The Ladder of Divine Ascent

I was reading the other day and came across an idea called Theosis.  The author of the book I was reading referred to a quote by C.S. Lewis talking about the topic.  So I am interested in its meaning.  Here is information from Wikipedia:

In Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholic theology, theosis (written also: theiosis, theopoiesis, theōsis; Greek: Θεωσις, meaning divinization, or deification, or making divine) is salvation from unholiness by participation in the life of God. According to this conception, the holy life of God, given in Jesus Christ to the believer through the Holy Spirit, is expressed beginning in the struggles of this life, increases in the experience of the believer through the knowledge of God, and is later consummated in the resurrection of the believer when the power of sin and death, having been fully overcome by God’s life, will lose hold over the believer forever. This conception of salvation is historically foundational for Christian understanding in both the East and the West, as it has been developed directly from the apostolic and early Christian teachings concerning the life of faith…

St. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote, “God became man so that man might become God.” (On the Incarnation 54:3, PG 25:192B). His statement is an apt description of the concept. What would otherwise seem absurd—that fallen, sinful man may become holy as God is holy—has been made possible through Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate. Naturally, the crucial Christian assertion, that God is One, sets an absolute limit on the meaning of theosis: it is not possible for any created being to become (ontologically) God, or even part of God (the henosis of Greek Neoplatonic philosophy).

Through theoria, the contemplation of the triune God, human beings come to know and experience what it means to be fully human (the created image of God); through their communion with Jesus Christ, God shares Himself with the human race, in order to conform them to all that He is in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. As God became human, in all ways except sin, He will also make humans god, in all ways except his divine essence. St Irenaeus explained this concept in Against Heresies, Book 5, in the Preface, “the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through his transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”

Wikipedia contributors, “Theosis,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theosis&oldid=250872419 (accessed November 29, 2008).

Have any of you heard of this and understand what it means?

In this episode of MORPHE, David and Todd Littleton discuss the issue of Eternal Subordination.  They provide a definition from the CBWM and why it has arisen in this time period.

Duration: 45 minutes

 

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MIROR: Indwelling and Incarnating

In this post, I want to expand on the “I” in MIROR, which is Incarnational.  The aspect of  the incarnation that we need to explore deeper is the concept of indwelling.  The idea of ‘living in’ or ‘indwelling’ is connected to Michael Polanyi’s ideas of tacit and focal awareness. (1)

Polanyi’s Tacit Knowledge

Almost two years ago I was faced with the prospect of reading Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy by Michael Polanyi.  Polanyi (1891-1976) was a Hungarian-British polymath whose thought and work extended across physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. (2) Len Sweet has every one of his doctoral students read Personal Knowledge either in the first or second semester.  It is the only book he requires to be read by every doctoral student.  It is a very difficult book to read and it felt like having a root canal without drugs.  It was so difficult that I had to read Lesslie Newbigin to understand just part of what Polanyi was saying.

Polanyi proposed the idea of Tacit Knowledge. With tacit knowledge, people are not often aware of the knowledge they possess or how it can be valuable to others. Tacit knowledge is considered more valuable because it provides context for people, places, ideas, and experiences. Effective transfer of tacit knowledge generally requires extensive personal contact and trust.

Tacit knowledge is not easily shared. One of Polanyi’s famous aphorisms is: “We know more than we can tell.” Tacit knowledge consists often of habits and culture that we do not recognize in ourselves. In the field of knowledge management, the concept of tacit knowledge refers to a knowledge which is only known by an individual and that is difficult to communicate to the rest of an organization. Knowledge that is easy to communicate is called explicit knowledge. The process of transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge is known as codification or articulation. (3)

Two examples of tacit knowledge include:

1.  If I use my hands to feel something in the dark, I am only tacitly aware of my hands; I am focusing my attention on the surface I am exploring, not my hands.  I am aware of my hands only in the fact that they are instruments being used to feel what is in the darkness.

2.  The words we speak, the actions we take are not conscious for us.  They become conscious when someone or some thing shows us what we are doing.  As a result, we are only tacitly aware of our words and actions as we have indwelled our words and actions.  They are part of who we are.

Indwelling in Jesus

In John’s Gospel, Jesus defines for his followers what is to be their relationship to him.  They are to “dwell in” him, as he “dwells in” his father.  Jesus was not to be the subject of their observation, but the body of which they were a part.  By “indwelling” him in his body, they will both be led into a deeper understanding of the Truth and become the means by which God’s will is done in the world. (4)

The indwelling in the life of Jesus means that Jesus’ life becomes our life.  In doing so, Jesus’ life flows out of our own, so much so that people see our life as a reflection and expression of the life of Jesus. We are tacitly aware of what we say and do because we are focally aware of whom we encourage, love and minister.

Jesus was “in the father”, indwelling and incarnating the father, to such great depths, that people understood his words and actions as being God’s words and actions despite the fact that Jesus never explicitly stated for our western minds, “I am God”.  While Jesus understood his indwelling and incarnation, he expressed it tacitly; it just flowed from him.

Indwelling in the Church

As the Old Testament unfolds, we begin to see God’s undying love for Israel.  Yet, this love and commitment is to Israel the instrument of God’s love for the rest of the nations.  It becomes clear that to be God’s chosen people means not privilege but suffering, reproach, and humiliation.  Israel was called to embody or indwell in her own life God’s agony over an unbelieving, disobedient world.  In the New Testament, that manifestation was found in the one who would suffer the ultimate agony of death on a cross on behalf of all peoples. (5)

Where is the body of Christ is now found?  In the Church.  Therefore, the body of Christ is called to indwell or incarnate in its own life, both locally and universally, the love and agony of God for this unbelieving and disobedient world.

Unfortunately, we have distorted that privilege just as Israel did.  We have taken the love that we should be directing to the world and we have redirected it onto ourselves.  We have become the focal point of our awareness.  We have become primary, not the world for which God weeps.

So what must we do?

1.  Fall in love with the Godhead all over again.  In our churches, we are proclaiming principles, not relationship.  We preach practices, not relationship.
2.  We must retell the stories of Israel as they redirected the MIROR onto themselves instead of the world they were called to love.  We have done the same thing in USAmerican churches.

As Christ-followers, we have to live IN the Christian story in the living narrative of a living Jesus.  When we embody, incarnate and indwell Jesus, people begin to see not the church or the person by the Godhead behind the person.  And when people see Jesus for who he really is, like the woman at the well, they embrace him and run and tell all those that they know.

Notes

1. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 98.
2. Wikipedia contributors, “Michael Polanyi,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Polanyi&oldid=243647741 (accessed October 17, 2008).
3. Wikipedia contributors, “Tacit knowledge,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tacit_knowledge&oldid=245462216 (accessed October 17, 2008).
4. Newbigin, 99.
5. Newbigin, 84.

The incarnation may be the pivotal point in all of scripture.  Next to the creation that opens the Bible and the re-creation that closes the Bible, the incarnation stand as the point where the re-creation and restoration of all of creation begins.

The Trinity requires that we consider the importance of the incarnation.

In the incarnation we find the sending God arriving to meet his creation in their own form.  The Godhead puts on human flesh so that evil can be conquered and redemption can be offered.  In the incarnation, we find the nature and character of the godhead embodied in Jesus Christ.  In Christ, we are presented with the character and nature of God in a way that we can understand and experience – the physical touch of the very real Godhead.  It is in the incarnation that we realize the depth of love the Godhead has for us and that we have a great high priest who not only understands our life but can intercede for us on the basis of that understanding.  We can identify with them through the incarnation as we see the great lengths that the Godhead would go through to identify with us.

The incarnation was not just about saving people from their sins.  The incarnation was about the Godhead conquering evil, restoring creation and redeeming mankind.  All of creation is under re-creation because of the incarnation, resurrection and ascension.  The impact of sin affects all of creation, from the birds of the air to the ground on which we walk (Hosea 4:3).  The incarnation, however, is working to see the purity of the Garden of Eden restored all over the earth.  This includes humankind.  And it is in the incarnation that the restorative process begins.

The incarnation is the embodiment of the nature and character of the Godhead.

The incarnation provides us with an indication of the nature and character of the Godhead.  Through the incarnation we see how the Godhead related together (the perichoresis).  In the incarnation we see that God so loved the world, and that love was focused primarily on those whose lives were enslaved to sin and to religious legalism.  Jesus lived among the fringe of society, those who knew the pain and struggle of life and wanted to be free of the consequences evil had brought upon them and that they had brought upon themselves.  He touched those who had not felt a human touch in years.  He healed those whom society believed was living in sin.  He wept over the suffering and evil that was rampant in the world.  And he offered hope from it all.  He offered healing and love.  He offered the presence of God to those who were longing for for it.

The MIROR church is the expression of the incarnation in its context.

The MIROR church is a reflection of the Trinity and as such has an incarnational aspect.  The purpose of the MIROR church is to be the embodiment of the Godhead in the church’s context.  The same nature and character of the Godhead is reflected outward as the church incarnates the loving, healing, freeing  and restoring nature of the Godhead.  It is part of the restorative and re-creative process that began with the original incarnation.

What does this mean for the church?  It means that its focus is on those outside the community.  It takes the faith community into the world, feeding off the sending (or missional) aspect of the Trinity.  It works among the hurting, starving, broken, and dying of society, partnering with the Spirit to bring healing, forgiveness, hope, and the overwhelming provision and love of God.

This also means that the primary goal is not to draw them into the church’s own specific community of faith but to allow communities of faith to sprout where the church has touched the world.  This can be across the road or across the ocean.

In living an incarnational life, the MIROR church is a reflection of the heart of Trinity.

If the Trinity is the basis for understanding Miroring Theology, and if it is the basis for understanding even ourselves, then we must address the missional aspect.  I want to use missional in the context of sending.  We must see part of the function of the Trinity as sending.  God sent the Son, the Father and then Son sent the Spirit, and the Spirit sends the person.

The church, empowered by the Spirit and and led by Christ, sends people out.  Why?  Because the church is a miroring of the character, nature and function of God.  If God is a God who sends, the church needs to be sending.  The minute we stop sending our people and our resources, we stop being the church God intends.  In addition, every person has a responsibility to go and sew.  The minute we stop going and sewing we cease to be a reflection of the God whose character, nature and function we have within us.

Why do we not send?  Lack of Faith

The brokenness caused by sin causes us to hoard and gather instead of sew and send.  We want to keep who we have and what we have for ourselves instead of releasing what God has given us to be used by God in the ministry to the world.  “We don’t have enough to give away” some may say.  I say to you that you and your church lack faith.  Sewing and sending are expressions of a kingdom mentality believing that if we make that a priority we will indeed be provided for.  It’s biblical.  Remember this verse, “Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness and all these things will be added unto you”?  What are these things?  The basic resources we need to exist:  food, shelter, and clothing.  When we refuse kingdom living through releasing, sending and sewing, we are depending on our own abilities to provide for ourselves.  That demonstrates a lack of faith necessary to be the church of God who reflects his character, nature and function.

Where do we send?

We were called to be witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.  “Well, that was then David”.  Yes, and since this is now, we need to understand that means we need to be sending and releasing wherever we are and to wherever people are all over the world at the same time.  Wherever you are and wherever people are living is where we are to send people and resources.  That means across the street and around the world.  Also notice the emphasis on witnesses in Act 1:8.  That means more than money.  That means going and telling and demonstrating the love of God.  It is the personal touch, like that of the Trinity.  Again, failure to send, sew and release where you are and wherever people are means we are not living out the eikon-ness of the God who created us and thus do not reflect Him.