THEOSIS: PARTAKERS OF DIVINITY WITH GOD PROF. M. M. NINAN to it by asceticism (divinization being not a one-sided act of God, but a loving cooperation between God and the advanced Christian, which Palamas considers a synergy). This synergeia or co-operation between God and Man does not lead to mankind being absorbed into the God as was taught in earlier pagan forms of deification like henosis. Rather it expresses unity, in the complementary nature between the created and the creator. Acquisition of the Holy Spirit is key as the acquisition of the spirit leads to self-realization. Saint Teresa of Avila described four degrees or stages of mystical union: 1. incomplete mystical union, or the prayer of quiet or supernatural recollection, when the action of God is not strong enough to prevent distractions, and the imagination still retains a certain liberty; 2. full or semi-ecstatic union, when the strength of the divine action keeps the person fully occupied but the senses continue to act, so that by making an effort, the person can cease from prayer; 3. ecstatic union, or ecstasy, when communications with the external world are severed or nearly so, and one can no longer at will move from that state; and 4. transforming or deifying union, or spiritual marriage (properly) of the soul with God. 145
THEOSIS: PARTAKERS OF DIVINITY WITH GOD PROF. M. M. NINAN APPENDIX 1 The Energies of God by Megas L. Farandos, Athens University Professor. From the book: «The Orthodox Teaching on God» Athens 1985. Chapter 7, pages 423 – 478. 1. General Energies comprise the third “difference” in God, according to the terminology of Saint Gregory of Nyssa (“Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ 107). The Orthodox teaching on the energies of God essentially constitutes a reliable evolvement of the New Testament witness regarding the reality of the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ. This God does not manifest Himself only as a trinity of hypostases - that is, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He also manifests Himself as the One who has (the congenital and not acquired) fullness of all good things - of “power, glory, wisdom, philanthropy” etc.; in other words, “all the good things that the Son has are the Father’s, and everything that the Father has, is made visible in the Son” (Gregory of Nyssa, “Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ 126). This means that God is not only a triple-hypostasis reality, but that He also has essence and “circum-essence”, which are essential virtues and distinctive features. God is a reality that exists, as well as one that possesses. He is a reality “in person”, who possesses the fullness of life and its bounties, in other words, “the true life” (Gregory of Nyssa, “Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ 126). “For, just as the Father has life within Him, thus did He also give the Son to have life within Him” (John 5:26). As we have already said, God is a reality “in person”, Who has life (or, as otherwise called, “essence”) and Who also has the fullness of all the good things peripherally related to this essence, that is, the “circum-essence”. These “differences” of God that exist within Himself are apparent in the Holy Bible. The Bible does not make mention of the three Hypostases only - that is, of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – but also of a multitude of qualities that the divine hypostases have and transmit; for example the power, the wisdom, the love, the grace of God etc., through which qualities God acts and transmits to the world all good things (otherwise known as “charismas” (Greek=gifts)). We must not construe these qualities as being a neutral or impersonal reality, existing in parallel to the hypostases within God. We should preferably see them in an ”inter-embracing” with the divine hypostases, or, rather, as a sublime unity, identity and coincidence, in the following context: “The triunal God IS life, truth, love, wisdom,” etc. That is, by coinciding the “being” and the “possessing” in the person of God, the Bible often represents God not only as a reality “in person”, but also as an impersonal reality, -that is, as “something Divine” - thus denoting the grace, the justice, the wisdom etc. that are manifested upon mankind. Besides, the very Bible itself distinguishes between the divine hypostases and their qualities – something that gives a legal right to have a theology on the qualities or energies of God. Even the theology of the West has not omitted to include chapters on the “attributes” of God in its Dogmatics, which by Orthodox Theology however are seen as unusual and extremely “human-prone” portrayals of the Triadic God. Orthodox dogmatics however has never developed any teaching on God’s “attributes”. Any relative chapters that may perhaps be found in Orthodox Dogmatics have originated from the influence of western theology. As mentioned previously, the “personal” and the “impersonal” element – or, rather, (as we shall see further along) – the “hypostatized” element are interwoven and inter-embraced in God in such a way, that God at times appears as “the One acting within us” (Phil. 2:13) and elsewhere as “His energy, that is potentially acting within me” (Colos. 1:29) However, the Bible at times relates the divine hypostases to their qualities, as in the familiar verse of 1 Cor. 1:24: “Christ : the power of God and the wisdom of God”. The fact that Christ Himself is not that wisdom per se, but that He contains within Himself the wisdom of God, is reduced from other relevant Scriptural passages, such as Coloss.2:3, where mention is made of “Christ, in Whom all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge are hidden”. The theology of the first Christian centuries did not preoccupy itself particularly with the matter of divine energies and their association to the divine hypostases, instead, it conveyed in its works the relative testimonies of the Bible, more or less without suspecting that a problem existed. [Compare with article «Energeia» by Ε. Fascher, in the “Reallexikon 146
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