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.

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.

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…

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!