Paths to Contemplation - Post 23

Theosis

A central concept in Orthodox spirituality is theosis, or “divinization in Christ.”  This concept was introduced in an earlier chapter, but it bears almost endless repetition because of its centrality, often unappreciated and neglected, in Western Christianity.   Through union with Christ, we grow into the life of God.  Important theologians of the early Church taught that “God became man so that man might become God,” and “We become by grace what God is by nature.”

Thus, the Incarnation is not merely a means by which sin can be forgiven so that human beings might sneak into heaven under cover of the Atonement.  The Incarnation is the union of God with Creation so that Creation might be received into the life of God.  The unbridgeable gap between Creator and Creation has been bridged by the God/Human Christ, so that humans might, through union with Christ, come to union with God by the power of God and become God as much as creatures can become God.

Indeed, the only way that we can truly know God is become God.  Since we cannot become God as fully as God is God, we can never truly know God as fully as God knows Godself.

Think of it this way.  If you are married to someone you love deeply, over time you
become more like your spouse.  You understand the spouse more completely because you share that spouse’s life and enter into his or her patterns of thought and being.  The shared life becomes more like one life.  And in that one life comes a deeper knowledge of the spouse.  But you never become the spouse.  You always remain yourself so your knowledge of your spouse is never complete.  This analogy of our growth into the life of God is imperfect in many respects; for example, God does not change as we are transformed by God’s power.  We become like God, but God does not become like us.

Despite the exalted condition to which the Eastern Orthodox believe God invites humans if they will accept his invitation to union with him and allow him to transform them into what he wants them to become, they also have a deep sense of the sinfulness, even the depravity, of fallen humanity, thus, the strong identification with the tax collector not daring to lift his eyes toward God and repeatedly pleading for mercy.

Hesychasm then is not merely the recitation of the Jesus Prayer, but includes the attitude with which it is said and the entire circumstances of one’s life.  The Jesus Prayer is said unceasingly to achieve union with God and as a technique for spiritual purification.  It is as one Orthodox source says, “a way of life and a fundamental method for healing the soul.”