Partakers of the Divine Nature
2 Peter 1: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
I have been reading The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, not intending to regularly post based on it, but only if something written really struck me. I have written one previous post at my other blog, but this topic seems to fit better here.
The scene here is at the monastery. There are three main characters: Alyosha (one of the brothers), The Elder (a monk), and, later, we are introduced to another monk (Father Paisy). There are two quotes on which I will focus, taking place within a few minutes in the flow of the novel and within a few pages in the book.
Both quotes struck me, and as they were in close proximity to each other, I figured that there must be some connection – some reason why Dostoevsky presented these together to us and to the brother Alyosha. I think I have some idea of why, and hope to work it out through this post. Who knows if I am anywhere close to right.
This first quote is spoken by the monk known as The Elder. He is, obviously, old; also, these words are spoken at a time when he and those around him recognize that he will soon enough die. Among those in the small circle is Alyosha, who is very close to this monk (and the same feeling extends from the monk to Alyosha as well). Although not a monk, Alyosha has been at The Elder’s side, caring for him, learning from him.
‘For know, dear ones, that each single one of us is indubitably guilty in respect of all creatures and all things upon the earth, not only with regard to general guilt the guilt of the world, but also individually – each for all people and for each person on this earth. This realization is the crowning garland of the monkish path, and of each person on earth.’
I have come across this concept before, but have been left wondering: Why? How? This isn’t fair! However, since I have now come across this concept more than once, I conclude that it must be important…hence I marked it. Continuing with this quote:
‘Then alone will our hearts be tenderly embarked upon a love that is infinite, universal, knowing no satiety.’
Such a love is the love we are called to as Christians: love our neighbor, love our enemy. Both populations are almost limitless, and I don’t recall any limit taught to us.
A few pages later, the second quote – which also seemed important, but at the time I didn’t really make any connection to the first. I thought I had material for two different posts, and these would be posted at the other blog. But, as you see, it didn’t turn out that way.
On to the second quote: shortly after Alyosha departs from the room of The Elder, as he is leaving the monastery to visit his family, another monk addresses him. This monk is younger than The Elder and, in the past, has taken little time for, nor interest in, Alyosha. But now, he is walking with Alyosha, and he offers some extensive thoughts. It dawns on Alyosha that perhaps he is being handed off for care and safekeeping – from The Elder who will soon enough die, to this younger monk.
‘Remember, young one, untiringly’ – thus did Father Paisy begin, directly and without any preamble – ‘that secular learning, having united itself into a great power, has studied all the celestial things that were bequeathed to us in the Holy Books, and after the cruel analysis of the scholars of this world there remains of all the earlier holiness absolutely nothing at all.’
This we see when we use the word “secular” in contrast to “religious.” These are two separate spheres – thanks to the Enlightenment (and take the “thanks” seriously or sarcastically, as you like).
‘But their study was conducted piecemeal, and they missed the whole; indeed, such blindness is positively worthy of marvel, whereas the whole stands right before their eyes immovably as ever, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’
I will put this another way. Yes, it is the “whole,” the idea that it all comes together in an orderly, just, objective manner. But it also is that which we aim at, the highest value that determines how we identify all lower values and how we approach our efforts toward these. In other words, there is an ultimate end from which we derive all lower ends, and for which these lower ends support; there are proper means to be deployed based on and to aim toward the ultimate end.
So, what is the whole? What is that ultimate end?
‘Has it not lived for nineteen centuries, does it not live even now in the movements of individual souls and the movements of the popular masses? Even in the souls of those very atheists who have destroyed everything, it lives, as ever, immovably.’
Well, coming from a nineteenth century monk, of course the reference is to Christianity. But this isn’t specific enough.
‘For even the disavowers of Christianity and those in mutiny against it are in their essence of the same Christian mould, and such they have remained, for to this day neither their wisdom, not the fervour of their hearts has been vigorous enough to create a higher image of man and his dignity than the one indicated of old by Christ.
The ultimate end is Christ. And that task at hand for us is to aim toward that end. Which brings me to the concept of theosis. It is a term used in the Eastern Church, but the West has words that mean something similar (although I am told not exactly the same; I am still working to understand…).
Such attempts as there have been to do so have resulted only in monstrosities.
Communism, fascism, liberalism, capitalism – and one can say that the last two really shouldn’t be in the category with the first two. I agree, except for one thing: without the “whole,” without the right thing for which we aim, those last two will grow corrupted and cause harm just as the first two will. As we have seen.
With that said…
Theosis ("deification," "divinization") is the process of a worshiper becoming free of hamartía ("missing the mark"), being united with God, beginning in this life and later consummated in bodily resurrection. Théōsis assumes that humans from the beginning are made to share in the Life or Nature of the all-Holy Trinity.
In the opening quote, The Elder taught that “each single one of us is indubitably guilty in respect of all creatures and all things upon the earth… each for all people and for each person on this earth.” And this love has no end, no limit; at no time are we to say “I have loved enough.”
Who has done this? The question is answered in the second quote: Father Paisy says that no one has created “a higher image of man and his dignity than the one indicated of old by Christ.”
It is the second quote that sheds light for me on the meaning of, purpose for, and reason for the first quote. Christ – offering the highest possible “image of man and his dignity” – carried the guilt of the world. Which is why we are taught by The Elder to do so.
Now, the burden that The Elder is placing on each one of us isn’t the same as what Christ bore, because, while each one of us is guilty of many things, Christ was not guilty of anything. So, our burden is almost nothing like the burden Christ carried, yet it is as close as imperfect human beings can come to carrying a burden as did the perfect Christ.
Carry the guilt as Christ did; love as Christ did. Theosis. This is the Christian life.
Conclusion
What did I do to earn the guilt of every human being on earth? Who came up with this idea? These are the questions I did not ask myself when I first came across the concept presented in the first quote.
Christ came up with the idea, and I am to live like Christ. God became man so man could become God. No, not in His essence (which is impossible for us), but in His energies (which is our Christian life).
Epilogue
From the definition of theosis:
For Orthodox Christians, Théōsis (see 2 Pet. 1:4) is salvation.
I am glad to have officially read this. It has struck me that different traditions and denominations mean different things when using the word “salvation.” Protestants look to distinguish justification and sanctification, and, at least in my awareness, consider themselves “saved” upon justification.
For the Eastern Orthodox, it is all of one piece. There are no turn offs, halfway houses, rest areas, points of arrival, on this journey. Theosis, “becoming free of hamartía ("missing the mark"), being united with God…” and “are made to share in the Life or Nature of the all-Holy Trinity”: the journey never ends – certainly not on this lifetime. We can always grow more like Christ; we can always share more in His nature.
Don’t ask me what it means in the next lifetime – I am having enough trouble sorting out how and for what purpose I am supposed to live today.
This reminds me of a portion of Solzhenitsyn's GULAG.. Please forgive the long quote, but it's very much in line with your points (unfortunately the paragraphs and the poem are all pushed together, but...) :
'. . . Following an operation, I am lying in the surgical ward of a camp hospital. I cannot move. I am hot and feverish, but nonetheless my thoughts do not dissolve into delirium—and I am grateful to Dr. Boris Nikolayevich Kornfeld, who is sitting beside my cot and talking to me all evening. The light has been turned out—so it will not hurt my eyes. He and I—and there is no one else in the ward. Fervently he tells me the long story of his conversion from Judaism to Christianity. This conversion was accomplished by an educated, cultivated person, one of his cellmates, some good-natured old fellow like Platon Karatayev. I am astonished at the conviction of the new convert, at the ardor of his words. We know each other very slightly, and he was not the one responsible for my treatment, but there was simply no one here with whom he could share his feelings. He was a gentle and well-mannered person. It is already late. All the hospital is asleep. Kornfeld is ending up his story thus: “And on the whole, do you know, I have become convinced that there is no punishment that comes to us in this life on earth which is undeserved. Superficially it can have nothing to do with what we are guilty of in actual fact, but if you go over your life with a fine-tooth comb and ponder it deeply, you will always be able to hunt down that transgression of yours for which you have now received this blow.” I cannot see his face. Through the window come only the scattered reflections of the lights of the perimeter outside. And the door from the corridor gleams in a yellow electrical glow. But there is such mystical knowledge in his voice that I shudder. These were the last words of Boris Kornfeld. Noiselessly he went out into the nighttime corridor and into one of the nearby wards and there lay down to sleep. Everyone slept. And there was no one with whom he could speak even one word. And I went off to sleep myself. And I was wakened in the morning by running about and tramping in the corridor; the orderlies were carrying Kornfeld’s body to the operating room. He had been dealt eight blows on the skull with a plasterer’s mallet while he still slept. (In our camp it was the custom to kill immediately after rising time, when the barracks were all unlocked and open and when no one yet had got up, when no one was stirring.) And he died on the operating table, without regaining consciousness. And so it happened that Kornfeld’s prophetic words were his last words on earth. And, directed to me, they lay upon me as an inheritance. You cannot brush off that kind of inheritance by shrugging your shoulders. But by that time I myself had matured to similar thoughts. I would have been inclined to endow his words with the significance of a universal law of life. However, one can get all tangled up that way. One would have to admit that on that basis those who had been punished even more cruelly than with prison—those shot, burned at the stake—were some sort of super-evildoers. (And yet . . . the innocent are those who get punished most zealously of all.) And what would one then have to say about our so evident torturers: Why does not fate punish them? Why do they prosper? (And the only solution to this would be that the meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but . . . in the development of the soul. From that point of view our torturers have been punished most horribly of all: they are turning into swine, they are departing downward from humanity. From that point of view punishment is inflicted on those whose development . . . holds out hope.) But there was something in Kornfeld’s last words that touched a sensitive chord, and that I accept quite completely for myself. And many will accept the same for themselves. In the seventh year of my imprisonment I had gone over and re-examined my life quite enough and had come to understand why everything had happened to me: both prison and, as an additional piece of ballast, my malignant tumor. And I would not have murmured even if all that punishment had been considered inadequate. Punishment? But . . . whose? Well, just think about that—whose? I lay there a long time in that recovery room from which Kornfeld had gone forth to his death, and all alone during sleepless nights I pondered with astonishment my own life and the turns it had taken. In accordance with my established camp custom I set down my thoughts in rhymed verses—so as to remember them. And the most accurate thing is to cite them here—just as they came from the pillow of a hospital patient, when the hard-labor camp was still shuddering outside the windows in the wake of a revolt. When was it that I completely Scattered the good seeds, one and all? For after all I spent my boyhood In the bright singing of Thy temples. Bookish subtleties sparkled brightly, Piercing my arrogant brain, The secrets of the world were . . . in my grasp, Life’s destiny . . . as pliable as wax. Blood seethed—and every swirl Gleamed iridescently before me, Without a rumble the building of my faith Quietly crumbled within my heart. But passing here between being and nothingness, Stumbling and clutching at the edge, I look behind me with a grateful tremor Upon the life that I have lived. Not with good judgment nor with desire Are its twists and turns illumined. But with the even glow of the Higher Meaning Which became apparent to me only later on. And now with measuring cup returned to me, Scooping up the living water, God of the Universe! I believe again! Though I renounced You, You were with me! Looking back, I saw that for my whole conscious life I had not understood either myself or my strivings. What had seemed for so long to be beneficial now turned out in actuality to be fatal, and I had been striving to go in the opposite direction to that which was truly necessary to me. But just as the waves of the sea knock the inexperienced swimmer off his feet and keep tossing him back onto the shore, so also was I painfully tossed back on dry land by the blows of misfortune. And it was only because of this that I was able to travel the path which I had always really wanted to travel. It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains . . . an unuprooted small corner of evil.'
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. The Gulag Archipelago . Random House. Kindle Edition.
Yes, I was going to say that theosis is basically sanctification to a Protestant. I find it problematic that there is no concept of justification or initiation into the kingdom of God. The NT authors describe this event in several different ways, but they all describe a distinct starting point. Being again, born from above, made in alive in Christ, spiritual baptism, entering in by faith, received faith, transferred into the kingdom of the Son out the domain of darkness.
Everyone is born dead spiritually after Adam and Eve, according both Old and New Testament. So a change has to be made to us before any sanctification can be made.
https://thecrosssectionrmb.blogspot.com/