Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance

Myk Habets

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317010838
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Torrance's vision of Theosis (deification/divinisation) is explored through his doctrine of creation and anthropology, his characterisation of the incarnation, his accounts of reconciliation and union with Christ, and his theology of church and sacraments. Myk Habets' study distinguishes Torrance's Reformed vision of theosis from other possible accounts of salvation as divinisation as they are found, for instance, within patristic thought and Eastern Orthodoxy. This book presents the first critique of the theology of T.F.Torrance to focus on theosis, and examines a model of theosis within the realm of reformed theology built upon Western theology.

Chapter 1
Creation and Theological Anthropology

Creation: God and the World

According to Torrance, theosis is initially accomplished in the work of the Incarnate Son Jesus Christ, then, by extension, in the experience of particular human persons. However, as in the patristic tradition and the theologies of Eastern Orthodoxy, the entire creation is somehow involved or caught up in the ‘deification’ of humanity. It is not that creation experiences theosis as such, but rather that there is a cosmic scope to theosis that Torrance, no less than his Eastern colleagues, emphasises.

Fundamental to Torrance’s doctrines of creation and anthropology is an assumption that finds expression thus: ‘it is distinctive of Christian theology that it treats of God in his relation to the world and of God in his relation to himself, not of one without the other.’1 Torrance makes it clear that Creator and creation must be thought of in vital relation to each other. More specifically, ‘a theology that is restricted to the relation between man and God is deficient and primitive, for it has not advanced from mythos to logos, from thinking out of a centre in the human subject to thinking out of a centre in objective reality…’.2 The nature of the specific form of this relationship between creation and redemption is the all-important issue at hand.

Torrance envisages a realist theology as operating within a triadic structure. The specific form this ‘complex of relations’ takes for Torrance is that of God-humanity-world, not simply God-humanity as has so often been the case in formal, especially evangelical theology, nor God-world as is so often apparent in some contemporary ecological approaches. We cannot speak of God except within the world in which he has placed us, and the world of which humanity is, by divine creation, a primary constituent element. Hence anthropology and creation are not two independent loci of theology; rather, a doctrine of creation is the locus of anthropological reflection, or put another way, anthropology is a focus of the doctrine of creation. As a concise summary we read: ‘Theologically speaking, man and the universe belong together and together constitute what we mean by “world”, the world in its relation to God.’3 This approach becomes all the more evident when humanity is considered in light of the eternal Word of God who became incarnate and is identified as the one through whom creation exists. In this way Jesus Christ becomes central to Torrance’s doctrines of creation and anthropology, and hence central for an understanding of theosis. Given this triadic relation we must interpret theosis through the specific sort of relations that exist between God, the world, and humanity. While we shall examine christology in Chapter 2, we must anticipate the general direction it will take in this chapter.

Two interrelated tasks are accomplished within Torrance’s doctrine of creation: one is to clarify that creation is not necessary to God but is contingent on the divine will; the other is to stress that participation in the divine nature is grounded in the creature’s existence. In presenting theosis as integral to the creation of humanity Torrance is drawing upon specific notions of theosis held by some of the Fathers, although much of their usage limited the doctrine to the sanctifying work of the hypostatic union in the Son or the graced renewal of the human by the Spirit. Torrance presents both ideas but insists upon the creational aspect as integral to the whole doctrine, something only a few Eastern Orthodox theologians do explicitly.4

In order to understand Torrance’s doctrine of theosis we must start with his doctrine of creation and specifically ask how it is that Creator and creation are related to one another. From this relation we investigate his account of theological anthropology, especially the important doctrine of the imago Dei in its trinitarian and teleological dimensions.

Cosmic Consequences of Theosis

Torrance consistently maintains that creation is a work of the Triune God in which all three Persons have a distinctive part to play. Torrance accepts and seeks to expound the formula derived from Basil that states that creation is from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.5 According to Torrance, ‘the fact that God is always Father, not always Creator, but became Creator, means that it is precisely as Father that he is Creator…’.6 From this axiom Torrance derives certain corollaries of a trinitarian kind. As Father he is Father of the Son and sender of the Spirit, and a trinitarian stamp is found within creation.7

Along with recent trends in theology Torrance is able, in this trinitarian construct, to give space to the Spirit as the one who brings creation to its destined end or telos.8 This implies that the Spirit is the Spiritus Vivificans who works not only in the church but throughout the entire world, bringing order out of chaos as in the first creation account, and bringing all things to their providential end – communion (theosis) with God.

As a way of summarising the distinctive ways in which the Triune God creates, Torrance alludes to a doctrine of theosis thus:

The supreme end for which God has designed his creation and which he activates and rules throughout all his relations with it is the purpose of his Holy Love not to live for himself alone but to bring into being a creaturely realm of heaven and earth which will reflect his glory and within which he may share with others the Communion of Love which constitutes his inner Life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is in the incarnation of God’s beloved Son in Jesus Christ, and in our sharing in that relation of the Son to the Father through the Holy Spirit, that the secret of the creation, hidden from the ages, has become disclosed to us.9

Here theosis is a sharing in the Divine Life in a creaturely way as a direct result of the creation from the Love of the Father through the omnipotent grace of the Son and realised by the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit.10

Moving beyond the trinitarian how to an investigation of the purpose of creation, the cosmic consequences of theosis need to be further articulated. Torrance does this through the concepts of order and re-order and an exploration of the axiom that ‘creation is conditioned by redemption’. Out of this discussion Torrance asserts the cosmic consequences of theosis and builds a foundation from which to articulate his dynamic and relational doctrine of the imago Dei and explain how the incarnate Christ is central, even if in a proleptic way, to both creation and the imago, thus making Christ central to his doctrine of theosis.

The ‘reordering’ of creation Within Torrance’s work there is a direct and explicit link between God the Father as Creator and the person and work of the Son in the economy. Here creation and redemption are brought together in an insightful synthesis. ‘Quite clearly, Christology and Soteriology have and must have critical significance for our understanding of God as almighty and of his distinctive activity in creation and redemption’,11 writes Torrance. Here christology actually conditions the creation in the first place, proleptically influencing its reality. Torrance’s vision of creation is here, as elsewhere in his theology, a christocentric one. Creation is not only through Christ, but also for Christ. McGrath identifies a notable point within the history of Christian thought which applies equally to the works of Torrance:

The Christian understanding of creation leads directly to the conclusion that there is a correspondence – the degree of which requires clarification – between the works of God and the being of God. Creation and redemption are not merely interconnected within the economy of salvation; they can each be argued to embody the character of God.12

In the Incarnation redemption intersects and overlaps with creation in such a way that Christ and his Kingdom encompass all of history. Purpose is deliberately built into creation from the beginning and, as with the theosis of human beings so with creation itself, perfection is anticipated from the very creation, yet this perfection will not come about mechanistically or ‘naturally’, but rather through divine grace.

This same theme echoes within the theology of Athanasius, a key influence upon Torrance, who repeatedly emphasised the connection between creation and redemption. According to Athanasius the purpose of the incarnation was not only the restoration of humanity but of the whole created order. He writes:

It is, then, proper for us to begin the treatment of this subject by speaking of the creation of the universe, and of God its Artificer, so that it may be duly perceived that the renewal of creation has been the work of the self-same Word that made it at the beginning. For it will appear not inconsonant for the Fath...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Approaching T.F. Torrance and the Theme of Theosis
• 1 Creation and Theological Anthropology
• 2 Incarnation: God Became Human
• 3 Partaking of the Divine Nature
• 4 Community and Communion
• Conclusion: The ‘Danger of Vertigo’?
• Bibliography
• Index