Theosis: The Art of Salvation, Part 1

In my experience, some people approach salvation like an algorithm. They present it as though a person who follows a finite list of well-defined steps can be guaranteed a verdict of "not guilty" on the Day of Judgment. In the tradition of my upbringing, descriptions for some of these steps include "praying the sinner's prayer", "asking Jesus into one's heart", or "making a decision for Christ". I think this approach is not accurate because it reduces salvation to a science. Instead, I think that salvation is an art, probably most like a drama involving several actors. We are going to look at this drama. In this post, we will look at the plot of the drama. And then in the next post, we will see how we may artistically participate.

The Exposition

God created mankind in the His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26). But what exactly does that mean? Well, each word has a specific meaning to the Church Fathers:

• To be created in the image of God means that God, who is a three person community, gave us humans personality and the desire to part of community. Personality is the set of faculties that make us different from every other animal, such as ability to reason, conscience, free will, creativity, desire for intimacy, yearning for the absolute and God, and self-awareness.
• To be created in the likeness of God means that God gave us humans the potential for experiential union with Him. We have the potential to become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). And He did not give us this potential just to make us frustrated. God desires for us to achieve this potential. In other words the Creator, who is God by nature, calls each person to become a god by grace. Because this might sound blasphemous to western ears, let me support this wording by three quotes from St. Athanasius, that great defender of the deity of Christ:
• "He, indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God" (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/athanasius/incarnation.ix.html).
• "Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us" (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxi.ii.i.xi.html).
• "For if you object to my being rid of that corruption which is by nature, see that you object not to God’s Word having taken my form of servitude; for as the Lord, putting on the body, became man, so we men are deified by the Word as being taken to Him through His flesh, and henceforward inherit life ‘everlasting.’" (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxi.ii.iv.iv.html)

But just like for all good things, achieving our potential to become a god requires time and effort. It is a process of learning obedience. There is a technical word Orthodox use to refer to this process: theosis or deification. I think it would be accurate to say that the ultimate purpose of every person's life is to undergo theosis. This actually explains why the serpent's words were so tempting to Eve. He was proposing a shortcut to the process: "You shall not die by death. For God knows in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:5).

The Rising Action

Unfortunately, Eve took the bait, and the consequences were bad. The consequences affect both mankind and God. First mankind:

• Image. The image of God in man became fallen. Let me quote the Orthodox Study Bible here: "The ancient Fathers emphasize that the divine image in man has not been totally corrupted or obliterated. Human nature remains inherently good after the Fall; mankind is not totally depraved. People are still capable of doing good, although bondage to death and the influences of the devil can dull their perception of what is good and lead them into all kinds of evil" (study article on "Ancestral Sin").
• Likeness. The process of theosis got halted. Here I would like to quote: "Since the fall, man no longer had the qualifications he needs to proceed to theosis, as he had before he sinned. In this situation of grave illness, almost lifeless, he can no longer re-orient himself towards God. Thus, there is a need for a new root for humanity; a need for a new man, who will be healthy and able to redirect the freedom of man towards God" (http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/theosis-english.pdf, page 27).

God also experienced consequences. Forgive for quoting an entire paragraph of St. Athanasius. I just cannot think of a way to paraphrase him:

We saw in the last chapter that, because death and corruption were gaining ever firmer hold on them, the human race was in process of destruction. Man, who was created in God's image and in his possession of reason reflected the very Word Himself, was disappearing, and the work of God was being undone. The law of death, which followed from the Transgression, prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape. The thing that was happening was in truth both monstrous and unfitting. It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man, having transgressed, should not die; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption. It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil; and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear, either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits. As, then, the creatures whom He had created reasonable, like the Word, were in fact perishing, and such noble works were on the road to ruin, what then was God, being Good, to do? Was He to let corruption and death have their way with them? In that case, what was the use of having made them in the beginning? Surely it would have been better never to have been created at all than, having been created, to be neglected and perish; and, besides that, such indifference to the ruin of His own work before His very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation, and that far more than if He had never created men at all. It was impossible, therefore, that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of Himself. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/athanasius/incarnation.iii.html)

The Climax

But here is where the Protagonist does the unthinkable to solve the problem. As the Nicene Creed says, the Son of God "for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnated of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary". The Son of God became the new root that humanity needed. St. Gregory Nazianzen summarizes like this:

For we do not sever the Man from the Godhead, but we lay down as a dogma the Unity and Identity of Person, Who of old was not Man but God, and the Only Son before all ages, unmingled with body or anything corporeal; but Who in these last days has assumed Manhood also for our salvation; passible in His Flesh, impassible in His Godhead; circumscript in the body, uncircumscript in the Spirit; at once earthly and heavenly, tangible and intangible, comprehensible and incomprehensible; that by One and the Same Person, Who was perfect Man and also God, the entire humanity fallen through sin might be created anew. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.iv.ii.iii.html)

Look at the connection between these two verses:

• "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth … And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace." (John 1:14, 16).
• "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power." (Col. 2:9)

Christ, who by nature is fully God, at a point in time joined himself to humanity through the Virgin Mary, so that mankind by grace might receive of His fullness of deity and be enabled again to complete the process of theosis. The Orthodox Study Bible summarizes like this:

When the Son of God assumed our humanity in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, the process of our being renewed in God's image and likeness was begun. Thus, those who are joined to Christ, through faith, in Holy Baptism begin a process of re-creation, being renewed in God's image and likeness. We become, as St. Peter writes, "partakers of the divine nature". (1:4)

Because of the Incarnation of the Son of God, because the fullness of God has inhabited human flesh, being joined to Christ means that it is again possible to experience deification, the fulfillment of our human destiny. That is, through union with Christ, we become by grace what God is by nature--we "become children of God" (John 1:12). His deity interpenetrates our humanity.

Historically, deification has often been illustrated by the example of a sword in the fire. A steel sword is thrust into a hot fire until the sword takes on a red glow. The energy of the fire interpenetrates the sword. The sword never becomes fire, but it picks up the properties of fire. (Study article on "Deification").

Wow, what an exciting story! And in our next installment, we will look at our artistic role in the falling action.