New Creation: Theosis

The earliest leaders of the Christian movement taught something that is foreign to many modern western Christians. While it remains a prominent teaching in Eastern Orthodoxy, the concept of "theosis" has largely been ignored by western churches. Theosis refers to the idea of humanity being made divine and experiencing union with God. Other nerdy words like henosis, glorification, or deification are sometimes used in its place, but all of these words suggest that humanity is created for divine union - to be one with God.

"That they may all be one, just are you are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one." - Jesus (John 17)

This is what the incarnation of Jesus is intended to reveal - that humanity and divinity are inseparably joined together. This is our true identity. The early church father Athanasius wrote, "God became human so that humans might become God." Western Christians' heresy radar usually goes off immediately with this sort of language, but the disconnect lies in western Christians' tendency to see human existence through a hyper-individualistic lens. Through a western lens, Athanasius would seem to suggest that we all become separate deities, as if we could become divine independently. But when understood collectively, Athanasius is showing that humanity is meant to participate in and experience God's own divine life as our illusion of a separate existence fades away. Divine union, then, is the rescue from our individualism rather than a glorified individualism.

Just as theosis cannot be understood apart from divine union, it also cannot be understood apart from human unity. The bible uses the analogy of one body with many parts. While we prefer to see ourselves as a separate and autonomous body, in reality we are interconnected and interdependent on entire ecosystems and social structures for our survival. If the Earth were to vanish from beneath our feet, our illusion of self-sufficiency would quickly vanish in the vacuum of space. The air we breathe and the food we eat are all produced from other interconnected life on this planet.

Further, union with God requires that we value the diversity of life that God creates. We don't discover union through exclusion. We don't get to decide who belongs and who doesn't. Just as the doctrine of the trinity demonstrates, unity is expressed in diversity. We are all one and distinct at the same time. Once we finally learn to appreciate the expressions of life that are different from our own, then perhaps we will understand the mystery and invitation of divine union.

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and goodness, by which he has granted to us his precious and great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature." - 2 Peter 1:3-4