Inhabiting the Cruciform God (Part 3: Theosis?)
Since one of my readers/FB friends guilted me into taking responsibility for the fact that theosis is a huge them of Michael Gorman‘s Inhabiting the Cruciform God, I will deal with it in this final post on the book. I was intending to not deal with it because the other two issues (justification and non-violence) are more in my everyday world of wrestling with Paul. And it’s my blog. But, it’s Mike’s book, and the subtitle is “Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology,” after all, so here we go.
I’ll start with what I think is the strongest element of Gorman’s discussion of theosis. The emphasis on theosis (becoming like God) is derivative of Paul’s insistence that we are saved by participation in the death and resurrection of Christ. The Christian call to be “Christ-like” is the call to become conformed to the narrative that moves through the cross to the resurrection. So when Gorman speaks of “theoformity” or “theosis,” he is talking about a God who is made known in the death and resurrection of Jesus, not a vision of God detached from this world, whose identity is expressed in transhistorical categories. He is painting a picture of conformity to what I would call the story-bound God of the Bible.
Gorman argues that Paul understands theosis like this: “Theosis is transformative participation in the kenotic, cruciform character of God through Spirit-enabled cruciformity to the incarnate, crucified, and resurrected/glorified Christ” (7). I resonate deeply with the notions that God is known most fully in the Christ-event (kenotic = emptying, as in Christ’s self-emptying in Phil 2; cruciform = cross shaped), and that our lives are to be conformed to the image of the crucified Christ.
There’s one point at which I’m more cautious about theosis as Gorman describes it, and it has to do with the concern that Jesus as God is performing a function that in Paul is more often played by Jesus as quintessential human: second and last Adam. On pp. 6-7, Gorman lists a number of passages that are often associated with theosis, none of which in my estimation are speaking of becoming Christlike in the sense of Christ’s divinity, but Christlike in the sense of Jesus’ inauguration of a new humanity.
- Romans 8:29 speaks of being conformed to the image of the son. This is the sonship that Jesus has as a result of his resurrection (Romans 1:4), the sonship that makes Jesus Davidic king / true Adam: his enthronement to the right hand of God. Yes, to be truly human is to be God-like, renewed after the image of God in which we were created, but is this what is meant by “theosis”?
- 1 Corinthians 15:42-49 is to the same effect: we’ve born the image of the earthly man, we’ll also bear the image of the heavenly. This is about Jesus as last Adam. Again, humans were created in God’s image, but this seems to be more about anthroposis than theosis.
- 2 Corinthians 3:18 speaks of being transformed into the image of God from glory to glory. The idea of “new creation” is in view here as well: it’s God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts…” the new image comes as part of new creation.
- 2 Corinthians 5:17, 21: “If anyone is in Christ–new creation!” Again, being creation is about being truly human once again. To be truly human is to be in God’s image and therefore revelatory of God’s image. But is this what Gorman means by theosis?
Throughout, I felt that the idea of theosis leaned most heavily on Jesus being divine, whereas such passages as these gain their traction from the resurrected Jesus being the firstborn of a new/renewed humanity. I agree that Jesus reveals God, and that the cross is the revelation of God for Paul, but I’m not sure that Paul means it with all of the same ontological identification that Gorman seems to lean on. Put more simply: I found Gorman more ready to bring the church’s understanding of Jesus as fully divine to bear on his Pauline exegesis than I am, and I wonder if this hasn’t caused some of the “humanness” of Jesus to be downplayed or even replaced by the divinity? I like much of what he’s saying, but I’m cautious about going whole hog on this as a reading of Paul.
And there’s one point at which I disagree. In the last chapter, Gorman states almost against his will that theosis is the center of Paul’s theol
ogy. I say “against his will” because he isn’t entirely happy with the idea of a “center” (171). Though I agree that, as Gorman defines it, theosis might rightly be trumpeted as the center of Paul’s soteriology, this is not the same as to say that it is the center of Paul’s theology in general. I think this is an important distinction. Though such narrative participation is certainly at the heart of what it means to be joined to Christ, it is that Christ event itself rather than a model of how we participate in it, that is the center of Paul’s theology.
The Christ event itself, not our participation in it, determines how Paul reads scripture, how he identifies the one true and living God, how God will act not only in the lives of Christians but even in the life of Israel–in addition to what our lives should look like. I don’t think participation is “big enough” to cover all that Paul says, but the surprising event itself not only covers how Paul understands the participatory and transformative nature of the event but also the broader contours of the story within which we who are jointed to it live and move and have our being.
So in general, I like where Gorman is going and think that his focus on theosis has drawn a number of important dynamics of Paul’s narrative soteriology to light. But I’m not quite ready to jump on the theosis train yet. Of course, Mike has plenty of time to teach me why I’m wrong…
(Dislaimer: I received a gratis copy of Inhabiting the Cruciform God from the good folks at Eerdmans publishing company)
Daniel,
I appreciate all the time and effort you have put into struggling with my book. It makes some bold and controversial claims. I am finding that people resonate with a lot of its arguments, even with its focus on cruciformity as theoformity, but stop short of agreeing with the notion of theosis as what Paul is up to. And that’s for all kinds of reasons, not always the same and not always particularly cogent (though most are).
In your case, you have a cautious view of the theosis argument. I want simply to respond to a few of your points. I will confess in advance that I am MUCH more concerned about basic claims than I am about terminology. I have defined theosis in a particular way, a sort of Pauline and patristic merger; after all, I am speaking of theosis according to Paul. My basic claim is that Paul’s soteriology (and his theology more generally—I will return to this) are well summarized in the patristic claim that “he became what we were so that we might become what he is.” Furthermore, I contend implicitly throughout the book that the mortal sin of much Christian theology is the bifurcation of inseparables: justification and sanctification, faith and love, cross and resurrection, humanity and divinity in Christ, being and act, cruciformity and theoformity, etc.
I think in this post you might unwittingly perpetrate this kind of division in your criticism of my use of certain Pauline passages that are allegedly about theosis. Two points. First, historically, these kinds of texts have been used as texts demonstrating theosis, and that because theosis is christosis and vice versa. Second, the point of my chapter one, which you ably summarized and appreciated in the first post on the book, is that we cannot separate God’s being from God’s actions and we cannot separate the story of Christ (the narrative identity of Christ) from the story of God (the narrative identity of God). If Christ is in fact the glory of God, and is such as both the fully human Jesus and the exalted but still crucified Lord, then transformation into the image of God/Christ is divinization, which is humanization, and vice versa.
To say that theosis might be the center of Paul’s soteriology but not his theology is to make another division of things that are, or ought to be, inseparable. (Richard Hays has a great quote about this in Moral Vision, referring to ethics, but the principle is the same.) The “Christ event” is not worthy of the term “event” if it has no salvific value or effect. There is no Pauline theology that is not soteriology, and there is no soteriology without participation, so there is no Pauline theology without participation. Theosis (or whatever we end up calling it) refuses to separate incarnation and cross from the purpose and effect thereof; but theosis does not minimize the incarnation and cross (or the larger divine narrative of which they are a part) either.
A key text here is 2 Cor 5:21—“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Or Eph 2:12-16—“12remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.”
Thanks again, Daniel, for all your attention to the book. We are together on a lot!
We do agree on most, and the most important things. I think that the whole idea of justification by co-crucifixion, the inseparability of justification from sanctification, and the call to recognize the particular shape of Christian ethics as cruciform are all ideas that need to work more deeply into the collective psyche of the church.
I suppose I would still push back against the idea that soteriology is inherently the core of Paul’s theology. I say this because it seems to me that the whole idea of a “center” is that we are making a theological distinction and suggesting what the one piece is that holds together the whole.
To my mind, it’s important to distinguish between the center of his theology and the articulation of Paul’s soteriology because I think that what you say about soteriology could be equally well said about any other facet of Paul’s theology. Take God: if the God who has worked in the story of Christ’s death and resurrection is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then this story ceases to be good news. It is, then, no longer the fulfillment of the promises contained in the scriptures of Israel.
Or take eschatology: If the Christ event does not inaugurate the end and put on display the true telos of God’s work of redeeming and judging the world, then it is not the good news of God’s long-promised salvation.
We agree, of course, that if it’s not salvific it’s not good news. But the whole is so integrated that if it’s not about this particular God, this particular people, this particular humanity, this particular eschatology, this particular hermeneutic, this particular set of promises, this particular Bible, then it’s not good news, either. It’s all an integrated whole.
What I’m claiming for “theology” is, in fact, a parallel to what you and I agree to concerning “soteriology”: as participation in the narrative is the one thing that gives meaning to all the other outworkings in a person’s or or community’s life, so too the narrative itself is the one thing that gives meaning to all the other loci of Christian theology.
I should come back to theosis. Maybe later…
On my FB page a conversation ensued that I got permission to move over here. From Joel:
Daniel, I wouldn’t presume to do so [i.e., comment on Gorman's book/theosis] without having read the book. I may be foolish but not that foolish.
However, I will say that I concur with MUCH of what you and Gorman are saying re. resisting the Western theological bifurcation of justification and sanctification. This is a huge problem across the Western theological board. And I certainly affirm the centrality of real (Spirit-enabled) union and participation with Christ as the ontological and soteriological core of Pauline/patristic theology.
However, I am resistant to the notion of theosis as sometimes communicated by those who romantically seek to embrace (or defend) its development in the Orthodox tradition (or RC, in its own way). And I’m especially critical of the way in which it is often associated with a quasi-magical hagiographical thinking re. the miraculous powers of the saints, which blurs the distinction between creature and Creator and ultimately distracts believers from the centrality and necessity of the Person of Christ. All too often, this understanding of theosis loses sight of its fundamental ground in the Incarnate Lord. Along these lines, I suppose you could say that the downside of removing the bifurcation between justification and sanctification could be the collapse justification into sanctification. This is certainly what has happened in my own native Wesleyan tradition and, in its own way, in the Orthodox tradition.
In short, as long as “theosis” is kept within its proper biblical theological confines, I’m all for it. But when unleashed from those confines and developed into a sort of “theology of the ontological upgrade,” I have serious reservations.
Daniel:
You make a good (set of ) point(s). I just don’t want to allow God-talk or Christ-event talk to be/remain separated from our relationship with God/Christ, whatever language we use to describe that relationship.
Joel (via Daniel): You and I certainly agree that a carefully articulated biblical view of theosis (or, again, whatever we call participatory salvation) is needed, one that does not move in unbiblical directions. My definition of theosis in the book is, I think, within that range, drawing from Pauline texts and using some patristic insights to help us interpret them. I am hardly the first to do that—see Morna Hooker, Bonhoeffer, Hays, and now David Litwa and Ben Blackwell. This may not matter to some, but I bet the original word I coined to express Pauline theosis—theoformity–would have met with less concern and angst. I still use that term, and maybe it’s better than theosis.