Theosis, Part 3 / A Note on Christian Anthropology
Well, I am back, finally. Prepare for a long one. Stupid long. The last two “theological” blogs that I wrote were about the mystery of salvation as understood by the Orthodox Church. In part one, I discussed theosis in general, as the Eastern understanding of salvation. We talked of the creation, and of it implying this acquiring of the likeness of God. Then in part two, I discussed the Incarnation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and how it is our salvation, our door to theosis.
The next four blogs will continue our journey in discussing the mystery of salvation, and will be a kind of “unit;” each one will build upon the other. In this blog, part three, I wanted to discuss a little about developing a Christian anthropology. So, to that end, let us ask some leading questions, and hope that they are answered along the journey. What is understood by the Fathers in the phrase “in the image of God?” How do we understand the nature of humanity? What is understood by the term person, and how is a person different than an individual? What is the relationship between the soul and body, in relation to the ‘image of God.’ How does the Eastern Orthodox Church understand the will?
At the creation God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” St. Gregory of Nyssa said that ‘let us make man in our image’ concerns humanity considered in its ontological unity, that, “It is the whole of [human] nature, extending from the beginning to the end [of history], that constitutes the one image of Him who is.” He is saying that humanity as a whole, together, are the image of God. He said, “To say that there are ‘many human beings’ is a common abuse of language. Granted there is a plurality of those who share in the same human nature… but in all of them, humanity is one.” Furthermore, in Paradise, the ‘completed’ Adam is shown to be fragmented in some way because he is a single man. We are told it was “not good for man to be alone,” that it was the destiny of Adam as a whole, as a community, as a unity of persons, to be the likeness of the Holy Trinity.
If you are familiar with some of my previous blogs on the Holy Trinity, you will be familiar with the Orthodox Church’s use of antinomy in expressing mystery. Also, you will recall from these blogs, that the Trinity is a unity of nature and a diversity of persons. Keep these concepts in mind for latter, as you can already see our topic leading in a similar direction. Just as God is a unity of nature, so humanity is a unity of nature. Just as God is a diversity of persons, so humanity is a diversity of persons.
The Orthodox Church believes that the whole human being is in the image of God, that only the unity of soul and body constitutes the human being. The visible aspect of humanity would not exist if it were not the invisible made visible; soul and body must mutually symbolize each other. The early church was not preoccupied with the immortality of the soul, as some western denominations have become. The Church believes that it is incontrovertible but holds that it is contrary to nature and therefore only provisional. St. Irenaeus of Lyons said, “Spirits without bodies will never be spiritual men and women, It is our entire being, that is to say, the soul and flesh combined, which by receiving the Spirit of God constitutes the spiritual man.” The soul and body together is called to life and resurrection, proved by Christ’s bodily resurrection and bodily ascension. Earthly flesh has penetrated into God Himself!
Being both body and soul, both visible and invisible, man is situated at the meeting place of intelligible and sensible. Man unites these two worlds within himself, therefore participating in all spheres of the created universe. St. Maximus said, “all things which have been created by God, in their diverse natures, are brought together in man as in a melting-pot, and form in him one unique perfection-a harmony composed of many different notes.” All the divisions that creation contains: uncreated vs. created nature, intelligible vs. sensible universe, heavens vs. earth, paradise vs. man’s habitation, male vs. female, have man at their center, who virtually contains them all in himself. Adam was to unite in himself the whole of created being; and at the same time to reach perfect union with God, therefore granting the state of deification to the whole creation, and unite these divisions. Adam failed. We will talk more of these divisions and their unification in Christ in a latter blog. Back to the ‘image.’
Man was not formed by a divine command addressed to the earth as the rest of creation, but rather God Himself fashioned him from the dust of the earth with his own hands, and breathed life into him. St. Irenaeus speaks of these two ‘hands’ as the Word and the Holy Spirit. The Father, as an act of will, creates by His Word, and breathes life by His Holy Spirit. Though not literal in language, St. Irenaeus describes the nature of the created soul thus: “The soul is a breath of God, and though heavenly, it allows itself to mingle with the earth. It is the light shut up in a cave, but it is none the less divine and inextinguishable.” According to Irenaeus, the soul ‘mingles’ with ‘the Heavenly Spirit,’ is helped by something greater than itself. It is the presence of this divine power in it which causes it to be called ‘a portion of the Deity.’ It originates in and is infused with uncreated grace. The human spirit is therefore intimately connected with grace, and is produced by it in the same way as a movement of air is produced by the breath, contains this breath and is inseparable from it. It is proper to the soul to participate in divine energy; creation in the image and likeness of God implies or presupposes grace.
It is impossible to define the divine image because the image is a mystery. In so far as it it perfect, it is necessarily unknowable. As it reflects the fullness of its archtype, in this case the Godhead, it must also possess the unknowable character of the divine Being. Therefore, we can only conceive of it through the idea of participation in the infinite goodness of God. He surpasses in goodness, created in His goodness, and gives His goodness to man beyond enumeration. All this goodness is summed up in the phrase ‘image of God,’ is equivalent to saying that God made human nature a sharer in all that is good.
The image implies the final perfection of man. For St. Gregory of Nyssa, when speaking of the image of God, he describes it as a state of becoming, he sees it primarily as a freedom. This freedom is from necessity, not being subject to the domination of nature. We are not forced to acquire the likeness of God, but must choose freely. For St. Gregory, freedom is the ‘formal’ image, the necessary condition for the attainment of perfect assimilation to God. The image implies a personal being, not controlled by nature, but one that can control nature.
The person is not a part of humanity, just as the persons of the Trinity are not parts of the Godhead (remember the antinomy of nature and persons), therefore the image refers to the whole man in his entirety. As God included all mankind in his first creation (the ontological unity of the nature common to all men), creating the ‘universal’ man, the image is not in a part of the nature, nor is grace in one individual among those it regards; this power extends to the whole human race.
The human person cannot realize the fullness to which he is called, if he claims for himself a part of the nature, regarding it as his own particular good, since the image reaches perfection when the human nature becomes like the divine, in attaining a complete participation in God’s uncreated beauty. What this really long sentence is trying to express is that the nature of humanity is supposed to be, or destined to be one, just as the ousia of God is a unity. The problem is that ‘fallen’ humanity does not come even close to living in this unity, but rather the one common nature appears split up by sin, parcelled out to individuals. In Christ, in His Church, this unity is re-established.
We do not know the human person, the human hypostasis in its true condition because of our ‘fallenness.’ Is that a word? Anyway, the problem is that WE EXIST AS INDIVIDUALS. But a person is not an individual. Let me explain. In a certain sense person and individual are opposites. The person or hypostasis is that which distinguishes us from our nature or ousia. The individual expresses itself as a mixture or person with elements which belong to the common nature. In our present condition, we know persons only through individuals, and as individuals. Think of it, when we ‘characterize’ an individual, we gather together individual characteristics, traits which are also found in other individuals. These traits belong to nature and are never absolutely ‘personal.’
If we remember back to my blog about the persons or hypostases of God, and the nature or ousia of God, we will recall the effort the Church puts into maintaining an absolute and radical distinction between the two, which results in the use of antinomy. The persons of God are not aspects, nor parts of, nor relationships within the essence of God. The persons are a primordial reality, absolutely distinct from the essence. Now, back to the human, we must remain in this apophatic state, and use the antinomy once more. The nature of humanity and the hypostases of humanity are absolutely distinct. Just as God is 3=1 or 1=3, we are 1=many or many=1. God is an absolute unity and an absolute diversity (antinomy), and likewise, we humans are a unity and a diversity. To maintain the radical distinction between nature and person, the person is not made up of characteristic found within nature, making the person part of nature. Rather, the person is what we are that is not part of the nature.
What is most dear to us in someone, what makes him himself, remains indefinable, a mystery, for there is nothing in nature which properly pertains to the person, which is always unique and incomparable. The man who is ‘governed’ by his nature and acts in the strength of his natural qualities, of his ‘character,’ is the least personal. He has set himself up as an individual, and is the proprietor of his own nature. He pits his nature, which he regards as his ‘me,’ against the natures of others. Fallen humanity, as individuals, confuses person and nature. This is egoism.
The person is free from its nature, is not determined by it. The human hypostasis can only realize itself by the renunciation of its own will, that which makes us subject to natural necessity. The individual must be broken. This the root principle of asceticism: the free renunciation of one’s own will, the renunciation of individual liberty to recover true personal liberty (image). St. Evagrius of Pontus said, “a perfect monk will after God, count all men as God Himself.” What he means by this is that the person of another will appear as the image of God, when he can detach from individual limitations. When we realize our own person we rediscover our common nature.
So, we see that the image of God is not part of our nature, but rather, the image is the person which includes the nature in itself. Leontius of Byzantium (6th. cent.) described this as an enhypostasized nature. All nature is found in an hypostasis, such being the nature of a hypostasis which cannot otherwise exist. The person is not part of the nature, and does not divide the nature. An individual divides the nature. Now, the fallen man has a double character, the individual nature and the person.
The individual nature is only a part of a whole, one element which makes up the universe. Because the individual is only a part of nature, it is impoverished. It shuts itself up in the limits of his particular nature, and does not realize himself. Unlike the individual, the human person contains all in himself, the nature being the content of the person, and the person being the existence of the nature. In renouncing possession and giving itself freely, the person finds full expression in the common nature. It expands indefinitely, being enriched by everything which belongs to all. The person becomes the perfect image by acquiring that likeness which is the perfection of the common nature.
At this point I should probably comment that even when man removes himself as far as possible from God, and becomes unlike him in His nature, living as an individual, he remains a person. The image of God in man is indestructible. Man possesses his nature freely because he is a person created in the image of God. All the same, the person cannot be separated from enhypostasized nature. Therefore, every ‘unlikeness’ in the nature limits the person, or obscures the ‘image of God.’ If freedom belongs to the person, the will by which we act is a faculty of our nature.
St. Maximus said the will is “a natural force which tends towards that which is conformed to nature, a power which embraces all the essential properties of nature.” Let’s clarify a little bit. St Maximus taught that the human will have two aspects, the natural will and the choosing will. The natural will is the desire for good to which every reasonable nature tends, while the choosing will is a characteristic of the person. So, the nature wills and acts, the person chooses, accepting or rejecting that which the nature wills. According to this line of thinking, St. Maximus sees the freedom of choice is already a sign of imperfection, a limitation of our true freedom. Perfect nature has no need of choice, for it knows naturally what is good. Choice indicates this fallen state, this fallen nature which is no longer able to know its true good, living ‘against nature,’ and faced with the necessity of choice.
And here we connect to our role in theosis. We are called to assimilate our nature to the divine nature, while bound to a mutilated nature, which it knows and wills by. This is why we no longer choose well. We yield to a nature which is the slave to sin. That in us which is made the image is dragged into an abyss, though always retaining freedom of choice and possibility of turning to God. We are called to fight our way out of this ‘abyss’ and into the kingdom; man is called to reunite by grace two natures, the created and uncreated, in his person, and become ‘a created god.’
