Divinization?

[Deacon_Ed]

Matt16_18:

Peter says that we share in the divine nature of God. You assert that the “essence (ousia) of God" is … in effect, His Nature” and that humans “can never participate in the Divine nature.” Surely this is a contradiction of what Peter is saying.

One of the problems of using an English translation of Scripture is we run into a problem where two different words get translated the same way. In 2 Pt 1:4 the word translated as “nature” is *phusis *which carries these meanings:

nature

1. 
   *]the nature of things, the force, laws, order of nature
   *]as opposed to what is monstrous, abnormal, perverse
   *]as opposed what has been produced by the art of man: the natural branches, i.e. branches by the operation of nature
   *]birth, physical origin
   *]a mode of feeling and acting which by long habit has become nature
   *]the sum of innate properties and powers by which one person differs from others, distinctive native peculiarities, natural characteristics: the natural strength, ferocity, and intractability of beasts

1. 
   This word derives from *phuo *which means “to puff up, to swell.” This is quite different from ousia which refers to that which makes a thing what it is. That is, the nature of the thing. Since the creature cannot become the creator it follows that we cannot assume the *ousia *of God.
   
   We have to be very careful when we proof-text as it usually doesn’t work.
   
   Deacon Ed

 

[Matt16_18]

Deacon Ed:

Since the creature cannot become the creator it follows that we cannot assume the *ousia *of God.

Peter isn’t saying we assume the divine nature, he is saying that we *partake * of the divine nature (i.e. we partake of the divine love). Christians partake of the divine nature through Christ, the God-man who united divinity and humanity in the hypostatic union. Theosis is a *partaking * of the divine nature, and the word theosis is a synonym for what the western mystical theogians call the transforming union, the way of the perfect, the unitive way, etc.

 

[Deacon_Ed]

Okay, I think we’re getting somewhere. We partake of God’s divine nature through a sharing of His uncreated energies. We do not share in His nature (ousia) because we retain our own nature (that is, we do not become the creator, we remain the creature). Loge, mercy, justice, are all aspects of the uncreated energies – and in these we share.

Does that help?

Deacon Ed

 

[Matt16_18]

Deacon Ed:

Okay, I think we’re getting somewhere. We partake of God’s divine nature through a sharing of His uncreated energies.

You still haven’t given any rational explanation about how the “uncreated enegies” of God can be other than God’s uncreated essence. God is simple and NOT divisible into parts. Since God is simple, how can the uncreated energies of God be anything other than his uncreated essence?

We do not share in His nature (ousia) because we retain our own nature (that is, we do not become the creator, we remain the creature). Loge, mercy, justice, are all aspects of the uncreated energies – and in these we share.

We do indeed share in God’s nature, because God’s nature is love. God IS love. When the Apostle John writes that God is love, he is making a statement about the nature of God. (See the footnotes in the NAB to 1John 4:7-12)Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.

Footnotes: [7-12] Love as we share in it testifies to the nature of God and to his presence in our lives. One who loves shows that one is a child of God and knows God, for God’s very being is love; one without love is without God. The revelation of the nature of God’s love is found in the free gift of his Son to us, so that we may share life with God and be delivered from our sins. The love we have for one another must be of the same sort: authentic, merciful; this unique Christian love is our proof that we know God and can “see” the invisible God.

1John 4:7-12 explains the nature of theosis – “everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God”.

 

[Deacon_Ed]

Let me address the latter point first. Note that the footnote is very precise in its explanation: “Love as we share in it testifies to the nature of God and to his presence in our lives.” It’s not that love is the nature (ousia) of God, but, rather that it is an aspect of God. When we say that God is “infinitely simple” we mean only that God’s nature is complete in and of itself.

The uncreated energies of God are, in fact, perceptions of God, they are His works, His love, mercy, forgiveness – but they are not God Himself. God is simple, which means we cannot join to Him in His nature or He would cease to be simple and, in fact, would cease to be God because He would change! God cannot change.

Yet we can “share” in the divine live – we can participate in His love, in His mercy, in His energies, that is, in His actions.

Here’s a simple analogy – if one were to try to grab 20,000 volts it would kill or maim that person. Yet, such a person could easily throw a breaker and allow that voltage to flow. That person is not the power, but participates in the power.

In a sense, that’s what we do – we participate in the energies of God without being God.

I don’t know that I can make it any clearer.

Deacon Ed

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Matt16_18:

What is that supposed to mean? The essence of God is love. How can we NOT share in the essence of God if we are divinized?

Exactly - well said.​

Why can’t we keep away from analysing God like a dead fish on a slab ? ##

How can God be divided into parts, i.e. how can one conceive of a division that separates God’s *uncreated *essence from his *uncreated *energy? God is simple and not divisible into parts - all the Church Fathers taught this truth.

 

[Matt16_18]

Deacon Ed:

I don’t know that I can make it any clearer.

It would be clearer if Peter wrote that we become partakers in the uncreated energies of God. But Peter didn’t write those words, he wrote that through Jesus we become “partakers of the divine nature”. You are making a distinction between the *uncreated * energies of God and his *uncreated * essence that isn’t supported by scriptures, nor is it supported by the Fathers of the Church.

The uncreated energies of God are, in fact, perceptions of God, they are His works, His love, mercy, forgiveness – but they are not God Himself.

This is where the discussion should turn to the distinction between uncreated grace and created grace. The Fathers of the Church often speak of the energies of God as synonymous with created grace. I have no problem with that, because the distinction between created grace and uncreated grace is supported by scripture. What I have a problem with is with is the assertion that the uncreated * energies of God are distinguishable from the uncreated * essence of God. Such a distinction between uncreated energies and uncreated essence does not exist because God is simple and not divisible into parts.

If you want to distinguish between the *created * energies of God, and his uncreated essence, fine, no problema. But the uncreated energies of God are just another way of describing his uncreated essence.

 

[Deacon_Ed]

It would be clearer if Peter wrote that we become partakers in the uncreated energies of God. But Peter didn’t write those words, he wrote that through Jesus we become “partakers of the divine nature”. You are making a distinction between the *uncreated *energies of God and his *uncreated *essence that isn’t supported by scriptures, nor is it supported by the Fathers of the Church.

As I pointed out, the word that Peter uses in not ousia but another word, *phusis, *which is quite different from the essence of God. It carries this meaning: “growth (by germination or expansion), that is, (by implication) natural production (lineal descent); by extension a genus or sort; figuratively native disposition, constitution or usage.” It does not mean His essence. I thought we’d already agreed on that. And, since you mention the Church Fathers, it might be fitting to quote St. Basil here:

Note, therefore, that in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, we speak sometimes of His two natures and sometimes of His one person: anti the one or the other is referred to one conception. For the two natures are one Christ, and the one Christ is two natures. Wherefore it is all the same whether we say “Christ energises according to either of His natures,” or “either nature energises in Christ in communion with the other.” The divine nature, then, has communion with the flesh in its energising, because it is by the good pleasure of the divine will that the flesh is permitted to suffer and do the things proper to itself, and because the energy of the flesh is altogether saving, and this is an attribute not of human but of divine energy. On the other hand the flesh has communion with the divinity of the Word in its energising, because the divine energies are performed, so to speak, through the organ of the body, and because He Who energises at once as God and man is one and the same.

Note that St. Basil clearly delinates the essence from the energies. He continues:

This, then, the theandric energy makes plain that when God became man, that is when He became incarnate, both His human energy was divine, that is deified, and not without part in His divine energy, and His divine energy was not without part in His human energy, but either was observed in conjunction with the other. Now this manner of speaking is called a periphrasis, viz., when one embraces two things in one statement(2). For just as in the case of the flaming sword we speak of the cut burn as one, and the burnt cut as one, but still hold that the cut and the burn have different energies and different natures, the burn having the nature of fire and the cut the nature of steel, in the same way also when we speak of one theandric energy of Christ, we understand two distinct energies of His two natures, a divine energy belonging to His divinity, and a human energy belonging to His humanity.

It’s also necessary to not think in Western philosophical terms for that will not lead you into a fuller understanding of an Eastern concept.

Deacon Ed

 

[Matt16_18]

Deacon Ed:

As I pointed out, the word that Peter uses in not ousia but another word, *phusis, *which is quite different from the essence of God. It carries this meaning: “growth (by germination or expansion), that is, (by implication) natural production (lineal descent); by extension a genus or sort; figuratively native disposition, constitution or usage.” It does not mean His essence. I thought we’d already agreed on that.

No, I never agreed with your eisegesis on this point.

Note that St. Basil clearly delinates the essence from the energies.

All I see is St. Basil saying is that Christ has two natures, a created human nature and an uncreated divine nature, and that there are human energies and divine energies in the person of Christ. But nowhere is St. Basil asserting that the uncreated energies of God is anything other than his uncreated essence. God is simple and not divisible into parts, and I believe that St. Basil would agree with that.

It’s also necessary to not think in Western philosophical terms for that will not lead you into a fuller understanding of an Eastern concept.

How, exactly, can I do that? The Orthodox assert that God’s essence is completely and utterly incomprehensible to the human mind, even a mind enlightened by uncreated grace. To embrace Orthodox theology, I would have to accept that one can never know God directly through the beatific vision, at best, one can only know something about God in both this world and in the world to come.

How can anyone prove that something is incomprehensible? By the definition of incomprehensibility, such proof is not a possibility - one can only make the statement that God’s essence is incomprehensible, and then accept that belief on blind faith and incomprehension of how one can know that God’s essence is incomprehensible even when human intelligence is illuminated by divine grace. Orthodox theology strikes me as having its goal a placid resignation of accepting that one can never understand* anything * about the nature of God.

 

[4_marks]

HagiaSophia:

This is a concept about which I read a few things once and never have gotten back to it or found anything really illuminating to increase my knowledge of it - does anyone here understand what it is exactly and do other rites or the Orthodox have it? If so - can someone enlighten me a little?

I don’t know. I wonder if it means that after we die we eventually cease as individuals and become one with the Almighty for eternity?

 

[Deacon_Ed]

Matt16_18:

How, exactly, can I do that? The Orthodox assert that God’s essence is completely and utterly incomprehensible to the human mind, even a mind enlightened by uncreated grace. To embrace Orthodox theology, I would have to accept that one can never know God directly through the beatific vision, at best, one can only know something about God in both this world and in the world to come.

In a very real sense, God us unknowable – we who have finite minds can never know God, all we can know is what He has chosen to reveal to us, and that mostly through His Son.

Eastern theology (both Orthodox and Catholic) is called “apophatic” meaning that we do not attempt to define God (for any definition is limiting and God cannot be limited). Thus, we say what God is not. This means we express God in ways that are negative: God is incomprehensible, unapproachable, unknowable, uncontainable, and so on. Western theology uses a “kataphatic” approach in which they attempt to define what God is: almighty, omnipresent, omniscient, and so on. Yet those very terms are, in fact, incomprehnsible. We cannot understand what “almighty” means for any such comprehension must fall short of reality.
Even the Beatific Vision is, and must be, limited since the finite creature can never understand the infinite creator. While we certainly see God – and the Orthodox believe and teach this as well – we have to understand that the terminology means something different; same words, different meanings.

This is why I suggest that you cannot understand what we mean when we talk about the “uncreated energies” – you attempt to apply a Western understanding to the term and, thereby, arrive at an understanding that is quite different from what I actually mean.

How can anyone prove that something is incomprehensible? By the definition of incomprehensibility, such proof is not a possibility - one can only make the statement that God’s essence is incomprehensible, and then accept that belief on blind faith and incomprehension of how one can know that God’s essence is incomprehensible even when human intelligence is illuminated by divine grace. Orthodox theology strikes me as having its goal a placid resignation of accepting that one can never understand* anything *about the nature of God.

Ah, but the term “prove” is not a part of Eastern thinking – that’s a Western term that has no correlation in Eastern thinking.

For us God is experienced, not known. We live out the mysteries, but we don’t understand them (and, in point of fact, no Western theologian understands the sacraments either, they simply try to explain the unexplainable).

For example, we don’t use the term *transubstantiation *in reference to the Eucharist, not because we don’t believe in what that term signifies, but because we don’t try to explain what happens in the Liturgy beyond the teaching that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus really present. We explain Original Sin differently because the Augustinian philosophical underpinnings for the Western teaching is not a part of our heritage. Yet we clearly believe in Original Sin and we baptize our infants because of it. We happen to have a different understanding.

Deacon Ed

 

[Deacon_Ed]

4 marks:

I don’t know. I wonder if it means that after we die we eventually cease as individuals and become one with the Almighty for eternity?

In both Eastern and Western theology the teaching is that we remain ourselves, our individuality remains for that is an aspect of our soul. What we gain is awareness of others in a way that is impossible for us to understand today. We will be totally aware (through Jesus) of each other. It will be totally intimate for we will be sharing completely who and what we are. We will be branches on the vine sharing in the Divine Life.

Deacon Ed

 

[HagiaSophia]

Deacon Ed:

In both Eastern and Western theology the teaching is that we remain ourselves, our individuality remains for that is an aspect of our soul. What we gain is awareness of others in a way that is impossible for us to understand today. We will be totally aware (through Jesus) of each other. It will be totally intimate for we will be sharing completely who and what we are. We will be branches on the vine sharing in the Divine Life.

Deacon Ed

While somehow “my instruction” in divinisation seems to have fallen through the cracks (no fault of yours) and gone off into sun and rays; essences and energies, my understanding of other things you are saying is the same as yours. We cannot “become” God. That is against every tenet of any Catholic theology I have ever learned. The essence of God is the “thing” which makes God God. It is a unique character of being that we cannot assume. Angels are spirits, they are not God.

Pretty much how we " join up" with God once we leave this veil is a mystery. We are speaking as finites with limitations, using only words for the purposes of common communication - we have no way to express the ineffable except to say it is “ineffable”. We simply believe that it “happens”.

 

[Deacon_Ed]

Dear Holy Wisdom:

With the exception of knowing that we will “see [God] as He is” we really don’t have any direct revelation of what it will be like. Both Eastern and Western theologians have attempted to address this, but it is, in reality, a theologumenon.

Hesychasm, however, is an approach to theosis. It is a way in which we draw closer to God and can imitate the Divine Life. It is not an end in itself, nor is it something for everyone. Because of the nature of hesychasm it is really more for monastics than those of us who live outside of monasteries, whether cleric or lay. The same is true of the methods proposed by St. John of the Ladder.

Deacon Ed

 

[HagiaSophia]

Deacon Ed:

nor is it something for everyone. Because of the nature of hesychasm it is really more for monastics than those of us who live outside of monasteries, whether cleric or lay. The same is true of the methods proposed by St. John of the Ladder.

Say no more! I suspect should I even try this - the mountains will echo with the roar of laughter from saints and angels who are rolling over through the heavenly firmament saying - this one who can’t meet the minimum is now thinking about “hesychasm” - and first she has to find out what is is - and then a tsunami of chuckles at the very thought of such theological “ignorance”. Kind of like sending in the Little League pitcher in for the World Series.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

HagiaSophia:

Say no more! I suspect should I even try this - the mountains will echo with the roar of laughter from saints and angels who are rolling over through the heavenly firmament saying - this one who can’t meet the minimum is now thinking about “hesychasm” - and first she has to find out what is is - and then a tsunami of chuckles at the very thought of such theological “ignorance”.

Truly Amma Sophia has found the way for she has said: I do not know.

One day some old men came to see Abba Anthony. In the midst of them was Abba Joseph. Wanting to test them, the old man suggested a text from the Scriptures, and, beginning with the youngest, he asked them what it meant. Each gave his opinion as he was able. But to each one the old man said, “You have not understood it.” Last of all he said to Abba Joseph, “How would you explain this saying?” And he replied, “I do not know.” Then Abba Anthony said, “Indeed, Abba Joseph has found the way, for he has said: 'I do not know.”

The Desert Fathers
Anthony of Egypt
members.tripod.com/~chippit/anthony.html

 

[HagiaSophia]

Fr Ambrose:

Truly Amma Sophia has found the way for she has said: I do not know.

My first year philosophy professor used to warn us that at our final examination he was going to throw a question at us far beyond our trained area of study and to be prepared for it - he also told us that year after year students tried to creatively answer the question and one year, a student simply wrote in his examination book: I do not know the answer to this question; I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and the professor said he gave him an A - as it showed the intelligence of an honest man who knew what he did not know.

 

[Matt16_18]

Deacon Ed:

Eastern theology (both Orthodox and Catholic) is called “apophatic” meaning that we do not attempt to define God …

The west also has its masters of apophatic mysticism, (which is better known in the west as the via negativa.) St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila are Doctors of the Church because of their teachings on the via negativa.

• For us God is experienced, not known.*

This is a meaningless statement. If God is experienced at all, then God is known through that experience.

In a very real sense, God us unknowable – we who have finite minds can never know God, all we can know is what He has chosen to reveal to us, and that mostly through His Son.

What do you mean by “unknowable” or incomprehensible? Do you mean that the nature of God cannot be known with complete comprehension by humans, or do you mean that the nature of God cannot be known at all by human beings? If you mean the former, then I agree. Humans, even when given the aid of the supernatural gift of infused knowledge, will never completely comprehend the essence of the almighty God. But the way the Orthodox speak about the incomprehensibility of God seems to me to be the latter understanding – that no human can know anything about the nature of God.

To make an analogy, I can study mathematics and come to an understanding of some truths of math. Some people have a deeper understanding of the mathematical truth than I do. But no human understands every mathematical trurth, and perhaps, no human can ever know every mathematical truth . Even if it is true that no human can understand every mathematical truth, it does not follow that no human can know anything true about math. The same is true about a knowledge of the essence of God. The essence of God is love, because God IS love. We can indeed know the divine love, but that does not mean that we will ever have a complete understanding of God’s essence either in this world or the world to come.

 

[Deacon_Ed]

Yes, St. John of the Cross and his spiritual sister St. Teresa are both well known. In fact, my own spiritual reading for the period before Christmas (known as the Winter Pascha by some) was St. John of the Cross.

When I said “unknowable” I meant that we cannot know all there is to know about God. We can know only what has been revealed. The term incomprehensible also applies because we cannot fully comprehend God.

Deacon Ed

 

[Matt16_18]

Deacon Ed:

When I said “unknowable” I meant that we cannot know all there is to know about God. We can know only what has been revealed. The term incomprehensible also applies because we cannot fully comprehend God.

I can certainly agree with that.

For the Neoplatonist, there is no predilection for man in the abstract being of the Absolute. The whole point, however, is that not just the Being, but the personal Being of God, is unquestionably the most fundamental tenet of Christianity; in fact, it is unquestionably the first principle of any specifically Christian metaphysics.

As a consequence, the categorical transcendence of the Absolute of Plotinus — a transcendence so complete that it does not so much as admit of the predication of “being” to a proper conception of the Absolute except by way of pure analogy — becomes an immediate point of contention in the adaptation of Neoplatonism to Christianity.

The Metaphysics of Mysticism
A Commentary on the Mystical Philosophy of St. John of the Cross
Geoffrey K. Mondello