Posted on 08/28/2008 5:23:47 PM PDT by Kolokotronis
Theosis Ping!
Where does he get this idea? I enjoy reading Orthodox mystical theology but everytime the subject of Roman Catholic mysticism comes up the author gets it wrong.
I’m not orthodox, I’m evangelical I suppose, but I don’t find anything in this piece to disagree with, other than the assumption that I probably wouldn’t agree. You might be surprised to find that we agree on quite a lot.
cheers
I, too, wonder if his representation of the Western thought is accurate. I would like to see a doctrinal statement on created/uncreated energies from a Catholic source; what Barlaam thought for himself does not make it Catholic dogma. I suspect this is one instance where the Orthodox refine the dogma left unclarified by the Early Church and by the Roman Catholics of today. Usually it is the other way around, e.g. on the purgatory or the recent mariology.
It is a good explanation of the uncreated energies theology. How does this relate to grace?
Deification? Well First John 3:2(b) says this of God: “...when He is revealed,we will be like Him,for we will see Him as He is.”
(an Evangelical Christian)
Deification? Well First John 3:2(b) says this of God: “...when He is revealed,we will be like Him,for we will see Him as He is.”
(an Evangelical Christian)
So, we unite with God through His uncreated energies, and not through His essence. This is the mystery of our Orthodox faith and life.Compare this to the following:Western heretics cannot accept this. Being rationalist, they do not discern between the essence and the energy of God, so, they say that God is only essence. And for this reason they cannot speak about man's deification (gr. theosis). Because, according to them, how could man be deified when they do not accept that the divine energies are uncreated, but regard them as created? And how could something created, i.e., something outside God, deify created man?
In order not to fall into pantheism, they do not speak at all about deification (gr. theosis).
In the Roman Rite the prayer during the Mass for the mixing of the water and wine:
O God, Who in creating the human nature didst marvelously enoble it, and hast still more marvelously renewed it: grant that by the mystery of this water and wine, we may be made partakers of His Divinity Who vouchsafed to become partaker of our humanity, Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.From the Catechism of the Council of Trent:
For the blessed always see God present and by this greatest and most exalted of gifts, being made partakers of the divine nature, they enjoy true and solid happiness.Again, St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Th. Ia IIae, Q. 111 Art 2):
And thus there is a twofold grace:—one whereby man himself is united to God, and this is called sanctifying grace…In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 1999):
The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the word of sanctification.
With all due respect, P, I think you’ve made the geronda’s point.
Ditto. Petrosius wrote "Archimandrite George clearly is not familiar with Western thought on this subject or is misrepresenting it."
Petrosius' examples show that Achimadrite George not only knows the mindset of the West but portrayed it accurately. The West teaches that men become God the way God became man.
Petrosis: does the Catholic Church doctrine teach that humans become God by hypostatic union the way Word became flesh?
If not, what does "partakers of divine nature" mean in the West? Again, from the exmaples you give ity is either a gross misinterpretation of 2 Pet 1:4, which merely states that we become sharers of divine character of God, but do not become God in essence, or it is a just a poor choice of words.
Ditto. Petrosius wrote "Archimandrite George clearly is not familiar with Western thought on this subject or is misrepresenting it."
Petrosius' examples show that Achimadrite George not only knows the mindset of the West but portrayed it accurately. The West teaches that men become God the way God became man.
Petrosis: does the Catholic Church doctrine teach that humans become God by hypostatic union the way Word became flesh?
If not, what does "partakers of divine nature" mean in the West? Again, from the exmaples you give ity is either a gross misinterpretation of 2 Pet 1:4, which merely states that we become sharers of divine character of God, but do not become God in essence, or it is a just a poor choice of words.
apologies for double post
***The psyche of man, who is created in the image and likeness of God, yearns for God and desires union with Him.***
We are at war with God and desire no such thing, until regenerated by the Holy Ghost that is...
I posted this from +Symeon the New Theologian on the other thread on this subject:
“Can a man take fire into his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?’says the wise Solomon. And I say: can he, who has in his heart the Divine fire of the Holy Spirit burning naked, not be set on fire, not shine and glitter and not take on the radiance of the Deity in the degree of his purification and penetration by fire? For penetration by fire follows upon purification of the heart, and again purification of the heart follows upon penetration by fire, that is, inasmuch as the heart is purified, so it receives Divine grace, and again inasmuch as it receives grace, so it is purified. When this is completed (that is, purification of heart and acquisition of grace have attained their fullness and perfection), through grace a man becomes wholly a god.”
Does that complicate or explain things? Of course, as Harleyd points out we Orthodox are synergists while you Calvinists are monergists.
From my reading, the Archimandrite George’s point was that the Western Church does not hold to the idea of Theosis/Sanctification, i.e, the”participation in God’s glory, a vision of God, of His Grace and His uncreated light”. This is clearly wrong.
No. The hypostatic union is unique to the Son.
If not, what does "partakers of divine nature" mean in the West? Again, from the exmaples you give ity is either a gross misinterpretation of 2 Pet 1:4, which merely states that we become sharers of divine character of God, but do not become God in essence, or it is a just a poor choice of words.
Where does the West say that that we become God in essence?
Good. Then how can we be partakers/receivers in/of the divine nature, as 2 Pet 1:4 translation, and Latin Rite statements suggest?
I am asking agian: What does it mean in the West that we are "partakers of the divine nature/essence?" Perhpas it's semantics, but it sounds raher as a conceptual divide with what the East teaches, and has taught through hasychastic fathers, the Cappadocian Fathers and tghe Desert Fathers.
Where does the West say that that we become God in essence?
In the way the Bible is translated and in Laitn Rite prayers you provided. Are we imbued with God's essence or with His creative energies?
In general I would say that in the West we have not explored the nature of this sharing of the divine nature as much as has been done in the East. One problem I perceive is that you are transferring the debate between Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria to the West, assuming that because the latter was charged with Latinization that his views must reflect those of the West. In the West we would rather pass over this debate and leave it as a mystery. But before I comment further, I would like you to discuss more in depth the concept of God’s energies. This is a terminology that we generally do not use, although it could just be a different term for some concept we hold in common.
I guess I’ll just have to cut that passage out of my New Testament. And return my M.Div to the Seminary.
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