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Introduction

The doctrine of theosis (or, the crude ‘translation’ of defication) has been consistenly held in a space between theological necessity and the very peak of ascetics as the purpose of all life in mysticism in the Orthodox churches. This is not to be confused with, simply, the Eastern churches, for the Byzantine rites and the Orthodox of the Levantine regions too purport the doctrine of theosis. Many Coptic seminarians affirm that the Cappadocian and Alexandrian church fathers use theological language differing in substantiality and ‘received meaning,’ but containing the same theologies. Theosis is a defining doctrine of Orthodoxy regardless of rite (Eastern, Byzantine, Syriac, etc.).

Theologically, theosis is the intended telos of humanity as dictated through the eternal law and Will of God. However, its philosophical nature and general essence remains a point of contest for many apologists, philosophers, and theologians—whether its nature is an ontological participation in the divine, as the Fathers do insist, or, if it is an intellectual, even ethical, elevation, as suggested by some. Theophilus of Antioch in Ad Autolycum offers a version of theosis that appears to be distinctly devoid of Christ, instead founded in arguably more ‘Catholic’ ideals such as moral purification and—separate from this—Imago Dei being realized through wisdom.

“For if he inclines to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he becomes God.” (Ad Autolycum II.27)

It is suitably said that what is read here is that the process of theosis itself and becoming a god is only realized through the narrative of merit; a movement of the rational soul towards the divine (“to the things of immortality”), and keeping the viable commandment of God, of which is realized to us through the humanly understood laws given to us through divine inspiration.

“For God has given us a law and holy commandments […].” (Ad Autolycum II.27)

As such it provides quite a humanist or naturalistic view of theosis, to use those terms lightly. It is not like the mystical union of, for instance, Maximus the Confessor’s perichoresis, and it seems is contingent upon man himself and not the presence of Christ; instead, the presence of laws. I grow more inclined to liken the theosis of Theophilus to contemporary & modern Christian apologetics, wherein theosis is most often separated from its mysticism and ascetic aspects, and instead proposed as an ethical ‘self-actualization’ or an existential participation in the divine order. However, such liberalism in this theological interpretation hastily approaches the precipice of severing theosis from its necessary Christological foundation in an attempt to reconcile Christianity with modernity, though such reconciliation is recognized in fault. It becomes, then, that theosis is no longer an ontological transfiguration but a moral elevation of man. Such a thing seems to betray the deified aspects of theosis, of becoming a god, where now a god is simply a good man. Yet such is not a fault with modernity and the current state of apologetics. See: such an impulse is countered by those like Archimandrite George of Mt. Athos, whom assumes the classical perspective of theosis where it is not simply moral perfection (or, imitation), but an actual and real participation in the uncreated energies of God (Theosis: The True Purpose of Human Life).

Can theosis exist without Christ? Does a Christless-theosis become an esoteric humanism with Christian roots and inspiration? Though theosis is still largely accepted in the wider Orthodox church today as actual participation, its presence in liberal apologetics and wider works presents an alternative on the basis of tradition.

Theosis in traditional Christian rite and thought

Theosis is the highest of all Christian ontology. As mentioned, the Christian-Orthodox faith holds theosis as a literal ontological participation in the divine life, wherein man is capable of becoming a god for he was created in his image. Participation and becoming ‘like God’ is not to be likened with the becomings of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:5), wherein their attempt to become like God resulted in the supposed birth of original/inherited sin, the original fall of humankind from godhood. Rather, such an event in particular placed mankind within the capacity to, in essence, return to Eden and become a god. It is markedly far from being some abstract ascent of the intellect or a Western morality, rather, it is the very movement that mirrors henosis (GR., ἕνωσις), a union that—somewhat paradoxically—does not dissolve the creature, but fulfills it.

Theosis is the very process towards becoming a god, and too is its own telos. Theosis is typically understood to have three stages¹, that of (1) katharsis (GR., κάθαρσις), the purgation and purification of emotion and thoughts through their expression [the purgative], (2) theoria (GR., θεωρία), a somewhat-state of philosophical contemplation, the mystic stage, where mysticism was before known as contemplatio; the state of being a spectator to the vision of God [the illuminative], and (3) theosis, the namesake and unification, or, godhood/sainthood [the unitive]. Theosis is both the entirety of the process and its objective/telos.

Patristic theology views theosis as not self-divination but of a participation, methexis (GR. μέθεξις), in the uncreated energies of God. In defense of Hesychast mysticism, theologian St. Gregory Palamas narrates a clear distinction between the traditional/patristic and Platonic perceptions of theosis. That is, the defining of theosis as a mystery and not a heresy.

“Essence and energy are not identical, yet the divine energies are truly God, and through them we partake in the divine.” (Triads III.1.9)

Thus, theosis is indeed not a Platonic movement upwards towards an impersonal divine simplicity, achieved through the autonomous nature of mankind, but instead a direct and participatory encounter with the life of God through the nature of uncreated grace. Such a transformation from man to god is analytically immediate and eschatological—the procession towards divinity as described by the Cappadocian Fathers is found within theosis, and realized only through the hypostatic henosis of Christ.

“Theophilus’” theosis with Christ ad absentia in Ad Autolycum

Theophilus of Antioch arguably presents the earliest patristic writings and argumentations of theosis, as adopted by the Orthodox churches, yet what remains a clear distinction between Orthodox theology and Theophilus’ theosis is the presence of Christ. Theophilus, it seems, forms a deification sans Christ; his vision of theosis is no doubt of the subtle inspiration of Christ’s godhood, and too of support by biblical language, yet a liberal reading is able to understand Theophilus as heavily dependent on the moralistic or philosophical ascent, concerned with the ethics of Westernhood and the ‘good man,’  as opposed to the necessary sacramental participation in divinity. Theophilus’ writings, as pater, give support to liberal apology in a theosis without Christ. But does such a thing reduce itself to an ethical transformation? What is the mystery of theosis, and how can it hold importance to the Church, if Christ is removed?

Theophilus writes, as mentioned, that if man “keeps the commandment of God,” then man shall “become god.” Theophilus creates an image of theosis contingent on obedience and a return to an Edenic state of immortality rather than an eschatological transfiguration, or a direct participation in anything other than the in-ness of man and his understanding of good and law. It feels to be a juridical model of divinization, and not ontological. Humanity does not become “god” via grace in the Palamite sense, nor in the participation of the hypostatic union (Maximus), but through moral adherence to eternal divine law as understood by the mortal and temporal. It feels that here, theosis is an extrinsic reward.²

There is here a theological paradox between his (a) ethical ascent and the necessary (b) ontological transformation. Theophilus’ presentation of his argument allows it to be susceptible to the revisions of liberal Christian apology, and whilst this is not inherently negative, the essence of liberal Christianity is to remove the metaphysical, divine, and ontological necessary participations in the religion itself (essentially, the mysticism) to make it more palatable for a contemporary audience. Liberal propositions such as Barthian dogma in the reading of the Bible as a self-revelation is applaudable, and deserving of merit, but its ability to remove the essences of liturgy and rites such as theosis or transubstantiation provides a question of: when does it become so far removed, it is no longer of the same theology? When does Griffin’s perception of the process theology God become so far removed, that it becomes god? Is there a new rapid incursus on the generic Christ-principle that we create a new figure?

If theosis is merely a moral ascent, as in, a movement toward divine likeness through obedience to law, then it likens itself to virtue ethics, most especially in its middle Platonic forms. It becomes indistinguishable from a philosophy where divinization is achieved through rational purification/ethical perfection rather than an ontological participation in divine energies. This then does not necessitate a hypostatic Christ; rather, it operates via an internal and self-sufficient ascent and understanding of virtue and reason (i.e., Didaskalikos). Divinization is no longer a gift, charis, that is imparted from a form of divine condescension, but instead either an intrinsic or learned capability of the rational soul, which, through discipline and contemplation, not faith and worship, can attain assimilation into the divine. There is no requirement of Christ here.

Laruelle & the liberal theosis

The Christ-principle of Laruelle offers a framework in further understanding the nothingness of liberal theosis. Laruelle often critiques the tendency of theological academia to subordinate Christ to philosophical structures, thereby reducing the idea of a Christ to a conceptual function, the Christ-principle. This very principle aims to liberate Christ from the suffocation of theology, as Christianity is entrapped into an onto-theology, where Christ is always, without fail, put beneath a new metaphysical structure. Christ is no more Christ than Socrates is Socrates. The principle itself is a universal human precedent and not a theological category as ascribed in traditional Aristotelian or Platonic metaphysics. Christ himself, or “itself,” is not an object to be thought, but an event to be lived. Christ does not belong to this new economy of participation, he belongs in the realm of the radical immanent.

In constructing a theosis that is absent of Christ’s role as Mediator, Theophilus does, inadvertently, do exactly this in a liberal reading: there is a de-hypostasization of Christ into an implicit ethical force that holds religious power through name alone rather than the incarnate connection between human and God that fundamentalizes the beliefs of Christianity. A theosis -Christ shall collapse into a Laruellean gnosticized humanism. A theology where the human ascent to God and his achievement of godhood is structurally identical to classical philosophical self-deification, proving to be a hypocritical redundancy to the doctrine of theosis. It undoes what it aims to do in its establishment, for its new liberal nature of doing is not of the same intention. Sacramental transformation is only now a namesake granted to universal moral principles upheld by liberal theosis, and it becomes only a poor ethical subjectivity. There is no issue with ethical frameworks independent of religion. There is a personal preference within myself to adopt just that, a secular approach. There is a general tendency to do the same in contemporary society. It is “unfashionable” to liken morality to God and good faith… We are able to neutralize the absolute scandal of divine immanence.

But there is no need to do so in the appearance of faith by making theosis non-Christlike. The ultimate consequence here, which is indeed detrimental to theology and the philosophy of religion, is that theosis shall cease to be a uniquely Christian reality. It is only then absorbed into a more general metaphysical or moral framework, assimilating into the religious universalism that makes godhood attainable on human terms, removing the necessity of its religious nature, yet calling it Christian still. Such a universalization removes the Christological core of theosis in making it a pluralist doctrine. Christ is useless. Theosis is simply a naturally foretold consequence in adhereing to divine law, though that law need not be divine at all. Only divine in name. The eternal law is removed, as the eternality of theosis itself is removed, therefore divinity no longer emerges in the very unilateral action of the divine in breaking human categories, but “divinity” only emerges from the human self-perfection of his own categories.

Theophilus has, in a disastrous manner, foreclosed a Laruellean non-philosophy in an indirect appeasement to liberal apology. He has created a mode of thinking that allows Christ to remain unbound as a concept by the structures of ontology, law, and virtue. Theosis -Christ is entirely thinkable and operates within the metaphysical structure of obedience and law, and all human categories, making it philosophically comprehensible. But Christ cannot be so—cannot be a rationally assimilable concept so-far divorced from the gnosticism and mysticism of Christianity often disregarded in liberal apology; the concept of Christ must be the very disruption of law, the “Future Christ” that exists outside of thought’s ability contains him.

Conclusion

The successful divorcement of theosis from the necessary hypostatic union of Christ and general Christological dialectic creates theosis into an ethic and a politic. There is a perceived shift of theosis from the numinous and mystical essence it holds into an ethical and philosophical human-imparted philosophy that holds no apparent connection to the divine, mirroring the move in liberal theology towards a Christ that serves as only a moral paradigm and not God. Liberal theosis does not allow for Christ as an event, nor does it retain theosis as a real involvement in the divine life (Palamas). Instead, it entirely collapses into an ethical metaphysics. It is entirely human.

Footnotes

1. Complexities regarding the nous and the intricacies of each of the stages of theosis shall be ignored for the sake of simplicity. Refer to further readings for a wider understanding; this paper is focused on only the unitive way in liberal apologetics. ↩︎
2. This is not to conflate the views of Theophilus himself with the reception of his work in a liberal perspective. Theophilus’ idea of theosis as moral rather than ontological can indeed by examined in a closer framework with relation to his position as a pre-Nicene Christian. His Christology and its doctrines, on a personal level, are not questioned here. “Theophilus’ theosis” is how it may be received from a liberal apologetic stance. Hence, “Theophilus.’” ↩︎

References

• Archimandrite George. Theosis: The True Purpose of Human Life. Mount Athos: St. Paul’s Monastery, 1994.
• Gregory Palamas. The Triads. Translated by Nicholas Gendle. New York: Paulist Press, 1983.
• Laruelle, François. Christo-Fiction: The Ruins of Athens and Jerusalem. Translated by Robin Mackay. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.
• Lossky, Vladimir. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1957.
• Maximus the Confessor. On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings from St. Maximus the Confessor. Translated by Paul M. Blowers and Robert Louis Wilken. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003.
• Meyendorff, John. St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974.
• Theophilus of Antioch. Ad Autolycum. Translated by Robert M. Grant. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.
• Ware, Kallistos. The Orthodox Way. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995.