Apokatastasis, Theosis, and Modern Orthodox Eschatology
The essay below forms the final portion of a rather lengthy chapter in a book Ron Allen and I are writing about eschatology for a general audience. This is the first of two chapters exploring how eschatology is understood historically. I thought I would share this final piece, which has its origins with Origen. It will be revised greatly, as well as the rest of the chapter, but here is a glimpse of what I've been up to. Besides, it's Advent and Advent has to do with eschatology!
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We jump from the
fifteenth century to the modern era. Standing at the heart of the conversation
has been the vision espoused by Origen and developed in different ways by his
successors that in the end, the world would see the restoration of all things.
There are differences in understanding what this entails. For some this idea of
apokatastasis (restoration of all things) is equated with some form of
universal salvation. Others believe that the world will see the restoration of
all things, but that does not mean all will be saved. As the Russian theologian
Vladimir Lossky notes, “one can neither deny nor defend apokatastasis. The
idea of it becomes heretical if one sees in it a certain divine determinism
that denies the possibility of choice.”[1] Sergius
Bulgakov, another important twentieth-century Russian Orthodox theologian, followed
Origen more closely and spoke of the restoration of all things in terms of the
beginning rather than the end, so that “in the world nothing is lost and
nothing is annihilated except evil, conquered by the power of God and thereby
exposed in its non-being. But the history of the world, which is also the
history of the church, is the building up of the kingdom of God, the City of
God. And this can be called apocatastasis only in the sense of the universal
salvation whose foundation was already laid when all that exists was created.”[2]
As we think in terms of eschatology, and the final restoration of all things,
there is disagreement as to whether all will experience salvation. However,
with regard to what this looks like, there is continuity of belief that our
ultimate destiny is union with God, which as we have seen is understood in
terms of deification or theosis.
We see the idea of theosis
or deification in Athanasius’s declaration that God became human so that humans
might be God (that is experience deification or immortality). We have seen how
this idea was developed by Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas. Their
legacy is seen in modern Orthodox eschatology.
Concerning theosis,
we will take a look at the vision developed by Vladimir Lossky, who builds
on Palamas’ concept of the distinction between the divine essence and the
divine energies. The divine essence is transcendent and unknowable, but God is
knowable through the divine uncreated energies. Following 2 Peter, humans can
be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 2:4 KJV). That is, according to
Lossky, the promise of union with God, which is our final end. Regarding the
divine energies, Lossky writes that “they are the outpourings of the divine
nature which cannot set bounds to itself, for God is more than essence. The
energies might be described as that mode of existence of the Trinity which is
outside of its inaccessible essence.”[3]
There is much more
to this view of God that undergirds the vision of theosis, but this must
suffice. Regarding humanity’s ultimate end, the idea of theosis speaks
of ultimate union with God. By that Lossky and others would mean union with the
energies of God, not God’s essence, which remains inaccessible to us. According
to Lossky, theosis is fully realized in the age to come after the dead
are resurrected. However, this process of deification (theosis) can
begin in the present, “through the transformation of our corruptible and
depraved nature and by its adaptation to eternal life.” This occurs through our
cooperation with God. The way to union involves “prayer, fasting, vigils, and
other Christian practices,” but not these only. Regarding the Christian life
and the way it is lived in relationship to the movement toward union with God,
he writes “the virtues are not the end but the mean, or, rather, the symptoms,
the outward manifestations of the Christian life, the sole end of which is the
acquisition of grace.”[4]
There is also a sacramental dimension to this process, as Lossky suggests, “we
are deified each time we commune, but our eyes are not able to discern the
glory that radiates from now on. The spiritual life is precisely the opening of
our eyes to glory.”[5]
The issue here is not merit, which is not a major concern in the Eastern
Church, but synergy, cooperation, is assumed. As a result, “grace is not a
reward for the merit of the human will, as Pelagianism would have it; but no
more is it the ‘meritorious acts’ of our free will. For it is not a question of
merits but of a co-operation, a synergy of the two wills, divine and human, a
harmony in which grace bears ever more and more fruit, and is appropriated—
‘acquired’ —by the human person.”[6]
The path taken by
eastern churches looks very different from the west. It tends to be less
apocalyptic, though it has its apocalyptic dimensions. It envisions some form
of restoration of all things, whether all humans will participate in this
restoration is a matter of debate within the tradition. The eschatological hope
is ultimately union with God, which involves deification, such that humanity
joins with divinity in eternal bliss.
[1]
Vladimir Lossky, Dogmatic Theology: Creation, God’s Image in Man, and theRedeeming Work of the Trinity, (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press,
2017), p. 162.
[2]
Sergius Bulgakov, The Sophiology of Death: Essays on Eschatology: Personal,Political, Universal, Roberto J. De La Noval, trans., (Eugene, OR: Cascade
Books, 2021), 90-91.
[3]
Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, (Crestwood,
NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), p. 73.
[4]
Lossky, The Mystical Theology of Eastern Christianity, pp. 196-197.
[5]
Lossky, Dogmatic Theology, p. 161-162.
[6]
Lossky, The Mystical Theology of Eastern Christianity, pp. 197-198.
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