Faith, Reason, and Theosis

by George E. Demacopoulos (Editor), William J. Abraham (Contribution by), Peter C. Bouteneff (Contribution by), Carolyn Chau (Contribution by), Robert Glenn Davis (Contribution by)

Overview

Theosis shapes contemporary Orthodox theology in two ways: positively and negatively. In the positive sense, contemporary Orthodox theologians made theosis the thread that bound together the various aspects of theology in a coherent whole and also interpreted patristic texts, which experienced a renaissance in the twentieth century, even in Orthodox theology. In the negative sense, contemporary theologians used theosis as a triumphalistic club to beat down Catholic and Protestant Christians, claiming that they rejected theosis in favor of either a rationalistic or fideistic approach to Christian life.

The essays collected in this volume move beyond this East–West divide by examining the rela­tion between faith, reason, and theosis from Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant perspectives. A variety of themes are addressed, such as the nature–grace debate and the relation of philosophy to theology, through engagement with such diverse thinkers as Thomas Aquinas, John Wes­ley, Meister Eckhart, Dionysius the Areopagite, Symeon the New Theologian, Panayiotis Nellas, Vladimir Lossky, Martin Luther, Martin Heidegger, Sergius Bulgakov, John of the Cross, Delores Williams, Evagrius of Pontus, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. The essays in this book are situated within a current thinking on theosis that consists of a common, albeit minimalist, affirmation amidst the flow of differences. The authors in this volume contribute to the historical theological task of complicating the contemporary Orthodox narrative, but they also continue the “theologi­cal achievement” of thinking about theosis so that all Christian traditions may be challenged to stretch and shift their understanding of theosis even amidst an ecumenical celebration of the gift of participation in the life of God.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781531503024
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	10/03/2023
Series:	Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Aristotle Papanikolaou (Edited By)
Aristotle Papanikolaou is Professor of Theology, the Archbishop Demetrios Chair of Orthodox Theology and Culture, and the Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He is also Senior Fellow at the Emory UniversityCenter for the Study of Law and Religion. He is the author of Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine–Human Communion and The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy.

George E. Demacopoulos (Edited By)
George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies and Professor of Theology at Fordham University. He is the author of Colonizing Christianity: Greek and Latin Religious Identity in the Era of the Fourth Crusade and Gregory the Great: Ascetic, Pastor, and First Man of Rome.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Faith, Reason, and Theosis | 1
Aristotle Papanikolaou and George E. Demacopoulos

PART I: THEOTIC EXISTENCE

Waking the Gods: Theosis as Reason’s Natural End | 15
David Bentley Hart

Does Aquinas Have the Orthodox Concept of Theosis? | 37
Jean Porter

Deification as Christification and Human Becoming | 72
Philip Kariatlis

Theosis as Kenosis: The Paradox of Holy Intimacy in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar | 93
Carolyn Chau

Martin Luther on Faith and Union with God: Speculations on Theosis | 112
Kirsi Stjerna

Differentiation as Disfigurement: A Womanist Polemic against the Co-optation of the Divine Essence | 133
Michele E. Watkins

PART II: THEOTIC KNOWING

Revelation, Reason, and Holiness: A Wesleyan Perspective | 159
William J. Abraham

The Ambiguous Meanings of Theosis in Modern and Postmodern Discourse | 176
Andrew Prevot

Speculation and Theosis in Vladimir Lossky and Meister Eckhart | 198
Robert Glenn Davis

Knowing through Unknowing: The Qualified Necessity of Human Reason in Dionysius | 218
Peter Bouteneff

Knowing in Theosis: A Byzantine Mystical Theological Approach | 231
Ashley Purpura

Deification in Evagrius Ponticus and the Transmission of the Kephalaia Gnostika in Syriac and Arabic | 251
Stephen J. Davis

The Embodied Logos: Reason, Knowledge, and Relation | 267
Rowan Williams

Acknowledgments | 293

List of Contributors | 295

Index | 301

Editorial Reviews

Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou have brought together a cast of distinguished authors from a broad range of theological traditions to offer their reflections on the multiple meanings of ‘becoming divine’, the human transformation that we have learned to call theosis. Perspectives rooted in patristic thought, Byzantine and Western Medieval mystical experience, and modern theological and philosophical discourse converge to present an astonishingly rich concept whose potential to revitalize contemporary theology has still not been exhausted. This important book is a tour de force that deserves to be widely read.—Norman Russell, Honorary Research Fellow of St Stephen’s House, Universityof Oxford, and author of The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition.

From the Publisher