Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deificiation in the Christian Traditions

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Michael J. Christensen, Jeffery A. Wittung
Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 2007 - Religion - 325 pages
This critical volume focuses on the issue of continuity and discontinuity of the Christian concept of theosis, or deification, in the intellectual history of ideas. It addresses the origin, development, and function of theosis from its antecedents in ancient Greek philosophy to its nuanced use in contemporary theological thought. Often seen as a heresy in the Protestant West, the revival of interest in deification in both lay and scholastic circles heralds a return to foundational understandings of salvation in the Christian church before the divisions of East and West, Catholic and Protestant.

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Contents

The Problem Promise and Process of Theosis
23
The Place of Theosis in Orthodox Theology
32
Theosis in Classical and Late Antiquity
45
Deification of the Philosopher in Classical Greece
47
Can We Speak of Theosis in Paul?
68
4 Speak of Deification?
81
Theosis in Patristic Thought
93
The Strategic Adaptation of Deification in the Cappadocians
95
Little Christs for the World Faith and Sacraments as Means to Theosis
189
United to God through Christ
200
Christian Perfection as Faith Filled with the Energy of Love
219
Theosis in Modern Thought
231
NeoPalamism Divinizing Grace and the Breach between East and West
233
Russian Theosis
250
Divinization in Roman Catholicism
259
A Renewal of Interest and a Need for Clarity
281

Rhetorical Application of Theosis in Greek Patristic Theology
115
Divinization as Perichoretic Embrace in Maximus the Confessor
132
Paradise as the Landscape of Salvation in Ephrem the Syrian
146
Theosis in Medieval and Reformation Thought
161
A Eucharistic Reading of John 35157 in Būluṣ alBūshīs Treatise On the Incarnation
163
Theoria and the Doctrinal Logic of Perfection
175
Resources on Theosis with Select Primary Sources in Translation
294
Contributors
311
General Index
313
Scripture Index
323
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Page 198 - I have said, Ye are gods ; and all of you are children of the most high.
Page 113 - He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty...
Page 225 - Heavenly Father, life divine, Change my nature into thine ; Move, and spread throughout my soul, Actuate, and fill the whole: Be it I no longer now Living in the flesh, but thou.
Page 78 - For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Page 68 - You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.
Page 68 - I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
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Page 220 - Finish, then, thy new creation; Pure and spotless let us be; Let us see thy great salvation Perfectly restored in thee...
Page 75 - And all of us. with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord, as though reflected in a mirror, arc being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).
Page 73 - I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.

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