy 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 inthe 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 alongsubjective lines" [63].

Salvation Without the Cross?

Due to the acceptance of points (1-3) outlined above, in SBP it is put forth

that Orthodoxy’s emphasis on union with Christ via theosis, "omits or

minimizes a justifying Cross." In fact, Jones goes so far as to say that



"Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice, the hallmark of Christian faith, plays no

central role." Of course, we shall see in this section that the truth of the

matter is otherwise—that "the cross [has] the very deepest expiatory

significance [64]—that "man’s life in its totality, and indeed the life of the

entire world and the whole of creation, finds its source and fulfillment, its

content and purpose in the cross of Christ" [65]. Another reason that Jones is

led to these conclusions is because theosis is often discussed within the

context of the Incarnation. But this very same conception is found in the

Fathers of the Church, as Panagiotes Chrestou notes: "According to Patristic

thought, the Incarnation of the Divine Word granted theosis to mankind"

[66]. This idea is found even in St. Augustine, as Bonner explains:

"Augustine’s view of deification is conditioned by his understanding of what

the Incarnation has done. By the union of the two natures of God and man in

himself, Christ brought about an elevation of the humanity which he

assumed, and by being made members of Christ, who was a partaker of our human nature, men may be made partakers of the divine nature (ep. 140.4,

10)" [67].

While Jones will only consider the Cross as having salvific importance, this

is a marked departure from early Christian understanding. "The Fathers," as

Stanilaoe explains, "do not make the death of Christ into a saving event

independent of the resurrection and incarnation" [68]. St. Athanasius, for

example, notes that "The Savior granted both benefits by the Incarnation: on

the one hand, he abolished death from our midst and, on the other hand, he

renewed us" [69]. However, "Both Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa, while

viewing man’s restoration as essentially the effect of the incarnation, were

able to find a logical place for the Lord’s death conceived as a sacrifice"

[70]. In the minds of the Fathers, "the emphasis on the incarnation was not

intended to exclude the saving value of Christ’s death. The emphasis was

simply the offshoot of the special interest which the theologians concerned

had in the restoration in which, however conceived, the redemption

culminates" [71]. And commenting on the Orthodox, Rakestraw similarly

notes that "Orthodox churches also work more with the incarnation than

with the crucifixion of Christ as the basis of man’s divinization. This is notto say that Christ’s atonement is minimized in the work of redemption, but

that the intention of the Father in creating humanity in the first place, and of

joining humanity to divinity in the incarnation, is so that human beings

might assume Godlikeness, and be imagers of God in his divine life,

character and actions" [72].



The soteriological dimension of the Incarnation, so far from confusing the

fruits of the Cross or fostering neglect of it, rather deepens and illuminates

its meaning, as Emilianos Timiadis explains: "Death would be impossible

without presupposing the reality of the incarnation. All of the events of

Christ’s earthly life are inseparable. The benefits of salvation are expounded

in the life of our Savior taken as a whole. All of our sufferings were laid on

him who could not suffer, and he destroyed them. ‘He destroyed death by

death and all human weakness by his human actions.’ This is the way to

understand the representative character of Christ’s death and sacrifice and

the possibility of man’s salvation in Christ. Christ was born for us, lived on

earth for us, died for us, and rose for us and for the confirmation of our

resurrection. Christ’s death was due not to his weakness but to the fact that

he died for man’s salvation. While Athanasius speaks of the incarnation and

insists that ‘God became man that we might become gods,’ he says at the

same time that ‘Christ offered the sacrifice on behalf of all, delivering hisown shrine to death in of all, that he might set all free from the liability of

the original transgression,’ and he speaks of Christ’s sacrifice offered for the

redemption of our sins and for men’s deliverance from corruption. For

Athanasius, Christ’s death retains a place of importance in the pan of

salvation. Immortality came to men through death. Christ paid our debt for

us. In Athanasius we meet with the synthesis of the two ideas of immortality

or reconstitution of our nature and the idea of expiation of our death" [73].

"Of course," notes Chrestou, "death is the summit of the work of economy

because it marks the extreme point of the Incarnation. In this course, the

death of the God-man (not an ordinary death, but a death on the cross which

is the most miserable death for man) is the lowest point of God’s kenosis

and is, consequently, the ultimate point of the Incarnation. It is precisely at

this point that ‘economy was fulfilled’ or, in other words, that the salvific

work done on man’s behalf was accomplished" [74]. In a similar vein, Fr.

Georges Florovsky notes that: "The Incarnation is the quickening of man, as

it were, the resurrection of human nature. But the climax of the Gospel is the

Cross, the death of the Incarnate. Life has been revealed in full through

death." Elaborating further, he explains that "the climax of this life was itsdeath. And the Lord plainly bore witness to the hour of death: ‘For this cause

came I unto this hour’ [John 12:27]. The redeeming death is the ultimate

purpose of the Incarnation" [75].

Orthodox soteriology, then, "with its characteristic breadth, includes the

whole work of economy" [76]. It is the understanding of Orthodoxy,



according to Bishop Kallistos, that "we are saved through the total work of

Christ, not just by one particular event in his life. The cross is central, but it

can only be understood in the light of what goes before – of Christ’s taking

up into himself of our entire human nature at his birth – and likewise in the

light of what comes afterwards, the resurrection, ascension and second

coming. Any theology of salvation that concentrates narrowly on the cross,

at the expense of the resurrection, is bound to seem unbalanced to

Orthodoxy" [77]. It should be noted that some Evangelicals have a better

sense of this unity [78]. So despite St. Paul’s determination "not to know

anything…except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2), he also

stated emphatically that "if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are

still in your sins!" (1 Cor. 15:17).

In EH Jones writes that in Orthodoxy "discussions of substitutionary

atonement and propitiation are virtually absent from their publishedexplanations of salvation." Of course, the reader is meant to interpret this

statement as a virtual denial of these themes, but a more informed

understanding would instead reveal that Orthodoxy possesses a much

broader conception of salvation than that found in traditional Western

Christian thought. Moreover, there is an imminently Biblical reason for this

"virtual absence" (see Note-M). Jones should also consider that ransom

language is used throughout the liturgical texts of the Orthodox Church. If,

on the other hand, it is a catechism that he has in mind, Metropolitan Philaret

of Moscow’s has this to say about the term propitiation: "An expression

which is close in meaning to the present term [satisfaction], but which is

more complete and is authentically Biblical, and gives a basis for the

Orthodox understanding of the work of Redemption, is the word

‘propitiation’ (tr. from the Greek –ilasmos-), which we read about in the

First Epistle of John: ‘Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that He

loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins’" (1 John 4:10).

In fact, references to justification, atonement and propitiation in

contemporary Orthodox writings are far more numerous than Jones

apparently realizes. Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Isaiah statesunequivocally that "Christ remitted our sins. He paid for them, in other

words, when He died on the Cross. Christ our lord redeemed us by paying

for our sins with His blood and His death on the Cross. It was this act which

abrogated the old covenant and put into effect the New Covenant (Hebrews

9:16-18). Christ our God made reparation for our sins by giving His very

life" [79]. According to Anthony Coniaris, "Man will never know who he is



until he meets Jesus at the Cross. It is here that man comes to realize his true

identity: that he is loved by God, that he belongs to God, that he is worth to

God as much as the blood of His only Son" [80]. Timiadis exclaims that "the

fact of the redemption, that Christ gave ‘his life as ransom for many’ (Matt.

20:28), is at the center of the church’s faith" [81]. Fr. Georges Florovsky

writes that "In the blood of Jesus is revealed the new and living way, the

way into that eternal Sabbath, when God rests from His mighty deeds" [82].

And Fr. Thomas Hopko, Dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological

Seminary, states that: "For being God, he became man, and being man, he

became a slave; and being a slave, he became dead and not only dead, but

dead on a cross. From this deepest degradation of God flows the eternal

exaltation of man. According to the scriptures, man’s sins and the sins of the

whole world are forgiven and pardoned by the sacrifice of Christ, by the

offering of His life-His body and His blood, which is ‘the blood of God’

(Acts 20:28)—upon the cross. This is the ‘redemption,’ the ‘ransom,’ the‘expiation,’ the ‘propitiation’ spoken about in the scriptures which had to be

made so that man could be ‘at one’ with God. Christ ‘paid the price’ which

was necessary to be paid for the world to be pardoned and cleansed of all

iniquities and sins (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23)" [83]. These are, of course, just

a few samples; but they amply demonstrate the utter falsity of the claim that

Orthodoxy "cannot permit New Covenant justification" (see Note-J). Nor are

these examples of "lip service" as Jones charges, for these very ideas

constitute the center of corporate worship in the life of the Orthodox Church,

as we shall soon see.

Jones then connects his ideas to the participation of the faithful in the

sacramental life of the Church, and makes the erroneous statement in SBP

that "In Plotinus’s system, one can be redeemed/deified without any need of

sacrificial atonement. Similarly, in the Eastern synthesis, the incarnation and

sacraments could do the trick alone." Of course, it is all too easy to

demonstrate the falsity of this charge (see Note-K). "Without the cross of

Christ," as Stanilaoe explains, "salvation would never have been achieved"

[84]. Fr. Thomas Hopko completely contradicts Jones’ claim when he says

that: "Orthodox spiritual and sacramental life is a life not only under thecross, but within the cross. The supreme expression of God’s mercy and

kindness and love for man is that He enables His people to share in the

sufferings of Christ and to be co-crucified with Him for the life of the world"

[85]. Moreover, participation in the sacraments avails us nothing except

judgment and condemnation if we have not first embraced the Cross and

take up our own, as Fr. Thomas stresses: "We invoke the Holy Spirit to



come upon us and our gifts of bread and wine, and say this is the body

broken, and the blood shed. But if we are not loving with the love that God

has loved us, and our bodies are not broken and our blood is not spilled, we

are not saved, nor will we be saved" [86]. No Orthodox Christian who

knows his or her faith could ever assent to the efficacy of mere mechanical,

ritualistic participation in Church life, without inner conversion.

One of the fundamental problems with Jones’ critique is that he expects

Orthodoxy to practice and to expound Christianity using the same

methodology and terminology of Protestantism. However, it must be

understood that unlike the Western confessions – whether Roman Catholic

or Protestant – one will not discover the essence of Orthodoxy in dogmatic

works or systematic treatises, as Clendenin explains: "Except for the

monumentally important work Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (De fide

orthodoxa) by John of Damascus (675-754), almost no Eastern theologianshave written what we in the West have come to know as systematic

theologies. In Eastern theology we find nothing at all that would compare

with Aquinas’s Summa theologica, Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian

Religion, or Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics" [87].

There may be some truth to Jones’ statement in SBP that "one searches in

vain for serious Eastern explanations of justification, atonement,

propitiation, etc;" however, this lies not in some supposed neglect of these

themes, but for the very legitimate reasons given above. Simply put, Jones

has not grasped the Patristic dictum "the rule of prayer and worship is the

rule of faith and doctrine." This has always been the Orthodox approach to

the Faith, and this statement of St. Prosper of Aquitaine shows forth the

falsity of Jones’ charge (SBP) that in Orthodoxy, "Christ’s substitutionary

sacrifice, the hallmark of Christian faith, plays no central role." Were he to

examine the service books used by the Orthodox Church in celebrating its

liturgical services throughout the year, Jones would find innumerable

references to the saving Cross of Christ, and the benefits from it exalted and

praised. He would also discover that references to the Cross are much more

frequent than to theosis. Additionally, the two themes are sometimesconnected, as in the Great Vespers hymn of the Feast of the Universal

Exaltation of the Precious and Livegiving Cross, which states that it is the

Cross "by which we earthborn creatures are deified" [88]. This is a good

example of how the Liturgy demonstrates Jones’ misrepresentation on this

point; specifically the statement in EH that "deification is grounded in the

Incarnation rather than the atonement." Aside from the service books,



Orthodox prayer books are also replete with references to the saving power

of the Cross.

The redeeming death of the Savior is at the very heart of Orthodox worship.

"Being baptized and sealed," Fr. Thomas Hopko explains, "we eat and drink

the Lord’s broken body and shed blood at the table in His Kingdom during

the Divine Liturgy in order to bear His passion and suffering in our lives, so

that dying with Him we can live with Him, and enduring with Him we can

reign with Him in the Kingdom which has no end. Communing with the

crucified, victorious Lord, we are anointed with the grace of His Spirit so

that our sufferings in the flesh can avail to the salvation of our lives, and so

that our very death can be, with that of Christ crucified, unto the forgiveness

of our sins, the healing of our souls and bodies, and life everlasting" [89].

Indeed, we witness in the eucharistic celebration the intimate relationship between the Cross and theosis. Christians since the earliest times have

understood theosis in the context of the participation in, and our subsequent

uniting with, the broken Body and spilled Blood of Jesus. Kelly explains that

"the eucharist for the Fathers was the chief instrument of the Christian’s

divinization; through it Christ’s mystical body was built up and sustained…

Hilary, for example, argues that, since he receives Christ’s veritable flesh,

the Saviour must be reckonded to abide in him; hence he becomes one with

Christ, and through Him with the Father. He is thus enabled to live here

below the divine life which Christ came fro heaven to give to men. Ambrose

writes similarly, ‘Forasmuch as one and the same Lord Jesus Christ

possesses Godhead and a human body, you who receive His flesh are made

to participate through that nourishment in His divine substance’…According

to Cyril of Jerusalem, ‘We become Christ-bearers, since His body and blood

are distributed throughout our limbs. So, as blessed Peter expressed it, we

made partakers of the divine nature.’ The essence of communion, states John

Chrysostom, is the uniting of the communicants with Christ, and so with one

another: ‘the union is complete, and eliminates all separation.’ Thus ‘we

feed on Him at Whom angels gaze with trembling…We are mingled with

Him, and become one body and one flesh with Christ’" [90].

Of course, this relationship between the Cross and theosis has also been

pointed out in the broader context of the Christian life (see Note-K), as Fr.

Thomas explains: "If we are really called to be divine, then we are called to

be crucified, because if God ultimately reveals Himself on the Cross, then

that is where we have to reveal ourself too. If God fulfills Himself on the



Cross, then that is where we fulfill ourself too. If He reveals His Godness in

a broken Body and shed Blood, then these things have to take place in our

life too" [91]. In his article The Tree of the Cross, Fr. Thomas again links the

Cross and theosis: "The cross gathers in itself the entire mystery of

salvation, and as such, embraces the entire mystery of the spiritual life. To

take up the cross and to live within its power is salvation. It is the Kingdom

of God, defined by the Apostle as ‘the peace and the joy and the

righteousness in the Holy Spirit.’ It is theosis, deification, the becoming God

by grace that is the center and goal of human being and life" [92]. No less

than St. Athanasius himself attested to the unity of the Cross and theosis:

"The Word became flesh in order both to offer this sacrifice and that we,

participating in His Spirit, might be deified" [93].

Salvation by Grace or Works?

"Christian life," says Fr. Thomas Hopko in his lecture The Church &Liturgy, "is a miracle of grace." The Orthodox Church definitively teaches

and believes that a person is saved entirely by the grace of God. But at the

same time, this movement of God towards us does not overwhelm or abolish

the human will, as Bishop Kallistos (Ware) notes: "We should consider that

the work of our salvation is totally and entirely an act of divine grace, and

yet in that act of divine grace we humans remain totally and entirely free."

Or, as the second century Epistle to Diognetes puts it: "God sent his Son to

save us – to persuade us but not to compel: for force is alien to God." While

Calvin said that the capacity of humans to choose good was destroyed after

the Fall, Orthodoxy would say that the will has become distorted and sickly,

but not altogether dead. On the Orthodox understanding of the fall and its

consequence, humans – retaining as they do the divine image – retain also

the freedom to choose between right and wrong" [94].

Historically there has been much suspicion among Protestants as to the role

of human will in our salvation—i.e., synergy, or cooperation with God’s

grace (see Note-T). The understanding of the Orthodox position is further

complicated because the Pelagian controversy (see Note-P) was a Western

phenomenon, and this in turn makes it all too easy to transfer Western presuppositions onto Orthodoxy. As Hinlicky explains: "In the Western

context, Lutherans were allergic to the term ‘synergy’ because of the

Pelagian connotation it had for them, suggesting a self-initiated movement

to God that, as such, could merit the grace of justification. This allergic

reaction rendered them incapable of grasping or utilizing it in its Eastern

sense to describe the new person of faith, who works with the Spirit in the



battle against the flesh" [95]. Theosis and justification working together can

help shed light on the subject of synergy: "Integrating these two

anthropologies [Lutheran doctrine of divine righteousness and Orthodox

theosis], we see that justifying faith wholly involves the human will and its

uncoerced participation, yet not in any Pelagian sense in which the will

retains its Adamic form of autonomy over against God. Justifying faith is the

concrete, nonmeritorious synergy of the new person in Christ with the Holy

Spirit, inasmuch as on this side of the reign of God’s coming in fullness, the

new person in Christ is nothing other than the sinner whom the Lord Jesus

mercifully and effectively claims by the Spirit. In this light, the apparent

dispute about the freedom of the will is shown largely to be the fruit of

conceptual confusion" [96].

Essentially, in Orthodoxy grace and free will are not separated or discussed

in isolation, thus preventing doctrinal imbalance, as occurred with Pelagius.Free will and our cooperation with God is always understood to be an act of

grace. Bishop Kallistos is again helpful here. His comments offer a response

to Jones’ question in SBP, in which he queries,—"how do the Eastern

Orthodox attempt to explain that salvation is ‘not of yourselves?’" His Grace

would reply: "When we speak of ‘cooperation,’ it is not to be imagined that

our initial impulse towards good precedes the gift of divine grace and comes

from ourselves alone. We must not think that God waits to see how we shall

use our free will, and then decides whether He will bestow or withhold His

grace. Still less would it be true to suggest that our initial act of free choice

somehow causes God’s grace. All such notions of temporal priority or of

cause and effect are inappropriate. On the contrary, any right exercise of our

free will presupposes from the start the presence of divine grace, and without

this ‘prevenient’ grace we could not begin to exercise our will aright. In

every good desire and action on our part, God’s grace is present from the

outset. Our cooperation with God is genuinely free, but there is nothing in

our good actions that is exclusively our own. At every point our human

cooperation is itself the work of the Holy Spirit" [97]. This is a far cry from

the assertion in SBP that in Orthodoxy "the beginning of salvation is purely

by grace but the completion of the process is by human effort."

And Clendenin notes that "Interestingly enough, we can say that for the

writers of the Philokalia, the gift of theosis comes by grace through faith,

and not by works (see also Note-L). Especially significant here is Mark the

Ascetic’s On Those Who Think That They Are Made Righteous by Works.

On the contrary, we are, insist Maximus and Peter of Damascus, ‘deified by



grace.’ We ‘become god through union with God by faith’" [98]. Orthodoxy

teaches, then, that the process of theosis, accompanied as it is by prayer,

fasting, almsgiving, the sacramental life, etc., is totally grace driven—it is

only made possible because of grace, as it is the life of God within us that

provides the strength to sustain these spiritual efforts. When St. Paul writes

that "if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live"

(Rom. 8:13), this obviously presupposes conscious effort on our part – but it

flows from the Spirit, as the epistle says. Similarly, he counsels the

Colossians to "Put to death therefore your members on earth; fornication,

uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry" (Col.

3:5).

Jones does not seem to allow for a concept of "will" and "working" that is

found in the thought of St. Paul—the kind that is predicated upon grace. He

also writes to the Corinthians: "I labored more abundantly than they all, yetnot I, but the grace of God which was with me" (1 Cor. 15:10). We can

follow St. Paul’s directive to the Philippian church to "work out your

salvation in fear and trembling" because it is now "God who works in you

both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Php. 2:12-13). His use of the

analogy of a runner competing in a race to the life-long process of salvation

is another prime example of how we co-operate with the grace of God (cf. 1

Cor. 9:24-27). These Scriptures, and others besides (cf. Eph. 2:8-10), form

the core understanding of "work" and "effort" in the Orthodox spiritual

tradition [99]. But again, even this conception is evidently anathema to

Jones, for he asserts that "climbing up the chain of being, even when aided

by grace, is Plotinus again, not New Covenant faith." This is simple

misrepresentation, and we can turn to Clendenin again for a more informed

explanation concerning the nature of the effort exerted within the life of the

Christian: "In Pauline language, we labor and strive, but only through the

empowering grace of God working in us (Phil. 2:12-13; 1 Cor. 15:10-11).

What direction, exactly, does the human effort take? At the risk of

oversimplification, we can summarize the Philokalia and the human means

of theosis in one Greek word, nepsis—that is, vigilance, watchfulness,

intensity, zeal, alertness, attentiveness, or spiritual wariness. The ‘neptic’mind-set recognizes the reality of our spiritual warfare, that our Christian

life is a strenuous battle, fierce drama, or ‘open contest’ (Theoretikon), and

responds accordingly" [100].

The Orthodox concept of synergism, far from being a departure from

Apostolic Faith, is attested to in Scripture and repeated throughout the



centuries. "It is for God to grant His grace," said St. Cyril of Jerusalem;

"your task is to accept that grace and to guard it" [101]. St. John Chrysostom

exclaims, "All depends indeed on God, but not so that our free-will is

hindered. [God] does not anticipate our choice, lest our free-will be

outraged. But when we have chosen, then great is the assistance He brings to

us." St. Augustine himself witnesses to a synergism between God and Man,

as Thomas Oden explains: "Though not the first, Augustine was the most

brilliant exponent of how the action of grace can be both ‘from the will of

man and from the mercy of God.’ Thus we accept the dictum, ‘It is not a

matter of human willing or running but of God’s showing mercy,’ as if it

meant, ‘The will of man is not sufficient by itself unless there is also the

mercy of God.’ But by the same token the mercy of God is not sufficient by

itself unless there is also the will of man." Commenting on Romans 9:16, St.

Augustine states that "If any man is of the age to use his reason, he cannot

believe, hope, love, unless he will to do so, nor obtain the prize of the highcalling of God unless he voluntarily run for it." Finally, Oden notes "That

the synergy of grace and freedom became the consensual teaching of the

believing church is clear from the Third Ecumenical Council, held in

Ephesus in A.D. 431: ‘For He acts in us that we may both will and do what

He wishes, nor does He allow those gifts to be idle in us which He has given

to be used and not to be neglected, that we also may be cooperators with the

grace of God’" [102].

The Orthodox doctrine of synergy came to its fullest and most refined

articulation with the Sixth Œcumenical Synod (680-681). This Synod

declared that Christ has both a divine and a human will, and that these two

wills co-operated synergistically. This has tremendous ramifications for

Christian anthropology. Those who have been organically united to Christ in

Holy Baptism (Gal. 3:27) have the Spirit of God living in them; and this

Spirit quickens our soul and makes it alive unto God. Our own will then

freely co-operates with this newly given Divine Energy which is ever

renewed in us through ascetic struggle and participation in the Mystery of

His Body and Blood. Thus, the Œcumenical Synods that defined and refined

the doctrine of the Person of Christ set forth that, for us who are made in Hisimage, it is not only God’s will that is operative in us (this would be a

monoenergistic anthropology – one held by many Reformed Protestants),

nor is it our own will working apart from God (this would be Pelagianism),

but rather it is the two working together in harmony, neither overwhelming

the other (cf. Phil. 2:13-14)."



The Orthodox Church unquestionably and definitively affirms that we are

saved by grace through faith. It would be expedient to close this section with

an excerpt from an essay on the subject of grace authored by Fr. Thomas

Hopko, for in it he concisely summarizes the themes discussed in this

section: "We would say that God’s speaking and acting in our world, and

God’s entrance into our creaturely being and life is a free gift of God’s

mercy and love for us, that there is nothing that we can do to earn or deserve

it, and nothing that we can do to stop or prevent it. We would say that there

is no human life without participation in God’s self-manifesting activity, and

that we human beings are who and what we are because we are made in the

image and likeness of God, male and female, for unending divine life. We

would say that it is not a matter of God choosing us without or against our

will, nor of our choosing or rejecting God. The mystery of God-with-me and

I-with-God depends wholly on God to the extent that there is no ‘I’ without

God. When I am with God, then I am who and what I am. When I amagainst God, I am struggling to destroy who and what God creates and saves

me to be. This struggle is futile; I cannot rid myself of God’s presence in my

being and life. To persist in it is madness and hell. It must be clearly

affirmed, nevertheless, that I am not God and God is not me. Without God, I

am nothing and can do nothing. With God, I am who I am and can do all

things through God who vivifies, illumines and strengthens me. Through

Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Church, through the preaching of the

Word and the celebration of the sacraments, the presence and power of God

is given as a gift: pressed down, running over, lavished upon us. All is given

by God whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not. When we like it

and want it, it is paradise. When we resist it, it is the hell whose very pain is

the presence and power of God who is love and truth, peace and joy, beauty

and bliss. God is with us. This, simply put, is the meaning of grace. God’s

gift of divinity to human persons is undeserved and unmerited,

unconditional and unstoppable. It cannot be resisted, yet it may be madly

unsuccessfully resisted from our side forever" [103].

Concluding Remarks

In his zeal to paint Orthodoxy as a pagan perversion of the Christian faith,Jones omits several key elements. He disregards the consensual teaching of

the Fathers and unwittingly ends up impugning them in his very conclusions,

for the Holy Fathers testify in their writings to the very things that Jones

condemns in his articles—namely theosis! Their utilization of Greek

philosophy to clarify and explain dogmas of the Christian faith is another

truth utterly absent from SBP. Perhaps the greatest irony in Jones’ criticism



of Neoplatonism is that one of its chief Christian synthesizers is St.

Augustine – the watershed thinker for Western Christianity! Known as one

of the great "Christian Platonists," St. Augustine’s appropriation of

Neoplatonism is a fact that has been well known and documented by

scholars [see Note-F]. "It [Neoplatonism] left a permanent impress upon

Christianity, partly through Augustine of Hippo, partly through its share in

shaping Christian thought in general, and especially in its contributions to

Christian mysticism" [104].

Jones’ assertion that the Apostolic teaching of salvation by grace is

confounded by the understanding of Man co-working with God is patently

false. It arises from a complete misunderstanding of the Orthodox

understanding of synergy, and an unwarranted transplantation of Latin

notions of merit into their critique of Orthodoxy. Fortunately, there are

within the Evangelical tradition individuals who have taken the time tofamiliarize themselves with Orthodox teaching [see Note-U]. And as with so

many other areas, Clendenin sets the record straight on this subject: "As God

works in us, we work out our salvation, not by self-effort or by any inherent

ability (Pelagius), but by the transforming grace of God that works in us to

will and to do his will (Phil. 2:12-13). …The Orthodox emphasis on the

importance of the human response toward the grace of God, which at the

same time clearly rejects salvation by works, is a healthy synergistic antidote

to any antinomian tendencies that might result from (distorted) juridical

understandings of salvation" [105].

The charge of neglecting the Cross or not holding to the efficacious work of

the Savior is a flagrant error, and the liturgical texts, catechisms and

contemporary writings amply demonstrate the outrageous misrepresentation

of Orthodoxy on this point. In SBP, the charge is made against Orthodoxy

that "It [the Cross] cannot accomplish anything definitively, because

redemption/deification is a process." Actually, the last part of this statement

is quite true—"redemption/deification is a process," but one cannot speak of

this, let alone achieve it, outside of the context of the Cross, as Jones

supposes Orthodoxy to teach. It is difficult to imagine a greater antithesis between the assertion that in Orthodox theology "the Cross cannot

accomplish anything definitively" with the actual truth, which Fr. Thomas

Hopko enunciates so well, defining the Cross as "the ultimate, definitive,

absolute, total, perfect, unsurpassable act, word, revelation, manifestation of

God," and "beyond the Cross, there is nothing more God can do. Beyond the

Cross, there is nothing more God can say. Beyond the Cross, there is nothing



more to be revealed" [106]. Orthodox Christians pray this way in the

Liturgy. During the Paschal season the Church sings: "Christ is risen from

the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs

bestowing life"—Christ’s death on Calvary destroyed death itself—the

flaming swords of Eden are parted, and communion is restored with God.

But the Scriptural teaching is that we must take Christ’s Cross and actualize

it in our own life, and become what He is (holy, loving, generous, merciful,

etc.) by putting to death in us all that which barricades the transforming

power of the Cross – this is theosis. "Genuine Orthodox spirituality," as Fr.

Thomas notes, "is always a spirituality of the cross. When the tree of the

cross is removed from the center of our lives we find ourselves cast out of

paradise and deprived of the joy of communion with God. But when the

cross remains planted in our hearts and exalted in our lives, we partake of

the tree of life and delight in the fruits of the Spirit, by which we live forever with our Lord. Rejoice, O lifegiving Cross!" [107].

Sources

A See Jaki, Stanley L. 1978. The Road of Science and the Ways to God.

Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh 1974/76. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press. In these lectures, Dr. Jaki calls attention to "the enormous difference

which there is between Platonism and Christian Platonism" [108]. I would

also highly recommend Jaroslav Pelikan’s Christianity and Classical

Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter

with Hellenism, as well as Constantine Cavarnos’ Hellenic-Christian

Philosophical Tradition, a collection of essays on ancient Greek philosophy

and its utilization by the Church Fathers (I would like to thank Patrick

Barnes for bringing this particular work to my attention).

B It is interesting, in light of SBP’s thesis that theosis is a pagan teaching

incompatible with Christianity, that the early Christians could on the one

hand disparage the ultimate barrenness of Greek philosophy, as St. Gregory

of Nyssa did, and yet write so readily of theosis. St. Athanasius devoted a

whole book; Contra Gentes (‘Against the Heathen’) to the errors andfallacies of Greek paganism, and yet, as we have seen, theosis was a major

soteriological theme for him. Of course, this occurred because—as was

stressed earlier in this paper—theosis was for them, as it is for the Orthodox

of today, understood to be inexorably bound up in christological

considerations; that it flows from a right understanding of who Jesus Christ

is.



C See articles on theosis and theopoie in Lampe, G.W.H., A Patristic Greek

Lexicon. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961-1968.

E See Bonner, Gerald, "Augustine’s Conception of Deification". Journal of

Theological Studies, n.s., 37, October 1986, p. 369-386.

F For further information on the subject of St. Augustine’s use of Platonic

and Neoplatonic elements, see the following resources: Anton, J. "Plotinus

and the Neoplatonic Conception of Dialectic", Journal of Neoplatonic

Studies 1 (1992): 3-30; Armstrong, H. Plotinian and Christian Studies.

London: Variorum Reprints, 1979; Brown, P. Augustine of Hippo, Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1967; Clark, M. "Augustine’s Theology of

the Trinity: Its Relevance". Dionysius (19XX): 70-84; Deck, J. Nature,Contemplation, and the One. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967;

DuRoy, O. L’ Intelligence de la Foi en lat Trinite selon Saint Augustin.

Paris, 1966; Hadot, P. Plotinus or the Simplicity of the Vision. Trans.

Michael Chase. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993; Henry, P.

Plotin et l’Occident. Louvain, 1934; McGroarty, K. "Plotinus on Sources of

Augustine’s Illumination Theory," Augustinian Studies 2 (1971): 47-66;

O’Conell, R., Saint Augustine’s Platonism. Philadelphia: Villanova

University Press, 1984; ____. "Where the Difference Lies", Augustinian

Studies 21 (1990): 139-152; J. O’Meara, "Plotinus and Augustine: Exegesis

of Contra Academicos II. 5": Review of International Philosophy 24 (1970):

321-337; J. Sleeman and G. Pollet, Lexicon Plotinianum. Leiden: Brill,

1980; Teske, R., "The World Soul and Time in St. Augustine". Augustinian

Studies 14 (1983): 75-92. It has also been called to my attention that in a

relatively recent issue (undisclosed) of Augustinian Studies, M. Barnes has

an article on St. Augustine and the Trinity; see also B. Studer’s article in the

same review. I would like to thank Fr. Allan Fitzgerald of Villanova

University for providing the above sources.

G Beinfeldt concludes his critical look at the Finnish effort by stating that "I believe Peura correctly perceives that significant deification imagery does

occur within the Dictata. However, I am not as sanguine as he that

divinization plays such a central role in the document," and "I have

suggested that the deification imagery Luther employs in the Dictata is not

uncommon within the Augustinian tradition of the time. That the mature

Augustine operated within a theological framework not antithetical to



deification has been richly documented. Perhaps Luther does occasionally

pick up on the Augustinian motif of human participatory adoption through

divine grace" [112].

H For further reading on the positive relationship between justification and

theosis, as well as theosis imagery present in Martin Luther, see Aden, Ross,

"Justification and Sanctification: A Conversation Between Lutheranism and

Orthodoxy", St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 38:1 (1994), p. 96-98;

Mannermaa, Tuomo, The Christ Present in Faith: Justification and

Deification: The Ecumenical Dialogue (Hanover, 1989); the following

papers from Luther Digest; from Vol. 3, (1995), Part III "Luther and

Theosis": McDaniel, Michael C.D., "Salvation as Justification and Theosis";

Asendorf, Ulrich, "The Embeddedment of Theosis in the Theology of Martin

Luther"; Posset, Franz, "Deification in the German Spirituality of the Late

Middle Ages and in Luther: An Ecumenical Historical Perspective";Kretschmar, Georg, "The Reception of the Orthodox Teaching of

Divinization in Protestant Theology"; Mannermaa, Tuomo, "Theosis as a

Theme of Finnish Luther Research". And from Vol. 5 (1997), Part V

"Theosis Revisited": Bakken, Kenneth L., "Holy Spirit and Theosis: Toward

a Lutheran Theology of Healing"; Peura, Simo, "The Deification of Man as

Being in God"; Saarinen, Risto, "The Presence of God in Luther’s

Theology".

I On the question of the forensic nature of justification in St. Paul’s letters,

see Robert Brow’s article "Did Paul Teach Law Court Justification?".

He notes, for example, that "The words in the original Greek might allow,

but never require a judicial interpretation. Since the time of Chrysostom it

has been pointed out in the Greek Church that dikaioo could equally well be

translated ‘make upright or righteous’". See also "The Exegesis of Romans

5:12", St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, Vol. 27.3, p. 133ff., (1983);

Vol. 27.4, p. 187ff. (1983) & Vol. 28.1, p. 231ff. (1984). Joachim Jeremias

also notes that there are instances in the Bible when dikaioo is used in non-

judicious contexts (see The Central Message of the New Testament, 1965).

Spicq and Ernest note in their Lexicon that "He [God] infuses the believer

with a dikaiosis zoes (Rom. 5:18), the infusion of a pneuma zoe dia

dikaiosynen (Rom. 8:10; Gal. 3:2, 5). It is consequently a gift received

(dorea, Rom. 5:17), a real justice/righteousness (4:4-5) that a person

possesses beginning in the present, thanks to Christ…Understood thus,



justice/righteousness by faith cannot be forensic. The sinner is transformed

within, is prepared to live with God, prepared for eternal life (Rom. 5:21;

8:10), granted a power (5:17) that allows him to triumph over sin (6:18ff.; 2

Cor. 6:4), outfitted with the ‘weapons of justice/righteousness’ (Rom. 6;13;

2 Cor. 6:7; Eph. 6:14). Since the object of this initial justification is a living

being; it must continue as an unending process; so in concrete terms it is

identified with the Christian life (1 Pet. 2:24; 1 John 3:10) and with

sanctification" [113].

Significantly, McGrath states that one of the chief discontinuities between

the Reformation era and the early Church "is the understanding of

justification as a forensic concept, distinguished, if only conceptually, from

regeneration. It is of the greatest interest to consider what the origins of the

concept of forensic justification might be. As we have argued elsewhere, it is

possible that Melanchthon may have derived the idea from Erasmus’ NovumInstrumentum of 1516, in which the forensic overtones of the notion of

‘imputation’ are specifically noted, using Roman jurisprudence as a model…

It is quite possible that the distinguishing feature of Protestant doctrines of

justification may owe its inspiration to humanism. The doctrines of

justification associated with the Lutheran and Reformed Confessions may be

concluded to constitute genuine theological nova [114].

J Fr. Thomas gave an excellent lecture a few years back entitled The Word

of the Cross, and it is heartily recommend to anyone who doubts that the

Cross is central to Orthodox life and experience. Also recommended is his

The Tree of the Cross, which forms one of the essays in Orthodox Synthesis:

The Unity of Theological Thought. Another helpful source would be The

Death of Christ, presented by Fr. Paul Tarazi, Professor of Old Testament at

St. Vladimir’s Seminary, and also available from St. Vladimir’s Seminary

Press.

K Osborn notes: "deification of man is linked, especially in Clement [of

Alexandria], with a theology of the cross. It is the martyr who is perfect man

and at the same time divine; he speeds straight to the immediate presence of God; he is the true philosopher who has practised death. Persecution

produces a theology of glory as well as a theology of the cross, for

persectution means promotion, not punishment." [115].

L Osborn, commenting on St. Clement of Alexandria’s soteriology, notes:

"The themes of deification and assimilation to God are linked with the



insistence that there is none good but God. Only the good God can save

sinful man and he can only save by giving himself to man. Man finds no

goodness outside of God. Christ is his only righteousness. To the extent that

we are saved, we are deified. In the language of the second century,

deification means sola gratia" [116].

M Constantine Tsirpanlis sheds further light on Jones’ mistaken conclusions

regarding the relative lack of judicial language in discussions of salvation

within Orthodoxy: "The conception of Soteria [salvation] in the Eastern

Church and Patristic tradition is broader and more inclusive than the Roman

Catholic emphasis on ‘redemption’ and the Protestant ‘justification.’ The

Orthodox Church prefers to use the term soteria also because the New

Testament uses that term (about forty times) in order to describe the work

accomplished by Jesus Christ (and the title given to Christ: soter-about

twenty times)" [117].

N In the second note featured in the source section of SBP, Jones takes

exception to the use of 2 Peter 1:4 as a proof-text for theosis, stating that the

verse would go beyond even that which Orthodoxy teaches; namely that we

cannot participate in the nature, or essential being, of God. Yet this

observation hardly constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to the Orthodox

doctrine of theosis. In fact, John Breck makes precisely the same point: "As

Orthodox, we often content ourselves with quoting the late and problematic

affirmation of 2 Peter 1:4, to show that the doctrine of theosis is, in fact,

taught by Holy Scripture. But this is hardly adequate. The Fathers, after all,

never held that we become participants of the divine nature, taken in the

sense of essence". Breck prefers to approach theosis within the context of

tripartite statements in the New Testament "that associate God, Jesus and the

Spirit in terms of their hypostatic interrelationships as well as their

economia, their saving work on behalf of the Church and the world" [118].

Of course, 2 Peter 1:4 was nonetheless used by the Fathers, who, as we have

seen, always noted the chasm between Creator and creature.

Approaching 2 Peter 1:4 from another angle, Evangelical Thomas C. Oden,as Rakestraw explains, "notes that the traditional distinction between

incommunicable and communicable attributes clarifies how the soul may

partake of the divine nature: there can be godlikeness by participation in the

communicable attributes, such as grace, mercy, and longsuffering, but there

is no possibility of finite creatures being made infinite, invisible, pure spirit,

etc." [119]. Additionally, Al Wolters, who like Jones opts for a covenantal



reading of 2 Peter 1:4, nonetheless notes: "My point is not that the traditional

interpretation is philologically impossible but rather that another

interpretation is both possible and preferable" [120]. Similarly, David Cairns

(see The Image of God in Man. New York: Philosophical Library, 1953),

although disapproving of theosis (because he mistakingly believes it to mean

a fusion of the Christian with Christ (see p. 41-43), does admit that 2 Peter

1:4 teaches that believers actually share in the nature of God, and that

Galatians 2:20 comes close to saying this also. He dismisses Peter’s

statement, nevertheless, as an "off the record" remark (p. 42) [121].

One very important Scripture not mentioned in SBP that forms the

underlying foundation for theosis is Genesis 1:26, which speaks of

mankind’s creation in the image and likeness of God. As Rakestraw

explains, "The Greek Fathers taught that, in the fall, humanity lost the

likeness but retained the image….Whether the focus is placed on the imageof God being restored, or whether one sees these terms as synonymous, the

concept of the Christian’s reintegration into the life of God remains central

in all understandings of theosis" (cf. 1 Cor. 15:49; pH. 3:16-19; 4:13-15)

[122].

O Fr. Thomas Hopko wrote a very informative article entitled "The Fountain

of Israel" which completely dispels Douglas Wilson’s comment in the

Similitudes section of C/A Vol. 6 No. 5 that "The Orthodox Church is part

of the modern movement to detach the church from its apostolic, Hebraic,

covenantal, Abrahamic roots." According to Fr. Thomas, "there is a radical

continuity between Israel and the Church…Spiritually, we are all Jewish.

We are grafted to their covenant. We have access to the God of Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob, and sociologically speaking, He was the God of those

people. And we are in their covenant. I think that is something that has to be

really stressed." He explains further: "According to the New Testament

Scriptures and particularly according to Saint Paul, the Church is in

complete continuity with Israel, to the point that with all the emphasis in the

New Testament on newness—the New Covenant, the new creation, the new

heaven, the new earth—we don’t see the expression, ‘new Israel.’ Therefore,when Saint Paul says, ‘upon the Israel of God’ (Galatians 6:16), he is

speaking of the Church. Because of this emphasis, Orthodox Christians

believe that the Church is historic Israel as it continues, at least according to

the theology of the New Testament. Jesus is a Jew, His Mother is a Jew, all

the Apostles are Jews, Paul certainly flaunts that he is a Jew. The human

form and fabric of the Christian Faith is that of Israel. You can’t even



understand who Christ is without the Passover Exodus, the Temple, the Law,

the prophetic utterances, the blood, the goats, the priesthood, the prophecy,

the kingship, the land, Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem, and so on. It’s just

part of Christian totality" [123].

P Pelagianism, a fifth century heresy promulgated by the British monk

Pelagius, held that Man can approach God through his will alone, and that

divine grace merely facilitates what the will can do itself. It was condemned

by the Œcumenical Synod of Ephesus in 431.

Q In the Verbatim section of Vol. 6 No. 5, several Church Fathers are cited

to support Credenda / Agenda’s belief in sola scriptura. Of course, it is well

known that Sts. Athanasius, Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem and many

others declared the Scriptures sufficient in doctrinal matters. Even in more

recent times, however, such language can be found in Orthodoxy. For example, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow stated in the nineteenth century

that "The only pure and all-sufficient source of the doctrines of the faith is

the revealed word of God" [124]. However, the conception of Scriptural

sufficiency that exists in the Fathers and in contemporary Orthodoxy is a far

cry from that championed by Credenda/Agenda.

The missing operative in the Protestant approach is that of a traditional

hermeneutical (interpretive) function grounded in the living, Spirit-inspired

Church. St. Vincent of Lérins, in his Commonitory (2), perhaps best

encapsulated this notion: "Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and

sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is

there to join with it the authority of the Church’s interpretation? For this

reason – because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it

in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way,

another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations

as there are interpreters…Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so

great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right

understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance

with the standard of ecclesiastical and catholic interpretation." For St.Vincent, as Florovsky notes, "Tradition was, in fact, the authentic

interpretation of Scripture. And in this sense it was coextensive with

Scripture. Tradition was actually ‘Scripture rightly understood.’ And

Scripture for St. Vincent was the only, primary, and ultimate canon of

Christian truth’" [125].



R In the Definition of Faith of Constantinople II (680-681) we read: "For in

the same way that his all holy and blameless animate flesh was not

destroyed in being made divine but remained in its own limit and category,

so his human will as well was not destroyed by being made divine, but

rather was preserved, according to the theologian Gregory [Nazianzus], who

says: ‘For his willing, when he is considered as saviour, is not in opposition

to God, being made divine in its entirety’" [126].

S Many more examples could be cited. Both sides of the debate over the

propriety of icons had recourse to christological arguments. The iconoclasts

argued against them from the aspect of the portrayal of the two natures of

Christ. It was impossible to portray His divine nature, and the portrayal of

the human nature apart from the divine was a Nestorian error. However,

"The iconoclasts had failed to recognize a third option, that an icon does not

‘represent His divinity or His humanity, but His Person, whichinconceivably unites in itself these two nature without confusion and without

division, as the Chalcedonian dogma defines it’" [127]. Another good

example is Mariology. It is not accidental that the only Marian dogma that

exists in the Orthodox Church is that she is truly the Mother of God. The

orthodox Fathers of the Third Œcumenical Synod in 431 insisted on calling

Mary Theotokos because they recognized its christological implications—

namely, that the One whom Mary bore was God in the flesh.

T Fr. Georges Florovsky wrote a very important essay entitled "The Ascetic

Ideal and the New Testament" in which he carefully sifts through the entire

New Testament and demonstrates that the doctrine of synergy is suffused

throughout.

U For a fair, representative and informed Protestant evaluation of

Orthodoxy, see Harold O.J. Brown’s contribution to the Christian History

issue dealing with Orthodoxy (#54), as well as Daniel Clendenin’s. The

issue can be accessed on-line at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/54h/

Clendenin’s Eastern Orthodox Christianity: A Western Perspective is also a

very good source.

[50].

[51] Pelikan, Jaroslav (ed.), Luther’s Works, Lectures on Galatians, 1535,

Vol. 26, Concordia Publishing House, 1963, p. 247.



[52] Bielfeldt, p. 408, 410-411, 412-413.

[53] Meyendorff, John & Tobias, Robert (eds.), Salvation in Christ-A

Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue. Augsburg Fortress, 1992, p. 83.

[54] Hinlicky, Paul R., "Theological Anthropology: Toward Integrating

Theosis and By Faith". Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 34:1, Winter 1997,p.

38, 62.

[55] ibid., p. 62, n59.

[56] Edwards, Henry, "Justification, Sanctification, and the Eastern

Orthodox Concept of Theosis". Luther Digest, Vol. 5 (1997).

[57] McGrath, Forerunners…?, p. 236.

[58] Lossky, Mystical…, p. 111.

[59] Clendenin, p. 124.

[60] Pinnock, Clark, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit.

InterVarsity Press, 1996, p. 156-157.

[61] Clendenin, p. 125, n20.

[62] ibid., p. 124

[63] Torrance, Thomas F., God and Rationality. Oxford University Press,

1971, p. 64-65.

[64] Verhovskoy, Sergei, The Light of the Word. SVS Press, 1982, p. 35.

[65] Allen, Joseph, p. 153.

[66] Chrestou, Panagiotes, Partakers of God. Holy Cross Orthodox Press,

1984, p. 45.

[67] Bonner, p. 157.



[68] Stanilaoe, Dumitru, Theology and the Church. SVS Press, 1980, p. 198.

[69] Chrestou, p. 44.

[70] Kelly, J.N.D., p. 384.

[71] ibid., p. 376.

[72] Rakestraw, p. 9.

[73] Timiadis, Emilianos, The Nicene Creed: Our Common Faith. Fortress

Press, 1983, p. 69.


[75] Florovsky, Georges, Creation and Redemption. Nordland Publishing

Co., 1976, p. 96, 99.


[77] (Ware), …Saved?, p. 48-49.

[78] Irons, Lee, "Raised for Our Justification", Modern Reformation, 1996.

[79] The Christian Activist (Vol. 9) Fall/Winter 1996, p. 30.

[80] Coniaris, Anthony, Orthodoxy: A Creed for Today. Light & Life

Publishing, 1972, p. 135.

[81] Timiadis, p. 70.

[82] Florovsky, Creation & Redemption, p. 131.

[83] Hopko, Thomas, The Orthodox Faith (Vol. 1). Dept. of ReligiousEducation, Orthodox Church in America, 1981, p. 88, 95-96.

[84] Stanilaoe, p. 194.

[85] Hopko, in Orthodox Synthesis, p. 165-166.



[86] Hopko, The Church & Salvation (lecture), SVS Press, 1996.


[88] Hopko, in Orthodox Synthesis, p. 154.

[89] ibid., p. 165.

[90] Kelly, J.N.D., p. 450.

[91] Hopko, The Word of the Cross (lecture), SVS Press, 1989.


[93] St. Athanasius, De decret 14, in Kelly, J.N.D, p. 377.

[94] (Ware), …Saved?, p. 32, 40, 44.

[95] Hinlicky, p. 62.

[96] ibid., p. 38.

[97] (Ware), …Saved?, p. 42-43.


[99] Hopko, The Church & Liturgy (lecture), SVS Press, 1996.


[101] Cat. Orat. 1.4, in (Ware), The Orthodox Church (new ed.), Penguin

Books, 1993, p. 222.

[102] Oden, Thomas C., The Transforming Power of Grace. AbingdonPress, 1993, p. 97-98.

[103] Hopko, Thomas, "About God’s Grace". The Living Pulpit, January-

March 1995.



[104] Latourette, K.S., A History of Christianity (Vol. 1). Harper San

Francisco, 1975, p. 95.


[106] Hopko, The Word of the Cross


[108] Pelikan, Christianity…, p. 20.

[109] McGrath, Forerunners?…, p. 230-232.

[110] McGrath, Iustitia Dei… (Vol. 1), p. 36.

[111] McGrath, Forerunners?…, p. 230.

[112] Bielfeldt, p. 404, 420.

[113] Spicq, C. & Ernest, J (Tr.), Theological Lexicon of the New

Testament, 1:335-6 & 336 n69. Hendrickson Publishers, 1995.

[114] McGrath, Forerunners?…, p. 241.

[115] Osborn, Eric, The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy. Cambridge

University Press, 1981, p. 117-118.

[116] ibid., p. 117.

[117] Tsirpanlis, Constantine, Introduction to Eastern Patristic Thought and

Orthodox Theology. The Liturgical Press, 1991, p. 61.

[118] Breck, John, The Power of the Word in the Worshiping Church. SVS

Press, 1986, p. 142-184.

[119] Rakestraw, p. 19, n14.

[120] Wolters, Al, Partners of the Deity: A Covenantal Reading of 2 Peter

1:4, Calvin Theological Journal 25 (1990): p. 43, n. 73].



[121] Rakestraw, p. 22, n50.

[122] ibid., p. 1-2.

[123] Hopko, The Fountain of Israel. Again Magazine, Vol. 19, No. 4, Dec.

‘96/Jan. ’97.

[124] (Ware), Praying With the Orthodox Tradition. SVS Press, 1996, xi.

[125] Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition (Vol. 1), 1972, p. 75; cf 51, 79.

[126] Tanner, Norman P., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Vol. 1), p.

128-129, Sheed & Ward and Georgetown University Press, 1990].


A Note of Personal Thanks…to Patrick Barnes, who provided painstaking

editing and plenty of helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to

thank Fr. Deacon John Whiteford for helpful suggestions.

http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/frag_salv.aspx8e5fd5c8-4f64-40b5-96a6-7fa1f3c43d13

1.03.01



i D Jones’ understanding of justification is not nearly as synonymous with St. Augustine’s as his comments in

Credenda/Agenda suggest. According to McGrath, it is not Calvin, but "Martin Luther who is closest to Augustine in his

teaching on justification." Where they differed was that "the notion of the imputation of the iustitia Christi is simply not present in Augustine’s theory of justification in the sense that Luther required…In justification, man is made righteous. For

Luther, however, the righteousness of Christ is always external to man, and alien to him [109]. For St. Augustine, as

McGrath summarizes, "Justification is about ‘being made just’—and Augustine’s understanding of iustitia is so broad that

this could be defined as ‘being made to live as God intends man to live, in every aspect of his existence,’ including his

relationship with God, with his fellow men, and the relationship of his higher and lower self (on the neo-Platonic

anthropological model favored by Augustine). That iustitia possesses legal and moral overtones will thus be evident; butthis must not be permitted to obscure its fundamentally theological orientation. By justification, Augustine comes very close

to understanding the restoration of the entire universe to its original order, established at creation, an understanding not verydifferent from the Greek doctrine of cosmic redemption. The ultimate object of man’s justification is his ‘cleaving to God,’

a ‘cleaving’ which awaits its consummation and perfection in the new Jerusalem, which is even now being established"

[110]. And von Loewenich points out that "justification is not understood by Augustine in a highly forensic manner, but as a

process with perfection as its goal" [111].

Theosis and the Doctrine of Salvation

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