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UNIVERSITY OF WALES

LAMPETER

THE CONCEPT OF DEIFICATION IN EASTERN


ORTHODOX THEOLOGY WITH DETAILED REFERENCE
TO DUMITRU STNILOAE

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF WALES LAMPETER IN


CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES

BY

EMIL BARTOS

LAMPETER, WALES

JANUARY, 1997
2

Acknowledgments

I wish first of all to express my gratitude to my two supervisors: Professor Kallistos Ware of
the University of Oxford, and Dr. Oliver Davies of the University of Wales, Lampeter, for
their personal encouragement and kindness in overseeing the completion of my work and for
the professional way in which they guided my academic research. Bishop Kallistos being
Orthodox and Oliver Davies being Catholic and myself Protestant has given our team-work a
flavour of all the branches of Christendom, a theological transparency, which I hope is
reflected in this thesis as it is reflected in Stniloaes writings.

I would also like to thank those in Regents Park College, Oxford, who offered me their
friendship, fellowship, and support during the period of my research.

In a special way, thanks are also due to the Emmanuel Bible Institute in Oradea, Romania, for
releasing me to complete my academic studies. Also, thanks to those who helped me by
proof-reading my thesis, both in Britain and Romania.

There are also those, whom I would like to thank, friends and anonymous, too many to
mention by name, who have financially supported me during this time, mainly through the
good offices of my friend, David Bishop, chairman of The Crisul Trust.

Above all, I want to thank my wife Maria and my children: Rebeca, Titus, Matilda, Lucian,
Tania, and Ana, for their understanding and patience, especially in the hard times when I was
in Britain.

Emil Barto

January, 1997
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THE CONCEPT OF DEIFICATION IN EASTERN ORTHODOX THEOLOGY


WITH DETAILED REFERENCE TO DUMITRU STNILOAE

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION

1. Stniloae and his work...........................................................................................


2. The concept of deification in Orthodox theology........................................................
3. Purpose and method....................................................................................

CHAPTER II. THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS OF DEIFICATION: THE APOPHATIC


WAY OF KNOWLEDGE

Introduction................................................................................................................
General background.....................................................................................................
2. Stniloae and the synthesis apophatic - cataphatic......................................................
2.1 Apophaticism of negative and positive knowledge.......................................
2.2 Apophaticism at the end of pure prayer.........................................................
2.3 Apophaticism of the vision of divine light....................................................
2.4 Summary...................................................................................................
3. A comparative appraisal of the apophaticism of Stniloae and Lossky......................
3.1 The radical apophatic way. Vladimir Lossky................................................
3.2 Lossky and the Greek Fathers.....................................................................
3.3 A review of Losskys apophaticism...............................................................
3.4 The question of the vision of God..................................................................
3.5 Stniloaes critique of Lossky..................................................................
4. Patristic influence in Stniloae..............................................................................
5. Conclusions....................................................................................................

CHAPTER III. THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS OF DEIFICATION: ESSENCE AND


ENERGIES

1. General background.............................................................................................
2. Stniloae and the divine uncreated energies................................................................
2.1 The trinitarian basis of the uncreated energies..............................................
2.2 The dynamic personalism of the uncreated energies.....................................
2.3 The antinomic character of the uncreated energies.......................................
2.4 Summary....................................................................................................
3. Patristic influence in Stniloae............................................................................
3.1 The distinction essence-energies before Gregory Palamas............................
3.2 The decisive influence of Gregory Palamas..................................................
3.2.1 Intradivine distinction.....................................................................
3.2.2 Theology of light.......................................................................
3.3 Summary..................................................................................................
4. Critical evaluation.....................................................................................................
4.1 The charge of innovation.............................................................................
4.2 The charge of impersonalism.......................................................................
4.3 Revelation and theosis.................................................................................
5. General conclusions.................................................................................................
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5.1. Evaluation................................................................................................
5.2. Assessment...............................................................................................

CHAPTER IV. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASPECT OF DEIFICATION

Introduction...................................................................................................................
1. The relationship between God and world....................................................................
1.1. Deification and the act of creation................................................................
1.1.1 Deification as the reason and purpose of creation..........................
1.1.2 Creation ex nihilo........................................................................
1.1.3 Creation as a free and triune act......................................................
1.1.4 Summary.....................................................................................
1.2. The dynamism of creation: theosis and kinesis.............................................
1.2.1 Time.............................................................................................
1.2.2 Space...........................................................................................
1.2.3 Power..........................................................................................
1.2.4 Summary.....................................................................................
1.3 Evaluation...................................................................................................
2. The relationship between world and man................................................................
2.1 The world as a gift......................................................................................
2.2 The interdependence and responsibility of man and nature..........................
2.3 Man as mediator.........................................................................................
2.4 The rationalities of the world.....................................................................
2.5 Evaluation...................................................................................................
3. The relationship between man and God...................................................................
3.1 The unity of man........................................................................................
3.1.1 Soul and body................................................................................
3.1.2 Soul and mind..............................................................................
3.1.3 Summary......................................................................................
3.2 Imago Dei and theosis.................................................................................
3.2.1 The ontological and personalist character of the image.................
3.2.2 The communitarian character of the image....................................
3.2.3 The dynamic character of the image: image and likeness..............
3.2.4 The imperishable character of the image........................................
3.3 Evaluation: person and nature.....................................................................
4. General conclusions..................................................................................................

CHAPTER V. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL ASPECT OF DEIFICATION: THE PERSON OF


CHRIST

Introduction..................................................................................................................
1. Deification and incarnation.......................................................................................
1.1 Communion with the Logos and transcendental Christology........................
1.2 Deification and the hypostatic union.............................................................
1.2.1 The enhypostasized human nature in the pre-existent hypostasis of the
Word....................................................................................
1.2.2 The complete actualisation of the human nature in Christ..............
1.2.3 The maximal realisation of the union of God and man in Christ....
1.2.4 Summary.......................................................................................
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1.3 Consequences of the hypostatic union........................................................


1.3.1 The communication of the properties..............................................
1.3.2 Kenosis..........................................................................................
2. Patristic influence......................................................................................................
2.1 Leontius of Byzantium and enhypostasia....................................................
2.2 Maximus the Confessor and perichoresis.....................................................
2.3 Cyril of Alexandria and the soul/body analogy..............................................
2.4 Evaluation....................................................................................................
3. General conclusions...................................................................................................

CHAPTER VI. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL ASPECT OF DEIFICATION: THE WORK OF


CHRIST

Introduction........................................................................................................................
1. Background and premises in Stniloae's soteriology...................................................
1.1 plan of salvation.......................................................................................
1.2 The link between the Person of Jesus Christ and His salvific ministry.........
2. Christ's Tridimensional Ministry: The Saviour as Prophet, Priest, and King..............
2.1 Christ as prophet (salvation as truth).............................................................
2.2 Christ as priest (salvation as communion with God).....................................
2.2.1 The sacrificial aspect of redemption...............................................
2.2.2 The ontological aspect of redemption.............................................
2.2.3 The recapitulative aspect of redemption.........................................
2.3 Christ as king (salvation as transfiguration)...................................................
2.4 Summary....................................................................................................
3. General conclusions..................................................................................................
3.1 Evaluation...................................................................................................
3.1.1 The incarnational view of the redemption......................................
3.1.2 Redemption as ontological relations...............................................
3.1.2.1 Redemption as internal atonement...................................
3.1.2.2 The idea of penetration.....................................................
3.1.3 The progressive nature of redemption.............................................
3.1.4 The question of the nature of sin.....................................................
3.1.5 The role of Christ's death and resurrection.....................................
3.2 Assessment................................................................................................

CHAPTER VII. THE PNEUMATO-ECCLESIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF DEIFICATION:


DEIFICATION IN THE CHURCH

Introduction..................................................................................................................
1. The communitarian character of the Church. Trinitarian basis...................................
1.1 The Trinity as a model for the Church...........................................................
1.2 The Trinity as the principle of life of the Church..........................................
1.3 Summary........................................................................................................
2. Deification and pneumatological Christology.............................................................
2.1 The transparency of the Spirit in revelation and in the Church.....................
2.2 Christ and the Spirit....................................................................................
2.3 Summary....................................................................................................
3. The theandric constitution of the Church..................................................................
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3.1 The Church founded by Christs incarnation.................................................


3.2 The Church stamped by Christs sacrifice.....................................................
3.3 The Church pneumatized by the Spirit of the risen Christ............................
3.4 Summary.....................................................................................................
4. General conclusions..................................................................................................

CHAPTER VIII. THE PNEUMATO-ECCLESIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF DEIFICATION:


DEIFICATION BY GRACE

Introduction...................................................................................................................
1. Deification by grace and its personal appropriation....................................................
1.1 The work of grace and the state of grace.......................................................
1.1.1 The work of grace and uncreated energies.....................................
1.1.2 The work of grace and the gifts......................................................
1.1.3 The state of grace.......................................................................
1.2 Freedom and grace....................................................................................
1.3 Summary....................................................................................................
2. Deification and the stages of justification....................................................................
2.1 The stage of preparation.............................................................................
2.2 The stage of regeneration...........................................................................
2.3 The stage of progression.............................................................................
2.4 Summary.....................................................................................................
3. The role of faith and good works..............................................................................
4. The creational composition of the holy mysteries.......................................................
5. General conclusions.................................................................................................
5.1 Ontological continuity and pneumatological Christology.............................
5.2 Communion and theandrism......................................................................
5.3 The dynamism of grace.............................................................................
5.4 Nature and grace........................................................................................
5.5 The question of justification and sanctification.............................................

CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSIONS

1. Summary.....................................................................................................................
2. Final assessment......................................................................................................
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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION

1. Stniloae and his work

The Romanian Orthodox theologian Dumitru Stniloae has been increasingly recognised as
one of the most important contemporary Orthodox theologians.1 He was born in the
Transylvanian village of Vldeni, near Braov, on November 16, 1903. He began theological
studies at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Cernui, in Bukovina, in 1922,
showing a special interest in theological method, Church history and Gregory Palamas. In
Cernui and then in Athens, in parallel with the Greek Fathers (such as Maximus the
Confessor, Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory Palamas), Stniloae showed a particular
interest in German philosophy (such as Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer) and Russian theology
(such as Bulgakov, Khomiakov). After he successfully defended his doctoral thesis,2 Stniloae
was sent to Germany and France to study Byzantine history, where he came into contact with
the existentialist philosophy and dialectical theology of the West. Back in Romania, Stniloae
was appointed professor at the Sibiu Theological Academy and was ordained a priest in 1932,
soon after his marriage. He worked as rector of the Academy from 1936 to 1946, being
involved in various academic activities and setting up new bases for Romanian Orthodox
theology. In this period Stniloae showed special attention to some Western issues and to
some of the internal debates in Romanian society. Under communist pressures, Stniloae
assumed a professorship at the Bucharest Theological Institute and served as professor of

1
Clment spoke of him as one of the principal, if not the principal spokesman of contemporary Orthodoxy
and, very simply, of Christianity. Cf. Le Pre Dumitru Staniloae Docteur honoris causa de lInstitut Saint-
Serge. Allocution dOlivier Clment, Service Orthodoxe de Presse, no. 59 (June-July 1981), pp. 18-23 (18).
In the preface of the German translation of the first volume of Stniloaes Orthodox Dogmatic Theology,
Moltmann makes the remark that although still largely unknown in the West, he is however the most
influential and creative contemporary Orthodox theologian. Cf. J. Moltmann, Geleitwort, in D. Stniloae,
Orthodoxe Dogmatik (Zrich, Einsiedeln, Kln: Benziger Verlag; Gtersloh: Gtersloher Verlagshaus Gerd
Mohn, 1985), p. 10. For Stniloaes biographical sketch, see: I. Bria, Omagiu Printelui Profesor Dumitru
Stniloae la Aniversarea mplinirii Vrstei de 75 ani, Ortodoxia 30 (1978), pp. 638-647; M. Pcurariu,
Preotul Profesor i Academician Dumitru Stniloae. Cteva Coordonate Biografice, in Persoan i
Comuniune. Prinos de Cinstire Printelui Profesor Academician Dumitru Stniloae la mplinirea Vrstei de
90 de ani (Sibiu: Arhiepiscopia Ortodox Sibiu, 1993), pp. 1-15, and Stniloae Dumitru, in Dicionarul
Teologilor Romni (Bucureti: Univers Enciclopedic, 1996); M.A. Costa de Beauregard, Dumitru Stniloae.
Mic Dogmatic Vorbit (Sibiu: Deisis, 1995).
2
D. Stniloae, Viaa i Activitatea Patriarhului Dosofteiu al Ierusalimului i Legturile lui cu rile
Romneti, Candela 40 (1929), pp. 208-276.
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dogmatic and symbolic theology from 1947 until his retirement in 1973. During this interval,
Stniloae was imprisoned for five years, between 1958 and 1964, apparently because of his
part in the revival of Romanian Orthodox spirituality. After leaving the Institute in 1973,
Stniloae continued to be a consultant professor until his death in 1993.
Stniloaes studies in theology were strongly affected by the historical investigation of the
early Romanian writings, though this clue is strangely neglected in the understanding of his
thought.3 Drawing a parallel between the major stages in the history of Romanian Orthodox
theology and Stniloaes theology, some remarkable common points become apparent. First,
Stniloaes theology has to do with the unique combination of the Latinized Orthodoxy
character of the Romanian tradition in the first stage of its existence.4 Second, a clear
Byzantine spirit detectable even from the fourteenth century - due to the links that the
Romanian Orthodox Church had with the greatest spiritual and cultural centres of Orthodoxy
in Jerusalem, Athos and Sinai - is present in Stniloaes theological approach.5 This aspect is

3
From a historical perspective, the interesting fact is that we could not find an extensive documented history
of Romanian Orthodox theology. That is why the task of a Protestant researcher becomes more difficult in
such cases. Some initiatives took place through the writings of contemporary theologians like Sean and Bria.
See for example, M. Sean, Teologia Ortodox n secolele XI-XIII, MMS 7-8 (1967), pp. 467-481;Teologia
Ortodox n sec. XV, MA 11-12 (1966), pp. 730-748; 10-12 (1967), pp. 816-836; 4-6 (1968), pp. 278-293;
and I. Bria, Teologia Ortodox Romn Contemporan, GB 1-2 (1971), pp. 49-72; Dicionar de Teologie
Ortodox (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1994) pp. 383-400; M. Pcurariu, Dicionarul Teologilor Romni
(Bucureti: Univers Enciclopedic, 1996).
4
It is asserted that the first centuries were marked by an oral tradition conveyed through the means of faith,
customs or people's wisdom. This unwritten theology has existed as long as the Romanian people and its
spirituality. The ancestors created a kind of ethnotheology, that is, a very popular mode of understanding
God that constitute a permanent spiritual element. Historical research confirms the existence of Christianity in
the south of the country, in Dobrogea, and to the north of the Danube in the fourth and fifth centuries. In this
time the native Church sent their representatives to the ecumenical and local councils and we can find some
theological works. For example, Bretarion, who was bishop of Tomis in 369 and martyred in 372, wrote a
patristic work called Ptimirea lui Sava Gotul. We know that Teotim I, bishop of Tomis in 392, studied
Origen's works, and Teotim II analysed some decisions from the council of Chalcedon. Both bishops were
recognised by Basil the Great, John Crysostom and Epiphanius. One of the most important theologians of that
period was John Cassian, known as the forerunner of ancient Romanian theology. Cf. I. Bria, Dicionar de
Teologie Ortodox, p. 383.
5
The liturgical space was always a force of cohesion of Orthodoxy, the medium by which Orthodox teaching
was kept and conveyed in a doxological form. In practice, the liturgical space was maintained in the
monasteries, built in the north of Moldavia, that reflect the iconographical and architectural expression of
theology. In these monasteries were the centre for theological learning and spiritual vitality. Cf. I. Crciuna,
Bisericile cu Pictura Exterioar din Moldova, MMS 7-8 (1969), pp. 406-444. This stage is characterised by
an emphasis on religious instruction and cult. Orthodox doctrine was learned from liturgical books, and later
it was printed in the Romanian language by hieromonk Macarie from Trgovite (Liturghierul Slavon, 1508).
The decisive step for the Romanian theological culture was made by deacon Coresi, who translated and
printed in Transylvania books on specifically theological subjects, slightly influenced by the Protestant
Reformation movement. See B. Teodorescu, Personalitatea Diaconului Coresi i Rolul Lui n Cultura
Romneasc, BOR 3-4 (1959), pp. 287-306; V. Coman, nsemntatea Cultural i Religioas a Tipriturilor
Coresiene, MMS 11-12 (1970), pp. 638-645. In the south of the country, called Wallachia, the principal work
that describes the preoccupation for an original spiritual Orthodoxy is nvturile lui Neagoe ctre Fiul su
9

also perceived in the new ascetic trends of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that
strongly influenced Stniloae in rediscovering the patristic writings, hesychast spirituality and
ascetic literature.6 Not many similarities exist between Stniloaes theology and the theology
that covers the first half of the nineteenth century. Although this is known as a period of
transition from an Orthodox culture with ecclesiastical trends to one impregnated with a
didactic character,7 for Stniloae it appears as a compromised period for Orthodox theology,
due to the influence of rationalism, theosophy, positivism, and scholasticism.8 Stniloae
struggles to liberate the Romanian Orthodox theology from these influences, combining the
modern approach on philosophical and dogmatic studies with patristic sources.9 Being part of

Teodosie, a book considered the first monument of dogmatic theology, moral theology and Christian
spirituality, a very original synthesis of ethics, theology, spirituality and political vision, and the first great
book of the Romanian culture. See A. Plmdeal, Cuprinsul Teologic al nvturilor lui Neagoe, ST 3-4
(1969), pp. 245-262, and V. Cndea, ntia Mare Carte a Culturii Romneti, Romnia Literar (1971), p.
13.
6
This is the period of stagnation of its theology. The role of the Romanian Church in the Orthodox world is
recognised due to the council of Iassy in 1642 and its confession of faith written by metropolitan Peter Mogila
of Kiev (1596-1646) and later approved by all Orthodox Churches as one of the principal symbolical texts of
the Orthodox faith. The theological culture of that time was dominated by metropolitans Varlaam (1632-
1653) and Dosoftei (d. 1693), who tried by their works to detach themselves from the rigidities of Slavism and
Byzantism. In this period we note the appearance of theological schools attached to metropolitanates and
those with ascetic character, the central figure of this monastic renaissance being Paisie Velichkovsky (d.
1792). Although an important step forward was made in these years, we cannot talk about a proper Orthodox
literature in the sense of original creativity. However, the basis for a future Romanian Orthodox culture was
laid down. We note some new and relevant works like Cartea Romneasc de nvtur (1643) by Varlaam,
and Psaltire (1673) by Dosoftei, books that circulated a great deal among Churches. As in Transylvania, we
find a very strong reaction against the infiltration of Protestant doctrines in Orthodoxy. For example, Varlaam
wrote Catehismul Calvinesc (1645) where he promotes the unity of Romanian people and the ecumenicity of
faith, defining the Calvinist heresy as a poison and death for the soul. The theological issues are of interest
to men like: Nicolae Milescu, who translated the whole Old Testament; Constantin Cantacuzino who gave a
very solid support for the first Romanian translation of the whole Bible in 1688; Constantin Brncoveanu and
Antim Ivireanul, who started a polemic with Dositei, the patriarch of Jerusalem, on the issue of
transubstantiation; and the greatest historian and humanist of the feudal epoch, Dimitrie Cantemir, who wrote
different works on history (Descriptio Moldaviae), moral philosophy (Divanul), and apologetics (Loca
Obscura) with a profound Orthodox spirit.
7
We can find new theological seminaries, and new translations from the Fathers. Two important cities
opened theological faculties, in Iassy (1860-64) and Bucharest (1861 and 1884), complete with courses, books
and new translations from modern theologians. Two leaders remain as the essential promoters of theological
works, the metropolitans Veniamin Costache of Moldavia (1768-1846) and Grigore Dasclul of Ungrovlahia
(1765-1834). The former is considered the founder of the first school of priests organised in Romania and
author of the first didactic text-books. These hierarchies preceded by their works the substantial achievements
made later by other theologians on the theological field.
8
It is known that in the nineteenth century, in Romania, Orthodox theology depended on translations from
the Greek and Russian authors heavily influenced by Scholasticism. See for example, the influence of
Eugenios Bulgaris, Nikifor Teotokis, Platon Levshin of Moscow, Teofan Prokopovich, Makarios Bulgakov,
and Peter Svetlov. Cf. I. Bria, Dicionar de Teologie Ortodox, pp. 388-389; A.S. Keller, Wesen und Auftrag
der Kirche aus der Sicht der neueren rumnisch-Orthodoxen Theologie, Doctorate dissertation (Basel, 1972).
9
Stniloae interacts with great personalities of that time, as Prvan, Iorga, Mehedini, Blaga, Crainic and
Eliade. The key figure in the theology field was Mihlcescu, who encouraged new theological disciplines in
the faculty curriculum. The modern critics appreciate the work of professor Mihlcescu and affirm that from
10

the mature period in the history of Romanian theology, Stniloaes theology develops a very
dynamic and open spirit in establishing an organic correlation between doctrine, cult,
spirituality and mission, the openness to the world, and the problems of ecumenical
dialogue.10
Given this historical context, we may observe two significant tendencies in the first part of
Stniloaes theological career. The first tendency is an openness to Western values, which
constitutes one of Stniloaes first major theological contributions in Romanian Orthodox
theology this century. By visiting Paris, Berlin and Munich in the period of the growth of
existentialism and dialectical theology, Stniloaes basic theological insights were mediated
through a series of philosophical (such as Buber, Ebner, Heidegger, Jaspers, Lavelle, G.
Marcel) and theological (such as Barth, Brunner, Bultmann) frameworks. His theological
commitment led him to explore a wide variety of such frameworks and to borrow concepts
and approaches from a number of them. The principal contribution of these frameworks has
been to give him a conceptuality for speaking about concrete and personal experience. The
best expression of this tendency is seen in his book on Christology, Iisus Hristos sau
Restaurarea Omului (1943), in which a new emphasis is put on the ontological aspect of
redemption. This realistic, ontologist and spiritualist orientation - which is also reflected in
some writings on the question of nationalism and ethnicity -11 stays as a key element in
understanding the Christological aspect of deification.12

him since today the evolution of Romanian theology does not constitute an essential changing but a changing
in intensity and amplification. See Teologia Dogmatic n Biserica Ortodox Romn n Trecut i Azi,
Ortodoxia 3 (1971), pp. 339-340.
10
In this context, we could especially remark on the initiative of patriarch Iustinian (1901-1977), in the very
difficult time of communism, to promote the social apostolate as a practical involvement of Orthodox
believers in the life of the country, based on the theology of peace, servanthood and renewal. Many new text-
books, translations, courses, and another group of very creative theologians arose (Belu, Todoran, Mladin,
Stniloae, Coman, Stan, Branite, Rezu, Bria, Radu, Plmdeal, D. Popescu). Bria thinks that the
Romanian Orthodox theology developed in history first because of the internal dynamic life of the Church as
the people of God. Romanian theology is a creation of the local Church and not a local synthesis of foreign
influences, argues Bria. That is why Romanian Christianity inspired and fecundated the cultural creation of
the nation. Another reason is the continuous search for its own identity through which the Romanian
Orthodox Church had the freedom to include in its theology the language, culture and national art. A final
reason for development sees the European and pan Orthodox conscience in which Romanian theology has its
own spiritual identity and universality. I. Bria, Dicionar de Teologie Ortodox, pp. 395f.
11
See, for example, D. Stniloae, Catolicismul de dup Rzboi (Sibiu: Editura Arhidiecezan, 1933),
Ortodoxie i Romnism (Sibiu: Editura Arhidiecezan, 1939); Poziia D-lui Lucian Blaga fa de Cretinism
i Ortodoxie (Sibiu: Editura Arhidiecezan, 1942), reprinted in 1993; Legea Neamului, Luceafrul 2
(1942), pp. 42-47.
12
A developed version of the Christology exposed in Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, this time under
the heavy influence of Maximus the Confessor, is found in Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu (1987) and in
the chapter entitled Omul i Dumnezeu, in Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox (1991).
11

The second tendency in Stniloaes theological career is his searching for a more experiential
theology. Thus Stniloaes openness to the West is supplemented and balanced by a neo-
patristic spirit. This is seen in his constant attention given to the major writings of the Fathers,
the theological line constituted by: Irenaeus, Clement, Origen, Athanasius, the Cappadocians,
Cyril of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Dionysius, Maximus, Leontius of Byzantium, John of
Damascus, Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas. The interest in patristics
starts in 1938, when Stniloae wrote a monograph on Gregory Palamas (Viaa i nvtura
lui Grigorie Palama) and introduced the doctrine of divine uncreated energies as the axis of
his future theological system. Then, in 1946, Stniloae began to publish Romanian
translations and commentaries on the Philokalia until 1991,13 followed by similar works on
Maximus,14 Gregory of Nyssa,15 Athanasius,16 Cyril of Alexandria,17 Symeon the New
Theologian,18 Dionysius,19 and Gregory of Nazianzus.20 In the same period, Stniloae lectured
in Bucharest on Orthodox spirituality, with interesting references to the existentialist and
psychological works of Blondel and Binswanger.21 His patristic interest is completed by a vast

13
Philokalia is a collection of patristic and hesychast writings concerning pure prayer and the monastic life.
A previous translation of Philokalia from Greek into Slavonic (1793) was done by Paisie Velichkovsky (1722-
1794), a Ukrainian and a graduate of Kiev Theological Academy, who became a monk in his own country and
then in Mt. Athos where he founded the skete of St. Elias. Paisie translated 25 treaties out of 36, entitling his
collection Dobrotolyubie or Love of Good. Stniloae includes in the Romanian version new authors,
resulting a set of 12 volumes entitled Filocalia Sfintelor Nevoine ale Desavririi sau Culegere din Scrierile
Sfinilor Prini care Arat cum se poate Omul Curi, Lumina i Desvri, vols. I-IV (Sibiu, 1946-1948),
and vols. V-XII (Bucureti, 1976-1991) - from now on Filocalia. On the key role of Stniloae in the spiritual
revival in Romania, see R. Joant, Romania: Its Hesychast Tradition and Culture (Wildwood, Ca.: St. Xenia
Skete, 1992).
14
Maximus, Mystagogia: Cosmosul i Sufletul, Chipuri ale Bisericii, RT 4-5 (1944), pp. 166-181, and 6-8
(1944), pp. 339-356; Scrieri I: Ambigua, PSB 80 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1983); Scrieri II: Scrieri i Epistole
Hristologice i Duhovniceti, PSB 82 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1990); all with introduction, notes and
comments.
15
Gregory of Nyssa, Scrieri I: Tlcuire la Cntarea Cntarilor, Despre Fericiri, Despre Rugciunea
Domneasc, Despre Rnduiala cea dup Dumnezeu i Nevoina Adevrat, PSB 29 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR,
1982), introduction, notes and comments (with I. Buga).
16
Athanasius, Scrieri I: Cuvnt mpotriva Elinilor, Cuvnt despre ntruparea Cuvntului, Trei Cuvinte
mpotriva Arienilor, PSB 15 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1987); Scrieri II: Epistole, Viaa Cuviosului Printelui
nostru Antonie, PSB 16 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1988); all with introduction, notes and comments.
17
Cyril of Alexandria, Scrieri I: nchinare n Slujire i Adevr, PSB 38 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1991); Scrieri
II: Glafirele, PSB 39 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1992); Scrieri III: Despre Sfnta Treime, PSB 40 (Bucureti:
EIBMBOR, 1994); all with introduction, notes and comments.
18
Symeon the New Theologian, Imnele Iubirii Dumnezeieti, in Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox
(Craiova: Mitropolia Olteniei, 1991), pp. 322-705, with introduction, notes and comments.
19
Dionysius, Opere Complete (Bucureti: Paideia, 1996), with introduction, notes and comments.
20
Gregory of Nazianzus, Cele 5 Cuvntri Teologice (Bucureti: Anastasia, 1993), with introduction and
notes.
21
Cf. D. Stniloae, Ascez i Mistic Cretin sau Teologia Vieii Spirituale (Cluj: Cartea Crii de tiin,
1993). Stniloae quotes from M. Blondel, LAction (1893), 3rd edition (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1973); In English, Action, tr. by O. Blanchette (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1984);
and from L. Binswanger, Grundformen und Erkenntnis menschilchen Daseins (Zrich, 1942).
12

collection of articles on dogmatics that remain the foundation of his systematic theology.22 As
a result of the patristic and dogmatic integration, a creative synthesis of dogma, spirituality
and liturgy is achieved in his dogmatic trilogy: Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, 3 vols. (1978),
Spiritualitatea Ortodox (1981), and Spiritualitate i Comuniune n Liturghia Ortodox
(1986). In a sense, with this magnum opus, Stniloaes contribution to the development of an
original Romanian theology is achieved.23
For such a prolific writer, and for one so highly acclaimed there has been surprisingly little
serious work done on Stniloaes unique thought. Some of his students have continued his
work on the relation of spirituality to theology, but these works are in the same vein as
Stniloaes thought. Most work on and reviews of Stniloae centre around his spiritual aspect
and not strictly on his theological thought. Several articles have been written on his broad
system of thought, with a few on his epistemology, but there is a lack of serious criticism of
his theology as a whole and of individual components of it.24 Two reasons may be advanced
for this. Firstly, Stniloaes difficult style of writing: he is given to long, meandering

22
For example, on revelation: Revelaia prin Acte, Cuvinte i Imagini, Ortodoxia 3 (1968), pp. 347-377;
Revelaia ca Dar i Fgduin, Ortodoxia 2 (1969), pp. 179-196; on Mariology: nvtura despre Maica
Domnului la Ortodoci i Catolici, Ortodoxia 4 (1950), pp. 559-609; Maica Domnului ca Mijlocitoare,
Ortodoxia 3-4 (1952), pp. 79-129; on ecclesiology: Dumnezeiasca Euharistie n cele Trei Confesiuni,
Ortodoxia 1 (1953), pp. 46-115; Starea Sufletelor dup Judecata Particular n nvtura Ortodox i
Catolic, Ortodoxia 4 (1953), pp. 545-614; Motivele i Urmrile Dogmatice ale Schismei, Ortodoxia 3
(1954), pp. 218-259; Faptele Bune n nvtura Ortodox i Catolic, Ortodoxia 4 (1954), pp. 507-533;
Mrturisirea Pcatelor i Pocina n Trecutul Bisericii, BOR 3-4 (1955), pp. 218-250; Judecata Particular
dup Moarte, Ortodoxia 4 (1955), pp. 532-559; Fiina Tainelor n cele Trei Confesiuni, Ortodoxia 1
(1956), pp. 3-28; Numrul Taineleor, Raporturile dintre Ele i Problema Tainelor n Afara Bisericii,
Ortodoxia 2 (1956), pp. 191-214; on soteriology: Starea Primordial a Omului n cele Trei Confesiuni,
Ortodoxia 3 (1956), pp. 323-357; Doctrina Ortodox i Catolic despre Pcatul Strmoesc, Ortodoxia 1
(1957), pp. 3-40; Doctrina Protestant despre Pcatul Originar Judecat din Punct de Vedere Ortodox,
Ortodoxia 2 (1957), pp. 195-215.
23
In the last period, Stniloae published other important works, such as Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu
(Craiova: Mitropolia Olteniei, 1987), Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox (Craiova: Mitropolia Olteniei,
1991); Chipul Evanghelic al lui Iisus Hristos (Sibiu: Editura Centrului Mitropolitan, 1991); Reflexii despre
Spiritualitatea Poporului Romn (Craiova: Scrisul Romnesc, 1992); Iisus Hristos, Lumina Lumii i
ndumnezeirea Omului (Bucureti: Anastasia, 1993).
24
The most important works on Stniloaes theology are: G.F. Anghelescu, Problematica Antropologic n
Opera Printelui Profesor Dumitru Stniloae, MO 4-6 (1991), pp. 148-156; I. Bria, Spaiul Nemuririi sau
Eternizarea Umanului n Dumnezeu (Iai: Trinitas, 1994), and The Creative Vision of D. Stniloae. An
Introduction to His Theological Thought, ER 33.1 (1981), pp. 31-37; D. Ciobotea, Une Dogmatique pour
lHomme daujourdhui, Irnikon 54 (1981), pp. 472-484 [in Romanian, O Dogmatic pentru Omul de
Azi, ST 6 (1986), pp. 98-104]; S. Frunz, O Antropologie Mistic. Introducere n Gndirea Printelui
Stniloae (Craiova: Omniscop, 1996); I. Juhasz, Dumitru Stniloaes Ecumenical Studies as an Aspect of the
Orthodox-Protestant Dialogue, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 4 (1979), pp. 747-764; D. Nesser, The
World: Gift of God and Scene of Humanitys Response. Aspects of the Thought of Father Dumitru Stniloae,
ER 33.3 (1981), pp. 272-282; E. OBrien, The Orthodox Pneumatic Ecclesiology of Father Dumitru
Stniloae; An Ecumenical Approach, MPhil dissertation (Dublin, 1984); R.G. Roberson, Contemporary
Romanian Orthodox Ecclesiology. The Contribution of Dumitru Stniloae and Younger Colleagues,
Doctorate dissertation (Roma, 1988).
13

sentences, which are regularly interspersed with parenthetical remarks, allusive references to
other patristic authors or periods of history. His theological style, therefore, is apparently
impenetrable, also due to the revelational approach to the whole issue of theology and to the
centrality of the paradox as a form of faith language and mystical theology. Secondly, the
breadth of thought and subject matter that Stniloae has brought together, from the
obscurities of personalism to a profound grasp of patristic theology, makes his approach to
theology radically different to other Romanian Orthodox contemporary theologians.25 Much
elaborated, and interconnected with the modern theological debates of our century,
Stniloaes theological thinking struggles to keep in balance the unequalled spirit of the
Fathers and the actual challenge in the field of Orthodox theology.
One of Stniloaes achievements in the area of theology, therefore, is to give attention to the
need for the re-evaluation of certain theological formulations in the light of the writings of the
Fathers and Christian mystics. It was mentioned that, from the beginning, Stniloae promotes
a return to the patristic sources as the way to engage in theological reflection, rather than
continuing to rely on later commentators and manuals of theology.26 Together with other
Romanian theologians, such as Mihlcescu and Coman, Stniloae recovers the true spirit of
Orthodoxy by bringing back the patristic dimension and by avoiding the pitfall of
classicisation. Thus it is not an insignificant feature of Stniloaes theology to work as
mediator in the thought of the Greek Fathers and Orthodox modern theologians. He tries to
show that certain Orthodox theologians of the modern period have failed to do justice to the
patristic tradition of the Church. This is seen in Stniloaes stress on the neo-patristic spirit
and philokalic practice, in abandoning the scholastic schemes of nineteenth century Orthodox
theology and promoting the revitalising return to the patristic and Byzantine tradition with its
spiritual inheritance of hesychasm and Palamism.27 This is the reason why Stniloaes

25
This is seen in the influence of realistic personalism represented by Berdyaev, Lavelle, or G. Marcel. The
metaphysics of participation that characterises Lavelles philosophical system is seen in his trilogy (often
quoted by Stniloae at the beginning of his theological career): La Dialectique de LEternel Prsent, vol. I,
De lEtre (Paris, 1928); vol. II, De LActe (Paris, 1937); and vol. III, Du Temps et de LEternit (Paris, 1945).
26
Cf. Stniloaes preface to H. Andrutsos, Dogmatica Bisericii Ortodoxe Rsritene, tr. from the Greek by D.
Stniloae (Sibiu, 1930), p. V, and to Filocalia I, pp. X-XI.
27
Stniloae once said that he wished to pursue a theology of experience and not an abstract theology. This
is why he shapes his theology to issue the spiritual meaning of the dogmatic teachings, to emphasise their
truth according to the deep needs of the soul. For that, he abandons the scholastic method of treating the
dogmas as abstract statements of faith, of a solely theoretical interest and long ago by-passed, without any
connection with the deep, spiritual life of the soul. Cf. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I,
Preface, p. 5. The Romanian philokalic renewing is also found in the writings of Nichifor Crainic and
Nicolae Mladin. Cf. N. Crainic, Sfinenia - mplinirea Umanului. Curs de Teologie Mistic 1935-1936 (Iai:
14

theology regenerated twentieth century dogmatics and freed the Orthodox tradition of
abusive stereotypes and traditionalist exegesis, returning its ecumenical dimension.28
A second achievement of Stniloaes approach is his conviction that theology must be
vertical and personal, rooted in contemporary spirituality. Theology is not a work of
systematisation or argumentation, but a mode of knowledge, a form of doxology of divine
love, an act of testimony and greatness of the spirit.29 Stniloaes contribution, therefore, has
brought a new spirit into the Romanian Orthodox theology of this century, a restoration of
the mystical dimension in theological discourse.30 His theological style claims a theology of
variegation, a theology that seeks to reveal and unfold the profound aspects of Christian
tradition. This is why his writings include patristic sources, contemporary philosophical
debates, analysis of the new trends in dogmatic theology, and spiritual concern. He was an
extraordinary reader and a prodigious scholar, struggling to keep the Churchs tradition alive
as translator and commentator.31
In summary, Stniloae was an apologist of Orthodoxy, a historian, dogmatician, and
philosopher. His theology is considered original, creative, mystical, and personalist. There is
an immense erudition packed into Stniloaes texts which often reveals itself only in
shorthand form. A single work can reveal the compactness of his knowledge of patristic,
modern theology, and other forms of contemporary thought. Behind Stniloaes theological
system there is in fact an important organising structure. In accord with a new theological
approach, what is specific to Stniloaes Orthodox theology is: (1) the balanced approach to
the apophatic-cataphatic issue, disclosing the insufficiency of cataphaticism in Western
theology and the radical way of apophaticism in Eastern theology; (2) the rationality of
creation as the revelation of the Logos; (3) the Trinity as the structure of supreme love; (4)
the emphasis on the hypostatic equilibrium between the economy of the Son and of the Spirit;
(5) the unification of incarnation and deification; (6) the Church as the icon of the Trinity and
communion of persons; (7) the synergetic equilibrium between the free will of man and the

Trinitas, 1993); N. Mladin, Asceza i Mistica Paulin (Sibiu: Deisis, 1996), and Prelegeri de Mistic
Ortodox (Trgu Mure: Veritas, 1996).
28
I. Bria, Spaiul Nemuririi sau Eternizarea Umanului n Dumnezeu (Iai: Trinitas, 1994).
29
I. Bria, Cumpna Teologiei i Culturii Romne, Comuniunea Romneasc (Detroit, Martie 1981), pp. 16-
17. See also A.A. Allchin, Introduction, in D. Stniloae, The Victory of the Cross (Oxford: The Fairacres
Publication 16, 1971), pp. 2-3.
30
For a general view on the Romanian Orthodox theology in this century and the contribution of Stniloae,
see De la Thologie Orthodoxe Roumaine des Origines Nos Jours (Bucarest: EIBMBOR, 1974), and I. Bria,
Teologie Ortodox Romn, in Dicionar de Teologie Ortodox, pp. 383-400.
15

power of uncreated energies mediated by the Spirit as sacramental power; and (8) the vision
of a transfigured cosmos. As a result, his attempt gives fresh articulation to the Christian faith
as a personalist theology. We may say, therefore, that the heart of Stniloaes theology is
found in the theology of person and communion. His view on deification as the goal of human
existence is very much informed by his communitary personalism, a motif into which the other
motifs are usually subsumed.

2. The concept of deification in Orthodox theology


Despite the great difficulty that many Western theologians seem to have with the notion of
deification, this is of fundamental significance in the understanding of the nature and destiny
of man in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. There is a certain agreement among Orthodox
theologians as far as the doctrine of deification is concerned. The terminology employed by
the Fathers and modern theologians differs, but the essence of their doctrine is preserved. For
example, although the term theosis is not found in the Bible, the Fathers created it chiefly in
their Christological and soteriological disputes with the heresies of their day.32 Basically, the
deification idea is expressed in a sentence common to many Church Fathers: God made
Himself man so that man might become God.33 Yet Eastern theology says very clearly that
becoming god does not mean an identification with Gods divine nature (essence) but by
adoption, by grace, and by imitation. Generally, the theology of the Orthodox Church

31
A complete list of Stniloaes work is provided by G.F. Anghelescus systematic bibliography in Persoan
i Comuniune (Sibiu, 1993), pp. 16-67.
32
The problem faced by some patristic theologians was the way to express the Christian mystery of Christ's
incarnation and redemption in a Neoplatonic language, the universally accepted language of that age. More
precisely, in order to express the unity with God, affirms Meyendorff, the Greek Fathers employed the concept
of deification as a Christocentric and eschatological concept, expressed in Platonic language but basically
independent of philosophical speculation. J. Meyendorff, Theosis in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, in L.
Dupr and D.E. Saliers (eds.), Christian Spirituality, vol. III, Post-Reformation and Modern (London: SCM
Press, 1990), p. 471; see also J. Meyendorff, St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality, p. 40. Similarly,
Mantzarides writes: Mans deification during the age of the great Fathers was dominantly a Christocentric
experience, while during the hesychast period the same reality was experienced more in a Spirit-centered
manner. This difference does not apply to the essence, but to the way in which mans deification is conceived
and experienced. G.I. Mantzarides, The Deification of Man. St. Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox
Tradition (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1984), p. 128.
33
Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 10, 5-9 (PG 37, 465); Athanasius, De Incarnatione 54 (PG 25, 192B);
Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica Magna 25 (PG 45, 65D). Analysing the phrases used by the Fathers of
the Church, Prestige thinks that they are purely relative and express the fact that man has a nature
essentially spiritual, and to that extent resembling the being of God; further, that he is able to attain a real
union with God, by virtue of an affinity proceeding both from nature and from grace. G.L. Prestige, God in
Patristic Thought (London: SPCK, 1969), p. 74.
16

understands deification as the religious ideal of Orthodoxy,34 and the central dogma of
Orthodoxy.35 Specifically, deification is a divine gift and the ultimate and supreme goal for
human existence. It involves an intimate union of the human being with the Triune God,36 and
the process of emergence as the essential openness of man.37 Following the Fathers, then,
the idea of deification as mans destiny is adopted by such modern theologians as Afanasieff,
Bulgakov, Bobrinskoy, Olivier Clment, Evdokimov, Florovsky, Karmiris, Lossky, Nellas,
Nissiotis, Schmemann, Kallistos Ware, and Yannaras.
However, as a reaction to Eastern thought, the idea of deification has been described in the
West as not only strange, but arrogant and shocking to modern ears;38 an unbiblical and
thoroughly objectionable concept;39 the most serious aberration... the disastrous flaw in
Greek Christian thought.40 Because deification depreciates the value of the human person,
what is needed is not the deification but the humanisation of man.41
In order to find Stniloaes place in this theological dispute, a short survey of the history of
the concept is required. The history of dogma shows that the pagan contribution to the
Christian doctrine of deification implies only certain elements of Platonism, and a few from

34
C. Kern, Antropologija sv. Grigorija Palamy (Paris, 1950), p. 394, quoted in G.I. Mantzarides, Deification
of Man, p. 12.
35
I. Bria, Dicionar Cretin Ortodox, p. 224.
36
In this respect, Lossky regards the Triunity's revelation as the basis and the ultimate goal of theology, for
to know the mystery of the Trinity in its fullness is to enter into perfect union with God and to attain to the
deification of the human creature: in other words, to enter into the divine life, the very life of the Holy Trinity,
and to become, in St. Peter's words, 'partakers of the divine nature. V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the
Eastern Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1976), p. 67.
37
J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham
University Press, 1983), pp. 3, 139.
38
W.R Inge, Christian Mysticism (London, 1933), p.356.
39
D. Cairnes, The Image of God in Man (London: Collins, 1973), p. 109.
40
B.J. Drewery, Origen and the Doctrine of Grace (London: The Epworth Press, 1960), p. 200. For further
objections to the concept of deification, see: B.J. Drewery, Deification, in P. Brooks (ed.), Christian
Spirituality. Essays in Honour of Gordon Rupp (London: SCM Press, 1975); A. von Harnack, History of
Dogma, vol. III, tr. by N. Buchanan (New York: Dover Publications, 1978); D. Ritschl, Hippolytus Concept
of Deification, SJTh 12 (1959), pp. 388-399; M. Wiles, The Unassumed is the Unhealed, Religious Studies
4 (1968), pp. 47-56, reprinted in Working Papers in Doctrine (London: SCM Press, 1976), pp. 108-121.
41
But does a reasonable man today want to become God?... Our problem today is not the deification but the
humanization of man. H. Kng, On Being a Christian (London: Fount Paperbacks, 1978), p. 442. For a
much more sympathetic position on the concept of deification, see: L. Bouyer, A History of Christian
Spirituality, vol. I, From the Apostolic Community to Constantine (Tunbridge Wells: Burns and Oates, 1986),
pp. 416-420; E. Brunner, The Mediator. A Study of the Central Doctrine of the Christian Faith (London:
Lutherworth Press, 1934), pp. 249-264; Y. Congar, Dialogue between Christians. Catholic Contribution to
Ecumenism (London, Dublin: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), pp. 217-232; E. Mascall, The Openness of Being.
Natural Theology Today (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1971), pp. 217-251; E. Osborn, The Beginning
of Christian Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 111-120.
17

Hellenistic Judaism.42 Biblical evidence is concentrated in texts like Ps. 82:6, John 10:34-35
and 2 Peter 1:4 in order to emphasise humanitys organic union with God.43 These biblical
texts constitute the basis for an extended development by the Fathers. In refuting the Gnostic
heresy, Irenaeus proclaimed the essential distinction between the Creator and His creation,
and the teaching that man is a psychosomatic unity, bearing both the image and likeness of his
Creator, and created to participate in the life of God not in a poetic metaphor but in reality.44
The Alexandrian heritage shows a narrowing of vocabulary and the use for the first time of
the technical terminology of deification (theopoieo) by Clement of Alexandria in order to
speak about imitation of the Logos as a model of incorruption, and participation in the divine
attributes of immortality and incorruption by mastering the passions.45 With Origen we come

42
See J. Gross, La Divinisation du Chrtien d'aprs les Pres Grecs. Contribution Historique la Doctrine
de la Grce (Paris: Lecoffre, J. Gabalda, 1938), pp. 1-69. Judaisms contribution to the concept of deification
is seen, for example, in the Rabbinic exegesis of Ps. 82:6. In Maccabees and the Wisdom of Solomon, human
destiny is presented as the souls attainment of immorality and incorruptibility after death, in the likeness of
Gods immortality. See for example, 4 Macc 18:3: the martyrs were deemed worthy of a divine share; Wis.
2:23: God created man for incorruption and made him in the image of his own eternity (v.l. his own
nature).
43
Other biblical texts are cited and analysed in: P.B.T. Bilaniuk, The Mystery of Theosis or Divinization, in
Studies in Eastern Christianity, vol. I (Mnich-Toronto, 1977), pp. 337-359; D.B. Clendenin, Eastern
Orthodox Christianity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1994), pp. 117-137; J. Gross, La
Divinisation du Chrtien d'aprs les Pres Grecs, pp. 70-111; T. Ware, The Orthodox Church
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1993), pp. 231-238.
44
For Irenaeus, theosis is the final goal of man. God the Logos became what we are, in order that we may
become what He Himself is. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses III, 19.1 (PG 7, 939, 1120). Although not created
perfect, Adam was given the potentiality of realizing his image by growing into the likeness of God. By this
process of growth, in communion with God, man would come to his full human maturity. When by his
weakness and ignorance Adam disobeyed God, the divinely intended process of deification was interrupted,
and he fell into the clutches of the Devil and lost the divine likeness. On deification in Irenaeus, see M.
Aubineau, Incorruptibilit et divinisation selon Saint Irne, Recherches de Science Religieuse 44 (1956),
pp. 25-52; G. Wingren, Man and the Incarnation. A Study in the Biblical Theology of Irenaeus (Edinburgh
and London, 1959).
45
Salvation is a paedagogic process in which the Logos of God, divine reason, the teacher and lawgiver of
mankind, leads man from wisdom to faith, from faith to knowledge, from knowledge to love, and then
ultimately to where the God and guard of our faith and love is (Stromata VII,10). Mans assimilation to
God is not an absorption into God, it is not a negation of humanity, but rather, it is a promotion in glory, a
growing into perfect manhood, for it is a bringing to its appointed consummation that perfection for which
man was intended at his creation. Salvation, then, for Clement is something of an intellectual process, for it is
the acquiring of knowledge, the knowledge which deifies which brings man to perfection, to that likeness to
God which is the true destiny, and all men are therefore free to obey or disobey God's law (Stromata VI,13).
So sublime is the ideal of deification, the assimilation of man to God, for Clement, that only Christ the
incarnate Logos could have realized it here on earth (Stromata IV,21). Others will only attain to the fullness
of this blessedness in the life beyond after the resurrection (Paedagogus I,6). The souls of those not yet
completely purified will have to undergo further purification, by various punishments, but the pure souls, the
gnostics, who have by the divine gnosis already attained a measure of deification, will, immediately after their
separation from the body (the honours after death, which belong to those who have lived holy Stromata
IV,7) be established in the crowning place of rest, where they will gaze on God face to face, with knowledge
and comprehension (Stromata VII,10). But Clement wants to affirm that it is possible for man in this life to
attain to God. Here the concept of deification of man is taken a step further than in Irenaeus' writings, for
Clement has realized the eschatological hope and brought the experience of assimilation to God into the
18

to see a more intimate sense of man's relationship to the Logos through his development of
the concept of dynamic and personal participation. God reaches down to men, the Spirit
making them holy and spiritual so that the Son can make them sons and gods by grace.46
Athanasius uses the term deification much more frequently than Clement or Origen, and
stresses the deification of human nature in a realistic way in Jesus Christ. Referring to the
deification in the context of the Arian crisis, Athanasius writes that the Word of God became
man, that we may become gods.47 This became a classic statement on deification in the
Fathers referring to the deification of the human nature in Christ and, consequently, to the
deification of a believer and of the cosmos.48 Cyril of Alexandria modifies the strongly
physicalist anthropology inherited from Athanasius, preferring to speak about man's
deification in a more spiritualized sense, stressing both the ontological aspect of deification,
understood as humanitys transformation that took place in principle through the incarnation,
and its dynamic aspect of participation in God as His sons, through baptism and eucharist.49
The Cappadocians take the doctrine of deification from the Alexandrians and adapt it to a
Platonizing understanding of Christianity as the attainment of likeness to God as far as is
possible for human nature.50 Accordingly, Gregory of Nyssa speaks about epektasis (that is,
the aspiration after the likeness with God) and about a divine spark in humanity (that is, the

earthly life of man, so that man can even be spoken of as a god walking about in the flesh (Stromata
VII,16).See Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, O. Sthlin and L. Frchte (eds.), vols. I-VI; O. Sthlin, L.
Frchte, and U. Treu (eds.), vols. VII-VIII (GCS 15 and 17: Berlin, 1960 and 1970). Cf. G.W. Butterworth,
The Deification of Man in Clement of Alexandria, JTS 16 (1916), pp. 157-169.
46
Origen, Peri Archon IV,4,9 (GCS V, p. 362,5-2). See also Contra Celsum III, 28 (PG 11, 987).
47
Athanasius, De Incarnatione 54 (PG 25, 192B). Thomson translates: For he became man that we might
become divine. Cf. Athanasius, Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione, Edited and translated by R. Thomson,
in Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford, 1971). See also for example, Orationes Contra Arianos I.9, I.38,
I.39, I.42 (PG 26, 29B, 92B, 92C, 93A, 100A).
48
Athanasius doctrine of deification has two main characteristics: (1) it is linked more with salvation than
with morality, and (2) it restricts the essence of deification to participation in the deified body of Christ.
Through participation in the body of Christ, men participate in the divinity with which that body was
endowed, which leads them to participate in incorruption and immortality, and ultimately in the resurrected
life and eschatological fulfilment of heaven. Athanasius,Orationes Contra Arianos I, 16 (PG 26, 45A); III, 40
(PG 26, 409A); I, 16 (PG 26, 45 AB); Epistola ad Epictetum 6 (PG 26, 1060C). On deification in Athanasius,
see A.L. Kolp, Partakers of the Divine Nature. The Use of II Peter 1:4 by Athanasius, SP 27.3 (1982), pp.
1018-1023; H. Hess, The Place of Divinization in Athanasian Soteriology, SP 26 (1993), pp. 369-374.
49
Thus, for Cyril, participation in the divine nature is fundamentally a participation in the personal life of
the Trinity as a whole. N. Russell, Partakers of the Divine Nature in the Byzantine Tradition, in J.
Chrysostomides (ed.), Kathegetria: Essays Presented to Joan Hussey on Her 80th Birthday (Porphyrogenitus,
1988), pp. 58-59. For Cyril of Alexandria see In Joannes IX, 1 (PG 74, 280C); Adversus Nestorianos V, 1
(PG 76, 213 D). See also W. Burghardt, The Image of God in Man according to Cyril of Alexandria
(Washington, 1957).
50
They do not adopt the terminology of the Alexandrians nor are they attracted to the realistic model of
deification. Only the body of Christ, the ensouled flesh which the Logos assumed, is deified in any literal
19

divine presence which makes man truly human), man being called to return to God through
the process of deification which implies the presence of uncreated energies.51 For Gregory of
Nazianzus, the emphasis is on moral progress: one must be detached from the dissipation of
sin and the desire to possess corruptible things, in order to become attached to the unique and
unchanging God.52 Dionysius declares that deification is the attaining of likeness to God and
union with Him in so far as is possible,53 and demonstrates this by employing the principle of
analogy for the unity of God and the multiplicity of creatures.54 In opposition to Dionysius,
who has no explicit role for the incarnation, Maximus the Confessor regards deification in a
Christological framework, in which the reciprocity of natures in Christ is applied to mans
deification, and in a dynamic and ontological framework, by engaging the idea of double
movement.55 Finally, following Maximus and the Cappadocians, Gregory Palamas uses a
more dynamic and personalist idea of participation in a personal God through His energies.56

sense. Human beings are deified in an ethical or metaphysical sense, the emphasis being as much on the
ascent of the soul of God as on the transformation of the believer through baptism.
51
Wherefore it is true both that the pure heart sees God and that no one has ever seen God. In fact, He who is
invisible by nature becomes visible by His energies, appearing to us in some surroundings of His nature.
Gregory of Nyssa, De Beatitudinibus, Oratio VI (PG 44, 1269). For further ideas on deification in Gregory of
Nyssa, see R. Gillet, LHomme Divinisateur Cosmique dans la Pense de Saint Grgoire de Nysse, SP 6
(1962), pp. 62-83; E. Moutsoulas, The Incarnation of the Word and the Theosis of Man according to Gregory
of Nyssa, in Greek (Athens, 1965), and D.L. Balas, Metousia theou: Mans Participation in Gods Perfections
according to St. Gregory of Nyssa (Rome: Studia Anselmiana, 1966).
52
We are divinised by rising above the duality of matter to the unity perceived in the Trinity. The elevation of
man was the whole aim of the incarnation, the mysterious interchange, whereby man was anointed with
divinity and made homotimos with God. It is only through Gods condescension to our condition that the
miracle of theosis can take place, so that at the end, the Son will stand a god in the midst of the gods. See
for example, Gregory of Nazianzus (PG 35, 397-400, 785); (PG 36, 101, 321-325).
53
Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy I.3 (PG 3, 376A). All quotations for Dionysius are taken from Pseudo-
Dionysius. The Complete Works, in The Christian Western Spirituality, tr. by C. Luibheid (New York:
Paulist Press, 1987). On deification in Dionysius see: J. Vanneste, La Thologie Mystique de Pseudo-Denys
lAropagite, SP 5 (1962), pp. 401-415; P. Spearritt, The Souls Participation in God according to Pseudo-
Dionysius, Downside Review 88 (1970), 378-392; J. Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-
600), vol. I, in The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1971), pp. 344-345; A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition.
From Plato to Denys (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 159-178.
54
Russell sums up: The unifying power descends through the hierarchies to all rational beings, and by divine
illumination returns them to the unity and deifying simplicity of the Father. Thus our human hierarchy is
pluralized in a great variety of perceptual symbols until we are brought to the unity of deification. Christ has
come down to us and like a fire has unified them in accordance with their capacity for deification.
Analogically, the unity enables the nous to ascend to the knowledge and vision of God. In the Church, the
eucharist draws our fragmented lives together into a one-like deification, forging a divine unity out of the
divisions within us, and sanctifying those who celebrate them with a sacred deification. Cf. N. Russell, The
Concept of Deification in the Early Greek Fathers, Doctorate dissertation (Oxford, 1988), pp. 440-443. For
Dionysius, see: Ecclesiastical Hierarchy I.3 (PG 3, 376A), II.2.1 (PG 3, 393A), III,1 (PG 3, 424C); Celestial
Hierarchy I.1 (PG 3, 121A); On On the Divine Names II,11 (PG 3, 649C)..
55
Gods movement towards man in the incarnation and mans movement towards God in deification. This
means a transfiguration of human life up to the point it becomes like Christ's. Maximus view, in general, is
integrative, struggling to combine the ethical and realistic models. When Juan-Miguel Garrigues discusses
20

In conclusion, the concept of deification is a dynamically fluid term,57 and can follow
different models.58 While some Fathers use either one model or another, it seems that

Maximus' idea of divinisation, he summarizes it in terms of: divinisation as the fulfilment of human nature in
God, divinisation as personal adoption in the Son, and divinisation as the event of trinitarian love. Cf.
Nichols, A., Byzantine Gospel. Maximus the Confessor in Modern Scholarship (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1993), p. 198. On deification, see Maximus, Ambigua (PG 90, 1336AB, 1040CD, 1385B, 1113B, 1088C);
Quaestiones ad Thalassium 22, 59 (PG 90, 320B-321A, 609A), Mystagogia 21 (PG 91, 697A); Capita
Theologica I, 97 (PG 90, 1124A). See also: G.C. Berthold, The Cappadocian Roots of Maximus the
Confessor, in F. Heinzer and C. Schnborn (eds.), Maximus Confessor. Actes du Symposium sur Maxime le
Confesseur, Fribourg, 2-5 Septembre 1980 (Fribourg: ditions Universitaires, 1982), pp. 51-59; I.H.S.
Dalmais, Mystre Liturgique et Divinisation dans la Mystagogie de S. Maxime le Confesseur, SP 13 (1975),
pp. 145-153; A. Louth, Maximus the Confessor (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 33-77; L.
Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator. The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Lund:
Gleerup, 1965), pp. 454-459.
56
For the idea of energies in Gregory Palamas, see J. Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas (London:
Leighton Buzzard, 1964), pp. 204-206. Cf. Gregory Palamas, see PG 150, 928-933AD, 936AD, 940C-944B.
The works of Gregory Palamas translated into English are: The Defence of the Holy Hesychasts, also known
as the Triads - selections found in Gregory Palamas, The Triads, tr. by N. Gendle and ed. by J. Meyendorff, in
The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1983); The One Hundred and Fifty
Chapters, also known as Capita CL Physica, Theologica, Moralia et Practica (Capita), tr. by R.E. Sinkewicz
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1988); and Contra Akindynum, tr. by L.C. Contos, in The
Concept of Theosis in Saint Gregory Palamas with Critical Text of the Contra Akindynum, 2 vols.,
Doctorate dissertation (Los Angeles, 1963). Parts from Triads were translated by Stniloae as Dou Tratate
ale Sf. Grigorie Palama (Triada I,2,3), in AATA 9 (1932-1933), pp. 5-70, reprinted in Viaa i nvtura
Sfntului Grigorie Palama, including Apologia mai Extins, pp. LIX-XCI, i Antericul V Contra lui
Achindin, pp. XCII-CLX.
57
According to Winslow, this is a dynamically fluid term that is descriptive of the creative and salvific
economy as well as of the relation between God and creation. D. Winslow, The Dynamics of Salvation. A
Study in Gregory of Nazianzus, Patristic Monograph Series 7 (Cambridge, Mass.: The Philadelphia Patristic
Foundation, 1979), p.193. Winslow explains that deification will not suffer the limitation of strict definition,
and therefore settles for a verbal approach to the idea, an approach that recognizes as a methodological base,
that deification, both as a word and as a concept, is, like most theological language, a metaphor. It is, in a
word, the verbal modality by which the distance between reality and our manifold attempts to describe reality
is minimized, but never totally eliminated. The word divinization (and its verb form divinize) will be
preserved for those references to the concept in non-Christian contexts when it is taken to mean the
transformation of man into a divine being. It is acknowledged that this distiction is somewhat arbitrary,
because many writers use the words deification and divinization as synonyms.
58
Summarizing his study on the concept of deification in the Fathers, Russell speaks about four models: (1)
the titular or nominal model interprets the biblical application of the term gods to men simply as a title of
honour; (2) the analogous or metaphorical model sees this title as a metaphorical expression, like men become
sons and gods by grace in relation to Christ who is Son and God by nature; (3) the ethical or philosophical
model takes deification to be the attainment of likeness to God, the believer reproducing the divine attributes
in himself by imitation; and (4) the realistic model with two aspects: the ontological aspect concerns the
transformation of human nature by incarnation, and the dynamic aspect concerns the appropriation of this
deified humanity through the sacraments. Russell concludes that the Greek Fathers express the relation
between man and God in terms of formal participation, being more interested in the ontology of things. The
variety of conceptions of deification which existed among the Greek Fathers, are explained by Russell as
follows: Deification is expressed through a number of different images: it is Gods honouring of Christians
with the title of gods; it is the believers filial adoption through baptism; it is the attaining of likeness to God
through gnosis and dispassion; it is the ascent of the soul to God; it is the participation of the soul in the
divine attributes of immortality and incorruption; it is the transformation of human nature by divine action; it
is the eschatological glorification of both soul and body; it is union with God through participation in the
divine energies. N. Russell, The Concept of Deification in the Early Greek Fathers, pp. 1-2. Further
important analyses on theosis in the Fathers are found in: P.B.T. Bilaniuk, The Mystery of Theosis or
Divinization, pp. 337-359; M. Lot-Borodine, La Doctrine de la Dification dans lEglise Grecque jusquau
21

Stniloae often combines the ethical and realistic models in his attempt to describe the process
of deification. In essence, this process first involves the restoration of fellowship with God,
and then continues as a dynamic participation in the life of God by the renunciation of all that
is not of God - a process of ascent and communion whereby man is enabled to achieve a
divine likeness. The achieving of this presupposes assimilation to and union with the divine
energies, not with the divine essence; it is a true mystical union between God and man, not a
blending of natures into a single being. In this process of deification, man still retains his full
personal identity and integrity and becomes more truly human.

3. Purpose and method


This thesis will attempt to give a descriptive and critical exposition of the concept of
deification in Stniloaes thinking. More precisely, this study will seek to demonstrate that the
concept of deification has a central place in Stniloaes thinking about salvation. It will be
argued that, under patristic and modern influence, Stniloaes teaching on deification becomes
a basic structural constituent of his theology. The theosis concept is so integrated in
Stniloaes writings that at each point in particular there is considerable connection with the
adjacent elements. As an essential part of Christian theology, the concept of deification in
Stniloaes approach unifies anthropology with Christology, pneumatology and ecclesiology.
It is not too much to say that the whole concept of theosis forms one of the central avenues
of access to Stniloaes thought.

Xime Sicle, Revue de LHistoire des Religions 105 (1932), pp. 5-43, 106 (1932), pp. 525-574, 107 (1933),
pp. 8-55, reprinted in La Dification de LHomme selon la Doctrine des Pres Grecs, Bibliothque
Oecumnique 9 (1970), pp. 21-183; P.I. Bratsiotis, The Doctrine of the Greek Fathers of the Church on the
Theosis of Man, in Greek (Athens, 1971); D.B. Clendenin, Partakers of Divinity: The Orthodox Doctrine of
Theosis, JETS 37.3 (1994), pp. 365-379; J.A. Cullen, The Patristic Concept of Deification of Man Examined
in the Light of Contemporary Notions of the Transcendence of Man, Doctorate dissertation (Oxford, 1985);
I.H. Dalmais, Divinisation, Dictionnaire de Spiritualit, vol. III (Paris, 1957), pp. 1376-1389; J. Gross, La
Divinisation du Chrtien d'aprs les Pres Grecs. Contribution Historique a la Doctrine de la Grce (Paris:
Lecoffre, J. Gabalda, 1938); G.I. Mantzarides, The Deification of Man. St. Gregory Palamas and the
Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1984); P. Nellas, Deification in Christ. The Nature of the
Human Person (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1987); K.E. Norman, Deification: The Content of Athanasian
Soteriology, Doctoral dissertation (Duke University, 1980); G.P. Patronos, The Theosis of Man in the Light of
the Eschatological Conceptions of Orthodox Theology: A Biblical and Patristic Study, in Greek (Athens,
1981); R.C. Stephanopoulos, The Orthodox Doctrine of Theosis, in J. Meyendorff and J. McLelland (eds.),
The New Man. An Orthodox and Reformed Dialogue (New Jersey: Agora Books, 1973), pp. 149-161; A.
Theodorou, The Theosis of Man in the Teaching of the Greek Fathers of the Church to John of Damascus, in
Greek (Athens: Theological School of the University of Athens, 1956); K. Ware, Salvation and Theosis in
Orthodox Theology, in Luther et la Reforme Allemande dans une Perspective Oecumnique (Genve,
Chambesy: ditions du Centre Orthodoxe du Patriarcat Oecumnique, 1983), pp. 167-184.
22

The full treatise of the concept of deification in the theology of Stniloae has never been
written. It is hoped, however, that the present study will be seen as an essential contribution
in understanding not only his concept of deification but also his theology as a whole.59 A full
treatment of the subject would not be confined to the dogmatic aspects of the matter, but
would also deal with the mystical issues which have shaped Stniloaes discussion of
deification throughout his writings. The dialogue-partners who are important for Stniloae are
treated in order to elucidate the subject, without claim to comprehensive coverage. Because
the primary aim remains that of assessing the validity of Stniloaes position on the particular
issue in question, no attempt has been made to trace the internal development of Stniloaes
own thought from his earliest works onwards.
The strong degree of continuity within Stniloaes theological writings means that it is
possible to treat the subject systematically. To study this, Stniloaes views will first have to
be delineated. On the one hand, his epistemological basis of deification and the dogmatic
methodological procedures will have to be explored. On the other hand, although the issue of
deification itself involves such central areas in dogmatic theology as revelation, Trinity,
sacraments or eschatology, because our particular point of interest is none of these, they may
all be treated as subsidiary issues. While Stniloaes treatment of the issue of mans
deification is scattered in form, a particular aim of this study is to gather together the
fragments of the concept of deification, fragments implicit in some of Stniloaes writings and
more explicit in others.
Methodologically, the general structure of this thesis suggests the priority of Stniloaes
approach to theology from a mystical point of view accompanying the dogmatic perspective.
This organising principle respects Stniloaes conviction that true theology is mystical
theology. After a general introduction and outline of his theology of deification in chapter I,
chapters II and III deal with Stniloaes epistemological basis of deification with two main
aspects: the synthesis apophatic-cataphatic and the distinction essence-energies as typified in
Gregory Palamas. These chapters on epistemology give us the most direct entry into the
issue. Further, dogmatic implications of the concept of deification are discussed in the
following chapters. Firstly, chapter IV deals with the anthropological aspect of deification in
terms of three fundamental relationships: God-creation, world-man, and man-God. It is here

59
It will be obvious that the subject under consideration has resulted in certain inevitable restrictions being
placed upon the material here presented. Pressure upon space means that the established results of scholarly
work on different theological aspects must frequently be referred to, rather than reproduced.
23

that Stniloaes interest in personalism is most evident: deification is seen as the reason and
purpose of creation, the world and man stay in an interdependence and reciprocity, and the
image of God in man takes an ontological, communitarian and dynamic character. Chapters V
and VI concentrate on the Christological aspect of deification, outlining Stniloaes view with
respect to Christs person and salvific work. An this point, the hermeneutic key of Stniloaes
theological approach to the question of deification is found in the doctrine of the hypostatic
union of Christ and its consequences. The work of Christ is discussed in this view, revealing
Stniloaes incarnational view on redemption with its ontological and progressive dimensions.
The implications, not only of this, but of his whole theology are discussed especially with
respect to the incarnation and his view of deification. Chapters VII and VIII explore the
pneumato-ecclesiological aspect of deification, showing that deification is actualised in the
communitarian and theandric constitution of the Church, but with the help of the Holy Spirit
by grace. Chapter IX summarises some of the findings through some concluding remarks on
Stniloaes view on deification as participation, and suggests further areas for research. Thus
Stniloaes main ideas of the concept of deification are considered along with their
implications through an exposition and running critique of his view.60

60
Quotations in the text will, for the most part, be given in English, with my own translation where necessary.
24

CHAPTER II. THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS OF DEIFICATION: THE


APOPHATIC WAY OF KNOWLEDGE

Introduction
As in the case of many Greek Fathers, the concept that dominates Stniloaes theological
system as a whole is that of the deification of the person as a personal encounter with God.
Treatment of the epistemological basis of deification in Stniloae comes, not surprisingly, in
the shape of apophatic theology.61 The tight cohesion of his thought is matched only by the
profound understanding of the spiritual life that pervades his theology. Stniloaes thought,
taken at any given point, immediately brings one into contact with an extremely complex and
all-embracing vision of Gods relationship with persons and the cosmos. The cyclical or
repetitious character of his thought is no less apparent in Stniloaes treatment of theosis,
reflected in the overlapping and intertwining of the numerous themes and motifs contained
therein. Ultimately, the uniqueness of his contribution to the question of deification resides
chiefly in the very application of his method to the subject - in the incorporation, that is, of
the mystical aspect into the dogmatic level of his theology.
For Stniloae, theosis is first of all a key element of the contemplative level of theology. This
does not exclude, of course, the role of the dogmatic level. For him, mystical experience does
not produce the truth of dogma, but there is a progress in understanding dogma in direct
connection with spiritual progress. This actually may provide the key for the whole
theological structure of further dogmatic exploration concerning the concept of deification.
This introductory distinction between the mystical and the dogmatic level dictates the shape
of the study presented here. The study will begin with a chapter on the mystical level, that is,
the epistemological basis of deification, involving two pairs of concepts: apophatic-cataphatic
and essence-energies. Three chapters on the dogmatic level will then follow, describing three
aspects of deification: anthropological, Christological, and pneumato-ecclesiological. The
study will conclude with a review of the concept of deification in Stniloae and some of the
main issues with which this concept is concerned.

61
Clear developments of Stniloaes thought as regards this theme are found in the following of his works:
Viaa i nvtura Sfntului Grigorie Palama (1938), Teologia Dogmatic i Simbolic, vol. I (1958),
25

To unfold the first stage of the dogmatic level of theosis, Stniloae accepts that both natural
and supernatural revelations are sources for the knowledge of God. From the beginning,
Stniloae declares that it is impossible for God to be known in His essence. Yet, due to God's
grace, there has been established within the human sphere of knowledge a real and true
knowledge of God. God, in His condescension to human beings, has created a context in
which He can be apprehended (not comprehended): He has committed Himself to being the
Creator of the world, and hence all contact between the world and God occurs within the
Creator-creature framework. This epistemological principle, that God is utterly different in
being from the world, has immense implications in understanding the anthropological basis of
deification. One indication is that human beings can only have a creaturely knowledge of God.
For the second stage in understanding theosis, as for Maximus before him, Stniloae holds
that God and human beings are profoundly and inextricably connected together within Christ.
Hence the incarnation became the centre of all thought of God and of the world.
Consequently, the epistemology of Stniloae is centred on the divine Logos in Christ because,
apart from Christ, there is no other way to unite human beings with the world and with God.
In Him God is in the closest potential proximity to us, and through His incarnation He
made Himself accessible and able to be grasped as God in the highest degree.62 In
Stniloaes view, the incarnation becomes the epistemological ground for human beings to be
saved, to come to the knowledge of God, and to be taken up to share in the inner life of
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (theosis). However, There must always exist an ontological and
epistemological gap between Creator and creature.63 Indeed, the fundamental reason for the
ultimate unintelligibility of God is the existential difference between creation and God, the
uncreated - between the finite and the infinite. Yet, despite Gods ultimate unintelligibility,
human beings, even in this life, are also called to participate intelligibly or noetically, that is to
say, with their whole being, in God. This second stage in the dogmatic discourse gives us the
reason for studying the Christological aspect of mans deification.

Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I (1978), Theology and the Church (1980), Spiritualitatea Ortodox
(1981), and Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox (1991).
62
To understand this fact, Eastern tradition employs four basic principles: (1) The accessibility of God is
revealed through the divine energies; (2) Through the purification from passions, what is human is capable of
becoming the medium for manifesting what is divine; (3) In Christ the human has been raised to the highest
level of deification or of penetration by the divine, yet without ceasing to be human; (4) The divine is such
that it can be manifested through the human, when the latter has been purified. Cf. D. Stniloae, The
Experience of God, translated and ed. by I. Ioni and R. Barringer (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox
Press, 1994), pp. 181-182.
26

The third stage in understanding theosis is assured by the personal, communitary, and
practical union of God with human beings in the Church through the Holy Spirit. As a
reflection of the trinitarian perichoresis, Stniloae understands that knowledge is somehow
identical with communion, setting thereupon the reason for the pneumato-ecclesiological
aspect of mans deification. These three stages or aspects of deification (anthropological,
Christological, and pneumato-ecclesiological) will govern the structure of the later chapters in
this study.
The main purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the importance of Stniloaes
epistemology in understanding the concept of deification. Methodologically, in the first part
the distinctiveness of Stniloaes synthesis of the apophatic and the cataphatic approach to the
knowledge of God will be analysed, in comparison with some of the Greek Fathers and with
the radical apophaticism of the modern Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky. In the second
part, the question of the distinction between divine essence and energies will be examined.
The Palamite epistemology is fundamental in Stniloaes development of the whole doctrine
of deification, establishing also the leitmotif of this study in the triad essence-hypostases-
energies. The last part is dedicated to the conclusions, the main emphasis being the positive
aspects of Stniloaes theological system.

1. General background
Due to different epistemological starting points, the Eastern Church, the Roman-Catholic
Church and the Protestant Churches each claim a particular way of knowledge. This
inevitably affects certain themes in theology. Thus in historical and theological investigations
can be found radically differing presuppositions that divide East and West.64
The problem of truth and knowledge, that is, how God is to be known, is fundamental to any
theological approach. During the early centuries of the Church, theology as a methodical

63
K. Ware, God Hidden and Revealed: The Apophatic Way and the Essence-Energies Distinction, ECR 7
(1975), pp. 126-127.
64
Historical circumstances that led to the formal break between the Christian East and West do not constitute
the aim of our study. Moreover, the answer to this formal schism has to be sought in the theological field. As
we shall see later in our study, this peculiar emphasis in Eastern theology was determined mainly by a more
optimistic view about humankind's plight. It is known that the soteriological concerns of the Western Church
which became focused around justification, were discussed in the Eastern Church in a different framework.
However, this does not mean a radical deficiency, but a necessary approach within the limits of legitimate
diversity in the Christian tradition. For a good summary of theological differencies between the Eastern and
the Western Churches, see A. Nichols, Rome and the Eastern Churches (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992),
especially chapters 4-7; S. Runciman, The Eastern Schism. A Study of the Papacy and the Eastern Churches
27

discipline or mere scientia did not really exist,65 so the great theologians of this period did not
follow a given method for arriving at knowledge of God. Among their many questions
regarding personal relationship with God, the question of human capacity to make contact
with divine revelation was predominant. Those usually known as the Christian mystical
theologians had already responded by asserting the priority of faith over reason. Indeed,
human reason needs to be not only cultivated but converted, while faith involves not a mere
opinion but trust (fiducia) and experience. As part of the same category, the Romanian
theologian Dumitru Stniloae believes that the foundation of the whole Eastern gnosiology
depends on transformation - the main role of theology being to convey the experience of
God.66 He writes:

Theology promotes progress as it helps the spiritual progress of Christian people


towards an eschatological communion which is universal and perfect. Theology is a
part of the movement of the human spirit towards full union with God and - through
its task of explaining this movement - has a particularly effective role within it.67

What Stniloae suggests is that theology is only a means towards an end - that is union with
God or theosis. Borrowing from one of his teachers, Stniloae defines mystical theology as
the science of mans deification, or the science of the saints (of course by science he does
not mean in this context merely a methodological discipline).68 This approach, in general, is in
line with other modern Orthodox theologies where the emphasis lies not on developing

during the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955); P. Sherrard, The Greek
East and the Latin West (London, 1959).
65
Augustine made a sharp distinction between scientia and sapientia: sciences deal with temporal things,
whereas wisdom contemplates the eternal things of God.
66
Stniloae introduces here a new Romanian term, invented by himself, experiere versus experien
(experiation in contrast with experience). Experiere is used exclusively for that unique, unrepeatable and
mysterious impression, feeling, living of Gods presence in the human soul, while experien is used more in
the sense of experience.
67
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 93. A constant preoccupation in his Dogmatics was to unpack the
spiritual significance of the dogmatic teachings, to evidence their truth in accordance with the deep needs of
the soul which is seeking its salvation and is advancing on its way in an ever more positive communion with
its fellow human beings, through which it reaches to a certain experience of God, as supreme communion and
as the source of the power for/to communion. We have therefore left the scholastic method of treating the
dogmas as abstract statements, of a purely theoretical interest and to a large extent updated, without any
connection with the deep, spiritual life of the soul. If an Orthodox Dogmatic Theology means interpreting the
dogmas - in the sense of unpacking the deep and infinitely rich salvific content, encapsulated in their short
formulations - we consider that an authentic Orthodox Dogmatic Theology is one engaged on such a venture.
From the Preface of Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol I, p. 5.
68
D. Stniloae, Opera Teologic a lui Nichifor Crainic, Gndirea 4 (1940), pp. 264-276. The article was
reprinted in N. Crainic, Nostalgia Paradisului (Iai: Moldova, 1994), pp. V-XXIII (XV).
28

theological systems, but on the mystical aspect of Christian life.69 The early Christians used
the Greek term gnosis for knowledge, but because of the associations with Gnosticism,
Christian writers from the time of Origen adopted the term theologia to refer to the gift of
insight into the divine being (not theology in the modern academic sense). Consequently,
theology in the Greek tradition has had a mystical connotation, being more closely connected
to meditation and contemplation than to rationality.70 This emphasis can be seen today in the
Eastern Orthodox Churches that take the unknowability of God very seriously, some of the
Orthodox theologians claiming that the only thing we can know about God is what He is
not.71 In this tradition theology is about the absolute mystery of God who is beyond
conceptualisation.72
The modern Greek theologian John Zizioulas considers that, epistemologically, the
differences between various theological trends go back to the time of Christianity's encounter
with Jewish and Greek thought.73 The problem seen by Zizioulas is: How can a Christian
hold to the idea that truth operates in history and creation when the ultimate character of
truth, and its uniqueness, seem irreconcilable with the change and decay to which history and
creation are subject? To preserve the Christological character of the New Testament, says

69
Similarly, Meyendorff specifies that mystical knowledge does not imply emotional individualism, but a
continuous communion with the Holy Spirit, while Hopko asserts that theology is exclusively a matter of
giving proper definition to the mystery of God's being and actions. Cf. J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, p.
14, and T. Hopko, All the Fulness of God (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1982), p.16. See also G. Florovsky,
The Ethos of the Orthodox Church, in Orthodoxy, A Faith and Order Dialogue, Faith and Order Paper 30
(Geneva: WCC, 1960), p. 41; S. Runciman, The Great Church in Captivity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1968), especially chapter 6, The Theology of Mysticism, pp. 128-158.
70
Theology denotes in these texts far more than the learning about God and religious doctrine acquired
through academic study. It signifies active and conscious participation in or perception of the realities of the
divine world - in other words, the realisation of spiritual knowledge. Cf. The Philokalia. The Complete Text
Compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth, vol. II, translated from the
Greek and ed. by G.E.H. Palmer, P. Sherrard, and K. Ware (London, Boston: Faber and Faber, 1984), p. 389.
71
This is a very extreme form of the apophatic approach. It must be pointed out in this context that the first
creeds of the Christian tradition are entirely cataphatic.
72
Meyendorff specifies: Theology, therefore, may and should be based on Scripture, on the doctrinal
decisions of the Church's magisterium, or on the witness of the saints. But to be a true theology, it must be
able to reach beyond the letter of Scripture, beyond the formulae used in definitions, beyond the language
employed by the saints to communicate their experience. For only then will it be able to discern the unity of
Revelation, a unity which is not simply an intellectual coherence and consistency, but a living reality
experienced in the continuity of the one Church throughout the ages: the Holy Spirit is the only guarantor and
guardian of this continuity; no external criterion which would be required for man's created perception or
intellection would be sufficient. J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, p. 13.
73
Cf. J.D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: Darton,
Longman and Todd, 1985), pp. 68-69; Preserving God's Creation, King's Theological Review 12 (1989), p.
2; Human Capacity and Human Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood, SJTh 28 (1975), p.
403. See also J. Meyendorff, Catholicity and the Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1983), pp. 34-36.
29

Zizioulas, Christianity rejected both Jewish linear historicism and Greek cosmological
approaches to the question of truth. Then he explains:

By referring to Christ as the Alpha and Omega of history, the New Testament has
transformed radically the linear historicism of Hebrew thought, since in a certain way
the end of history in Christ becomes already present here and now. Likewise, in
affirming that Christ, that is a historical being, is the truth, the New Testament hurls
a challenge to Greek thought, since it is in the flow of history and through it,
through its changes and ambiguities, that man is called to discover the meaning of
existence.74

Consequently, the Church adopted Greek and Jewish categories, which, in turn, have
influenced the development of either cataphatic or apophatic approaches to theology. One
practical consequence of the creative synthesis between Greek philosophy and Christian
experience, was a real solution in opposing and counteracting all the heresies of the first
centuries.75 However, by rejecting the Greek view of truth and by emphasising the absolute
otherness of God, the Church decided that the closed Greek ontology had to be broken and
transcended.76
When it began, Christianity did not look like a counterpart to the philosophies of late
antiquity. It is true that the Christian religion borrowed largely from philosophy, but it kept a
sharply defined identity.77 For the Orthodox Church, philosophy and theology remain
continually and organically related. Stressing the continuity between the two - but allowing
also for possible points of conflict -, Eastern Christianity is willing to use Greek philosophy as
a tool, especially in view of the connecting link assured by the concept of the Logos.78

74
J.D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, pp. 70-71. Zizioulas seems to be influenced by Oscar Cullmann. Cf.
O. Cullmann, Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History, tr. by F.V. Filson
(London: SCM Press, 1952), pp. 51ff.
75
C. Yannaras, Elements of Faith. An Introduction to Orthodox Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), p.
19. Similarly, the Apologists used negative theology to counter pagan polytheism and biblical
anthropomorphism and to defend the uniqueness of the God of revelation.
76
J.D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, p. 90.
77
C. Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 79. See
also E. Osborn, The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981);
H.A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers (Cambridge, Mass: Cambridge University Press, 1956);
A.H. Armstrong and R.A. Markus, Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy (London, 1960).
78
The logos category of Greek philosophy was accepted by Christian writers like Justin Martyr and Clement
of Alexandria, as the normal foregoer to Christianity. We notice the logos idea, for example, in Heraclitus, in
Anaxagoras nous as the first principle of all beings, in Platos supreme idea as the principle of all true
knowledge, or in Neo-platonisms unitary function of the One. Other writers were more critical of philosophy,
like Irenaeus and Tertullian. See J.D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, pp. 72-78. For Justins idea of the
Logos, see E.R Goodenough, The Theology of Justin Martyr. An Investigation into the Conceptions of Early
Christian Literature and Its Hellenistic and Judaistic Influences (Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1968), especially
chapter 5, pp. 139-175.
30

Moreover, by upholding the idea of ontological Trinity, the Orthodox Church believes that
there is no separation of reason and revelation, no divorce between grace and nature, and no
distinction between the human and the divine. Even though there was a constant challenge
from modern Western philosophies, particularly when facing scholasticism and rationalism,
the Orthodox tradition and history embrace the principle that all theology is mystical
theology and all philosophy must be contemplative philosophy by reason of their empirical
(experiential) nature.79 That is, the only cause of true and valid knowledge, and the right
method for sound philosophy, should be the dynamic way of contemplation.80
Apophaticism as a theological method, was the result of the encounter between the language
of negation, which was found in the philosophical culture of the first Christian theologians,
and their theological task to keep in balance the mystery of God in His theologia and
oikonomia.81 The historical record suggests that there are different types of apophaticism,
each associated with distinct traditions of religious discourse. As regards the Christian
apophaticism, it had to face the intellectualism of Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism with
their emphasis on the union of the nous with God in a perfect intellectual apprehension.82
That mode of Christian theologising called apophatic implies that the main method of
approaching the mystery of the transcendent God is through negation, not affirmation.83 In
other words, challenged by the otherness of God, it is less misleading to say what God is not,
than what He is.84
Apophatic knowledge may imply a fully intellectual, metaphysical apophaticism that asks for
philosophical predications about the limitations of human language. It also implies a religious

79
E.A. Stephanou, An Orthodox Approach to Christian Philosophy, GOTR 1 (1956), p. 24. Stephanou is
extremely, and unjustly litigious in his attack against Thomist philosophy, by calling it a merely Aristotelian
philosophy in Christian dress (p. 15).
80
In a very general way, it may be said that philosophy in the ancient world is far more religious than in
modern times.
81
For the distinction between theologia and oikonomia and a careful elaboration of its evaluation in the
history of Christian doctrine, see Y. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, vol. III, tr. by D. Smith (New York:
The Seabury Press and London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1983); C.M. LaCugna, God for Us. The Trinity and
Christian Life (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), pp. 181-207, and Re-conceiving the Trinity as the Mystery
of Salvation, SJTh 38 (1985), pp. 1-23.
82
In Greek philosophy the general tendency was to identify the One with nous, and it was only with Plotinus
that a genuine mystical cognition of the One involving ekstasis was really considered. Plotinus is unique in
the link he draws between apophatic theology and mystical knowledge of ultimate Reality (although a similar
attitude can be found, to some extent, in many earlier Platonists).
83
On the other hand, to select light and darkness symbolism as criterion of cataphatic and apophatic is
not altogether satisfactory.
84
Many Platonists would also say this. For example, Plotinus: Enneads IV, 3, 14, tr. by S. MacKenna, rev. by
B.S. Page (London, 1969). For an interesting and modern analysis of the role of negative theology in the
31

or mystical apophaticism that asks for experience, spiritual orientation, and union beyond all
words and thoughts, through the negation of positive concepts and images. On the one hand,
intellectual apophaticism simply negates the positive statements about God, and this need
not in itself be more than a verbal exercise, a piece of philosophical or natural' theology.85
On the other hand, mystical apophaticism is in the narrow sense the use of negative language
to emphasise and safeguard the divine transcendence. This is because God's transcendence is
the assurance of His unlimited goodness towards His creatures.86 In other words,
apophaticism goes with relationship and encounter. Hence, apophaticism or Christian
negative theology, springs primarily from the experience of the awfulness of the God who
reveals Himself. Taking apophaticism as essentially an existential attitude rather than a certain
method of theologising, the religious sense of God's transcendence and the creatures humble
dependence on God is said to be the controlling factor in Eastern Orthodox theology.87
Generally, we can say that in Eastern Christianity there are two categories of theologians:
those who emphasise strictly (but not entirely) the apophatic way of knowledge, and those
who try to make a synthesis between apophatic and cataphatic knowledge. The question as to
what kind of apophaticism or mystical theology is found in this or that author, is often
difficult to answer. However, within the latter category of apophatic theology can be
distinguished a strict or radical approach from a relative approach.88
An attempt will here be made to establish that in the theology of Stniloae is found a
balanced position in which apophatic and cataphatic are not mutually exclusive alternatives.

contemporary Cambridge Platonism, see J.P. Kenney, The Critical Value of Negative Theology, Harvard
Theological Review, 86.4 (1993), pp. 439-453.
85
K. Ware, God Hidden and Revealed: The Apophatic Way and the Essence-Energies Distinction, p. 127.
86
Historically, there have been terrible problems when the two poles, transcendence and immanence, have
been disjoined. An over-emphasis on God's transcendence makes God wholly other, deus absconditus, or a
silent, unreachable God. Similarly, immanence has been understood in non-Christian and even Christian
thought to mean that God is indistinguishable from the world.
87
Western objections consider that the primacy of apophaticism in the Eastern theology will ignore natural
theology at the Churchs peril. The more appropriate view should be to use apophatic theology as a kind of
supplement to cataphatic theology in order to preserve something of the mystery of God. This is also
motivated by the main emphasis put by the Scriptures and the creeds on knowing rather than unknowing.
However, Every asserts that the real difference between Eastern and Western Christian theology lies not in
particular doctrinal points but in the difference between two ways of approach to the whole subject. Cf. E.
Every, The Orthodox Church, The Christian East 1 (1951), p. 153, cited by J. Stamoolis, Eastern
Orthodoxy Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1986), p. 6.
88
For example, the position of Gregory of Nyssa as compared with that of Origen. In the West, radical
negative theology is encountered in Meister Eckharts negatio negationis and the way of unitive knowledge
called divine ignorance. See O. Davies, Meister Eckhart: Mystical Theologian (London: SPCK, 1991), pp.
99-125.
32

For him, all theology must be to some extent affirmative, otherwise it would be merely
intellectual nihilism, and on the other hand virtually no theology is purely cataphatic.

2. Stniloae and the synthesis apophatic - cataphatic


Stniloae represents a balanced approach to epistemological issues. The following analysis
serves to confirm that he is a mystical theologian following a relative approach and a
synthesised method in understanding apophaticism.
Stniloae believes that negative theology is different from mystical theology or apophaticism.
First, negative theology, a concept similar to via negativa of Western theology, denies that
God is cognoscible, and asserts the intellect's awareness of its helplessness. On the other
hand, the apophaticism or mystical theology employed by the Eastern Church is the theology
of direct experience of God that cannot be totally exhibited in positive terms. The things
known, for instance, in the experience of divine light had to be communicated to men, but
only in dialectical terms. Although it is above knowledge and concepts, this kind of
experience becomes a source of knowledge and concepts. Apophaticism, when it seeks to
give account of itself at all, must resort to the terms of the knowledge of the intellect, though
it does fill these terms continuously with a deeper meaning than the mind's notion can
provide.89 Thus the apophatic way in Eastern patristic tradition gives a direct experience of
God's attributes. In our opinion, says Stniloae, these two kinds of knowledge are neither
contradictory nor mutually exclusive, rather they complete each other.90 Hence Stniloae
accepts both kinds of knowledge of God, although the apophatic way of knowledge is
superior to the cataphatic or rational one in its capacity to transcend rational categories.
This superiority is seen in three effective aspects that demarcate the relation between the two
kinds of knowledge. Firstly, in relation with the world, apophatic knowledge goes beyond
rational knowledge. The affirmative rational knowledge is always connected with the
world, while in apophatic knowledge the human soul is absorbed in discerning God's
presence, and that caused the Eastern Fathers to speak on occasion of a 'forgetting' of the
world during this act.91 Secondly, in apophaticism, the human subject experiences the
presence of God as person in a more pressing way. This is not the result of rationality, but it
is perceived by man in a state of revived spiritual sensibility that requires that man rise

89
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 95.
90
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 96.
91
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 96.
33

above his passions. That does not exclude the understanding of God as person using the
rational way, insists Stniloae, but in it the mystery of God as person is not revealed as
clearly, profoundly, and pressingly.92 Thus Stniloae speaks also about the two ways of
knowledge: a schematic, general knowledge in which God communicates Himself in a
rational manner, under the form of the attributes, and a concrete, particular knowledge in
which God communicates Himself more concretely, more intensely, in the uncreated
energies.93 Thirdly, intellectual knowledge about God could have genuine spiritual
improvements and enrichments only through apophatic knowledge. Intellectual knowledge
needs completion through a higher knowledge which is an acknowledgement of the mystery
of God, an apophatic knowledge, a superior way of grasping His infinite richness.94 In this
sense, apophatic knowledge is not irrational but supra-rational.95 By choosing a very cautious
terminology, Stniloae accepts the cataphatic way as imbued with the apophatic way, while,
changing the order of terms, the apophatic way is only combined with the cataphatic way.
Obviously, this is just another way to emphasise the priority of apophaticism.
Moreover, to emphasise both mystical union with God and the otherness of God, Stniloae
introduces the concept of two apophases: the apophaticism of what is experienced but
cannot be defined; and the apophaticism of that which cannot even be experienced. These two
are simultaneous.96 Stniloae explains:

That is why the Eastern Fathers prefer the term 'union' to 'knowledge' when dealing
with this approach to God. In the experience of this apophatic knowledge God is
perceived on the one hand, but, on the other, that which is perceived gives one to
understand that there is something here beyond all perception. Both perceptions are
expressed through the terms of affirmative and negative theology.97

Again, Stniloae does not exclude the intelligible character of experience; the problem with
this intelligibility is its insufficiency when it works in the spiritual realm. Although we use
words and meanings, and we do need them, in fact, it is through words and meanings that

92
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 100. To explain that, Stniloae introduces here for both ways of
knowledge a common mediator, that is,supernatural revelation. However, although both types of knowledge
are grounded in supernatural revelation, the limitation of rational knowledge is seen in the fact that it does
not make use of the entire content of supernatural revelation (p. 97).
93
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 127.
94
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 98.
95
Stniloae explains that the apophatic knowledge is supra-rational or supra-natural in the same way that the
person - as one who is the subject of reason and of a life which has its own meaning forever - is supra-
rational. D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 100.
96
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 103.
97
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 101.
34

we must always pass beyond words and meanings.98 Stniloae is so excited in expressing the
need to transcend all understanding, that he is even ready to assert the ascendance above the
ever more sublime meanings of things and of the words which express these things - even the
words from Holy Scripture... to the experience of the mystery of God and His operations.99
Even when man participates in God's energies, he comes to that point when he experiences
infinite realities that cannot be described, for God is always beyond what is experienced.
Consequently, the human mind and words are always incapable of communicating these
realities.
In the end, for Stniloae, apophaticism is not the simple negation of certain rational
affirmations about God, but it has to do with a knowledge that comes through experience.
Stniloaes dynamism and openness are justified by the personal nature of God and a loving
relationship with Him. Apophatic theology must always start with the personal character of
God. What Stniloae proves is that at the basis of his theological method remains the idea of
personal participation or experience. Moreover, all rational affirmations or negations have an
experiential point of contact with Gods operations in the world. A good summary of
different types of knowledge of God is provided by Stniloae himself in the following order:
(1) a limited rational knowledge, both affirmative and negative; (2) a knowledge through faith
which depends on supernatural revelation, consequently fortifying rational knowledge; (3) an
apophatic knowledge superior to the former, because it transcends everything that we are
able to know through senses and through mind, and involves more than the mere pressure
exerted by the presence of God as person; and (4) a complete or total apophatic knowledge,
indefinable, in which a human person may have the most intense experience of the
relationship with God as person.100 The way in which Stniloae understands the third type of
knowledge counts as a significant step forward in discerning the process of theosis in the
Eastern theology. Referring only to apophatic knowledge, Stniloae sees three levels:
apophaticism of negative and positive knowledge, apophaticism at the end of prayer, and
apophaticism of the vision of divine light.

98
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 106.
99
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 106. Stniloae found a significant support for the spiritual ascent
in Gregory of Nyssa: And so, one who severely studies the depths of the mystery, receives secretly in his
spirit, indeed, a moderate amount of apprehension of the doctrine of God's nature, yet he is unable to explain
clearly in words the ineffable depth of this mystery. Oratio Catechetica Magna 3 (PG 45, 17CD), in NPNF,
p. 477; see also De Vita Moysis (Jaeger VII, 1, p. 89).
100
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 116-117.
35

2.1 Apophaticism of negative and positive knowledge


In Stniloaes view, negative theology is a mental operation as related to Gods
contemplation through nature, history, Scripture, art, and dogma, scrutinising the content of
different attributes and concepts in comparison with the divine abyss, and coming to the
conclusion that all are unsatisfactory. However, negative theology, despite of the fact that it is
a rational deductive operation, encompasses also an intuitive element that confirms the
unknowability of God. The human mind wavers between the divine immeasurable and the
human measurable. In this way negative theology is capable of enriching the human spirit with
exalted concepts in measuring divinity and encountering His incomprehensibility. Indeed,
the knowledge of God is an endless movement of the human spirit.101 As such, to assert that
negative theology needs positive terms in order to deny them, does not mean that this kind of
theology promotes laziness or rational abdication. On the contrary, it demands a continuous
challenge to reason. Any new stage in humankinds discoveries in fields like physics, biology,
or spirituality, becomes new potentiality for negative theology.102 Thus positive theology
exists because general revelation exists; moreover, it serves negative theology.
Stniloae insists that, nobody can practice negative theology except in alternation with
positive theology, due to the twofold cause: the dialectic as relationship between God and
world, and that between Gods being and His energies.103 The first cause means that the
ultimate source of this world must embrace something that the world itself does not embrace.
At the same time, this source has to embrace all that which explains the existence and the
content of the world; it cannot be part of the existence or the existence itself. This principle or
source should be the negation of the existence, if we understand that form of existence of the
world that we know, and where everything is circumscribed. However, by virtue of its
definition, as the absolute principle, it must be in a kind of correspondence with the things of
its origination. The whole of existence must have something within it [the absolute
principle], which make existence possible, a foundation, certain rationalities, and energies,

101
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, pp. 202-204.
102
This is the reason why Stniloae disagrees with Berdyaev, who scorned positive theology. For Berdyaevs
ideas, see N. Berdyaev, Dream and Reality. An Essay in Autobiography, tr. by K. Lampert (London: Geoffrey
Bles, 1950), pp. 86-107.
103
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 205. In explaining spirituality, Stniloae uses sometimes very
obscure interpretations. One interpretation is taked from a parallel with Jacob Bhme, Stniloae quoting from
A. Kayr, Gottelslehre Iacob Bhmes, Jahrbuch fr Philosophie und phenomenologische Forschung
(Niemeyer, 1929), pp. 225ff.
36

that correspond to different properties of the world. 104 Consequently, even in this relation
between the supreme principle and the world that it has created, we may find the reason for
positive and negative theology. As identified with the supreme principle, God is like all things
and allows participation in Himself, but at the same time is wholly unlike all things in His
being. On the one hand, He is inaccessible to our understanding because He necessarily
transcends it; on the other hand, He has manifested Himself in order for all things to receive
explanation through Him.
The second reason or source of the twofold necessity and the mutual alternation between
negative and positive theology, is found in Gods being and its manifestations. When we think
of Gods manifestations we are accustomed to making positive statements about Him, while
when we think of Gods being we negate all statements. In fact, the affirmations we give to
God describe the divine energies coming to us. Beyond these energies there is the divine
hidden or unknown, who never gets into any relationship and in no way shares himself.
105
God, concludes Stniloae, is on the one hand an existence and on the other hand not
existence; not as One who does not exist, but as the One who is supra-existent.106 Therefore,
negative theology indicates our consciousness of the divine mystery, described by Stniloae as
the infinite reserve of truth, and an inexhaustible spiritual bread for the mind.107 If positive
theology sums up all that we know, then negative theology offers our souls new perspectives
for future insights.

2.2 Apophaticism at the end of pure prayer


A new perspective and a superior stage in apophaticism are realised by pure prayer, the
ecstasy of interior silence. Pure prayer is a total cessation of thinking in the presence of divine
mystery, before the descending of divine light in our mind. Pure prayer implies different
stages in parallel with the stages of spiritual ascendance (purification, illumination, and
union). Stniloae defines pure prayer as that stage of prayer in which the mind attained the
capacity to banish without any effort and for a long time any thoughts, as a result of acquiring
freedom from affection, and in which the mind rises above concepts and images.108 Thus the

104
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, pp. 205-206.
105
Cf. Dionysius, On the Divine Names II. 7 (PG 3, 645); II, 11 (PG 3, 649). See also Gregory of Nyssa,
Contra Eunomium (Jaeger I, p. 268).
106
Stniloae uses here the analogy between our soul and its manifestations, to express the relation between
Gods being and His powers. Cf. D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 210.
107
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 210.
108
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 212.
37

mind becomes aware of Gods presence and it has no other idea, no other thought except the
thought without form of God. Inevitably, as long as Stniloae is presenting his thoughts,
there the influence of the Neoplatonic idea of escaping from time, history, and creation
becomes clear.
To attain the stage of pure prayer, Eastern Orthodox spirituality affirms the following vital
elements: first, the mind has to turn from external things into itself, focusing upon the heart.
In this process, the mind is pouring itself out towards the sensible world, and is regarding the
heart as its centre.109 Second, it requires the practice of the Jesus prayer, in which the mind
receives in the person of Jesus a unifying content, being permeated by the love for Jesus.110
Following Maximus, Stniloae maintains that the actualisation of the above conditions is
possible only by preserving the distinction between the mind (nous) and reason (logos).
Reason is the faculty that rationalises things and comprises definite concepts called reasons
(logoi), while the mind is the faculty that thinks about contents. Thus the mind is the ultimate
principle of everything in man, the basis of the human subject. In order to understand the
indefinable basis of ourselves as subject we have to abandon all concepts and also to
transcend the reason that forms these concepts. Only then can the mind consider itself.111 God
is Subject, and in order to understand Him we must leave all internal and external objects, and
thus meet first our ownself as subject. A similar principle works in the relationship between
our own self as subject, the subjectivity of our fellow men, and God as subject. In other
words, to understand God we must understand the reasoning subject within the created
world. This understanding is not an ordinary understanding in the sense of comprehension,
because only objects can be comprehended. In reality there is an encounter with the other

109
Cf. Gregory Palamas, Triads 2.2, 27-29. In the words of Palamas, the heart is the organ of thought
(Triads 1.2.3).
110
These conditions call for special methods, based on the mutual dependence of soul and body. D. Stniloae,
Spiritualitatea Ortodox, pp. 217-237. Stniloae develops here three expressions of the same method: (1) the
one used in the work attributed to Symeon the New Theologian, called The Method of Holy Prayer and
Concentration; (2) the psychosomatic one of Nicephorus the Monk, found in De Sobrietate et Cordis
Custodia (PG 147, 960); and (3) the one of Gregory of Sinai (published in PG 150, 1316D and in Filocalia
VII, pp. 172-173). Cf. also D. Stniloae, Viaa i nvtura Sfntului Grigorie Palama (Bucureti: Scripta,
1993), pp. 32ff. Stniloae was much influenced by the works of Nichifor Crainic in his Course of Mystical
Theology (1935-1936). This course was published recently as Sfinenia - mplinirea Umanului (Iai: Trinitas,
1993). For the origins of hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer, see the appendix entitled Byzantine
Spirituality, in L. Bouyer, J. Leclerq and F. Vanderbroucke (eds.), A History of Christian Spirituality, vol. II,
The Spirituality of the Middle Ages (London: Burns & Oates, 1982), pp. 547-590; K. Ware, Christian
Theology in the East (600-1543), in H. Cunliffe-Jones (ed.), A History of Christian Doctrine (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1981), pp. 181-225; The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality
(Oxford: The Fairacres Publication 43, New edition, 1986); Praying with the Body: The Hesychast Method
and Non-Christian Parallels, Sobornost 14.2 (1992), pp. 6-35.
38

subject that still remains unapprehended, sovereign, free and undefinable. This turning to itself
of the reasoning subject entails a more definitive removal of rationalised contents.
From the other point of view, at the moment of meeting with itself, the human subject will
discover something greater than the things removed; and so this moment constitutes the point
at which the rational act of negation changes its structure and becomes a feeling or a positive
experience of the subjects reality. This reality reveals in a very intensive and striking way the
existence of divine reality. The Fathers speak about the mind that, when looking into itself,
becomes transparent.112 But how is it possible for the mind to become transparent? Stniloae
explains that the mind meets God in its intimacy, and in the same place discovers the
reflection of Christs presence.113 When we are looking into ourselves the first feeling is the
awesome wonder before an immense, dark abyss followed by the awareness that this abyss is
not entirely a region of our being, nor an empty place due to the absence of reality. This in
fact represents the infinite depths of divinity, which are yet unlighted and indefinable for us.
Maximus speaks about the pure mind as the place of abyss, which is at the same time capable
of receiving the abyss.114 It means that the mind becomes bounded, limited, when it is itself
limited according to objects and finite concepts, and becomes unbounded when it receives the
One who is without form, and who does not give it any form.115 This is the stage of
deification, when we feel simultaneously the boundlessness of the mind and the presence of
divinity in it. Stniloae terms this aspect of deification, boundlessness according to grace,
and the kind of apophaticism we are facing here is very close to a total apophaticism.
However, specifies Stniloae, the awareness of the infinite and absolute sovereign reality in
us, is understood as different from the reality of our own self as subject, which is experienced
merely as indefinite and relatively supreme. The two realities cannot be separated or
demarcated, being the experience of union and interpenetration of God with our self.116
Stniloae insists on the importance of keeping together both aspects of the minds experience,
when this is gathered together into the heart: the unmediated relationship of our heart with

111
Maximus also considers the mind as subject. Cf. Maximus, Quaestiones ad Thalassium 50.8 (PG 90, 500).
112
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, pp. 242-243. Much of the material in Stniloae that follows is
heavily marked by the thought of Mark the Ascetic. Cf. Mark the Ascetic, De Baptismo (PG 65, 985-1028),
and Le Lege Spirituali (PG 65, 905-930); also in Despre Botez (Filocalia I, pp. 319-359).
113
Cf. D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos Lumina Lumii i ndumnezeitorul Omului, pp. 5-15.
114
Stniloae follows Maximus especially in the explanation that he gives of the main characteristics of the
minds character as unmoving. See Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 1400-1409).
115
The minds bewilderment includes: awareness, feeling as knowledge beyond knowledge, and the
pressure of an acute presence.
116
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 243.
39

God due to the presence of Jesus in our heart, and the inseparable union. The danger of
ignoring the second aspect is to fall into Neoplatonism or Hegelianism, which see the world in
a substantial continuity with the absolute. For Stniloae, to enter into our intimacy means to
experience the infinite but personal presence of God, hidden in the darkness. Moreover, we
must remember that the only possible way to experience this is by prayer. At this stage in
presenting apophaticism, Stniloae boldly affirms that the mind stops, or ceases to move as
being fixed in a total immobility, and starts to appeal for divine wisdom. The minds stopping
is determined by the experience of the divine infinite presence. But this is not the end. What
comes afterwards is the state of prayer that is filled with silent wonder, a state in which the
mind is not able to define what is being asked, nor the One who is asking. This is the state of
prayer beyond prayer (hesychia), the manifestation of love for God. Arriving at the stage of
silent wonder, the mind asks again for help. And this is given by the coming of the Spirit in
His fullness.117

2.3 Apophaticism of the vision of divine light


The final stage in Stniloaes perspective on apophaticism is the vision of divine light. Union
with God is beyond pure prayer, and means the perfect love that comes to us as a divine
gift.118 However, the mind has a positive role in its experience even after the cessation of its
mental activities. The mind, says Stniloae, is capax divini, endowed with the capacity to take
possession of the divine spiritual work,119 to go beyond its natural activities and to be united
with God. The experience of the divine light by the human mind is the result of the cohesive
link between three key elements: love, knowledge, and light. The light is knowledge, says
Stniloae, and the light of knowledge is the result of love. Moreover, the life of the mind is
the illumination of knowledge and this is born of love for God.120 Thus knowledge
understood as life in love has an existential character.
The minds exodus from itself, leaving its natural activity and replacing it with the divine
activity, is of course not ontological. This double exodus, in fact, realises the union of the

117
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, pp. 244-247.
118
Stniloae makes a distinction between love which is increasing at the same time as prayer and love as an
uncreated energy.
119
See also Dionysius, On the Divine Names 7.1 (PG 3, 864C).
120
Cf. Maximus, Centuriae de Caritate 1. 9,10 (PG 90, 964). When in the full ardor of its love for God the
mind goes out of itself, then it has no preception at all either of itself or of any creatures. For once illumined
by the divine and infinite light, it remains insensible to anything that is made by him, just as the physical eye
40

mind with the divine light.121 The mind sees by means of the divine light that descends into it,
and then illuminates it, so that finally it is filled with light. Thus the mind does not see the
divine light merely beyond itself, but also within itself. In contrast to the former position when
the mind was looking into itself, and thus seeing itself directly and God indirectly, the latter
position is when the mind is seeing God directly and itself indirectly. Stniloae admits,
therefore, a twofold situation regarding the mind when it is seeing the divine light: the
extroverted, when the mind goes out of itself, and the introverted, when it looks into itself.122
This is also in line with Lossky who maintained that, during the process of seeing the divine
light, self-consciousness is increased.
As a result, the divine light seen in ecstasy at the end of pure prayer is not a physical but a
spiritual light. However, although it is not sensible, it may come out from the soul and
spread over mans face and body.123 The reflection of the divine light can be seen by
anyone, but not the divine light itself; for the latter you need the power of the Holy Spirit in
your mind and body.124 Filling the mind, this spiritual light is a mysterious reality of the self-
disclosure of God, a knowledge beyond our human knowledge. The vision of divine light is
totally different from the pantheist idealism of Plato or Plotinus. Stniloae even talks about
the necessity of a leap of the mind, through its rapture by the Spirit. The Palamite
influence is obvious:

The vision of divine light being a vision and a knowledge of the one divine energy,
received by man through divine energy, is a vision and a knowledge according to the
divine mode, man being able to see and know qualitatively like God, or spiritually
and in a divine way, as Palamas says, and quantitatively with the possibility of an
endless progress in the knowledge of Him.125

The apophatic character of this kind of knowledge is present not because of any lack in
comparison with human natural knowledge, but because of its qualitative and quantitative

has no sensation of the stars when the sun has risen. Cf. Maximus, The Four Hundred Chapters on Love
I.10, Berthold tr., p. 36.
121
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 284. Stniloae is following here very closely Palamas ideas
from Filocalia VII, pp. 263-373. Continuing the line of thought in Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus, Palamas
distinguishes within the human mind between essence (ousia) and energies (energeiai). Cf. Mantzarides, The
Deification of Man, p. 17. For Gregory Palamas, see Capita 30, 81, and Triads 1.2 5-11, 2.2.11-19.
122
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 285.
123
Again, the model taken by Palamas and Stniloae is Moses face. Cf. D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea
Ortodox, pp. 287ff.
124
As, for example, in the case of the light of Tabor.
125
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 291. Cf. Gregory Palamas, Filocalia VII, p. 328.
41

superiority. This is the reason why Stniloae prefers to call the vision of divine light a supra-
conceptual knowledge. Actually, it is unknowing knowledge.126
Stniloae asks how it is possible to harmonise the apparent contradiction between the
warning given by the Fathers not to consider as divine every appearance of light, and the
statement that the grace of God fills the soul with light?127 Stniloae responds that what we
need to avoid are the definite images, even those filled with light, which may end by
becoming idols, while the light which fills the mind is not a definite form, rather a feeling,
a sensitivity, and an understanding permeating our being.128 Because the irradiation of the
existential light is limitless, as the divine being is, during this process the mystic is expressing
all experiences in contradictory concepts (seeing and unseeing, knowledge and ignorance).
Indeed, the divine light is supra-conceptual, but it gives rise to concepts and images as a
reflection of its puzzling abundance. Since the suggestion is hard to define, the analogy of a
loving relationship between two persons is after all to be preferred. Some analogical
structures characterise the experience of the one who sees the divine light. Stniloae adopts
both the suggestions offered by Gregory of Nyssa concerning the immaterial tabernacle of
Moses and its fulfilment in the person of Christ,129 and the idea of typos, image imprinted,
used by Palamas. The mind, explains Stniloae, is imprinted or shaped with immaterial images
and, consequently, through the knowledge of God, spiritual transformations and mouldings
are admitted.130 This conception shows the existential, the experimental, and the
transformatory character of the new structures, structures that represent in fact living
relationships with God. The old created structures are replaced in the visionary believer by the
new uncreated structures. The new experience has the possibility of residing in the form of
some structures as advancing configurations of the inexhaustible existential relationship
between man himself and God. However, the ontological distance between the Creator and
the creature remains. Yet in the process of spiritualization, the one who has been united

126
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, pp. 293-294. Again Stniloaes application is personal. When you
meet another person, writes Stniloae, the moment of encountering in love transforms that relationship in
light. In its normality, a being is a harmony, and harmony irradiates light. What Stniloae says, of course,
is that the light we experience when we meet another person is mereley metaphorical;if so, it is different
from the experience of divine light. By extension, it is not a coincidence that the totality of things and persons
surrounding us is called in the Romanian language lume, from the Latin term lumen, that is light.
127
For example, in Diadochus, Filocalia I, p. 335.
128
Diadochus, Isaac of Syria, Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas call this light a mental
feeling. Later in this study it will become clear how important is the key concept of sensitivity in
Stniloaes discourse regarding Christology.
129
Gregory of Nyssa, De Vita Moysis (Jaeger VII, 1, p. 114).
130
Gregory Palamas, Filocalia VII, p. 340.
42

with the light cannot say if he is detached from it or not. The ontological distinctions persist,
yet they are not perceived.131 This is, in reality, the blessed state of deification.132

2.4 Summary
In summary, Stniloae proposes the following trichotomy in the area of epistemology:
positive or affirmative knowledge, negative knowledge, and apophatic knowledge. First,
positive knowledge implies at the first level the Logos penetration in nature - knowledge
being identified with an iconic or symbolic conscience of the world. Everything starts with
divine intentionality, manifested in the act of creation. Stniloae asserts the necessity for all
Christians to acquire the awareness of this intentionality or of the divine rationalities (logoi)
of the things. This acquiring is the result of a long process of the minds purification by the
work of the Holy Spirit. To be sure, this contemplative knowledge is not anti-rational but
supra-rational, concluding and completing discursive reason. Second, negative theology is not
agnosticism, but a non-science, in the sense that it goes beyond intellectual knowledge. At
this stage, both analogy and negation show that their resources are insufficient. Negative
theology is of value because it reveals the truth of divine mystery, that is, the mystery of
person and the potentiality for dialogue. We need supra-rational means to adapt the human
to the divine.
When we come to the third stage of knowledge, apophatic knowledge, Stniloae employs
three other levels: (1) apophaticism of negative and positive knowledge, (2) apophaticism at
the end of pure prayer, and (3) apophaticism of the vision of divine light. For Stniloae, the
knowledge of the divine essence and energies through the apprehension of nature is
necessarily followed by the knowledge of the revealed divine essence and energies. Moreover,
between these two kinds of knowledge there will arise a hiatus. The revealed knowledge of
divine energies is no longer the result of intellectual powers, which in fact had to stop their
activity, but is the work of grace in the vision of divine light. The presence of a hiatus
represents a kind of apophaticism almost unmixed with any positive element of knowledge.
Stniloae calls it the intermediate apophaticism, that is, the stage when we leave behind all
mental operations, even negative ones, even though we have not (as yet) received the light

131
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 308.
132
It is to be noted that, according to Stniloae, mans ascension to God begins in the Church and is finished
in the Church.
43

from above.133 Throughout the time in which we know the divine energies from nature
through concepts, we are aware that these concepts are inadequate both as regards the
energies from nature and as regards the revealed divine energies, and much more as regards
the being of God. In this sense, negative theology assists and interacts with positive theology.
This is the first form of apophaticism, discursive and negative theology.134
However, as Stniloae admits, once we rise above all that nature can offer, the awareness of
the total insufficiency of the concepts, separated from nature, and of the minds infirmity to
know divinity by itself, will give form to an almost total apophaticism. When we renounce the
ability to consider the concepts derived from nature and any preoccupation to negate them,
and when we prevail over negation as an intellectual operation in a total silence created by
prayer, only at that point may we talk about the second degree of apophaticism. As will be
shown, Stniloae considers that this second degree of almost total apophaticism is
inaccurately considered by Lossky when it is interpreted as representing the supreme stage of
spiritual ascension in Dionysius mystical theology.
Stniloaes view is that we may discern a third stage of apophaticism. Dionysius, believes
Stniloae, is referring to those supremely radiant clouds that do not mean an exclusive
incognoscibility of God. In the same way, appealing to Palamas, Stniloae makes it clear that
the vision of divine light is not equivalent to negative theology. In the second stage of
apophaticism, in the time of prayer, the human soul comes out from the world, enters into a
total silence of the mind, and thus can see or experience the divine darkness, which is
something positive or supra-positive.
In practice, man must activate his natural powers, being helped by the grace received at
baptism and holy unction. In view of the meaning of the second stage of apophaticism, we
may say that in the first stage negative theology is only an anticipatory icon of the vision of
divine light; however, it is not this vision in itself, and is no more than the external seeing of
the divine darkness in which God dwells. In addition, the third stage is not an empty but a
completed apophaticism, filled with light. Negative theology and second degree apophaticism
are evidently inferior to the seeing of divine light. Stniloae sees here a subtle distinction
between (1) seeing the darkness from outside, when our mind works by its own abilities and
is thus veiling God, and (2) penetrating into the same darkness, at the stage when our mind
is transposed there by God Himself. However, even in the third stage of apophaticism, we will

133
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitate Ortodox, p. 195.
44

experience the consciousness of both the impossibility of comprehending the divine light, and
the existence of a divine being above it, an inaccessible being. There will always be an
advance in knowing a boundless reserve. In the case of the hesychasts, for example, although
the divine light remains a mystery, that does not exclude but involves apophaticism. Even if a
hesychast becomes light this is only true in relation with those who simply enter under the
influence of that light.

3. A comparative appraisal of the apophaticism of Stniloae and Lossky

3.1 The radical apophatic way. Vladimir Lossky


As a modern representative of mystical apophaticism, and with a strict approach to it,
Vladimir Lossky sees apophaticism as a prerequisite of any approach to theology, an attitude
that should lead theological discourse towards the silence of contemplation and
communion.135 He claims that apophaticism is the distinctive theological perspective of the
Greek Fathers, and the fundamental characteristic of the whole theological tradition of the
Eastern Church.136 Saying that, Lossky is challenging both Latin scholasticism for not being
able to balance formal theologising with religious experience, and Russian Orthodox idealism
which was heavily influenced by the German idealists (Hegel, Schelling), and which tried to
identify faith with rational understanding. For Lossky, apophatic theology must point beyond
the intellect to the personal mystery of the Trinity that encounters the human person in the act
of revelation. The apophatic attitude, says Lossky, is implied in the paradox of the
Christian revelation.137 Specifically, for Lossky, apophaticism is not coincident with
mysticism and is not in itself revelation. In reality, apophasis is not an end, but a necessary
means for the understanding of revelation. Thus apophaticism implies both contemplation, as
the result of the metamorphosis of the intellect and of the whole human person, and
communion with God, pointing towards the level of mysterious revelation in the strict sense,
that is, mystical theology or the self-revelation of God in silence.138

134
Here apophaticism and negative theology seem to be identified rather than distinguished!
135
R.D. Williams, The Via Negativa and the Foundations of Theology: An Introduction to the Thought of
V.N. Lossky, in S. Sykes and D. Holmes (eds.), New Studies in Theology, vol. I (London: Duckworth, 1980),
p. 96.
136
V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p.26.
137
V. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1985), p. 14.
138
R.D. Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky. An Exposition and Critique, Doctorate
dissertation (Oxford, 1975), p. 92.
45

Regarding contemplation, Lossky maintains that the importance of this attitude is not only to
preserve theology from irrelevant intellectualism and over-definition, but to affirm the
mystical nature of all true theology; that is, a reflection on faith deep-seated in a sense of the
transcendent God and free not for dry speculations, but for contemplation. He writes:

Far from being mutually opposed, theology and mysticism support and complete
each other. One is impossible without the other. If the mystical experience is a
personal working out of the content of the common faith, theology is an expression
for the profit of all, of that which can be experienced by everyone.139

In other words, doctrinal definitions may tell us truths about God, but only contemplation can
bring us immediate, personal, and direct experiential knowledge of God. The basic model for
a mystical theology, according to Lossky, would be that God in His infinity transcends every
concept of created mind. We must therefore transcend mind by a supra-rational mode of
perception (which is contemplation) if we are to know God.
In Lossky's thinking, the ways to the knowledge of God are placed with difficulty between
gnosis (contemplative and existential knowledge) and episteme (scientific and rationalist
knowledge).140 Because episteme is utterly defective due to the radical lack of
correspondence between our mind and the reality it wishes to attain,141 theology has to
pursue the way of gnosis, which is a divine gift implying encounter, reciprocity, faith as a
personal adherence to the personal presence of God who reveals Himself.142 This faith is a
faculty to respond to the divine presence, an ontological participation, and the first condition
for theological knowledge.143
Consequently, Christian theology is always a means enabling us to attain union with God,
that is, deification (theosis). To elucidate the relation between gnosis and theosis, Lossky
uses two pairs of concepts: katabasis - anabasis, and oikonomia - theologia. Oikonomia is
the work of God's will in which He reveals Himself in creation and incarnation, while
theologia means everything that can be said of God considered in Himself. 144 As a means
to knowledge, oikonomia describes God's movement man-wards, which is a movement of
descent (katabasis). The proper way to have true knowledge is the spiritual ascent

139
V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, pp. 8-9.
140
V. Lossky, Orthodox Theology. An Introduction (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1989), p. 14.
141
V. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, p. 13.
142
V. Lossky, Orthodox Theology, p. 13.
143
V. Lossky, Orthodox Theology, p. 16-17. Moreover, faith exists in man even in his separation from God as
a result of sin.
144
V. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, p. 15.
46

(anabasis). This goes beyond all perceptive and rational faculties, and is a mystical union
with God, described by Losskys favourite mystical theologian Dionysius as knowing
nothing.145 Although gnosis is knowledge beyond words, to be communicated it has to be
translated into theological language and to be organised subsequently into a system.
At this point, Lossky cannot avoid the role of cataphatic theology, or positive theology,
which leads us to some knowledge of God, even if in an imperfect way.146 The words of
Scripture and of dogma, for instance, which are expressed in concepts, serve primarily as
starting and guiding points in an ever ascending process of contemplation finalised in
theosis.147 However, the words of Scripture do not describe God as He is in Himself, since He
is always beyond everything that exists.148 Thus, concludes Lossky, theology will never be
abstract, working through concepts, but contemplative, raising the minds to those realities
that pass all understanding.149 It becomes clear that Lossky is struggling to preserve the
distinction between theologia and oikonomia. Implicitly, for Lossky, the apophatic and

145
Lossky follows here Pseudo-Areopagite's mystical contemplation, in order to be able to attain in perfect
ignorance to union with Him who transcends all being and all knowledge. Cf. V. Lossky, The Mystical
Theology, p. 27; see also In the Image and Likeness of God, pp. 97f. For other surveys on Dionysius see: S.
Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigation of the Prehistory and Evolution of the Pseudo-
Dionysian Tradition (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978); A. Golitzin, Et Introibo as Altare Dei. The Mystagogy of
Dionysius Areopagita, with Special Reference to its Predecessors in the Eastern Christian Tradition
(Thessaloniki: Analecta Vlatadon, 1994); Hierarchy versus Anarchy? Dionysius Areopagita, Symeon the
New Theologian, Nicetas Stethatos, and their Common Roots in Ascetical Tradition, SVTQ 38.2 (1994), pp.
131-179; R.F. Hathaway, Hierarchy and Definition of Order in the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius (Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1969); A. Louth, Denys the Areopagite (London: Geoffrey Chapman, Wilton, CT:
Morehouse-Barlow, 1989); The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition, pp. 159-178; St. Denys the
Areopagite and St. Maximus the Confessor: A Question of Influence, SP 27 (1993), pp. 166-174; R. Mortley,
From Word to Silence. The Way of Negation, Christian and Greek, 2 vols. (Bonn: Peter Hanstein Verlag,
1986); P. Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols within the Pseudo-Dionysian Synthesis (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984); D. Turner, The Darkness of God. Negativity in Christian Mysticism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), especially the chapter entitled Cataphatic and the
Apophatic in Denys the Areopagite, pp. 19-49; I.P. Sheldon-Williams, The Greek Christian Platonist
Tradition from the Cappadocians to Maximus and Eriugena, in A.H. Armstrong (ed.), The Cambridge
History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), pp.
457-472; P. Spearritt, A Philosophical Enquiry into Dionysian Mysticism (Bosingen: Rotex-Druckdienst,
1975), pp. 173-182.
146
V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology, p. 25; see also The Vision of God (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1983),
p. 125.
147
Lossky borrows from Gregory of Nazianzus' metaphorical interpretation of Moses' ascent on Mount Sinai
who holds that we can talk about different levels of theology, each appropriate to differing capacities of
human understanding. See Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 28.2 (SC 250, p. 103).
148
Lossky follows once more Dionysius, for whom, in Scripture the Transcendent is clothed in the terms of
beings, with shape and forms of things that have neither, and numerous symbols are employed to convey the
varied attributes of what is an imageless and supra-natural simplicity. Dionysius, On the Divine Names, I.4
(PG 3, 592B).
149
V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 43.
47

cataphatic approaches are not just complementary or equal (as sometimes in the West), but
the apophatic prevails over the cataphatic.

3.2 Lossky and the Greek Fathers


Losskylooks back to the Greek Fathers for a normative theological via media. He rejects
Evagrius idea that contemplation can have no degrees, being undifferentiated, and thus
progress and growth in the knowledge of God are excluded.150 Contrarily, Lossky is much
indebted to Gregory of Nyssa and Dionysius, for whom darkness and ignorance are
expressions of that dynamic aspect of the knowledge of God. In Gregory of Nyssa, for
example, Lossky notices that the fundamental datum is the encounter with God, a union that
is higher than conceptual knowledge. In this union, the heart sees the divine light, but the
quality of the vision, never totally possessed or assimilated by man, can be expressed only in
terms of darkness and ignorance. Gregory of Nyssa maintains that the mystical ascent begins
where rational knowledge fails. The mystical vision means a seeing of God through the
mystical eye of the soul in the state of ecstasy,151 suggesting that it is an experiential rather
than a speculative knowledge. Participation in God, in the greatest possible degree of
immediacy and intimacy, assumes that that which participates must necessarily change into
what the participated is in its nature.152 However, even though His presence may be felt,
God remains incomprehensible. Consequently, for Lossky, as for Gregory, the true feature of
the knowledge of God is personal encounter. Where there is reciprocity of knowledge,
knowledge signifies a relationship between persons, it is determined by agape.153 The
attitude of apophatic theology for Lossky is summarised in a fully conscious relationship of
personal confrontation between man and God in love.154
In a like manner, Dionysius postulates a union beyond the level of the nous by means of a
dialectical interplay between the images of light and darkness, knowledge and ignorance,
affirmation and negation.155 In one sense, indeed, apophaticism has a corrective function,
revealing the inadequacy of language and going beyond the classical terms of light and

150
V. Lossky, The Vision of God, p. 110.
151
Gregory uses expression like seeing in the dark, seeing the light of truth, or seeing in the blessed state
of ecstasy, indicating a terminology characteristic of sensation. Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, De Vita Moysis (Jaeger
VII, p. 87); and In Canticum Canticorum, Oratio X, XII (Jaeger VI, pp. 312-314, 356-359).
152
Gregory of Nyssa, In Ecclesiasten Homiliae, Hom. VIII (Jaeger V, pp. 421-423).
153
V. Lossky, The Vision of God, p. 31.
154
R.D. Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky. An Exposition and Critique, p. 83.
155
V. Lossky, The Vision of God, p. 127.
48

knowledge. Yet, specifies Lossky, Dionysius apophasis never leads to a level of divine
existence superior to the three persons. If theosis is realised solely through the capacity for
ekstasis (the Greek term to describe the perpetual growth of the soul), then there is taken for
granted an irrational residue that cannot be expressed in concepts.156 Apophasis is not the
same thing as ecstasy, but they are intimately connected as two manifestations of that which
makes personal reality what it is. For sure, Dionysius personalism is developed in line with
the Antiochene school, which taught that, in the beatific vision, our transfigured senses
perceive the incarnate Word as He was seen by the apostles at His own transfiguration. There
is a visible theophany, as well as an illumination of the intellect.157 Hence, with Dionysius,
the theme of the significance of the body in the economy of salvation becomes axiomatic for
the world of Byzantine theology.
We may conclude by asserting with Rowan Williams that the main features of Losskys
unified thought are: (1) an unequivocal trinitarianism, not confined to any economic level; (2)
a positive evaluation of the role of the body in the plan of revelation, with special reference to
the Transfiguration; (3) an insistence on both the transcendence and the immanence of God,
expressed by the ousia-energeia distinction; and (4) the identification of our final encounter
with God as a supra-intellectual epektasis, a personal meeting with the inconceptualisable
personal being of God.158

3.3 A review of Losskys apophaticism


For Lossky, Orthodoxy, as an intermediate form between Catholicism and Protestantism,
show fidelity to the vertical and theocentric theology of revelation. Holding two distinct
dogmatic attitudes, East and West created two different traditions, expressing two diversified
experiences, and generating two divergent spiritualities. Consequently, such mystical
phenomena as the imitation of Christ, mystical night, or mystical individualism,
although unknown in the East, became part of the Western spiritual tradition. In the East, the
guarantee that in the mystical experience man does not meet his own spirit but the Holy
Spirit, is given by dogma. Dogmas formal structure is antinomical, displaying the presence of
the revealed mystery and the necessity of going beyond the domain of intellect in metaintellect

156
V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 33.
157
V. Lossky, The Vision of God, pp. 126-127. Cf. Dionysius, On the Divine Names I.4 (PG 3, 592C).
158
R.D. Williams in The Via Negativa and the Foundations of Theology: An Introduction to the Thought of
V.N. Lossky, p. 105.
49

and metalogic.159 The genuine mystic calls for the conforming and adapting of the whole
human being to the revealed mystery in the form of apophaticism.
In Losskys perspective, any religious thinking requires negation, in the form of dialectical
mysticism (Plotinus or Meister Eckhart), or in the limits of natural theology, but only with a
corrective role (Thomas Aquinas).160 However, for Lossky, apophaticism is not similar to
Neoplatonic negative theology or to the corrective element of positive theology detected in
scholasticism. Apophaticism is not a chapter of theology, but the unique existential attitude
that is rigorously theocentric. Apophaticism results from the ontological status of man as
created personal being, who cannot enjoy a personal relationship with God except through
the divine revelation and human acceptance. This mysterious and paradoxical connection
between divine transcendence and immanence, seen in the distinction/identity paradigm and
applied to the being and the energy of God, is conceivable because of another applied
paradigm: that between the being and the hypostases of God. The mystery of identity-in-
distinction and of distinction-in-identity, of non-blending and non-opposition between the
persons of the Trinity, explains, in fact, the possibility of their perichoresis and of their
extradivine generosity in the uncreated energies and in the economy of salvation.
Lossky praises the Greek Fathers for their wisdom in stopping short before the mystery and
in underlining the limit between theology and religious philosophy, a limit that separates
theocentrism from anthropocentrism. In religious philosophy (Origen, Bulgakov), where
apophaticism does not exist, knowledge is the condition of union, while in the apophatic
theology of the Fathers (Gregory of Nyssa and Dionysius) union is the condition of
knowledge. Apophaticism appears for Lossky as connected and co-extensive with the
revelatory theological personalism.

3.4 The question of the vision of God

159
Lossky has been criticised here for making too sharp a contrast. Cf. Irne Hausherr, Les Orientaux
Connaissent - ils les Nuits de Saint Jean de Croix? in Orientalia Christiana Periodica 12 (1946), pp. 5-46,
and LImitation de Jsus-Christ dans la Spiritualit Byzantine, in Mlanges Offerts au R.P.F. Cavallera
(Toulouse, 1948), pp. 231-259. Both articles are also found in I. Hausherr, Hsychasme et Prire (Roma:
Pontificale Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1966).
160
V. Lossky, Elments de Thologie Negative chez S. Augustin, Contacts (1979), pp. 142-152, 142-143.
Plotinus apophaticism, seen in the ideas of purification, ecstasy, and union beyond knowledge, implies a
reduction of the multiple Being to the absolute simplicity of the One, aiming to release the mind and to make
it aware of its primordial unity with the supraessential One. If for Plotinus Latin translator, Marius
Victorinus, God was the One anterior and superior to Being, and if for Augustine He is identical with the
Being itself (ipsum esse), for Dionysius on the other hand God is beyond the Being and the One, as Holy
Trinity.
50

Difficulties arise with the concept of the vision of God, expounded by Lossky in The Vision of
God, and criticised in the West by the representatives of rationalist scholasticism (such as
Vasquez) and evangelical fideism and moralism (such as Nygren and Festugi__re). Basically,
the imputation is that Losskys idea of the vision of God replaces the New Testament
futuristic eschatology of seeing God with the Hellenistic present and spiritual eschatology of
mystical contemplation. Consequently, this emphasis on contemplative mysticism is
structurally incompatible with the more practical and communitarian evangelical ethos.
Losskys intention, however, was not polemical but positive, trying to demonstrate the
interior coherence and continuity of the Eastern tradition. According to Lossky, in the general
context of the Churchs effort to go beyond Hellenism, the concept of the vision of God was
under pressure of disintegration into two forms of natural mysticism, immanent and
antitrinitarian, which sustained the possibility of an unmediated vision of divine: first,
intellectual vision, corresponding to the mystical intellectualism originated by the Alexandrian
Platonists (Origen, Evagrius), and second, the sensible, physical, vision of divinity, uphold in
the mystical materialism of the Stoics or Messalians. The real Christianization of Hellenism
was realised by the Cappadocians who affirmed transmaterial and transintellectual
apophaticism as the unique adequate made of access to personal communion in love with the
triune God.161 The key distinction here is not between sensible and intelligible, but between
created and uncreated. The intellectual mysticism of Evagrius and the sentimental mysticism
of Macarius were synthesised by Diadochus of Photike, the precursor of Byzantine
hesychasm. As in anthropology, the dualism of sensible-intelligible is also detected in
Christology. Usually, so it is said by Lossky, the Alexandrians affirmed the intellectual
contemplation of the divine essence of the Logos in Christ, while the Antiochians restricted
the vision of God to the vision of Jesus human nature. In their orthodox version, the
pneumatological Alexandrian thinking and the Christological Antiochian thinking were
synthesised by Byzantine theology, represented by Dionysian apophaticism. After Dionysius,
the Byzantine Fathers successively developed the Christological aspect of the vision of God
(Maximus, John Damascene, Theodore the Studite) and the pneumatological one (John
Climacus, Symeon the New Theologian, the hesychasts). Hesychasm and Palamism brought
about the final synthesis, in the context of a new Hellenistic revival (Barlaam, Gregoras).

161
Cf. J. Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture. The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the
Christian Encounter with Hellenism (New Haven and London: Yale University, 1993), pp. 40-73.
51

Such was Losskys approach to the concept of the vision of God. His treatment was much
debated. A positive evaluation of the Eastern Fathers traditional mysticism is given by L.
Bouyer. The Catholic writer absolves the mystical theology of Gregory of Nyssa and
Dionysius of being unfairly called Platonic, and defends the popular mysticism of the
Macarian Homilies, of Symeon the New Theologian, and of hesychasm, from the charge of
being crypto-Messalian. Bouyer admires the spiritual pragmatism and the biblical character
of the Eastern tradition, in which it is the heart rather than the nous (the intellect) and the
whole of man rather than the soul alone that are the keywords for the insertion of the mystery
into us.162 This shows also the superiority of the Eastern objective mysticism,
concentrating not on the religious emotions of the believer, but on the sensitivity granted by
the mysterious ecclesial presence of Christ, the Mystery par excellence.163 On the other
hand, Sherwood, a Catholic theologian, appreciates the historical overview offered by
Lossky, but is concerned with the idea of participation in God and the Palamite theological
method.164 Williams disapproves of Losskys over-schematic exegesis of the patristic
historical evolutions.165 To argue in favour of the via media of Dionysius and Palamas,
Lossky seems to overstate the ecstatic Platonist interpretation, the errors of Clement and
Origen while, at the same time, underestimating the Neoplatonist difficulties of Gregory of
Nyssa and Dionysius. This is why, against Lossky, the whole idea of a coherent orthodox
tradition is one that is neither purely historical nor purely theological, and the criterion of
existential encounter with God seems to be too much the philosophical echo of modern
existentialists such as Heidegger or Sartre.166

162
L. Bouyer, The Christian Mystery. From Pagan Myth to Christian Mysticism (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1990), p. 284.
163
In contrast with the modern conception of mysticism, reducing it to certain states of soul which can be
studied in more or less complete abstraction from the object which attracts them, there is the conception of the
Fathers for us to return to according to which it is this object, the Mystery, active and effective by its presence
alone, that determines what can legitimately be called mystical in Christian experience. L. Bouyer, The
Christian Mystery, pp. 285-286. For similar appraisal, see A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical
Tradition, pp. XII-XV, 191ff.
164
Cf. P. Sherwood, Glorianter Vultum Tuum, Christe Deus. Reflections on reading Losskys Vision of God,
SVTQ 10 (1966), pp. 195-206. Meyendorffs response insists on the necessity of validating theological
developments in accordance with the continuity and the content of the New Testament revelation. See J.
Meyendorff, Philosophy, Theology, Palamism, and Secular Christianity, SVTQ 10 (1966), pp. 203-208.
165
The desire to present a clear and straightforward evolution in the history of Eastern spirituality towards
Palamite apophaticism and incarnationalism coexists a little uneasily with the demands of strict scholarly
justice. R.D. Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky. An Exposition and Critique, p. 78.
166
R.D. Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky. An Exposition and Critique, p. 91. Some of
Williams objections were adopted by K. Ware, for whom Losskys approach has reduced the Patristic
evidence too much to a single pattern, and does not allow sufficiently for the varieties of expression from one
52

3.5 Stniloaes critique of Lossky


A comparison between Stniloaes and Losskys treatment of apophaticism shows that in
many ways their understanding of the theme is the same. However, the difference between
them is revealed by Stniloae himself, who sees Losskys apophaticism as legitimate so long
as it does not take an extremist position.167 For Lossky, in order to experience the divine
incognoscibility, it is preferable not to have a kind of Platonic purification, but a renunciation
of the whole created realm, an existential self-surpassing, engaging the whole man in a supra-
conceptual union with God. This mystical union is a new state that presupposes
transmutations, from created to uncreated, and finally theosis. Although Losskys general
understanding of apophaticism is correct, for it is true that apophaticism is definitely present
in all stages of spiritual ascension, Stniloae emphasises the fact that it is not an exclusive
presence. For instance, when we talk about human knowledge, this is, in a sense, intermingled
with the incognoscibility of God or part of the same experience. In common with Palamas,
Stniloae suggests that, at this stage in our experience, we should even cease to call it
knowledge due to its supra-abundance. Stniloae thinks that Lossky fails to make a clear
distinction between the incognoscibility on the inferior level and its presence on the superior
level. As has been seen, Lossky distinguishes between apophaticism as a union of mans spirit
with God, and negative theology as an intellectual operation that occupies an inferior stage.
However, asks Stniloae, If the incognoscibility of God has a similar wholeness with
knowledge on the superior stages, how could we distinguish between the apophaticism of
union and intellectual apophaticism? In reality, the interpretation given by Lossky leads
indirectly to Thomism, since the supreme stage in the knowledge of God is an alternation
between the positive knowledge of God from nature and the knowledge that accepts that He
is beyond all that nature may reveal about Him. Indeed, Lossky interprets the vision of divine
light not as a knowledge of something from God, but as the supreme awakening of mans
self-consciousness.168 This is a natural result since he believes in a total incognoscibility of
God. What Stniloae is denouncing here in Losskys insight is the overstress on apophaticism

Father to another, and even within the writings of a single author. See Ware, K., The Debate about
Palamism, ECR 9 (1977), p. 62.
167
Besides Lossky, Stniloae mentions also Yannaras, who attributes no value to affirmative theology, while
we acknowledge that it has a certain necessity for expressing apophatic experience, although we are always
aware of its insufficiency. Cf. D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 122 (n. 1).
168
But instead of the divine darkness there is now light, insted of forgetfulness of self, the full flowering of
personal consciousness of grace. V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 231.
53

at the expense of the vision of divine light and the idea of growth in the knowledge of God. In
this way Losskys view of the total incognoscibility of God is indeed disconnecting him
from the traditional Palamism, fully supported by Stniloae. In spite of the fact that he knows
very well the distinction between divine essence and energies, concludes Stniloae, Lossky
fails to apply it on the epistemological level. The main reason of this deficiency is that Lossky
was not preoccupied with the other stages of apophaticism.169 From an epistemological
point of view, Stniloaes approach seems to be much different.

4. Patristic influence in Stniloae


Stniloae is much indebted to the Greek Fathers in his theological approach. Like his
predecessors, Stniloae is one who rediscovered and effectively developed the mystical
tradition in Christianity for his generation. Stniloaes summary of the doctrine of the
knowledge of God has provided a fine example of theological reflection emerging from
historical inquiry and faithfulness to the patristic tradition. In favour of the inevitable
interaction between apophatic and cataphatic, Stniloae appeals to the Church Fathers, such
as Gregory of Nazianzus,170 Gregory of Nyssa,171 Dionysius the Areopagite (who
everywhere combines apophatic knowledge with cataphatic),172 Maximus the Confessor,173

169
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, pp. 188-195.
170
Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 28.6, 28.3 (PG 36, 32C-33A, 29AB).
171
Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica Magna 3 (PG 45, 17CD); De Vita Moysis (PG 44, 377, 380, 381BD,
388. For more on apophaticism in the Cappadocian Fathers, see D.J. Gendle, The Apophatic Approach to God
in the Early Greek Father, with Special Reference to the Alexandrian Tradition, Doctorate dissertation
(Oxford, 1974), pp. 290-406.
172
Dionysius speaks about a spiritual progress in one who knows God. Stniloae writes: In knowledge that
can be given expression, therefore he does not merely see a sum of intellectual affirmations, partly positive
and partly negative - as scholastic theology practiced these modes of knowing - but rather, and above all,
knowledge from experience that has recourse to terms of affirmation and negation only in expressing itself,
inasmuch as the consciousness of God's mystery is simultaneously implied in the things which are known
about God. D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 109. Cf. Dionysius, On the Divine Names 1.5 (PG 3,
593); The Mystical Theology 1, 2 (PG 3, 1000B).
173
Maximus understands in a similar way the complementarity between the apophatic and cataphatic
theologies when he writes: Negation and affirmation, which are opposite to each other, are reconciled in
God, in whom each absorbs the other. The negation that signifies that God is not a being but a non-being
agrees with the affirmation that this not-being is: and the affirmation that He is, which does not affirm what
He is, agrees with the negation that denies that He is something. Affirmation and negation in relation to each
other display opposition, but in relation to God the affinity of meeting extremes. Maximus, Ambigua 30 (PG
91, 1288C1-11). See I.P. Sheldon-Williams, The Greek Christian Platonist Tradition from the Cappadocians
to Maximus and Eriugena, pp. 492-505.
54

and Gregory Palamas.174. Indeed, apophasis without cataphasis is empty, and cataphasis
without apophasis lacks mystery and depth.
It has been demonstrated that, for Stniloae, apophaticism is that total attitude of reserve,
contemplative wonder, controlling his whole theological enterprise. Stniloae points out that
because of the infinity of God, man never hopes finally to grasp the divine nature, and his
search for God must therefore be an infinite quest, and a progress into darkness.175 This
aspect of Stniloae thought is obviously borrowed first of all from the Cappadocians. The
pressure of heresy led the Cappadocians to an explicit extension of fullness of divinity to the
Son and the Holy Spirit. In oikonomia the paradox of the God at once unknown and well
known becomes most marked, an antithesis that defies logical analysis. Beyond that, in
theologia the supreme antinomy of the inner life of God, revealed as three-in-one, becomes
the primary locus of apophaticism, not the unitary simplicity of the divine ousia, considered
apart from the persons. Bouyer remarks that with the Eunomian view, which is that the divine
essence is fully knowable to human reason, the whole of Greek rationalism refused to accept
the Christian mystery.176. Although the Cappadocians too were intellectuals not averse to
speculation, their great achievement was to proclaim the mystery of God.
Stniloae mentions Basil the Great among those who stress the utter inadequacy of all human
language in speaking of God.177 Stniloae sees a clear link between Basil and Palamas in a
locus classicus, where Basil writes that while we affirm that we know our God in His
energies, we scarcely promise that He may be approached in His very essence. For although
His energies descend to us, His essence remains inaccessible.178 For these theologians we
know God not by intellectual analysis, but by experiencing His transforming presence in us.

174
For example, Palamas says: Apophatic theology does not contradict or void the cataphatic; it merely
demonstrates that what we say of God may be true and rightly said, only these things are not with God in the
same manner as with us. Gregory Palamas, Capita 123 (PG 150, 1205D); cf. Contra Akindynum 1.6.2.
175
Like Clement and Gregory of Nyssa. Andrew Louth observes that the theme of divine darkness, without
any parallelism in Platonism, expresses the radical departure from the Platonic vision where the soul (or the
intellect) and the divine are consubstantial (Plato) or coeternal (Origen). Louth insists on the apparent
affiliation between Augustine and Plotinus mysticism, and on the contrast between Augustine and the Greek
Fathers. If, on the one hand, for Augustine the unmediated vision of God is limited to Moses and Paul, and
the beatific vision is one of divine essence, on the other hand, for the Greek Fathers this is the goal of earthly
mystical life, seeing the glory but never attaining the divine essence. Cf. A. Louth, The Origins of the
Christian Mystical Tradition, pp. 133, 138.
176
L. Bouyer, The Spirituality of the New Testament and of the Fathers (London: Burns & Oates, 1963), p.
333.
177
D. Stniloae, Sfntul Vasile cel Mare, p. 55.
178
D. Stniloae, Sfntul Vasile cel Mare, p. 54. Cf. Basil, Epistola 234.1 (PG 32, 869). In a different passage,
Basil writes that the divine energies are not created extrapolations of God, and so open to intellection, objects
55

However, the question as to how God can be known in His energies yet unknown in essence
remains insoluble.179
Against the alleged Eunomian dictum that God does not know His own being any better than
we do, Gregory of Nazianzus states the radical unknowability of the divine essence as
grounded not so much in our sin as in the fact that we are finite creatures, and God is the
transcendent Creator. Thus the epistemological gulf has a permanent ontological ground.180
The knowledge of God for Gregory is not just an intellectual apprehension of truth ab
externo: one is transformed by what one contemplates. Theosis is a supernatural reintegration
of man in God, beyond the contradictions of discursive reason and the multiplicity of matter.
Gregory has a high view of the divine origin of the soul, which is from God and partakes of
the heavenly nobility. The recovery of this godlike image was the purpose of the incarnation,
that we might recover the character of God to become sons of God and God Himself. God
will be known, as far as is humanly possible, when the divine part in us has mingled with its
like, and the image has ascended to the Archetype, for which it now has a yearning.181 The
Christian life is a process of the restoration of that image originally implanted in us at our first
creation, which gives us the capacity for knowledge of God.182 One notices here the stress on
the inherent incapacity of the soul. Like Stniloaes intuitive element and Losskys
irrational residue, for Nazianzus theosis is in fact the fulfilment of that affinity to God
implanted in man by the Creator, but overlaid by the fall. Our approach to God will always be
marked by frustration, touching God, but not laying hold of Him.183 The epistemology of

of thought like all created things. They are God the Holy Spirit at work in the world, and share that
ineffability that is His by nature. Cf. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, 49 (PG 32, 165).
179
In Basils profoundly spiritual and personal account of mans approach to God, one may note a radical
correction of Greek intellectualism. Worship is a more appropriate response to the mystery of God than
curious speculation. The vision of God is not an intellectual achievement on the part of man, but a divine gift
that comes through a total life in the Holy Spirit. In this process, the Spirit is not only the agent, but
paradoxically, as Basil admits, the place (chora) of our sanctification. Yet in the Spirit, the apophatic paradox
of the Christian God is seen most sharply. The Spirit remains the most hidden, the most mysterious person of
the Trinity. He effaces Himself to reveal, in a totally ineffable way, the mystery of the Father and the Son.
Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, 62 (PG 32, 183)
180
The human nous when confronted by the infinity of God explains the innate inadequacy of theological
language. Realisation of the limits imposed in our minds by our status as creatures, is the absolute sine qua
non of any genuine theology.
181
Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 2.17 (SC 247, pp. 112-113).
182
Gregory draws on the Platonic analogue of the sun to illustrate his theme: God is to the nous what the sun
is to the eyes, illuminating and gladdening the intelligibles as the sun does the sensibles. This is why every
rational nature longs for God. Our nous longs to transcend bodily things... gazing with inherent weakness at
what is beyond its strength. Cf. Oratio 2.13 (SC 247, pp. 106-107).
183
Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 2.75 (SC 247, pp. 188-189).
56

Stniloae in relation with theosis finds, therefore, a common ground with Gregorys belief in
this longing impelled by love of God that provides the dynamic of the spiritual ascent.
The importance of Gregory of Nyssa in order to understand Stniloaes epistemological basis
of deification lies not in the originality of his negative terminology, but in the theological
rigour with which he used it to defend the transcendence of God. The result is to dispose of
Origens notion of koros (spiritual satiation), and to reveal the Christian life as an infinite
pursuit. It follows from this that Christian perfection is neither a static visio Dei, a fixed
contemplative state, nor can it be a monistic absorption into the One. Gregorys negative
theology is not agnosticism, but a firm declaration of Gods initiative. However, to
comprehend God by our powers - the blasphemous claim of Eunomius - would mean either
that the human intellect could transcend time (an impossibility) or that God Himself is
contained in time (an idolatry).184 This is why Christianity is the way of faith and love,
precisely because God cannot be attained by human knowledge. Gregory teaches that it is the
tension between the polarities of finite and infinite, mans yearning after the infinite God, that
provides the dynamic for mans endless spiritual advance. The dialectic serves only to protect
and sustain contemplative silence.
In particular, when he discusses the third stage of apophatic knowledge, Stniloae makes
appeal to Palamas. Thus the inexpressible yet real distinction between the incomprehensible
essence and the self-disclosing energies, tentatively worked out by the Cappadocians and
more fully explored by Dionysius, is found in Palamas as natural to the character of theology.
Palamism has been defined as an existentialist theology, because it opposes all essentialist
notions that fail to reckon with the reality of divine action. When Palamas discusses the
mystical encounter of creature and Creator, it is not in terms of a Platonic ecstasis, nor of a
Plotinian happy unconsciousness, but of a union of the divine and human wills. Palamas was
led ultimately to the conviction that the purely apophatic way is not adequate for the
realisation of the divine encounter.185 This apophaticism of person shows, as it will become
obvious throughout this study, a particular connection between Stniloae and Palamas in
developing the concept of theosis.

184
Gregory of Nyssa, In Ecclesiasten Homiliae VII (Jaeger V, pp. 411-414).
185
Let no one assume that the great men had in mind an ascent by negation (when speaking of the ultimate
union). Such an ascent is possible for anyone who wills it, but it does not transpose the soul to the dignity of
angels; it may free the reason from other beings, but it cannot by itself achieve union with the transcendent
things. Gregory Palamas, Triads 1.3.21
57

5. Conclusions
The essential point, then, that has emerged so far in our discussion is that Stniloae sees the
final stage of mystical knowledge as the stage of deification or union with God. To say that
someone is united with God is to say that he is deified. Indeed, mans participation in the
knowledge of God through supra-rational knowledge and union with Him is possible because
there is no separation between Gods knowledge in respect of creatures and in respect of
Himself.186 The idea of Gods knowledge through union presupposes the personal character
of both God and the man who knows. They possess things in common, writes Stniloae,
but the kind of union excludes the idea of reciprocity, although they bear the seal of the
personal relationship between Himself and men. The idea of reciprocity is derived from the
dynamic reciprocal interiority of the persons (perichoresis) in the Trinity. If there were no
trinitarian love, neither would there be knowledge of God or any possibility of knowledge and
love between God and created persons.187 In reality human subjects are not fully united with
God, this union being in progress and assisted by God along this road. In Stniloaes words:

God is found in creatures as a potentiality leading them gradually to the actualization


of union with Him and of their own final perfection. From the very moment when
they recognize Him simply as the cause of things, God sees the creatures who have
set out on this road - those, therefore, who are found in a certain real union with
Him and thus are on the road towards their own full actualization and towards total
union with Him. And this recognition is itself always a faith in Him.188

In Dionysian language, God is united with believers because they recognise Him as cause, and
is somehow united also with unbelievers as their cause. God can always be known through
the creatures, through analogy.189 Stniloae uses the means of analogy in an ontological
sense and as bearing an epistemological value. As in Dionysius,190 Stniloae understands
analogy as a mode of being, a proportion of beings in relation to each other. The
proportionality of beings makes possible the knowledge that is based on comparison, and as a
result, for Stniloae, analogy is transformed into an epistemological instrument. Although

186
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 200.
187
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 202-204.
188
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 205.
189
For Dionysius, see On the Divine Names 7.3 (PG 3, 872).
190
Dionysius says that the things of God are revealed to each mind in proportion (analogia) to its
capacities, and the Good... granting enlightenments proportionate (analogois) to each being... Dionysius,
On the Divine Names 1.1, 2 (PG 3, 588A,C).
58

God is not an object, the analogy of relationship that exists between believers and God
implies that, in one sense, God must be objectified.191
Salvation then is the concrete expression of deification through the synergetic equilibrium
between the free-will of the believer and the power of uncreated energies mediated by the
Holy Spirit in a mystical form.
Stniloae understands deification in two senses. First, there is a large or comprehensive
sense, which includes the act of baptism and extends throughout the spiritual ascension of
man in purification and illumination. In this sense, deification prevails throughout mans
whole earthly life. This is the dimension of faith and good works, of advancement through the
power of the Spirit and potentially finalised in seeing the divine light.192 At baptism, the will is
the first capacity of our nature that receives the spiritual light of the incarnate Logos.193 This
means that at baptism our human nature is freed in its rational-personal intimacy from the
irrational, contrary and subpersonal power of sin, although still retaining in itself the infirmity
of irrational habit.194 Stniloaes personalism works again by identifying this conflict with the
action of personalization and full rationalisation of human nature. Mans personal character
is progressively strengthened. This implies a full imprint of Christs hypostasis in mans
person, opening up a strong communion between them. By participation in Christ, man
becomes a full person, that is, a full communitary being, freed from the prison of selfish
passions.195 Therefore, in Orthodox theology, the reconstitution of the true nature of man by
removing the state contrary to nature through the power of the Spirit, is conceived as the first
expression of mans deification.196 In conclusion, deification in this broader sense means the
ontological reconstitution of human nature - a dynamic advancement, and a permanent
openness and encounter with God and humans - through the operation of divine grace in man
and together with man.
Second, deification implies a narrow or strict sense, with reference to the ceaseless aspect of
mans deification beyond the furthest limit of human natures capacities. The axiom of this

191
Lossky suggests that analogy is the means by which created beings participate in the virtues of God, that is,
His self-expression through the various levels of reality. Analogy is not a passive quality, but it is closely
related to free will and love.
192
D. Stniloae, Faptele Bune n nvtura Ortodox i Catolic, Ortodoxia 4 (1954), p. 510.
193
Similarly, Pelikan writes that these two, Logos and light, were, along with the trinitarian metaphor of
Father and Son as invoked in the language of the baptismal formula, central metaphors employed by the
church in its language about the relation between the first and the second hypostasis of the Trinity. J.
Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture, p. 44.
194
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 351.
195
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 352.
59

aspect is found in the maximal deification of Christs humanity in His resurrection and
ascension. Our personal deification is understood then as transcending human attributes and
actions to participate in divine attributes and actions. If deification in the broad sense meant
mans ascending to the highest level of his natural powers, deification in the narrow sense
comprises mans progress beyond the limit of his natural powers, beyond the boundaries of
his nature, into the divine plane, beyond nature.197 Although these two senses are distinct,
there is also a continuity, as that between two stages of the same ascent. The leap between
the two stages is realised by the ministry of grace: in the first stage man cooperates with
divine grace, while in the second the work is exclusively divine.
Stniloae is aware of the difficulty of relating deification with human nature. The replacement
of human natures activities with that of the divine, creates inescapable problems. Therefore
Stniloae appeals to Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus, and Palamas in order to defend his position,
namely, that human nature can be elevated beyond its limits in the process of deification.198
From Gregory of Nyssa, Stniloae borrows the idea of progress, from Maximus that of the
souls ever-moving rest, and from Palamas the idea of the experience of divine light. No
doubt, for the above theologians deification is according to grace not according to nature.
The nature of deified man remains unchanged, in the sense that it does not become the source
of divine energies, because they are part of this nature by grace. Therefore the nature of man
united with the divine energies operates as a medium for the manifestation of these energies.
Human energies and attributes are not suspended, but overwhelmed.199 That does not mean
that the deified man becomes totally insensitive, for he is experiencing the new state as god
according to grace, but at the same time being conscious of his creatureliness according to
nature. This is possible only because he has received the divine energies. On the other hand,
that does not necessarily involve an expansion of his power for natural activity. It means only
the expansion of the receptive capacity to receive and to use divine energies.200 Man
possesses this receptive power for spiritual purposes, one of them being to attain deification.
It is here that, finally, Stniloae defines the spiritual condition of deified man:

196
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 309.
197
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 310.
198
Stniloae quotes from Maximus, Capete Gnostice I.55, II.88 (Filocalia II, pp. 143, 203); Opuscula
Theologica et Polemica (PG 91, 33); Gregory Palamas, Cuvnt III (Filocalia VII, pp. 303-304); and Gregory
of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium V (Jaeger 2.3, p. 119). See P.M. Blowers, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the
Confessor, and the Concept of Perpetual Progress, Vigiliae Christianae 30.1 (1976), pp. 63-71.
199
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 317.
200
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 311.
60

He is tasting a divine blissfulness, but with the consciousness of a creature; he is


experiencing in himself divine powers, but with the wonder of one who realizes that
they are not from himself. In other words, he is god, while never stopping to be at
the same time man; he is god through the things he is accomplishing by his qualities,
but aware that he is a god by the grace of the one and almighty God.201

In one word, deification is mans transition from the level of created things to the level of
uncreated things, that is to the level of divine energies. Finally, it is the experience of the
unending assimilation of divine energies.202
One final remark on the doctrine of union with God in Stniloae, a doctrine that summarises
his spiritual understanding of theosis very well. The true sense of Christian union with God, in
Stniloaes view, avoids the idea of a pantheist identification between man and God.
Nevertheless, Christian teaching boldly affirms the possibility of union with God or
participation in Him, by grace. Methodologically, Stniloae tries to prove that in principle
there could be conceived an unmediated contact with the divinity. For such, his approach tries
to offer a balanced view for the diametrical interpretations of the mystery of identity and the
irreducible separation between man and God.
Thus Stniloae suggests two principles. First, based on the principle of creation, Stniloae
specifies that the world as divine creation excludes any emanation of particles from Gods
being, thus any identity with Him. However, this world, as the manifestation of Gods will,
was also the manifestation of His active power. Therefore each particular thing from this
world has, even in its intimacy, the unmediated presence of one active power of God.203 In
addition, Stniloae stresses that in general human minds hold the previous evidence of a trans-
objective reality, and the evidence of an infinite reality. Created mind has therefore an impulse
for the knowledge of God and an implicit certitude about Him. In such a context, Stniloae
speaks about minds unmediated tie with reality that is perceived as through a kind of
darkness. As human beings, we are related to God through our mind and through the
constitutional, personal and ontological longing. In contrast with the dialectic Protestant
theology - which over-emphasised the singularity of the word as mode of revelation and so

201
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 318.
202
From now on there is only one energy of God and the saints, writes Clment. Or, in Maximus words:
The creature, having by deification become God, no longer displays any energy other than the divine, so that
in everything from now on there is only one energy belonging to God and to his elect, or rather, henceforward
there is only God, because the whole of his being, as is proper to love, enters into the whole of the being of his
elect. Maximus, Ambigua 7 (PG 91, 1076), cited by O. Clment, The Roots of Christian Mysticism (London,
Dublin, Edinburgh: New City, 1993), p. 267.
61

the insufficiency of any contact between man and God - the Orthodox theology admits the
function of the revelatory word in establishing a mystical communication between creature
and Creator. The extension given to the word of prophets, for example, implies the idea of
irradiation of the divine power from the revelatory word, spoken by the prophets, towards the
human soul. We are dealing here with the prolongation of the divine power towards human
creatures, ending in the event of faith. Faith as encounter between two persons, one divine
and the other human, is an encounter through something proper to each person. It is a real
relation, a true encounter through the spiritual energy of attention.204 Stniloae makes
appeal to the Fathers, who spoke about minds sensitivity, that is, the minds direct contact
with Gods spiritual reality. Applying the creational model, Stniloae sustains once more the
ontological relation between man and God, excluding mans transformation into a divine
substance.
Second, Stniloae rejects mans union with God as real identification, by engaging the
principle of personalism. It was impossible for creation, affirms Stniloae, to come into
existence by emanation or involuntary unfolding from His being, because God is an absolute
sovereign person. Stniloae observes that an identification of man with God could imply the
human beings disappearance as a distinctive being, or the worlds as a distinct reality, if a
personal reciprocity does not operate. This is why God has decided to reveal Himself and to
manifest His grace towards humanity as sign of His freedom and love, overwhelming human
persons with His gifts and powers: but this is union not identification. Gods initiative in
offering divine grace does not mean that our human being was changed into divine being.
Rather, says Stniloae, Christian human being remains as such according to nature, but
becomes Christ according to divine powers that work within the renewed person.205
For Stniloae, there are two elements that essentially distinguish the Christian spirituality
from any other form of spirituality: its refusal in affirming the essential identification of man
with divinity, and its Christological character. Any other kind of union except union through
Christ and in Christ is an illusion. This Christocentrism is emphasised by the role of the
mysteries as means through which Christ dwells in man, that is, as sources of divine power
indispensable for the ascetic efforts and for the mysterious union living with Christ.206
Consequently, Orthodox spirituality holds a pneumato-ecclesiological character, because

203
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 15.
204
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, pp. 19-22.
205
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, pp. 22-23.
62

where Christ is through the mysteries there also is the Church through the Spirit of
communion.

206
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 44.
63

CHAPTER III. THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS OF DEIFICATION: ESSENCE


AND ENERGIES

1. General background
The apophatic-cataphatic method applied by Stniloae in understanding the entire process of
theosis uses as a basic ingredient the distinction between Gods being and His acts.207 This
means that knowledge of God is not theoretical but a real participation in His uncreated
energies. Called also powers, actions, or divine operations, the energies become a key
concept in the understanding of Stniloaes doctrine of deification, for the entire dynamism
or movement of creation towards deification has its cause in the dynamism of the divine
operations which aim at leading creation towards deification.208 Since the question of this
distinction leads to very complex issues, only those aspects that are directly connected with
the theme of mans deification will be discussed in this study.
In our previous discussion of Stniloaes apophatic theology, inherited especially from the
writings of Dionysius, Maximus and Palamas, it has already been shown how this theology is
deeply imbued with the sense of the divine transcendence and the immanence of God in His
creation, whether spiritual or corporeal, sustaining a real as opposed to a metaphorical
deification. To explain this contrast, between the transcendence and the immanence of God,
Stniloae thoroughly accepts the division between theologia and oikonomia,209 and also
makes appeal to a mysterious distinction in the very nature of God. Like the Cappadocian
theologians, Stniloae applies theologia strictly to the statements about the Triune God, and

207
Stniloaes earliest published book on Palamas, Viaa i nvtura Sfntului Grigorie Palama (1938),
including a detailed presentation of the debate on the distinction between essence and energies, was to set the
tone for a very large part of his subsequent work and thought. Few scholars of this century have provided so
devoted a study of the historical and theological expressions of the Palamism. Stniloae also translated parts
from Palamas works in Filocalia 7 (Bucureti, 1977) with a short but relevant introduction. Stniloae even
made the proposal, in 1972, for a future general synod of the Eastern Orthodox Church, that the theme of the
divine energies should become central for the discussions, being also central in understanding the unity of the
Church for mans salvation. Cf. D. Stniloae, Opinii n Legtur cu Viitorul Sfnt i Mare Sinod Ortodox,
Ortodoxia 3 (1973), pp. 425-440.
208
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 128. See also D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i Biseric,
Ortodoxia 2 (1974), p. 223, and Dumnezeu este Iubire, Ortodoxia 3 (1971), pp. 368-371. G. Florovsky
asserts that the concept of 'divinization' was crystallized only when the doctrine of God's 'energies' had been
explicated once and for all by the teaching of Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas. See G.
Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, in Collected Works, vol. III (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1976) p. 76.
209
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic i Simbolic, vol. I, pp. 333f. For a comprehensive treatment of this
subject in Stniloae, see Iconomia n Biserica Ortodox, Ortodoxia 2 (1963), pp. 152-186, and Iconomia
Dumnezeiasc, Temei al Iconomiei Bisericeti, Ortodoxia 1 (1969), pp. 3-24.
64

oikonomia to the central fact of divine economy, that is the incarnation.210 At the same time,
in order to make a clear distinction between knowledge of God's being and knowledge of His
acts in creation, Stniloae adopts from the Greek Fathers the key categories of ousia,
hypostasis, and energeiai as essential to the whole Orthodox theological system. This is a
triad working at the same time as a leitmotif or a unifying theme throughout this study.211

2. Stniloae and the divine uncreated energies


Stniloae employs the distinction between the being and the operations of God as the starting
point in his epistemology, an approach that is a new and significant development, so far as
works of modern Orthodox dogmatic theology are concerned and thus the first dogmatic in
which the distinction is seen as fundamental to the Orthodox understanding of God.212
Against the Greek concept that God is an eternal static and incommunicable substance, and
against the recent Western idea of a God wholly involved in becoming, Stniloae decided to
build up his systematic thinking firmly established in the patristic view of a living, eternal and

210
Florovsky thinks that theologia and oikonomia must be clearly and strictly distinguished and delimited,
although they could not be separated from each other. G. Florovsky, The Concept of Creation in Saint
Athanasius, SP 81 (1962), p. 48. Moreover, behind this distinction, observes Florovsky, stands another
distinction, that between nature and will. Bound up with this further distinction is the distinction in God
between 'essence' (ousia) and 'that which surrounds the essence,' 'that which is related to the nature.' G.
Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, p. 63.
211
See I. Bria, The Creative Vision of D. Stniloae, ER 33.1 (1981), p. 33. Similarly, Yannaras considers
that in these three basic categories, theology summarises the mode of existence of God, the world, and man,
while Ware asserts that it is impossible to understand any aspect of Orthodox theology or spirituality without
taking into account the dogma of the distinction-in-unity between the essence of God and His uncreated
energies. Cf. C. Yannaras, Elements of Faith, p. 43, and K. Ware, God Hidden and Revealed: The
Apophatic Way and the Essence-Energies Distinction, p.136. In the same context, Stniloae considers that
Bulgakovs erroneous theory about Sophia originated because of this lack of distinction between theologia and
oikonomia. He identified divine energies and the eternal ideas of the created things with divine being, and
thus called them the uncreated Sophia. Sophia is divine being poured out into the world, so the world is a
reproduction of divine being, substance from divine substance. Some consequences are disastrous: man
becomes god by nature, not by grace; the eternal apophaticism disapears; divinity is understood as immanent
and changeable; and the world becomes a necessity for God. See D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic i
Simbolic, vol. I, p. 333; Cf. S. Bulgakov, The Wisdom of God. A Brief Summary of Sophiology (New York
and London, 1937). See also the Catholic analysis of J. ODonnell, The Trinitarian Pantheism of Sergej
Bulgakov, Gregorianum 76.1 (1995), pp. 31-45, and A. Nichols, Bulgakov and Sophiology, in Scribe of
the Kingdom. Essays on Theology and Culture, vol. II (London: Sheed & Ward, 1994), pp. 1-19.
212
A very significant observation made by K. Ware in the Foreword to The Experience of God, (p. xxi); see
also K. Ware, God Hidden and Revealed: The Apophatic Way and the Essence-Energies Distinction, p. 136.
Stniloae is also considered one of the modern Orthodox theologians who represent the school of neo-
Palamism, together with Lossky, Meyendorff, Nellas, Yannaras, Ware, etc. This is why it is suprising to find
Rowan Williams asserting, unconvincingly for this author, that for Lossky it is the nature-person distinction
which is of more central importance to his theology than essence-energies distinction. See R.D. Williams,
The Theology of Personhood: A Study of the Thought of Christos Yannaras, Sobornost 6 (1972), p. 421.
65

personal God, the living God of the Scriptures, of prayer and of liturgy.213 Stniloaes
concern, however, is how to give an accurate interpretation of the relationship between the
divine stability and mobility. Western theology, suggests Stniloae, could not provide another
alternative in reconciling Gods immutability with His becoming or historicity except by
ratifying the Palamite distinction between Gods immutable being and His inexhaustibly
diverse uncreated energies. Stniloae mentions as an example the Catholic theologian Hans
Kng who came closer to the Eastern alternative when he accepted the possibility of God in
His eternal freedom to manifest Himself in various ways. However, even in the case of Kng
it is hard to avoid the oversimplification of Gods mystery.214 As we shall see later, Stniloae
himself speaks about the possibilities of Gods being to be manifested in various ways as the
evidence of His freedom. Nonetheless, these possibilities should not be understood as merely
potencies looking for their fulfilment, but the confirmation of an abounding existence that can
produce other existences. The mystery of God remains unchangeable, but God manifests
Himself in unending and eternal varying acts of love,215 the indirect reference here being to
the uncreated energies. Thus, concludes Stniloae, at least to the extent that it concerns the
energy of creating, the Palamite distinction does allow for potentiality, for God can add to His
creation whenever He wishes.
Several central propositions affirmed by Stniloae are pertinent to this understanding of the
role of the uncreated energies in deification.

2.1 The trinitarian basis of the uncreated energies


First, Stniloae expands the Palamite distinction by trying to localise the existence of the
energies in the trinitarian life. God's knowledge regarding Himself is not separate from His
knowledge regarding creatures.216 God is the same in the mystery of His being and in His
historical manifestations. God's coming into the world is through His energies, which are

213
D. Stniloae, Dumnezeu este Iubire, p. 366. Stniloae sees in the works of Hans Kng, Paul Tillich and
The Death of God theology some representatives of an overstated ontology regarding the doctrine of God.
214
Cf. H. Kng, The Incarnation of God. An Introduction to Hegels Theological Thought as Prolegomena to
a Future Christology, tr. by J.R. Stephenson (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1987), pp. 530-538.
215
D. Stniloae, Dumnezeu este Iubire, p. 369.
216
Stniloae remarks: Western theology became entangled in discussion of the question as to whether God's
knowledge of Himself differs from His knowledge of creatures. Karl Barth maintains that God's knowledge in
respect of creatures is finite, inasmuch as these themselves are finite, while His knowledge in respect of
Himself is infinite since He is infinite. Catholic theology, on the contrary, asserts that God's knowledge is
infinite both in respect of Himself and in respect of creatures, for every act of God is infinite and, therefore
hence also his understanding (intellectu infinitus, according to the definition of the 1st Vatican Council). D.
Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 200.
66

neither the essence of God nor the persons in whom His being subsists integrally, but they
are 'around God's being.'217 Stniloae explains further that although the divine essence is
simple, inaccessible and ineffable, the energies are various and the means of His self-
disclosure.218
To articulate his monotheism, Stniloae makes it clear that we cannot speak of three
activities or three separate effects of Gods activity, and this clarification is done in a
pneumatological perspective. Stniloae exploits again the type of trinitarian language so
familiar and quintessential to him, so often re-encountered in his writings. Starting with the
realm of theologia, Stniloae writes that, due to His proper status in the Trinity, as the One
who proceeds from the Father and shines forth from the Son, the Holy Spirit introduces the
divine energies into creation and makes them intimate and proper to the creatures. Stniloae
clarifies this by stating that only in this trinitarian framework can we grasp the meaning of the
uncreated energies: these energies originate from the Father, are received by the Son in His
proper way and by the Spirit in His proper way together with the Son.219 As the Spirits
radiation from the Son holds also the radiance of the Son, in His coming to us, the radiance of
the Spirit is creating our radiance as sons of the Father and is strengthening in us the
perceptive sensitivity of God as our filial sensitivity. This actually reflects that true and
unique trinitarian sensitivity as a unique energy, while the persons remain distinct. The Spirit
shines forth a real light, a divine energy that becomes in our souls a power of knowledge and
love for God. In spite of the danger of confusing the levels of ousia and hypostasis, Stniloae
continues by explaining that, as the Spirit proceeds from the Father, the energy proceeds from
the essence of the source which is the Father. God comes out from His essence through love
in the Holy Spirit.220 Although the Spirit receives the energy in His proper way, the Spirits
being and energy are not distinct from those of the Son or the Father. The distinction exists
only when we take into account the modality in which the persons of the Trinity possesses
the being and activate the common energy. Each operation or energy is accomplished

217
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 102.
218
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 204.
219
D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i n Biseric, p. 223.
220
D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i n Biseric, p. 225. Stniloae rejects Evdokimovs attempt to
reconcile East and West on the issue of Filioque. The uncreated energy, specifies Stniloae, is not received by
the Spirit from the Father and the Son as from a single principle. D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i n
Biseric, p. 225. For P. Evdokimov, see LEsprit Saint dans la Tradition Orthodoxe (Paris: Cerf, 1969), p.
63, Romanian edition, Prezena Duhului Sfnt n Tradiia Ortodox (Bucureti: Anastasia, 1995), pp. 87-97.
67

together and with common joy by all three of trinitarian persons, but by each of them from
their personal status.221
When Stniloae moves to the realm of the oikonomia, he comes back to the idea that the
Holy Spirit brings the divine energy into the intimacy of human consciousness and produces a
sensitivity for God. This sensitivity, as the result of the uncreated energies that deify man, is
defined by Stniloae in its threefold relationship: (1) in relationship with God, a special
capacity of the soul to perceive God as distinct from the world; (2) in relationship with the
person himself, an accentuation of the human consciousness; and (3) in relationship with other
human beings, an intensive humanisation.222 It is interesting to note at this point that the belief
about the uncreated energies producing sensitivity in the human soul is directly connected
with the doctrine of theosis. And what is even more relevant for this study is the fact that in
all major aspects of Stniloaes concept of mans deification (including anthropology,
Christology and pneumato-ecclesiology) the motif of sensitivity is evident. It will become
obvious throughout this study that (1) in the anthropological aspect of deification, the Holy
Spirit introduces the uncreated energies in creation and in the human soul; (2) in the
Christological aspect of deification the hypostasis of the Spirit, united with the hypostasis of
the Son, penetrates through His energies, which are also of the Son, the assumed human
nature, making Himself ever more transparent through it; and that (3) in the pneumato-
ecclesiological aspect of deification, the same Holy Spirit uses the Church as the medium of
the manifestation of His uncreated energies.

2.2 The dynamic personalism of the uncreated energies


The second main characteristic of the distinction between essence and energies in Stniloaes
view is the dynamic personalism of the uncreated energies. Stniloae expands in a creative
way the Palamite distinction by locating the whole issue of the knowledge of God through the
uncreated energies into a personalistic framework. At the basis of the energies, writes
Stniloae, is the personally subsistent essence. Moreover, the direct knowledge of God is
possible only as far as the existence-giving, sustaining, and fulfilling operations of the
superexistent personal reality and as far as participation in the attributes manifested within
those operations.223 Stniloae understands these operations or energies as relations within

221
D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i n Biseric, p. 225.
222
D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i n Biseric, p. 229.
223
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 126, 136.
68

the divine being, relations that are above the relation itself and above all that God is not.224
However, God enfolds them and they are manifestations of His being: some are held as
relations with the eternal ideas of the world, and some energies as being virtually involved in
relation with the ideas of the world - those energies that are possibilities of being activated at
the worlds creation. However, they are not the sphere of ideas in the world, but it would be
more precise to say that the world of ideas in its entirety is contained in the divine energy.
The energy, therefore, is the passing of these ideas from power to action; they are the
attributes of God known by the creature. Consequently the energies are not abstract concepts
applicable to the divine essence, but living, personal forces, manifestations of a personal God.
They extend into the world and are, in opposition to essence, sharable, indivisibly divisible,
and capable up to a certain point of being thought and named.
What Stniloae suggests, then, is that some of the operations do not come forth from the
divine being in their active form eternally and independent of the will, but it is important to
make a distinction in them between potency and act.225 As potency they exist along with the
divine being in virtue of its existence. As acts or operations, however, they become potencies
only by Gods will. Even before creation, God might activate some of them as His relations
with the ideas of things. And because God can think everything from eternity, we may say
that there are countless relationships within Him from eternity.226 On the one hand, the divine
energies are the possibilities within Gods being of manifesting Himself in various ways, and,
on the other hand, they are the acts in which these possibilities may be manifested. Divine
being has by nature infinite possibilities of manifestation, because God is a free being. God
also has eternal relation with all that is not in His immediate vicinity, a manifestation of His
being as an eternal irradiation of it.227 God is surrounded eternally by what is around Him -
by His glory or by the unapproachable light - as a manifestation of what He is in His intimate
being.228 It is in this light that we may progressively ascend to know God, for He makes His
energies actual in a gradual fashion. Moreover, God Himself experiences together with us

224
Relation, as Stniloae applies it to the activities of God ad extra in the divine economy of creation and
salvation, bears the same meaning as when it is used in explaining the inner trinitarian life.
225
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic i Simbolic, vol. I, p. 327.
226
Cyprian Kern unholds a similar idea based on the fact that the divine energies are Gods relations with the
world. Cf. C. Kern, Les lments de la thologie de Grgoire Palamas, Irnikon 20 (1947), pp. 28-29, 164.
227
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic i Simbolic, vol. I, p. 328.
228
Cf. Gregory of Nazianzus, In Thephaniam, Oratio 38.7 (PG 36, 317B). See also V. Lossky, The Mystical
Theology, pp. 73f.
69

the expectant waiting (and hence time) on the plane of His energies and of His relations with
us.229
Stniloaes eagerness to explain the distinction between essence and energies often leads him
to make appeal to the analogical experience encountered in interpersonal relationships on the
human level. This experience involves various possibilities to conform ourselves even at the
time of our participation into other persons but, due to our limitations, still remaining with
our being and beyond any other relationship or becoming. For Stniloae, in fact, the
existent distinction between essence and energies explains the mystery of the person.
Basically, personhood is constituted in relationship.230 As all human beings, God can fully live
as person in Himself and in relationship with His creatures by participation and conformation
without ceasing to remain in Himself beyond them.231 However, Gods being is not defined
by the relationships with created human beings. The kind of relationship He has outside
Himself is determined by the inner relationship that characterises the trinitarian life. On their
side, human persons possess that capacity to participate in a real relationship with the eternal
God and to become radiating agencies of eternity. Moreover, taking Christs theandricity as
model, Stniloae affirms that, in human beings, our human energies are called to create room
for the divine energies and vice-versa, in order to become together theandric energies of the
believer and of God.232 Rooted in these two data, that is the distinction between essence and
energies and the ontological relationship man-God, Stniloae is able to sustain both the
paradox of Gods immutability in His being and His mutability in relation with His creatures.
An extensive analysis of Stniloaes doctrine of God shows that other basic attributes of God
- His absoluteness, eternity, omnipresence, omnipotency - are heavily influenced by the above
understanding.

2.3 The antinomic character of the uncreated energies

229
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 159.
230
Similarly, J.D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion (especially chapter 1), and The Doctrine of the Holy
Trinity: The Significance of the Cappadocian Contribution, in C. Schwbel (ed.), Trinitarian Theology
Today. Essays on Divine Being and Act (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), pp. 44-60.
231
Again Stniloae quotes from Kng in order to emphasise the paradox of stability and becoming: The
mystery is to be sought in the fact that God, to whom the metaphysicians out of fear of imperfection have
denied life and becoming, in fact lives, acts and becomes in perfection and from perfection. To accept this
would however involve a revision of the static, Parmenidean understanding of God. It does not imply a simple
decision for a philosophy of becoming as opposed to a philosophy of being. It means taking seriously the God
who is wholly other, in whom being and becoming, remaining in Himself and going out from Himself,
transcendence and descendence, are not mutually exclusive. H. Kng, The Incarnation of God, p. 533.
232
D. Stniloae, Dumnezeu este Iubire, p. 389.
70

Stniloae is aware of and accepts the paradox involved in this specific distinction. Generally,
the appeal to antinomy is characteristic of his theology. This antinomical attitude, met as well
in the trinitarian mystery, is repeated when he stipulates that although God effects something
on each occasion through a particular operation, yet He is wholly within each operation.233
This means that through each operation God produces or sustains a certain aspect of reality.
Indeed, God Himself is in each of these operations or energies, simultaneously, whole,
active, and beyond operation or movement.234 The operations are nothing other than the
attributes of God in motion. When Stniloae explains the personal relationship between God
and human being, the paradox becomes obvious:

By establishing the relationship with man, God enters into this relationship, on the
one hand, with all that is particular to Himself and, on the other hand, He enters only
with some of His energies; on the one hand, He becomes accessible in His whole
particularity and, on the other hand, remains inaccessible in His being; on the one
hand, He is modeling for men, enters into a becoming or historicity by participating
in their becoming and historicity and, on the other hand, He apprehends this
becoming or historicity only at the level of His energies or operations, not at the
level of His being.235

This does not imply, of course, a Neoplatonic emanation of the divine being in its operations,
but a communication of the divine being with the creatures in accordance with their capacity
of receptiveness. This is why Stniloae is careful to separate the acts by which God has
created and is now sustaining in existence all things, and the acts by which He enters in direct
communication with the creature. This makes it possible to speak of mans deification by
Gods penetration into the consciousness of human beings through other human creatures,
and/or by Gods transparency through His operations. This intimacy of touch between
God and human beings, alongside the dynamic idea of energetical communion, emphasise in
fact Stniloaes departure from the Cappadocians more restrained application of the notion
of divine energies. However, says Stniloae, it remains a mystery in what way the creating

233
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 125.
234
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 125. Similary, K. Ware holds that God's energies are God Himself
in relation with the world, God with us in K. Ware, God Hidden and Revealed: The Apophatic Way and
the Essence-Energies Distinction, p. 129. See also Dionysius, On the Divine Names 9.9 (PG 3, 916C).
Stniloae maintains the supremacy of divine operations in comparison with divine attributes, saying that we
only know the attributes of God in their dynamism, that is, through His operations.
235
D. Stniloae, Dumnezeu este Iubire, p. 370.
71

act of God, as uncreated act, has a created effect. This mystery has to be experienced, not
only thought.236
Not surprisingly, the main objection to this view is that, by admitting a distinction between
the divine inapprehensible being and the uncreated yet accessible energies, it will result in a
composite God.237 However, Stniloae strongly believes in the doctrine of simplicity and non-
composition in God. His response to all criticism is that the act does not make the being a
composite reality, but is a necessary manifestation of it.238 Specifically, the concept of being
in itself implies a source for its acts. We can conceive neither nature without power and
operation, nor power or operation without being. And because the status of the being does
not introduce composition within the being, similarly, the movement does not make the being
a composition.239 The operation is the manifestation of the intrinsic power, the movement of
the ontic power, as for instance is the movement of mind. A being without energy is an inert
being, in the same manner as an energy without being lacks consistency.240 Accordingly, the
unity of God is antinomic for our understanding, because it [our understanding] seeks to
reduce everything to an exclusive category. Gods unity, however, is various in its aspects,
operations, powers, or manifestations. This is why the unrestrained possibilities and
manifestations of God are unitary, in conformity with His being. At the same time, this
antinomy is rooted in the trinitarian mystery itself. As the relationship between operations is
antinomic, so is the relationship between the being and the operations.241 Finally, Stniloae
asserts his ignorance regarding the inner relation between essence and energies:

We experience nothing from God, in content, other than His varied operations that
have to do with the world, which is to say, in relation with us. Beyond this we know

236
D. Stniloae, Filocalia VII, p. 221. Ware specifies that we need to make a difference between the
uncreated energeia and the energima as the result of the energeia and part of the created order. It is possible
that earlier Greek Fathers, in certain passages where they speak about Gods energies, mean simply the
created effects of the divine activity; but in later Patristic theology a clear distinction is drawn between the
created effect and the uncreated energeia that causes it and maintains it in being. Cf. K. Ware, God Hidden
and Revealed: The Apophatic Way and the Essence-Energies Distinction, pp. 131-132.
237
Jugie considers this teaching not only a philosophical error: cest aussi, du point de vue Catholique, une
vritable hrsie. Cf. M. Jugie, Palamas Grgoire and Palamite (Controverse), in Dictionnaire de
Thologie Catholique XI/2, 1764.
238
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic i Simbolic, vol. I, p. 330.
239
Cf. Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum (PG 150, 1179), and Apology (PG 150, 1932D). While Maximus
develops the relation between nature and power in a Christological context, Palamas applies it in a trinitarian
one. Regarding the relation between nature and power, we may say that, in Palamas, there is evolution but not
discontinuity.
240
D. Stniloae, Viaa i nvtura Sfntului Grigorie Palama, p. 133.
241
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic i Simbolic, vol. I, p. 331.
72

that at their basis is the personally subsistent essence, but how it is, we do not know,
for it is an essence beyond essences.242

2.4 Summary
The explanation given by Stniloae to what he sees as the unavoidable distinction between
essence and energies in understanding theosis is exceptionally relevant. He advances a more
dynamic personalist meaning and value to the whole discussion about the trinitarian basis of
the distinction essence-energies, in comparison with Palamas more technical approach.
According to Stniloaes concept of deification-as-participation, the above observation is true
especially when this point is applied to the particular term participation. If by participation
we accept solely its technical connotation, that of possessing a part, then the whole matter
of deification becomes very confused and indistinct. On the other hand, it can be argued that,
by employing a more personalistic language, Stniloae succeeded in removing several
important suspicions that could be imputed against the whole idea of participation in God.
Although he uses the notion of participation, Stniloae prefers to speak about sharing in
Gods energies in the sense of reciprocal personal giving. In this instance there exists a related
rational distinction such as the one applied, for instance, to the idea of enhypostasia. If for
some people participation means just symbolic, nominal sharing, in Stniloaes mind
participation means real sharing. That is, sharing in Gods energies means that kind of
participation that can only be manifested by a person. In common with Palamas, Stniloae
believes that in the process of deification we become in a certain sense uncreated by our
sharing into the divine uncreated energy; although not natural, there is surely a personal
possession.
Therefore, Stniloae affirms certain basic characteristics as regards the divine energies. First,
the uncreated energies are divine personal operations. They are not automatic forces
manifested sequentially according to a preestablished eternal order. In that case God would
not be a free God but one ensnared into an unwilling becoming. The energies presuppose the
person, and are the voluntary manifestations of Gods benevolence. A free person, in
Stniloaes view, is someone who remains the same in his being and yet is capable of diversity
in his acts. Accordingly, the divine operations do not arise from any necessity for the divine
being to be completed, and definitely they are not new forms of Gods future becoming.

242
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 126.
73

Second, the personal uncreated energies are voluntary irradiations. It is wrong to conceive of
Gods operations as empty and totally separated from His being. The personal God manifests
something from His being in His operations. Having their base in Gods being, the divine
operations are not separated in their dynamism from the content of divine being. Third, the
operations are not one with or identical to the divine being. Precisely, they do not carry in
themselves the whole divine being. However, in limited proportions, the divine operations
carry on themselves the particular of the whole divine being. Finally, in the act of their
manifestation, the divine operations are somehow modelled according to the measure and
the status of the divine being.243
Stniloae affirms that, in failing to understand the mystery of person that cannot dissolve
itself,244 Western theology sees deification as a created state.245 The result is that in this
theology, because there is not a real, unmediated contact realised between God and us,
everything we receive from God is created. In this way, we are closed within the limits of the
created, creaturehood works like a wall between God and us, and some of the concepts used
by the Fathers, like deification, receive an improper meaning. To avoid such a grave
misunderstanding, Stniloae makes a parallel between the subjective essence and the objective
essence. He assumes that, in the process of their operations, it would be impossible for the
human persons as subjective essences to be dissolved as the objective essences would be. The
obvious deduction is then applied to the person of God who, insists Stniloae, cannot extend
Himself as being, not simply because He is uncreated, but because He is a person. However,
God as a personal being can extend Himself through His operations. Our mistake, says
Stniloae, is when we try to close up God in Himself because He is uncreated. Such an
approach, however, will make it impossible for us to meet Him and to take possession of
something from Him.
The way of reconciliation between the Eastern and the Western positions is found by
Stniloae, on the one hand, in the mutual agreement that, in the unity of Gods being, we may
discern possibilities to produce different created things (as has been seen earlier in both
Stniloae and Kng). Through created things, continues Stniloae, we are in touch with the
special uncreated operations and with the whole integrity of God. Moreover, having a

243
D. Stniloae, Dumnezeu este Iubire, pp. 369-370.
244
D. Stniloae, Filocalia VII, p. 219.
245
Garrigues, refering to Maximus position, asserts that energy is the act of divine essence of which
causality creates the deification of men. J.M. Garrigues, LEnergie Divine et la Grce chez Maxime le
Confesseur, Istina 3 (1974), p. 285.
74

conscious spiritual sensitivity, a human person can feel God building up in his being a
unique and different status. On the other hand, by asserting that the divine operations are not
dissociated from Gods being, Stniloae wants to say not only that in each operation God is
wholly active, but also that Gods whole being is variously present. This is because in every
act of a person the whole person is variously present, without ever being exhausted in that
act. This, considers Stniloae, is another possible ground for harmonising the Eastern and
Western theologies. On the Catholic side, the need is to accept that, when it is manifested in
relation with other finite things, divine being is truly manifested in a way that does not
exclude other modes of manifestation. On the Eastern side, in order to maintain an authentic
Palamite position, it would be enough to affirm that in each operation, and in a different
mode, the whole divine being is truly manifested.

3. Patristic influence in Stniloae

3.1 The distinction essence-energies before Gregory Palamas


The distinction between essence and energies is not limited to Palamas and Stniloae.
Stniloaes notion of divine energy, in connection with the distinctions within God, with
creation, and with salvation, is met in many writings of the Greek Fathers before Palamas.
Some characteristics of the uncreated energies found in Stniloae are met in Origen who,
working in a similar trinitarian framework as Stniloae, asserts that the will and the energy
common to the persons of the Trinity are proof of their equally common essence.246 The
Fathers energy is an operation ad extra, His providence being defined by Origen as divine
unique energy, but manifested in multiple ways to a human being who perceives the effects of
this energy.247 Likewise, Didymus the Blind admits the Aristotelian distinction between
dunamei and energeia, and the principle whereby the trinitarian persons have the same
essence. He establishes a relationship between essence, will, and energies, and asserts that
energy is the life and the mode of knowing the essence. That is, for both Stniloae and
Didymus, the divine energy is not merely an abstract philosophical concept, but a salvific
necessity that characterises the communal life of the Church.248

246
Origen is one of the first theologians who used this argument in his Commentary on John. Here we find
the theological basis for the co-operation between the persons of the Trinity.
247
For other thoughts in Origen, see his De principiis I, 2, 3 and 7 (GCS 5, pp. 100-104).
248
Didymus, On the Holy Spirit (PG 39, 1062BC), and On Trinity, (PG 39, 296A).
75

Important references were used by Stniloae from the Cappadocians. Facing the Eunomian
idea that the divine essence is accessible to human beings, the Cappadocians emphasised the
unknowability of the divine essence by making clear that the divine names reveal only divine
energies in which we may participate, and not the divine essence.249 Gregory of Nyssa, for
example, points out that the transcendence of the Godhead rules out any kind of becoming,
composition, number of degrees of divinity in God. Because of the simplicity of the divine
nature, all the divine qualities coinhere and are of one rank, and are possessed equally by all
three hypostases at once.250 Gregory uses the more dynamic word energies of these
manifestations, and contrasts them with the invisible nature of God. However, for both
Gregory of Nyssa and Stniloae, the fundamental principle is that all actions of God ad extra
are actions of three persons together, or all actions is always triadic.
Stniloae was clearly influenced, moreover, by Dionysius cosmological system that implies a
hierarchical celestial and ecclesiastical structure that contains three ranks of three. The first
rank of the ecclesiastical structure consists not of beings, but of three sacraments.251 The
hierarchical orders are Gods revealers, and are traversed by divine energies,252 by which we
can become united with God. The trinitarianism of divine persons received, then, its
formulation in three divine energies.253 What is specific to Dionysius then is that the divine

249
Basil the Great, for example, is one who clearly distinguishes between essence and hypostases, generating
as such multiple theological debates. His distinction is important because it demonstrates certain attributes
common to the persons of the Trinity giving their common essence, and certain attributes specific to each
hypostasis. Because divine energy is actually common to the triadic persons, it is also seen as an essential
energy. If allowance is made for the hypostatic distinctions, the common energy expresses the particular mode
of relationship of each divine person with creation. However, divine energy does not exclude the role of
hypostasis; likewise it became the mode of hypostatic mission for creation and eschatological consummation.
Basil, De Spiritu Sancto (PG 32, 136BC). Williams concludes himself that, the Cappadocian position seems
to be that Gods ousia cannot be known by man as God knows it; what we know of God, our incomplete
notion of His essence or nature, we know through His acts in the world. This is a simple enough scheme,
and, it should be noted, is not complicated by the problem of participation; while clearly related to
Palamism, it is less scholastic, less metaphysical, more strictly epistemological. R.D. Williams, The
Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky. An Exposition and Critique, p. 175
250
Gregory writes: We do not learn that the Father does something on his own, in which the Son does not
co-operate. Or again, that the Son acts on his own without the Spirit. Rather does every operation which
extends from God to creation and is designated according to our differing conceptions of it have its origin in
the Father, proceed through the Son, and reach its completion by the Holy Spirit. It is for this reason that the
word for the operation is not divided among the persons involved. For the action of each in any matter is not
separate and individualized. Gregory of Nyssa, On not Three Gods, in E.R. Hardy (ed.), Christology of the
Later Fathers (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954), pp. 261-262; see also Gregory of Nyssa, De Fide
I (PG 45, 136Af).
251
That is, oil, eucharist, and baptism.
252
Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy 3.1 (PG 3, 164D-165C).
253
Louth explains that in every triad the highest is perfect or perfecting, the middle one is illuminated or
illuminating, and the lowest is being purified or purifying . A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical
Tradition, p. 171.
76

energies come to be known in the liturgical life, and particularly in the sacraments of the
Church.254
The relation between essence and energy is a key issue for Maximus.255 In Acta, Maximus
says that energy does not introduce the person but the nature,256 and in Opuscula Theologica
et Polemica 22, energy is seen as essential and not hypostatic.257 Every essence is naturally a
principle of movement contemplated in potency to it, and every act, circumscribed naturally
by its own principle, is the end of essential movement logically preceding it.258 Consequently,
for both Maximus and Stniloae, there is an ontological distinction between the divine
energies participable in the knowable aspect of God and the essence that is unknowable and
imparticipable.259

3.2 The decisive influence of Gregory Palamas

3.2.1 Intradivine distinction


The primary influence in Stniloaes thought comes from Gregory Palamas. For Palamas, the
essence or supra-essence of God is absolutely beyond the approach of any creature. All
essences are in the highest degree foreign and far-removed from the essence of God, because
He transcends all essence.260 Accordingly, God is unnameable and beyond description.
Nevertheless, the revelation informs us that in this supra-essence (that is, the Trinity) occur
certain mysterious processions that cause therein a real distinction between it and the divine
hypostases. Alongside this essence there is an act of will, the divine energies, common to the

254
Cf. Dionysius, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 3.1 (PG 3, 424C-425B). On the other hand, for Dionysius, the
foundation of all knowledge of God are the proodoi, which are God, but never the ousia of God. In union with
God, mans encounter is not with the ousia through the proodoi, but with the proodoi or energeiai in
themselves.
255
See Maximus, Disputatio cum Pyrrho (PG 91, 441CD); Ambigua I, 2 (PG 91, 1037CD); 7 (PG 91,
1081AC); 22 (PG 91, 1257AB). On Maximus doctrine of essence and energies, see the recent work of V.
Karayiannis, Maxime Le Confesseur. Essence et nergies de Dieu (Paris: Beauchesne, 1993).
256
Maximus, Acta (PG 90, 160A); Disputatio cum Pyrrho (PG 91, 345D-348A, 337C).
257
Maximus, Opuscula Theologica et Polemica 22 (PG 91, 260D-261A). See also Diputation cum Pyrrho
(PG 91, 348C, 337A).
258
Maximus, Chapters on Knowledge 1.3 (PG 90, 1084AB). See also P. Sherwood, The Earlier Ambigua of
St. Maximus the Confessor (Rome: Studia Anselmiana 36, 1955), p. 106.
259
God infinitely transcends all things which participate or are participated. For everything claiming to have
the term attributed to it happens to be a work of God, even if some begin their existence through becoming in
time and others are implanted by grace in creatures, for example, an infused power which clearly proclaims
that God is in all things. Maximus, Chapters on Knowledge 1.49 (PG 90, 1100A).
260
Gregory Palamas, Capita 77-78 (PG 150, 1176B,C). Quoted by B. Krivoshein in The Ascetic and
Theological Teaching of Gregory Palamas, ECQ 7 (1938), p. 138.
77

three hypostases, 261 beyond all time and understanding, by means of which this supra-essence
reveals itself as a procession or a leap outwards. The energies are not acts outside God, due
to His will, such as the creation of the world, but natural processions in God Himself. It
must noted that the energies are an inferior divinity (dangerous language!), being inferior to
the essence as the Son is inferior to the Father. In relation with the triune supra-essence, the
energies are one, while in relation to the creature they are many, but still common to the three
hypostases.262 In response to Akindynos and Barlaams accusation of ditheism, Palamas is
careful to differentiate between what might be called the personal processions and the natural,
that is the energies, common to all three persons of the Trinity, but not hypostatic.263
Basically, the argument says that that which has no energy in reality has no existence.
The energies are not created, for a created energy modifies a created nature. This insistence
on the uncreatedness of the energies is not just a matter of logical necessity; it bears on the
very unity of the divine essence. Uncreatedness is that which above all preserves the oneness
of the divinity.264 This is the eternal, immutable, continuous mode of Gods ad extra
existence, changing only in degree and in the circumstances of its manifestation.265
Palamas insists that the distinction between essence and energies is a real one, objectively
founded in God, but not a real separation. The distinction is founded on a principial, causal
relationship analogous to that which exists in the divine essence between the hypostasis of the
Father and the hypostases of the Son and the Holy Spirit.266 Thus the Divine substance
transcends the Divine energy... and that which is found substantially near it [near the

261
Gregory writes: God is in Himself; at the same time the Three Divine Hypostases are essentially, wholly,
substantially held and contained in each other without either confusion or division and therefore their energy
is in common Capita 112 (PG 150, 1197B). Cf. Krivoshein, p. 141.
262
God suffers no multiplicity through these distinctions, nor any composition, for He is indivisibly divided
and separately conjoined, Capita 81 (PG 150, 1180A); And it is not only in the hypostases that the divine is
thus indivisibly distinguished, but in the energies as well, Contra Akindynum 5.26.11; He is all essence and
all energy; but this does not deny the distinction between the two, Contra Akindynum 4.15.2; Therefore as
the divine essence is omnipresent, inseparable from its energy, that energy can be contained even by us
creatures, Capita 74 (PG 150, 1173A). Similarly in D. Stniloae, Viaa i nvtura Sfntului Grigorie
Palama, p. 136.
263
Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum 1.3.3; 6.18.1; 1.4.1; 7.9; 6.16.7-8. There is also a natural
participation in the divine energy common to all created beings and a participation granted solely to rational
beings who have freely chosen the good. See especially chapters 72-84, from The One Hundred and Fifty
Chapters (Sinkewicz tr.), p. 41.
264
Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum 3.16.4; 3.19.3; Capita 112 (PG 150, 1197B); 138 (PG 150, 1217C).
265
Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum 6.21.1-2; Capita 127 (PG 150, 1209C).
266
However this causal relationship cannot be understood as we understand it in the case of created beings.
Again, it is true that Palamas used images to make clear the distinction (that is the orb of the sun and its ray),
but that does not destroy the divine simplicity or introduce any composition therein. This fact was criticized
by the anti-Palamites at the Council of Constantinople in 1351.
78

substance].267 The chief argument of Palamas is the assimilation of this case to that of the
simplicity of the essence that is not destroyed by its real distinction from the hypostases. For
Palamas, God remains simple in spite of the multiplicity of His energies that are really distinct
from one another, because, inasmuch as they are not accidents that can increase or
decrease,268 they are inseparable from the essence and are always in act. They are eternal and
immutable, and do not therefore introduce any kind of composition in God.
The deifying energy is a function of the superessential essence of the Holy Spirit.269 It is
enhypostatic: it has no hypostatic independent existence of its own, and it exists as a function
of the three divine hypostases insofar as they enact the divine essence. Consequently, the
deified being is energetically united to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who enhypostatically
dwell in him. The energies dynamically act through the uncreated deified subject, making
him, by adoption, all that God is by nature. Deification means more than seeing God, rather it
means seeing through the eyes of God.270 The deified being receives an energy identical to
that of the deifying essence,271 and hears, sees, and comprehends by the Holy Spirit.

3.2.2 Theology of light


Palamas consistently echoes the Dionysian affirmation that all the divine things that are
revealed to us can be known only by participation, that is, by a real experience in terms of the
light of the transfiguration. In the event of Christs transfiguration the glory of the divinity
becomes the glory of the body.272 To avoid collapsing directly into Messalianism, Palamas
emphasises that this light, as something seen, contained, shared in, distributed, is not
essence.273 Contrary to Barlaam, who argued that in this case the light must be of the created
order, Palamas responded that the physical eyes of the apostles were transfigured by the

267
Gregory Palamas, Homilia (PG 151, 745C); quoted by Krivoshein, p. 143.
268
On the one hand, Palamas specifies that the energy cannot be defined in Aristotelian terms as accident,
but, on the other hand, he admits that since the energy does not exist a se, it may in a sense be termed an
accident. Cf. Contra Akindynum 6.19.1; Capita 127 (PG 150, 1209D). This compromise resulted in one of
Palamas less fortunate expressions which contributed a great deal to the misunderstanding of his thought,
especially in the West.
269
Surely the essence is shared by all three persons of the Trinity!
270
God is contemplated as the divine energies of the divine form of being are passed on to a created
hypostasis. The result is an encounter between God and man such that, still hypostatically distinct, the Trinity
and the deified individual are energetically one. T.L. Anastos, Gregory Palamas Radicalization of the
Essence, Energies, and Hypostasis Model of God, GOTR 38.1-4 (1993), p. 344. Cf. Gregory Palamas, Triads
2.3.36 (Gendle tr. p. 66).
271
Of course, the deified subject does not receive the divine essence itself. Cf. Gregory Palamas, Triads 2.3.6;
2.3.31.
272
Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum 4.5.1.
273
Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum 4.15.3; Capita 93 (PG 150, 1188B); Capita 65 (PG 150, 1168C).
79

power of the Holy Spirit.274 The apostles shared briefly and really in the uncreated divine
radiance, experiencing a kind of momentary eschatological deification, passing over for that
moment from the flesh to the spirit. This is not vision face to face but a vision of the glory
that is promised in Scripture to all human beings in proportion as they are found worthy.275
The perception of this light is when the mind is glorified and filled by the grace of the Logos
with the exquisite radiance______,.. that holy men see the garment of their deification.276
Before it became united to our bodies, the light illuminated outwardly those who apprehended
it and through their corporeal eyes shed light in their souls, enlightening them from within.277
The nous of one who is purified and illuminated by Gods grace sees something different than
his own image: the radiance inscribed on his image that reinforces the power of the spirit.278
This light is superior to the knowledge of Scriptures, being at the same time that which is the
perceived and that by which it is perceived, the means and the end of the mystical
encounter.279 Palamas explains:

But you should not consider that God allows himself to be seen in his superessential
essence, but according to his deifying gift and energy, the grace of adoption, the
uncreated deification, the enhypostatic illumination. You should think that that is the
principle of divinity, the deifying gift, in which one may supernaturally communicate,
which one may see and with which one may be united. But the essence of God,
which is beyond principle, transcends this principle, too.280

In conclusion, deification could be effected actually, not metaphorically, due to the deifying
grace of the divine energies. The central point of Palamas mystical theology is found
therefore in the doctrine of the divine light. The mystical experience of hesychastic mysticism
and of the biblical texts (as, for example, the Johannine references to light, the transfiguration
of Christ on Mount Tabor), enables him to understand the word light not in a metaphorical

274
Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum 3.2; 4.16.11; 2.16.5; Triads 3.3.9-10.
275
Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum 2.16.6; 3.6.2; Triads 2.3.25; Capita 65 (PG 150, 1168B). In other
words, for the Orthodox, seeing God in light (apostles) is higher than seeing God in darkness (Moses). This
shows the continuity between the Old and the New Testament.
276
Gregory Palamas, Triads 1.3.5.
277
Gregory Palamas, Triads 1.3.38.
278
The deifying gift of the Spirit is a mysterious light which turns into holy light those it enriches; it not only
fills them with eternal light, but vouchsafes to them knowledge and a godly life. Gregory Palamas, Triads
3.1.35. The nous is energized or put into action by the divine energies rather than according to the energies
defined by the created essence of the individual. The nous has the ability by grace to transcend itself, to
assume divine energies as its natural activity. In deification, then, man objectively transcends his ontological
level.
279
To see carries two meanings: ... to comprehend God insofar as possible; also to possess Him indwelling...
Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum 5.3.1.
80

sense, but in its primary, concrete meaning. Thus this light or illumination that transcends
both intelligence and senses, is not of an intellectual or of a sensible order, and yet this light
fills at once both intelligence and senses.281 As with every energy, the light of Tabor is
uncreated, is the visible part of God, has at all times belonged to God, and hence to Christ
from the very moment of His incarnation.282 The humanity of Christ was deified by the
hypostatic union with the divine nature. As such, the transfiguration was not a phenomenon
limited in space and time. It showed only a divine, objective reality: the presence of the
Kingdom of God.

3.3 Summary
Palamas makes a distinction between profane or philosophical knowledge and the true
knowledge of God. Profane wisdom is restricted to knowing the natural world, while true
knowledge comes from God and leads to God and to union with Him.283 For Palamas the
human being is deified and filled with the divine light or with the Holy Spirit according to his
preparation in collaboration and ascetic effort. In this synergy, the goal of the ascetic is in the
procurement of a better energy that allows both his body and mind to share in the life of
grace. According to the degree of his deification, a human being may obtain a kind of
communion knowledge of God that goes beyond any intellectual concept. That is, by means
of the divine energies, a human being is in communion with and has a genuine sharing in the
inaccessible ousia. Looking from Gods side it may be said that there is a complete revelation,
while looking from mans side it may be said that his body can see with its transformed eyes
the face of the living, personal God, His energy, His light. Therefore the most fulfilling effect
of mans deification in this life is found in the manifestation of the light that is in him and

280
Gregory Palamas, Triads 3.1.29. (Gendle tr. p. 84). See also Capita 64 where the energies are the
manifestations of the divine illumination that comes from God.
281
In Tomus Hagioriticus (PG 150, 1233, 1340), Palamas distinguishes between the sensible light, the light of
intelligence, and the uncreated light, the last being considered the prototype of the other two and surpassing
them infinitely.
282
See also in D. Stniloae, Viaa i nvtura Sfntului Grigorie Palama, pp. 68-69, 159-161.
283
For a short but clear presentation of the doctrine of double knowledge in Gregory Palamas, see P.K.
Chrestou, Double Knowledge according to Palamas, SP (1963), pp. 20-29. Chrestou writes that natural
knowledge is of value only so long as it recognises its partial character. Spiritual knowledge lies above
dialectics and demonstrations and is a supernatural gift accorded to those who love God and His
commandments. There is a positive and negative theology which use various mediatory things, but this is an
inferior form of knowledge, in comparison with the immediate or mystical vision of God, called also theoptia,
in which man can experience deification. Theology is a discourse about God, while theoptia is more a
conversation with God.
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which is attained by him.284 The union with God, which reaches its culmination after death
and the resurrection, is the deified state in which, insists Palamas, man by grace will be all that
God is by nature. Just like Christ who assumed human nature, those human persons in whom
is accomplished the union with God, must become gods by grace or persons in two natures.
The difference is that Christ is a divine person, whereas deified persons are and will remain
created persons.285 For Palamas, it is the whole person, body and spirit, grafted by baptism
and the eucharist to the person of Christ, which is enlightened.286
The way of mystical ascent towards the deifying encounter is pictured in terms strikingly like
those of Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory Palamas writes:

Those who possess not only sensual and intellective powers, but have been blessed
with spiritual and supernatural grace as well, will know God not from creatures
alone but, God being spirit, in a manner above sense and intellect, spiritually, as they
become Gods altogether, knowing God in God.287

Palamas theology of grace is not a theology that makes use of rational concepts to express
abstract realities, but is the apophatic or negative expression of a mystical experience
culminating in deification. Palamas defines grace variously both as light and as energy, in
combination or separately.288 Arguing against Akindynos, Palamas declares that God Himself
is the grace we receive in holy baptism; that which the saints receive and by which they are
deified.289 Indeed, the deifying gift is not confined to the spirit of man.290 This is the reason

284
For Symeon the New Theologian, a man who does not see God in this life, that is, who has no grace
manifested in him, will not see God in the life to come either.
285
The plenitude was reached by the Mother of God who is the boundary between created and uncreated
being. Cf. Gregory Palamas, Homilia 37 (PG 151, 472B).
286
[Christ] grants a perfect redemption not only to the nature borrowed from us in an indefectible union, but
to each of those who believe on Him... To this end He instituted holy baptism, He set laws conducting us to
salvation, He preached repentance to all, and He communicated His own body and blood. So it is not merely
human nature, but the hypostasis of the individual believer that receives baptism, lives by the divine
commandments, communicates of the deifying bread and cup. Gregory Palamas, Homilia 5 (PG 151, 64D);
Triads 1.3.38.
287
Gregory Palamas, Triads 2.3.68; Contra Akindynum 4.15.3.
288
This radiance and deifying energy of God by which those who share in it are deified, is a certain divine
grace, but not the nature of God; not that it is absent... Gods nature is omnipresent... but because it cannot be
shared. Gregory Palamas, Capita 93 (PG 150, 1188B).
289
We termed this grace neither the essence of God nor an angel nor any other being that is susceptible of
grace; for it is the grace and deifying energy of God, called both light and spirit, divinity and divinization, and
whatever names logically follow... How could anyone fail to understand most of our terms for grace, set down
as they are not dogmatically but advocacy [as a part of a controversial argument]? Gregory Palamas, Contra
Akindynum 7.4.1; see also 3.9; 3.8.4.
290
In the case of those whose whole being is permeated by the divine, that it does not leave them at the
moment of death but continues to manifest itself through their bodies. This is the very basis for the veneration
of relics. It flows out of a profound theology of the body. Glorify the holy tombs of the saints and, if they
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why the saints, though by nature created, are called uncreated by grace.291 In other words,
according to Palamas, the effect of the uncreated energies in a human being has an uncreated
effect. It was this kind of language that raised the most persistent difficulties from the
essentialist view of Akindynos: If I am deified, I am united to the whole of God.292 Palamas
responds that the deifying gift is divine energy, hence it is one and the same energy, one and
the same radiance, that God and men share.293 Gods attributes are perspectives on His being.
He is not a substance to which property is attached, rather each attribute is one way of
describing His being and is essential to His being. Therefore everything God does expresses
His whole nature. For Palamas opponents, that which is not being is not God, but only a
created effect (as grace and light). Palamism, however, emphasises the energetic communion
in which God is wholly present in His energies without retracting His inaccessible being.294

4. Critical evaluation

4.1 The charge of innovation


The question about Palamism, in general, involves the problem whether it is a genuine
development of Cappadocian thought or a new innovation added to the Early Christian

survive, the remains of their bones; for the grace of God has not left them, any more than divinity left the
precious body of Christ after His life-giving death. Gregory Palamas, Decalogus (PG 150, 1093A).
291
As I am by reason a rational being, so by the co-inhering grace of the Spirit, I am supernatural and divine
and spiritual. Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum 3.4.3. Man is more in the image of God than the angels
by possessing not only a trinitarian intellect but a constituting and vivifying energy. Thus when Palamas
declares that the nous, participating in the light of grace, channels many tokens of divine perfection to its
companion body, he is merely echoing Maximus, whose language is often much more daring when he says
that the body is deified at the same time as the soul. Maximus, Century of Knowledge 2.88 (PG 90, 1168A).
Cf. Gregory Palamas, Capita 64 (PG 150, 1168A); 63 (PG 150, 1165C); 38, 39 (PG 150, 1145D-1148C). For
the fact that only the saints and the angels participate in the purifying, sanctifying, illuminating and deifying
energy, see A. Giakalis, Images of the Divine. The Theology of Icons at the Seventh Ecumenical Council
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994).
292
Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum 5.25.1.
293
Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum 3.14.1-2.
294
A different attack from Akindynos comes from the Christological side, for if participation in the divine life
through Christ confers an uncreated grace, are we not then forced to say that Christs humanity is of the
uncreated order? And is this not monophysitism? Palamas is explicit that the humanity of Christ is indeed
created. To say otherwise would be to confuse hypostatic union with essential union. Theosis therefore
remained for Palamas opponents either a static symbol or led to the ultimate heretical alternative of
identification with the divine essence. Theosis is a difficult, almost scandalizing word. Palamas writes to
Barlaam: Deification is above names. That is why, having written a great deal on hesychia, now at the
prompting of the fathers, now at the request of the brothers, we have never made bold to write on deification.
But now, since it becomes necessary to speak, we will speak; rightly, by Gods grace, yet knowing that our
words will not suffice to demonstrate it. For even when spoken of it remains unspeakable; unnameable, as the
fathers would have said, save to those who have experienced it. Gregory Palamas, Triads 3.1.32. See also
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tradition.295 On their side, Orthodox theologians refer to the Palamite synthesis, which
means a fuller presentation of Orthodoxy in its mystical aspect, with much emphasis on the
apophatic character, on the divine light, and on the concept of deification; a presentation,
however, with firm roots in the past. Krivocheine writes that in Palamas thought the
traditional ascetico-mystical teaching of the Orthodox East not only finds in his work its final
and systematic expression, but also its theological and philosophical expression.296
Mantzarides sees Palamas innovation as justified, being authentic and traditional,297 while
Florovsky calls it a creative extension of ancient tradition.298 Stniloae himself, although
heavily influenced by Palamas synthesis, rejects the notion of creative theology in favour of
expressive theology. The concept of creativity must be preserved for God who alone is
the Creator.299 Contrary to the charge of innovation often made against Palamas by Catholic
theologians, the Orthodox use different arguments to defend him.300 One of these is the
question if it would have been possible for Palamas to innovate in such a traditionalist
theological milieu as Byzantium. However, the Orthodox agree in finding something new in
Palamas as compared with his predecessors.
Although the distinction between essence and energies in particular is certainly present in the
Cappadocian thought, of great importance is the question whether, in their thought, the divine
ousia is ontologically distinct from the divine energeiai.301 We know that the Cappadocian

R.E. Sinkewicz, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the Initial Discussions between Barlaam the
Calabrian and Gregory Palamas, Doctorate dissertation (Oxford, 1979).
295
Among Catholics who accuse Palamas of innovation is M. Jugie, Palamas Grgoire and Palamite
(Controverse), in Dictionnaire de Thologie Catholique XI/2: 1735-1776, XI/2: 1777-1818; J.-P. Houdret,
Palamas et les Cappadociens, Istina 3 (1974), pp. 260-271; among Anglicans is R.D. Williams, The
Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky. An Exposition and Critique, especially chapter VI, pp. 157-190.
For an Orthodox response, see G. Barrois, Palamism Revisited, SVTQ 19 (1975), pp. 211-231.
296
B. Krivocheine, The Ascetic and Theological Teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, ECQ 3 (1938), p. 207.
297
G. Mantzarides, Tradition and Renewal in the Theology of Saint Gregory of Palamas, ECR 9 (1977), p.
1.
298
G. Florovsky, St.Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers, in Collected Works, vol. I, Bible,
Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1974), p. 114.
299
S. Dumitrescu, 7 Diminei cu Printele Stniloae (Bucureti: Anastasia, 1992), p. 187.
300
An Anglican as Mascall appreciates the Palamite distinction as holding some positive elements: it sees the
created order as a dependent reality, it provides for a genuine deification of man while at the same time
preserving mans creaturely status, and it maintains that fundamental openness of the creature to unlimited
influxes of divine generosity. E.L. Mascall, Via Media: An Essay in Theological Synthesis (London:
Longmans Green, 1956), p. 164.
301
In connection with Athanasius, Torrance writes: It must be said, then, that the very basis of Athanasius
doctrine of the One triune God in the co-activity and co-essentiality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
depends upon his holding together the Being of God in his Act and his Act in his Being - that is, in declining
to have anything to do with the distinction between his being (ousia) and his activities (energeiai) which
developed in later thought, starting with the Cappadocians and becoming characteristic of Byzantine
theology...In other words, separation between the activity and the being would imply that God is not after all
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advance in trinitarianism has given their negative theology much more impact than we find in
their precursors. By insisting upon the consubstantiality of Father and Son, and Holy Spirit
and substituting an essential Trinity, differentiated by modes of being rather than spheres
of operation, the Cappadocians make it clear that the Son and Holy Spirit share equally with
the Father the ineffability of the divine nature. For the Cappadocians the energies are common
to all three persons, and are God in His manward dispensation. The persons in God are
distinguished only by their mutual relationships. However, the Cappadocians leave largely
unclarified the relation of the divine energies to the revelation of the incarnation, and to the
sanctifying work of the Spirit; and also the relation between the energies and divine grace.
When we pass to Maximus, it seems that he does suggest at times that the logoi are energies,
but he still has the Cappadocian rather than the Palamite notion of energy.302 It is at this point
that the charge of inconsistency in Orthodox theology comes into focus. In his comments, for
instance, Rowan Williams claims that Maximus understanding of energy does not imply an
ontological distinction from the essence, but merely an epistemological one. Furthermore, in
Palamas case, Williams suspects two parallel modes of divine experience:

Faced with the Dionysian model of the super-substantial substance participated in


its proodoi, and apparently unable to revise the notion of participation so as
satisfactorily to exclude the idea that creatures possess ousia (that is, theia ousia)
as the persons of the Trinity do, Palamas is compelled to postulate ousia and
energeia as parallel modes of divine experience...This, I believe, is the movement of
thought which produces the incoherences of Palamism.303

in himself always and reliably what he is towards us through the Son and in the Spirit, and so far as the
Spirit is concerned that he is not by nature what he imparts to us... What Torrance suggests here is that
Athanasius declined to have anything to do with the distinction between Gods being and His energies. T.F.
Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation. Essays towards Evangelical and Catholic Unity in East and West
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1975), p. 236. Compare Torrances view with Athanasius, De incarnatione
17.1.
302
Stniloae interprets Maximus in Palamite and not in Thomistic terms. As regards with the relation
between logoi and energeiai, see Joost van Rossum, The logoi of Creation and the Divine Energies in
Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas, SP 26 (1993), pp. 213-217. Van Rossum argues that, by
comparison, there is a difference in emphasis and context between Maximus logoi and Palamas energeiai.
Maximus teaching on the logoi as the divine ideas or intentions of creation is in the context of the
doctrine of creation, or in a cosmological context, while Palamas teaching on the logoi and energeiai is in
the context of the doctrine of God. See in parallel Maximus, Ambigua 7 (PG 91, 1080A, 1081A), and Gregory
Palamas, Triads 2.3,16. For further study of the logos mysticism and the doctrine of the logopoiesis of
creation in Maximus, see G. Maloney, The Breath of the Mystic (Denville, N.J.: Dimension Books, 1974), pp.
141-160, and C.N. Tsirpanlis, Aspects of Maximian Theology of Politics, History, and the Kingdom of God,
in Greek Patrsitic Theology. Basic Doctrines in Eastern Church Fathers, vol. III (New York, N.Y., 1987), pp.
11-33.
303
R.D. Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky, pp. 177-178.
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Williams holds that Palamas had not the philosophy of his theology, so the needs of
controversy drove him [Palamas] to adopt a metaphysical theory fraught with obscurities and
contradictions.304 What in fact seems to be happening is that Palamas takes the Cappadocian
view of the energies and presses it further than its original meaning and significance.
Consequently, on the philosophical level, Palamism is accused of philosophical incoherence,
due to its logical contradictions. The Orthodox replies that this is merely a typical theological
antinomy.305 Although there are contrary truths on the rational level, a reconciliation is
possible on the higher level of contemplative experience.306
The antinomical character of the distinction between essence and energies is emphasised by
Stniloae in direct connection with the Christian doctrine of God. For Stniloae, the
knowledge of God does not have a theoretical or metaphorical character but it is vitalised by
the axial concern for deification. God is both incommunicable and communicable, invisible
and visible, inaccessible and accessible. Without this divine communicability, union with God,
mans participation to Him by grace, and finally mans deification, would all be impossible. It
became clear that for Stniloae, in line with Maximus and Palamas, God is sharing Himself
not according to His being nor according to the Trinitys hypostases, but according to the
uncreated energies shining forth from divine being. At the same time, they hold to the
possibility of mans transmutation into and participation in the divine nature. Thus the
antinomy becomes the rule of right devotion.307
It can be seen from all of this that the difference between Eastern and Western theology
results from a different understanding of participation. Western scepticism in this matter
cannot see how one can escape a metaphysical composition in God. Declining to consider the
antinomical method, Western theology disagrees with the real distinction between essence
and hypostasis and admits a distinction only between the hypostases as they are related one to
another. Thus to preserve the simplicity of God, the West makes use of the idea of simple

304
R.D. Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky, pp. 179-180.
305
The Orthodox contrasted cataphatic theology with apophatic theology in order to show that the theological
antinomy of Palamass distinction between essence and energies is only one among various typical Christian
doctrines, including the doctrine of the double nature of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of divine sovereignity and
human responsibility in soteriology, and primarily the doctrine of the Trinity.
306
K. Ware, Debate About Palamism, p. 46.
307
Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 1308B). Gregory Palamas comments that biblical texts, like 2 Peter 1:4, have
an antinomic character as elsewhere the doctrine of Trinity, and their antinomy must be maintained as a
criterion of reverence. Cf. Gregory Palamas, Apology (PG 150, 932D). The Divine substance is
incommunicable and yet is, in a certain sense, communicated; we partake of the Divine essence and yet at the
same time we do not partake of it at all. And so we must maintain both (affirmations) and lay them down as
the standard of piety. Cf. Krivosheine, p. 145; see also Theophanes (PG 150, 932D).
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substance, while the East works with the idea of superessential essence. In addition, holding
that the simplicity of God is something that transcends our categories, Eastern apophaticism
is placing divine simplicity at a level beyond even essence.308 Consequently, both Stniloae
and Palamas do not hesitate to affirm that deification is real, meaning by that an ontological
union between human being and God. On their side, the Western theologians are accustomed
to speak of a distinction of reason, deliberately avoiding the acknowledgement of a real
distinction. This is why a conceivable solution to draw East and West closer in this matter
becomes difficult due to two different approaches. However, the danger comes from both
sides: the epistemological approach could sacrifice the possibility of a real deification, while
an ontological approach could create problems in understanding Gods simplicity and,
consequently, promote an exaggerated mysticism in which only those beings close to the
upper sphere of the divine can feel Gods presence.309

4.2 The charge of impersonalism


As distinguished from the hypostases, it is said that the uncreated energies are experienced as
personal, because they are Gods personal words (logoi) for created things.310 However, the
next objection to the essence-energies distinction would be that the personalness of our
relationship with God is compromised by affirming that God communicates Himself to us
through non-hypostatic beings such as uncreated energies. Even an Orthodox theologian as
Timiadis suggests that it might be better to use more intimate and personal expressions, such
as communion with the Holy Spirit.311

308
E.L. Mascall has suggested a parallel between the essence-energies distinction in Palamism and the
essence-existence distinction in Thomas Aquinas, even if they expounded it in terms of divergent
methaphysical systems and even if we cannot simply equate existence with energy. E.L. Mascall, The
Openness of Being, p. 222.
309
E. Timiadis, Gods Immutability and Communicability, in T.F. Torrance (ed.), Theological Dialogue
between Orthodox and Reformed Churches, vol. I (Edinburgh and London: Scottish Academic Press, 1985),
pp. 45-47. Two observations here: (1) Timiadis view (along with Trembelas) could be challenged by other
Orthodox theologians. Palamas, it is claimed, is not an elitist but merely accepts the possibility of knowledge
of God in this life. (2) Criticism of hesychasm and its focus on the vision of the light of Tabor claims that this
was but one episode in the life of Jesus, an episode moreover that points forward to the Passion of Christ. But,
if that is indeed so, we ask, how is it possible to suggest a developed doctrine of the spiritual senses and the
transfiguration of bodily vision in the vision of God?
310
For Palamas doctrine of logoi as Gods uncreated energies, particular wills and purposes as in Maximus,
see Capita 24, 81, 87-88, 90. For Maximus, see Quaestiones ad Thalassium (PG 90, 296AB); Mystagogia 5.
(PG 91, 682B, 692CD, 696A); Ambigua (PG 91, 1080AD, 1085AC, 1329CD, 1345BC). A summary of
Maximus doctrine in this respect is to be found in L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, pp. 79-99.
311
But having in mind what Timiadis believes about Patristic method, hermeneutics, and language, his view
on the Palamite distinction sounds like a typical Orthodox interpretation. The present-day reader will be
disappointed if he looks for clear-cut statements and neatly measured definitions. This is not the method of
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The charge that the energies are impersonal is strongly rejected by Orthodox theologians.
Yannaras maintains that the acceptance of the distinction between essence and energies
means an understanding of truth as personal relationship, and thus God is known only as a
personal revelation (and not as an idea of active essence), only as a triune communion of
person, as an ecstatic self-offering of loving goodness.312 In fact, Palamas himself introduced
the concept of enhypostasia regarding the energies, saying that they are enhypostasized, that
is given a personal nature by being used by persons. It should be remembered that in
Byzantine theology God is fully present in His uncreated energies towards us, and not divided
or portioned out. Moreover, ousia is understood as what God is in se and hypostasis as what
He is ad alios.
However, this argument does not hold, because even if hypostasized, the energies would still
dilute and make redundant the trinitarian persons themselves by taking their functions. In
the trinitarian theology of the Cappadocians the three hypostases do not have a common
ousia; they are the divine ousia.313 If this is true and it is then applied to the Palamite
distinction, the result is that the divine persons belong to the level of the imparticipable and
inaccessible essence that is beyond the sphere of mans contact with the deifying energies.
Therefore we cannot have a direct communion with the divine hypostases, but only with the
divine persons as expressed through the divine energies. Thus, in the process of deification,
the energies seem to function as intermediary between the divine persons and humans. The
lack of direct communion between the divine hypostases and human being makes one wonder
whether in the Palamite doctrine of deification the trinitarian persons have any soteriological
functions at all.
This observation leads to the assumption that the Palamite distinction may jeopardise the
whole idea of missio Dei. The nature of the Trinity is not static, unrelated to humankind, but
is dynamic, inviting us to participate in the communion of divine life. It is recognized that this

Patristics...For them, terminology is not an absolute, an end in itself... We risk betraying the real thought and
intention of the Fathers if, with our contemporary pre-conceived views, after fifteen centuries, we try to give
our own interpretation of some of their liguistic expressions and conceptions. Timiadis explains: These
energies are not something that exists apart from God, not a gift which God confers upon man: they are God
himself in his action and revelation to the world; God remains complete in each of his divine energies. The
world is charged with the grandeur of God; all creation is a gigantic Burning Bush, permeated but not
consumed by the ineffable and wondrous fire of Gods energies. Cf. E. Timiadis, Gods Immutability and
Communicability, pp. 23-24, 42
312
C. Yannaras, The Distinction between Essence and Energy and Its Importance for Theology, SVTQ 19
(1975), p. 241.
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dynamic and communitary understanding of the Trinity that characterises the Eastern
Orthodox Church might provide the Western Church with the true language pattern of
dialogue. Indeed, this participation has its foundation and intensity in the Fathers initiative, in
the sending of the Son and the Holy Spirit into the world. At the same time, the one
undivided God is present in His mission in all three persons. The participatory aspect of
mission based on the joy of knowing Gods love and on the victory of Christ on the cross
over the opposing forces, is definitely one of the main peculiarities emphasised by Orthodox
theology. However, in the context of missio Dei, it is hard to reconcile, on the one hand, the
Orthodox understanding of the centrality of divine energies as means of Gods revelation
and, on the other hand, the centrality of Gods revelation in Jesus Christ. Again, Timiadis
himself indicates that the distinction might contradict the very sense of Christs
incarnation.314 In biblical perspective the mission of the incarnate Son as our reconciliation
and the objective reality of revelation, adopting a Barthian phraseology,315 is the heart of the
mission of God in human history, while the mission of the Spirit as the subjective reality of
revelation is to unite us with the Son. Therefore, we ask how the Orthodox apply the dynamic
and biblical idea of the proclamation of the Gospel to the nations, keeping in mind that divine
energies are called effective means of Gods revelation, and human persons are invited in
Gods mission as participatory means as well? Since we are called to participate in Gods
mission and in His self-revelation, it seems that the Palamite distinction identifies too closely
the energies role with the mission of the Son, of the Holy Spirit, and of Christians.316

4.3 Revelation and theosis


There is a certain ambivalence in the use of the term energy as referring to the idea of God
manifesting Himself wholly to us and the possibility of producing an uncreated person.
Stniloaes affirmation is clear that God reveals Himself wholly in His energies. If one means
by this that God reveals His attributes, this is clearly correct. However, on the surface,

313
C.M. LaCugna, God for Us, p. 192. The same interpretation is found in R. Williams, The Philosophical
Structures of Palamism, ECR 9.1-2 (1977), p. 33. See also I. Trethowan, Irrationality in Theology and the
Palamite Distinction ECR 9 (1977), pp. 19-26.
314
E. Timiadis, Gods Immutability and Communicability, p. 46.
315
K. Barth, Church Dogmatics, vols. I-IV, tr. by G.W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956-), I/2, pp.
203ff; IV/2, pp. 322ff.
316
In a private discussion on this subject, Bishop Kallistos Ware has insisted that, to avoid impersonalism, we
must always think in triadic terms. The danger lays in the language of distinction which could be interpreted
as impersonal. If, for example, we speak only in terms of essence-energies we would end in impersonalism,
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Stniloae seems inconsistent when at once he defines the divine energies as Gods attributes
in motion and at other times as God Himself in motion; at one point the energies are the Holy
Spirits manifestations and at other times they are the Holy Spirit Himself. The ambiguity and
instability in language may point to the fact that in His energies God becomes Himself.317 The
energies therefore become constitutive of God, and the immanent and economic are one. This
is scarcely Stniloaes intention, but it is the logic of his position. There is thus a weakness
here which fails to speak of the simplicity of God.
In this context, it becomes clear that the whole issue of deification is closely related to the
subject of revelation. No doubt, Stniloaes theology is centred on revelation with its
emphasis on freedom and uniqueness, ascribing to it a unique epistemic status, and resulting
in the autonomy and distinctiveness of theological knowledge over all other forms of
knowledge. The general view is that revelation is that act of divine self-communication in
which the triune God reveals Himself through the medium of created reality as the foundation
and the author of creation, reconciliation, and salvation of created beings. In addition to this
view, for Stniloae, revelation takes a relational pattern in which the medium of revelation is
an uncreated reality, represented by the uncreated energies.
An attempt will be made to show that the real problem with Stniloaes position is directly
related to the Palamite distinction between essence and energies. To do that, this study will
follow the logical order of what revelation discloses in the Christian rationalisation. It is
important to start with the biblical principle that the disclosure event is understood as the
result of the intentional action of God who expresses His will, freedom, and being in this
event. Since there are no external limitations imposed on God, there is in Him no conflict
between being and will, so that all of Gods actions are, as expressions of His will, also
expressions of His being. At the same time, according to the doctrine of the Trinity, Gods
action is not uniform, but always unitary, and in this way expresses the unity of intention and
act, will and being in God.
Moreover, what Stniloae rightly maintains is that God does not reveal only propositions
about God; God reveals Himself. However, this presupposes some restrictions of human

while if we speak in terms of essence-hypostases-energies the energies would be understood in more personal
terms.
317
Ware affirms that the term deity (theotis) may be applied not only to the essence of God but to the
energies. K. Ware, God Hidden and Revealed, p. 130. Mantzarides says that the man who partakes of this
deifying gift even to a small degree is united through it to God in His entirety. G.I. Mantzarides, The
Deification of Man, p. 109.
90

discourse about God. Although Gods revelation in oikonomia is understood as self-


revelation, that does not mean of course that Gods self, as it is present to God Himself,
becomes now accessible to His creatures. Self-disclosure means that God discloses who He is
and what He is. The biblical central truth of the incarnation, which Stniloae strongly
maintains, is the notion of divine self-giving or the event of self-identification in which Christ
identifies Himself in created reality by communicating Himself as person in action. The formal
structure of Gods self-identification as Father, Son and Spirit is closely connected to the
content of Gods action by which God shows Himself to be the creator, reconciler and
saviour of the world. Gods revelation has no other content than His action in creation,
reconciliation and salvation, and this unity of the content and the mode of the actualisation of
Gods action is expressed in the trinitarian self-identification of God - Father, Son and Spirit.
Accordingly, Christian revelation maintains that there must be the act of reception of Gods
self-communication from the recipient of revelation. The self-disclosure of God has a
particular author and content, so its direction or address is also to particular persons. The
universal content of divine self-revelation and the universal truth claim of the Gospel of
Christ, in which this content is expressed, does not contradict this particularity. This content
becomes effective only in such a way that its universal claim is vindicated for particular
people as the truth about the personal reality of their lives and about the reality of creation as
a whole. The mode of the actualisation of the universal truth of Gods revelation is its
personal particularisation in the activity of the Holy Spirit.
It is at this stage in the discussion that presence of the mysterious uncreated energies
becomes difficult to justify. First, although it is promising to find in Stniloae the
interrelationship of creation and redemption, we ask ourselves how it could be that this idea
correlated with the Palamite view sustains a wholly free manifestation of God in His energies.
It is this ambiguity that forces von Balthasar, for example, to criticise Palamism as a theology
that presents God incompletely revealed and relatively free. It seems that in Palamism, insists
von Balthasar, the essence of God withdraws into an unknowability, while His knowability
becomes diffuse, and the revelation which He intended is thereby destroyed. Thus the
question is if Palamas ever maintained that God holds something back in His essence or He
covers it by His energies.318

318
This is von Balthasars view, as presented by R. Gawronski, in Word and Silence. Hans Urs von Balthasar
and the Spiritual Encounter between East and West (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), pp. 56-60. For Balthasar
the God of love is apophatic not in a withdrawal to a hidden essence as Palamas intends; rather, the God of
91

Moreover, in Stniloaes theology the Christ event is seen as the paradigmatic disclosure,
God disclosing Himself in created reality. For Stniloae, Christ represents the supreme stage
and the consummation of supernatural revelation. Christian revelation, writes Stniloae, is
given in a Person.319 On the other hand, the Christ event implies not only the bruta facta of
the historical events, but also His self-interpretation and the interpretation of His followers
under the action of the Spirit. The overwhelming presence of the uncreated energies,
unconvincingly defined as personal, in divine revelation and especially in relation with human
persons, obscures the particularity of revelation, the efficaciousness of the activity of the Holy
Spirit, and the uniqueness of the person and work of the Son. There is a continuous lack of
clarity, an ambiguity that is at best obscuring and at worst misleading. Of great concern is the
need to eliminate any intermediary that could, in any sense, claim some control over the
uniqueness of Gods revelation in Christ, and implicitly over the soteriological role of Christ.
The object of revelation and the agent of revelation is Christ by the Holy Spirit.

5. General conclusions

5.1 Evaluation
Stniloae maintains the fact that there is a progressive and dynamic dialogue between God
and creation in general, and between God and human beings in particular. For many modern
theologians, God's transcendence means that God is above, not in a spatial sense, but in the
sense that He is beyond our speech and thoughts. Accordingly, God cannot be perceived
clearly in language or history. On the other hand, when the immanence of God is exaggerated,
it becomes difficult to distinguish God from the world or from ourselves. Stniloae was a
modern and contemporary theologian because he tried to reinterpret the meaning of
Christianity in terms that are intelligible for people in a new situation and context. He
understood theology as the application of the interpretation of the biblical and patristic

love is apophatic in that He brings the one filled by Him to adoring silence. The moment of the apophatic is
not behind the appearance of God, but in it... Thus, both with and against Gregory Palamas: Gods essence
does not cover itself with His energies, although it really becomes known in them.
319
Cf. D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 124. The line of supranatural acts and the line of
spirituality do not meet in Christ at the highest level, however, as if they constituted two parallel peaks. It is
precisely the supreme spirituality of Christ which contains within itself the power to overcome the automatism
of nature. D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 25.
92

message to our contemporary situation.320 The perspective given by Stniloae, which is


believed to be biblical, is that God enters into relation with the world and that He is
distinguishable from the world at the same time. God is both distant and near, both
transcendent and immanent. God is distinguished from the world in terms of His control and
authority over it, but He is also present in His creation.321 Stniloae was intensely aware, in
light of who God is and of what He has done, of the intelligibility and inner rational structure
of all aspects of God's actions in the world, whether in the creation or in revelation and
reconciliation.
Thus Stniloae discards the views of biblical criticism represented by Bultmann, which affirm
the need to change the traditional theological language, since Scriptures are the mythological
objectification of certain existential references' man makes to God whom he conceives as that
which transcends man.322 On the contrary, for Stniloae, theological language based upon
revelation has both relevance and a cognitive content.323 Also, Stniloae rejects the Protestant
school known as the history of salvation in its attempt to identify God's self-disclosure only
in His acts at the expense of His words. It is true that God reveals Himself through a
series of acts, says Stniloae, but these acts were expressed without alteration by a number
of particular words and images.324
In addition, Stniloae also excludes the view that the existence of a God who acts in history
impinges upon human freedom. Stniloae develops the point:

320
Cf. D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, pp. 111-112. A similae remark is done by S. Frunz, in O
Antropologie Mistic, p. 11. The difficult task in analyzing the modern theological field of the last two
centuries is to determine which of these reinterpretations are biblical and which are not. The main reason
for this seems to be the problem of authority. The norm for human thinking and behaviour has been
secularized - instead of authority, the modern era proposes autonomy which leads to extremes.
321
Modern theology questions the traditional view of these concepts. The modern notion of transcendence
denies that God can identify Himself in the world, particularly in the finite events of history or in human
language, and it explains transcendence in a way that avoids the metaphor of control. Similarly, the modern
notion of immanence denies the Lordship of God over His creation. Divine action becomes very
problematic: either God is above the world in the sense that He cannot enter into the space-time world, in
which case God cannot act, or God is in the world in the sense that He is inseparable from it, in which case
we cannot assign some acts to God and some to other factors. If God is above nature He cannot enter in; if He
is identified with nature He cannot be recognized.
322
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 109.
323
Specifically, Stniloae refers here to Bultmann, Tillich and Robinson. See R. Bultmann, Theology of the
New Testament, 2 vols., tr. by K. Grobel (New York: Scribner, 1955), and History of the Synoptic Tradition,
tr. by J. Marsh (New York: Harper & Row, 1963); P.J. Tilllich, Systematic Theology (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1963), and Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1963); J.A.T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,
1976).
324
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, pp. 112-113. See also L.W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord
(London: SCM Press, 1988); O. Cullmann, Christ and Time (London: SCM Press, 1952).
93

The reality of supreme Person is totally free of any system of reference; in the most
complete way, it is the ultimate forum of all His acts, and, hence, of all other
existences too. Only this explains the existence of our human persons and can assure
these a certain freedom over against the system of references in which they find
themselves.325

In other words, freedom of person and creation can be conceived only if God exists as an
absolute, free, and transcendent being.326 This is the reason why Stniloae may speak of a
certain participation in God, but, in what is communicated to us from God, we experience
the fact of not participating in Him or, rather, the fact that, in His essence, God remains for us
as one in whom we cannot participate.327 Even the negative terms by themselves are just as
inadequate as the affirmative ones, so we must conceive a synthesis between them, which
brings us to another level of experience. Then Stniloae concludes:

The fact that both intellectual affirmations and negations have a basis in the
experience of God's operations in the world diminishes, in the case of Dionysius as
well as in that of the other Church Fathers, the too rigid distinction between the
intellectual and the apophatic knowledge of God.328

This kind of statement describes in fact what is Stniloaes position regarding the connection
between theology and philosophy, faith and reason, or apophatic and cataphatic. It has been
seen how difficult it was for Losskys radical apophaticism to avoid its anti-historical
inclination and its partial indifference to the area of biblical studies, due to the identification of
theology and mysticism. Too much insistence on antinomies may leave his readers with the
impression that our natural intelligence is in antithesis with the contemplative experience. This
is why it is difficult to interpret Losskys statement that knowledge of God will only be
attained in the way that leads not to knowledge but to union - deification.329 Basically, the
question is whether we conceive of knowledge as an aspect of union or merely the way to it.

325
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 132.
326
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p.113.
327
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 110. In fact, Stniloae uses the Romanian word mprtire which
comes from the verb a mprti, that is, to share. Primarily, in Romanian language, participation has a
more detached, impersonal and external meaning, while sharing involves a more interior, personal, reciprocal
meaning.
328
The following statement could not be a realistic summary especially regarding the Roman Catholic
position. Stniloae asserts that: If Roman Catholic theology reduces all the knowledge of God to knowledge
from a distance, Eastern theology reduces it to a theology of participation in various degrees which are
ascended through purification. D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 112. For the idea of participation in
Roman Catholic theology see, for example, L.B. Geiger, La Participation dans la Philosophie de S. Thomas
dAquin (Paris, 1942).
329
V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 43.
94

Stniloae evaluates philosophy as a means that assists theologians in developing critical


thinking by providing techniques of analysis. He uses rational means to expose hidden
presuppositions and to relate Christian concepts clearly. In this sense his theology is an
integrative theology because it is able to relate theology with all areas of life, and to see all
areas of life and thought as related to theology.330
Although God, in His essence, is a superessential hypostatic existence, a divine Personal
reality, being indefinable, the apophatic reality par excellence,331 this does not mean a total
exclusion of rational arguments or proofs for the existence of God, as, for example, Paul
Evdokimov suggests.332 The relationship between faith and reason becomes inescapable due
to the personal character of God. Faith is the result of a real, actual experience with God as
person, in which case, all things become proof for the existence of God in the believer. On the
other hand, even in our reason there exists a capacity of seeing God as cause. For our reason
has as its ultimate support the reason of a Personal reality who created it.333
However, Stniloae's main concern is not reason, but the heart. Instead of reflection about
something, experience is a form of immediate and personal knowledge. Of course, experience
without some kind of framework for interpreting it is blind. In this context, Stniloae's
theology can be described as both apophatic and personalist. That is why the apophaticism
should be explained only from the personal character of God.

The being which remains beyond experience, which yet we sense to be the source of
everything we experience, subsists in person. Subsisting as person, being is a living
source of energies or of acts which are communicated to us. Hence, the apophatic
has, as its ultimate basis, person; and thus even this apophaticism does not mean that
God is wholly enclosed within Himself.334

God's self-disclosure through acts and words creates the possibility of speaking about His
knowability and unknowability in an apophatic-cataphatic synthesis. This synthesis opens and

330
Similarly Yannaras: The eschatological self-understanding of Orthodoxy cannot become a matter of
experience except within the concrete contemporary historical reality. C. Yannaras, Orthodoxy and the
West, GOTR 17.1 (1972-73), p. 130.
331
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 129-134.
332
Stniloae quotes from P. Evdokimov, Les Ages de la Vie Spirituelle (Paris, 1980), p. 46. Evdokimov
believed that faith is a gift for every man and has priority over logical demonstrations of human reason.
Yannaras similarly: Logical 'proofs' for his [God] existence, the objective attempts of apologetics, the
historical trustworthiness of the sources of the Christian tradition, can be useful aids in order that the need for
faith be born within us. But they do not lead to faith, nor can they replace it. Cf. C. Yannaras, Elements of
Faith, p. 13.
333
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 135.
334
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 103.
95

maintains the dialogue between God-man, man-man, and man-nature. In Stniloae's own
words, The knowledge of God always preserves its paradoxical character.335
Apophaticism saves us from idolatry and serves us an antidote to dogmatism. In
Stniloaes words: If we remain enclosed within our formulae they become our idols; if we
reject any and every formula we drown in the undefined chaos of that ocean.336 That is to
say, our understanding of God could be transformed into an idol, a false god, if we permit the
words and meanings to come between us and God. Stniloae believes that God is ultimately
nameless, but this does not conflict with his positive use of language in certain contexts.
Although the apophatic way of knowledge is the basis for the true knowledge of God, in this
context, he is positively optimistic about the power of language to capture important truths.
The words of Scripture and creeds are an initial form of teaching which can guide the spirit of
human being along the right direction, but which cannot assure the certainty of reaching the
destination (theosis). Hence Stniloae considers that we need transparency to continue the
ascent to the knowledge of God and this means to accept the way of abandonment. Finally, all
images, concepts and doctrines of God must be seen as acts of doxology that place us in the
presence of God.

With respect both to revealed images and to the attributes of God based upon these
images, there is no need to embrace unilaterally either the cataphatic attitude which
can degenerate into a mythical mentality, or the apophatic attitude which can tend to
produce a complete lack of belief in the possibility of any connection between God
and man, and even a complete lack of confidence in man... We must always unite the
cataphatic and apophatic approaches.337

This approach becomes for Stniloae a significant advantage in dealing with theological
issues, especially with supernatural revelation. There is enough room to use both ways and to
keep all thoughts in balance. In contrast to Lossky, for example, who emphasised exclusively
the apophatic way of knowledge and consequently enlarged the gap between theologia and
oikonomia, Stniloae's approach seems to keep them as close as possible. Stniloae becomes
aware of the consequences resulting from a radical apophaticism, seen in the impersonal
character of knowing God exclusively through the divine energies, or individualism related to
experience. In Stniloae's words, Even apophatic knowledge, when it lacks supernatural
revelation, can experience the ineffable presence of God in the way of an impersonal

335
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 105.
336
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 73.
96

depth.338 Thus Stniloae's synthesis creates space for both history and eschatology to exist
in a dialectic relation. The rational and mystical way of knowing does not reject but
presupposes each other to avoid both impersonal apophaticism and cataphatic logolatria.339
Inevitably, the way to understand God, His being and His revelation, involves significant
implications in understanding the Christian view of anthropology, soteriology, and
ecclesiology. Moreover, Stniloaes view is extremely important for the intellectual dialogue
today.

5.2 Assessment
This examination of Stniloaes concept of the nature and function of apophatic theology
suggests several considerations regarding the method, presuppositions and concerns of his
theology as a whole. In the first place, it is clear that Stniloaes theological thought evolved
out of a dialogue with the Fathers.340 Stniloae is attempting to identify a balanced view in the
tradition so that an authentically and peculiarly Christian balanced synthesis develops,
comprising Irenaeus, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Dionysius, Maximus, Symeon the New
Theologian, and Palamas. Stniloaes concern is to identify what is the secret of their
homogeneity, their balanced fidelity and creative reinterpretation (but not a creative
theology). It is important to note that Stniloaes epistemological system that explains the
concept of deification has as its unifying theme the triad essence-hypostases-energies. No
single area of this study can be revised without the triadic structure being called into question.
The contention in this work is that an understanding of Stniloaes epistemological basis of
theosis requires an appreciation of the basic significance for him of the synthesis apophatic-
cataphatic, regarded as the expression of the foundation of all mystical theology.
Generally speaking, there is a distinction between the apophaticism of essence represented by
Western scholasticism, and the apophaticism of person emphasized in the Eastern Greek
tradition. This distinction not only reflects a simple methodological differentiation, but an

337
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 153.
338
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 97.
339
P. Negrut, The Development of the Concept of Authority within the Romanian Orthodox Church during the
Twentieth Century, Doctorate dissertation (London: Brunell University, 1994), p. 36.
340
However, this does not exclude the importance of philosophy for Stniloae, a characteristic found
especially in his earlier writings. He knew very well the European philosophy of his days (for example, the
philosophy of Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger), but soon he decided to put his main emphasis on the
Fathers. For some samples of philosophical debates, see Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului (1943), Poziia
D-lui Lucian Blaga fa de Cretinism i Ortodoxie (1942), Metafizica lui Lucian Blaga, RT 11-12 (1934),
pp. 393-401, and Credin i Logic, RT 12 (1939), pp. 477-480.
97

apparent antithesis in the area of knowledge and ontology. The apophaticism of essence
postulates that access to the knowledge of existence is our choice, as a reflection of our
individual capacity of intellection. Consequently, we know all existences as concrete entities,
predetermined by the rationale of their own essence. The attitude adopted by Stniloae is
rightly to be called apophatic, and presupposes that if the essence is uncreated, transcendent,
supernatural, we may hold that it is logically possible to consider the existence of such an
essence, yet be unable to know its reality. Stniloaes apophaticism is an apophaticism of
person, by which he understands that the starting point is based on the conviction that our
existence and our knowledge are very complex acts of relationship. Obviously, a relationship
is not limited to an intellectual determination, but is in fact an integrative act. An unmediated
relationship cannot be exhausted by an intellectual determination, hence the rational definition
of the essence follows the diversity of the existent things as we know them from the
unmediated relationship with each of them. For example, if God exists He is known, in
principle, as hypostasis through an unmediated relationship, and not as an essence through
His intellectual determination. In the case of the hypostasis of person, we may speak about
the apophatic character of any determination that is ascribed to the personal diversity of God.
Stniloae sees in the apophaticism of essence the danger of continuous development of
relativism and agnosticism. In this case, personal relationship is not a mode of existence, an
existential possibility that derives from any essential determination of the existence, but a one-
sided psychological account of the subject to an inaccessible object. Hence the possibilities for
life are defined by the reason of essence and not by the mode of existence.341
For Stniloae apophaticism means the transcendence of the objective determinations of the
truth, or the refutation of dissipating the truth by formulating it. That does not mean
irrationalism or individual mysticism. Apophaticism accepts in principle the way of affirmation
and negation as possible means of eventual knowledge. This contingent character makes the
difference between apophaticism and any kind of positivism in the area of epistemology.342

341
In both cases, of scholastic rationalism and erotic mysticism, the individual accomplishments are
intellectual or mystical (ecstatic), while the possibilities for a real life are essentially limited and incapable of
attaining a real relationship in knowing God as a real existence and as a distinct person.
342
The possiblity of knowing God by analogy, especially in the West, involves via triplex: the way of negation
(via negationis), the way of superiority (via eminentiae), and the way of causality or affirmation (via
causalitatis or affirmationis). In an Aristotelian context, the Scholastics used the analogical correlation
between the human being and the divine Being in order to determine the Being by starting with the beings, or
to attain the knowledge of the Creator through the knowledge of the creatures.
98

Stniloaes apophatic attitude is not merely a supplementary method in the natural


knowledge of God, but the achievement that includes the method of speculative knowledge
and which refuses to absolutise its semantic efficacy. The semantic of knowledge (the
affirmative, negative, and inductive-causal conceptual formulations) simply constitutes for
apophaticism the potential starting point to actualise an empirical relationship with a
recognised reality. This entire character of the cognitive act of relationship saves the
fundamental elements (diversity and freedom) by which we can define the personal existence
of human being, man as personality in the ontological sense. Apophaticism, as active
renunciation of the rational schematization, is the gnosiological attitude leading to the
dynamic ontology of person.
Theological apophaticism, warns Stniloae, might lead to agnosticism if we overlook Gods
personal mode of existence. Indeed, we may ignore what God is, but we know, in the
experience of His natural and historical revelation, His mode of existence. And this mode is
manifested through the personal activities of God. God works as person, that is, as a
hypostasis of analogical self-knowledge. Thus the existential diversity is known and shared by
us only through an unmediated relationship. Not only Gods person, but any human person
can be known by others only after they start a relationship with them. The capacity to know
God is based on this ontological distinction between His essence and His activities, the
starting point and the premise of apophaticism. Gods essence has the capacity to offer itself
as a will of personal communion, a will that constitutes beings and qualifies them in their
constitution. Because they are the result of the divine will working outside the divine essence,
the beings have no relation with the divine essence itself, so the knowledge of God based on
the analogia entis is impossible.
It has been seen that for Stniloae the mode of existence (tropos hyparxeos) that is known
only through participation is called personal. Gods personal mode of existence corresponds
to the experience we know about mans personal existence. Accordingly, by studying Gods
personal mode of existence through the mediation of His operations, we may understand the
reality of the divine personal hypostases and have a better understanding of our human
personal existence. The experience of participation in other active manifestations is suggested,
99

but is never exhausted in its verbal formulation. This dynamic of relative formulations, the
cognitive dynamic of empiricism in relationship, constitutes the apophaticism of Stniloae.343
Stniloaes central doctrine of the uncreated energies implies an experience of participation,
of sharing in the divinity that is unsharable. Divinity becomes accessible to participation, and
is sharable according to the mode of existence. Human beings can exist in the mode of God,
the mode of reciprocal integration, persons animated by mutual love. This fact is called by the
Church deification or theosis. As regards identity of essence, divinity remains impossible to be
shared, entirely imparticipable (amethekte). This sounds as if it is an intellectual contradiction
(to share something that is unsharable), but it is actually a real and unique way in connection
with Gods knowledge.344
In conclusion, for Stniloae, knowledge is experience of participation, and participation
becomes possible as a result of the divine operations. Knowledge by participation is not
exhausted by the simple understanding of Gods truth; participation is an existential fact,
union with that which is known. Apophaticism leads to union with God, a union that is
inexhaustible at the inferior level of rational concepts and verbal formulations. This inferior
level is valuable because it leads to the superior union. The superior union, that is theosis,
means that human beings exist in the mode of God, exist as god, yet without identity of
essence. Hence the whole ecclesiastical life in the Eastern Church has as the final purpose this
apophatic knowledge of God, with its climax found in the appearance of transcending light.
Finally, the empirical participation in the uncreated light of Gods knowledge is considered by
Stniloae to be the explicit difference between the cognitive ecclesiastical experience and any
other cognitive experience.

343
In the Western Church, due to the fact that the empiricism of relationship was excluded in both its
gnosiology and ontology, apophaticism is identified with the theology of negations or with the mysticism of
sentimental contemplation (contemplatio) of the absolute. This is not a rationalistic error, but the natural
opposition to the risk of relationship. Contrarily, in the East, the empiricism of relationship is better expressed
by the idea of participation in the divine operations. This knowledge is holistic in the sense that every
personal hypostasis (of God or man) does not constitute a part or fragment of divine or human being: on the
contrary, every person summarises in himself and expresses through himself the entire mode of existence, the
entire divinity or humanity. The person is hypostasizing the being, that is she is establishing it as an
existential reality.
344
In the words of Dionysius: For the truth is that everything divine and even everything revealed to us is
known only by way of whatever share of them is granted. Dionysius, On the Divine Names 3 (PG 3, 645A).
100

CHAPTER IV. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASPECT OF DEIFICATION

Introduction
The concept of theosis, as it became more widespread in the history of Christian doctrine,
incorporated various ideas related to the salvation of man, chiefly his attaining the gifts of
impassibility, incorruptibility, and especially immortality. All these attributes possessed by
God by nature, could, it was believed, be bestowed on man by Gods grace, thereby making
man a partaker of the nature of God by participation. This state of grace, referred to by the
Church Fathers as deification, was regarded as the ultimate destiny of man desired by God
from the creation of the first man.
In Eastern Orthodox tradition, generally, the concept of theosis is associated directly with
man and his deification in a soteriological context. It is true that soteriology presents theosis
in its particularity as accomplished in the work of Jesus Christ, but, in Gods plan, theosis
includes primarily the deification of the entire created world even before its fall. This aspect is
revealed clearly by Stniloae at the beginning of his Dogmatics and in other writings too.345
Deification in this sense precedes redemption. Hence the pertinent question at the beginning
of this chapter is whether the concept of theosis is appropriate in connection with Gods
revelation. Does God speak in natural and supernatural revelation about mans original
destiny as being fulfilled in his deification? In so doing, it will become apparent that Stniloae
has made a unique contribution to the theological and anthropological thought of his and
succeeding generations.
This is why the main purpose of this chapter is to posit the anthropological aspect of
deification in Stniloaes thinking. We will need thus to find when and why Stniloae started
to develop the idea of deification as such. Methodologically, that means to start first with

345
The following works devote some space to the deification of the entire cosmos, though none offers a full-
length interpretation: D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, pp. 109-154; Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox,
vol. I, pp. 323-375; The Experience of God, pp. 1-15; Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, pp. 226-271; Studii
de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox, pp. 157-223; Image, Likeness, and Deification in Human Person,
Communio 13 (1986), pp. 64-83; The Faces of Our Fellow Human Beings, IRM (1982), pp. 29-35; The
World as Gift and Sacrament of God's Love, Sobornost 9 (1969), pp. 662-673; Starea Primordial a Omului
n cele Trei Confesiuni, Ortodoxia 3 (1956), pp. 323-357; Doctrina Protestant despre Pcatul Ereditar
Judecat din Punct de Vedere Ortodox, Ortodoxia 2 (1957), pp. 195-215; Chipul lui Dumnezeu i
Responsabilitatea lui n Lume, Ortodoxia 3 (1973), pp. 347-362; Natur i Har n Teologia Bizantin,
Ortodoxia 3 (1974), pp. 392-439; Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i Biseric, pp. 216-249.
101

some general remarks about creation and the relationships between God and the entire world;
then to move on to the particular relationships between man and the world; and finally, as a
result, to concentrate our attention on the main part of the anthropological aspect of
deification, that is, the relationship between man and God.
The chapter has three sections. In the first section we will explore the anthropological aspect
of deification in the context of general creation, or what plan God had with man from the
beginning, specifically in relation with his Creator, the world and other human creatures. In
the second section we will give attention to the reciprocity that exists between man and the
world, a real dynamism that permeates the whole life of the creation. Then in the third section
we will turn our attention to the particular doctrine of man as the image of God, paying
attention to the various views of the term image, applied to the human as person, that are
relevant to understanding how Stniloae have regarded the doctrine.
When we approach the following sections, it will become obvious that Stniloaes position is
personalist and is marked by the dynamism of relations between God, the world, and man.
This fact is essential in understanding theosis as a process started and sustained by reciprocity
and sharing. The idea of intersubjectivity is developed at three levels, man-God, man-man,
and man-world - levels that justify the general structure of this chapter. Specific to Stniloae
is that the concept of time, space, and divine power are Gods created means given to man to
carry on the movement for his deification. Moreover, by his very constitution man is destined
to be deified, and that becomes clear when we see the relation between soul and body, man
and man, and man and world, as a real but partial reflection of the life in the Holy Trinity.
Accordingly, one of the most important conclusions of the whole chapter will be that these
three kinds of relationships reveal the concept of deification as an eternal divine purpose for
mans relational participation in the trinitarian life.

1. The relationship between God and world

1.1 Deification and the act of creation


Some of the issues regarding the act of creation in connection with theosis have been faced by
Stniloae in his first volume of Dogmatics. Stniloae remarks that both Scripture and the
Christian creeds begin by confessing that God is Maker of heaven and earth. Christians tend
to lose sight of the doctrine of creation in their preoccupation with salvation, but Scripture
asserts that the Word of God through whom God saves is also the Word through whom He
102

created the world (John 1:3). Moreover, God has a purpose in creating and therefore
existence has a purpose. This is perhaps the major truth of creation: we are not our own but
we are here for a purpose. In Stniloaes words:

In fact, in everything we do we follow a purpose and for this purpose we make use
of the things in the world. But we ourselves have need of a final eternal purpose, or
better, we must ourselves have need of a final eternal purpose if we are to show
ourselves as meaningful beings in everything we do.346

Consequently, we may affirm that life is not meaningless. The world is ordered and reliable
because it is the Lords world.
To a large degree, Christianity is distinguished from other religions by its doctrine of
creation. That God is the Creator of all expresses what Christians believe about God and
reality. Reality is ultimately dependent on God for its existence and essence, for its form and
its function. Everything else that Christians say about God, the world, and the destiny and
hope of humanity depends on this affirmation.

Creation does not have to be understood as an act by which God creates a reality
separate from Himself, like some object exterior to Himself who is the primal object.
God creates the world in Himself, through a manifestation of His energy and His
Spirit. Clearly God must in no way be confused with some part or power of the
world, but God is not separate from the world nor is the world separate from God;
He is the unconditioned cause of the world.347

In other words, when we are thinking of God, we must avoid the idea that God has an
isolated life, living only in Himself. Love is communitary, and needs to be activated as much
as possible. God activates His love not only in the trinitarian communion, but He decided
from eternity to pour this love outside Himself. Indeed, the first act of God towards the
world, which can also be considered as the basis for all His further acts and of Gods
continuing revelation, is the creation.348 Creation is the first external manifestation of the
divine love and the premise of all other activities of God in the world.
Starting his theological system with the theme of natural revelation as the basis of natural
faith and existence, Stniloae suggests that the doctrine of creation expresses the most
fundamental relation that God has with this world.349 In particular, as finite beings, we feel

346
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 6-7.
347
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 116.
348
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 113.
349
Cf. D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 1-14, and Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 323-328.
103

ourselves to be contingent on something else. The doctrine of creation affirms that we are
here not by blind chance, but because we have been created by God.

1.1.1 Deification as the reason and purpose of creation


In accord with a general anthropological trend in modern theology, Stniloae builds up the
concept of the deification of man beginning with the doctrine of human existence. This
perception is an important component in trying to understand his vision of mans deification
because Stniloae does not start, as other Orthodox theologians do,350 with mans salvation
but with mans existence. Thus Stniloae asserts that we cannot understand the history of
man until we consider the existence of man as fulfilled in his destiny.
This is one of the reasons why Stniloaes Dogmatics starts with the doctrine of revelation.
In his view, at the centre of natural revelation is the cosmos and human being. That is because
man is not only an object that can be known within this revelation; he is also one who is a
subject of the knowledge of revelation. Both the cosmos and human being are the result of
Gods supernatural action and are stamped with rationality. Man was endowed with reason,
conscience and freedom, while the cosmos is organised in a way that corresponds to our
capacity for knowing, writes Stniloae. These ideas of Stniloae have found remarkable
support in earlier assumptions that man occupies the central role in nature, and resonates with
what is known as the anthropic principle. He is pointing to the correlation that exists between
some pieces of evidence about the universe which all appear necessary for the emergence of
rational observers.351
The superiority of man over the material universe is found in his consciousness of himself and
the world. Thus the meaning of human existence is understood only from the perspective of
our eternity, because in our consciousness of self, there is implied, simultaneously with this
search for the meaning of our existence, the will to continue in being forever so that we might
deepen the infinite meaning of our own existence.352 Employing the paradigm of deification-
as-participation, Stniloae follows Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus in asserting that the whole

350
See, for example, F. Gavin, Some Aspects of Contemporary Greek Orthodox Thought (London: SPCK,
1936); P.N. Trembelas, Dogmatique de lEglise Orthodoxe Catholique, 3 vols. (Chevetogne, Descle de
Brouwer, 1966-1968). Regarding Trembelas approach, see K. Wares criticism [in ECR 3.4 (1971), pp. 477-
480], who writes that the whole scheme of the Dogmatiki, the order and arrangement of subjects, the
treatment of each topic, much of the terminology and categories invoked, bear unmistakably the stamp of the
West.
351
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p.1-5. For a modern presentation of the anthropic principle, see J.D.
Barrow and F.J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
104

cosmos and humanity participate in the infinity of God.353 In relation with the subject of
deification, he boldly declares that to eternity God will never cease to deify the world.
Human finiteness was created by an infinite God and is sustained by His infinite power, but its
participation in this infinity is given to the creature through grace.354 Moreover, because we
are persons, we strive to discover and achieve an ever greater beauty, to know an ever more
profound reality, to progress within a continuous newness.355 This kind of thinking and
terminology in Stniloae suggests that man aspires after an absolute with a personal character.
Stniloae expressed creaturely participation in the absolute in the following way:

We are called to become an absolute by grace through our participation in the one
who is personal Absolute by nature. The one who is personal Absolute by nature
wishes to grant the human person a share in his absolute character, inasmuch as he
himself becomes man. By the very act of creation, the conscious person is already a
virtual absolute through a certain participation. Hence there can be no transcending
of the person. Our person does not participate in the absolute by transcending its
own nature as person, but by remaining man and by being confirmed in this
quality.356

Thus, in Stniloaes thinking, the idea of mans striving after infinity and love, or after union
with God, is basically the starting point in understanding the deification of man as the goal of
creation and redemption. The creature is a meaningful being because all human actions reveal
an eternal purpose along with a real order of meanings. Man, says Stniloae, cannot endure
to live without a consciousness of meanings and without pursuing them, for they culminate in
a final meaning which man is convinced he will attain beyond death. Furthermore, man is a
goal in himself for eternity.357 Therefore the immanent spiritual life cannot replace the
primordiality of transcendent life that is free from all monotony of repetition and relativity.
Stniloae insists: Man strains towards an infinite personal reality higher than himself, a reality
from which he can nourish himself infinitely.358 This supreme personal reality communicates

352
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 5.
353
Cf. P. Gregorios, The Human Presence. An Orthodox View of Nature (Geneva: WCC, 1978), pp. 57-58;
and P. Chrestou, The Infinity of Man in Maximus the Confessor, in F. Heinzer and C. von Schnborn (eds.)
Maximus Confessor: Actes du Symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur, Fribourg, 2-5, Septembre 1980,
(Fribourg: ditions Universitaires, 1982), pp. 261-271.
354
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 141. Similar ideas about mans sharing infinity are pointed out by
N.D. ODonoghue in an excellent study, Creation and Participation, in R.W.A. McKinney (ed.), Creation,
Christ, and Culture. Studies in Honour of T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1976), pp. 135-148.
355
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 6.
356
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 28. Again, human persons are absolute through their
participation in Him [God], on the basis of His will (p. 190).
357
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 7.
358
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 8.
105

and fosters the sense of existence in man who assimilates it freely and consciously. On his
side, mans immediate response (through faith) is by participation in the life of this supreme
personal reality. Thus communion with God becomes for humans the means of an infinite
progress in love and knowledge. There is no place for an intermediate existence between
God and human beings. Assembling together the above thoughts, Stniloae emphasises the
idea of mans eternal participation in the infinity of God by asserting:

Only the eternity of a personal communion with a personal source of absolute life
offers to all human persons the fulfillment of their meaning and affords them, at the
same time, the possibility of an everlasting and perfect communion among
themselves______,.. This is how the Orthodox Christian doctrine of the deification
of our being through participation in God or through grace is to be understood.359

In summing up this preliminary aspect of mans striving after God, we can say that Stniloae
affirms that the need for transcendence is organic in human beings. As a person, man is the
only being conscious of itself and of the world, a meaningful being, and created for
eternity. He is open to meanings higher than the world possessing a kind of absolute
character.360 We are enabled even at this stage to remark in Stniloaes approach, that he
distinguishes a progressive and dynamic dialogue between God and creation, in general, and
between God and creatures, in particular.361 For Stniloae, Christianity reveals itself as a
religion of communication and interaction, where the ontological basis of the whole creation
is actualised from the perspective of those realities that exist in a dialogic relationship.
Stniloae promotes the idea of a personal God, a living Creator who manifests Himself in the
power of life and love. Such an utterance points to God as the Archetype of the creature and
to a communion that has in Himself the dimension of communication. This fact can be seen in
the triadic relationship of the Holy Trinity as a structure of supreme love.362 At the
individual level, this dimension of communication should be found within the human being,
who receives the quality as person only in relationship with other humans and with God. But,
as we have already seen, the difficulty for understanding the personal and trinitarian
dimensions, derives from the apophatic character that surrounds and veils them.
However, the dialogue between divine and human, from person to person, is dissimilar to the
common relationship between two human beings. There are structures of communication that

359
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 10.
360
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 6-8.
361
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, pp. 113-114.
362
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, pp. 73ff.
106

define the human and the divine person, and these in turn can actualise the state of
communion as a complete dialogue. As a finite being, man is not actualised as person apart
from a perennial self-transcendence, by assuming for himself Gods communication and
proximity. By seeing the existence of man as a person in relation, Stniloae is recognised
decisively as an ontological personalist.

1.1.2 Creation ex nihilo


The uniqueness of the concept of creation stands in relation to the unlimited freedom of the
creative action found in the formula creation out of nothing. From the beginning, the
Church discarded all the false views about the origin of the world, in favour of creation ex
nihilo.363 The radical contingency of the universe is supported by scriptural testimony where
we read that God created all things (Isa. 40:28; Eph. 3:9; Rev. 4:11; Ps. 96:5). Just as Gods
heavenly enthronement speaks of Him as being Lord of space, creation speaks of God as
Lord of time.364 Creation ex nihilo is not affirmed explicitly in the Bible, though it may be
inferred, but its truth is everywhere present (for example, Rom. 4:17; Heb. 11:3).365 The
doctrine stresses both the absolute independence of God and the relative independence of His
creatures.

363
The phrase ex nihilo, out of nothing, is probably derived from a passage found in the Vulgate translation
of 2 Macc. 7:28, God made them out of nothing (quia ex nihilo fecit illa Deus). For attestations regarding
creation ex nihilo in the early Church, see the decisive role of Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum 1.4, 8,
2.4. 10, 13 (PG 6, 1029 B, 1064 B) and Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 2.1.1, 2.10. 4 (PG 7, 736 B). Other
references are in Origen, De Principiis 4 (GCS V, 9, 14); Augustine, In Ioannis Evangelium Tractatus 42.10
(PL 35, 1703); Confessiones 11, 5 (CSEL 33, 285 and 12.7, 33, 314). For a good summary, see H. Chadwick,
Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement, and Origen (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1966), pp. 46ff.
364
Augustine puzzled a long time in his Confessions over the problem of what God was doing before creation.
Modern theologians avoid this question altogether, conceiving of creation as expressing a relationship and a
process rather than an event. But Augustines answer seems preferable: time itself is one aspect of the
creation. This has been given added significance by Einsteins conception of the universe as a continuum
where space and time are inseparable. See P.K. Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation. A Neo-Evangelical
Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 472-478.
365
In the New Testament there are several passages which mention implicitly creation ex nihilo in passing:
before the foundation of the world is a phrase which occurs frequently (Mt. 13:35; Eph. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:20);
also from the beginning of the world (Mt. 24:21); from the beginning of creation (Mk. 10:6; 2 Pet. 3:4).
Throughout the Scriptures, there is an awareness that confessing God as Maker of heaven and earth affects all
aspects of our life and thought. It tells us who God is and it tells us who we are. The most fundamental truth
about human beings is that we are creatures of God. As Hendrikus Berkhof says: We cannot penetrate this
mystery; we can only make it our starting point ... Out of nothing simply means: not out of anything. H.
Berkhof, Christian Faith. An Introduction to the Study of the Faith (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1979),
pp. 153-154. For a good summary of the meaning of creation out of nothing, see L. Gilkey, Maker of Heaven
and Earth (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959), pp. 30f.
107

Creation out of nothing is one of the favourite formulas of Stniloaes theology. Although it
has been shown that in his view creation lies within the life of God, the question is the
meaning of the nothing. Stniloae states that God is the Author of this world not in the
sense that He created it out of His being, or out of an eternal matter, but out of nothing. Thus
Stniloae holds that, if this is true, then there is an essential distinction between God and the
world. It means also that, being created ex nihilo, creation does not have the source of
existence in itself, but depends on Gods energies for its existence. Indeed, creation is the
manifestation of Gods will, or energies, not of His essence. God is a subject of free spiritual
energy; His acts are spiritual and they produce effects upon man only in conjunction with
mans own will.366
Thus Stniloae emphasises that nothing is not a real void beside God, as plenitude of
existence, or as infinite existence. It does not mean a certain self-restraint of God for the sake
of the created world.367 Basically the act of creation ex nihilo is the sign of Gods
omnipotence and freedom. Because He is omnipotent, God created the world out of nothing;
that is, He was able to bring it into existence from something that for us is non-existence. On
the other hand, Gods kenosis reveals the superiority of His personal character. Gods
freedom in relation with the world creates at the same time freedom for man, fixing the
framework of the covenant, in which God is promising to sustain the whole existence and
man must obey His Creator.368 Speaking about the world and man with a beginning, Stniloae
writes:

If there were no beginning, they would not be out of nothing, so they would not be
the exclusive work of Gods freedom and love, and they would not be destined for
an existence in the plenitude of God, but the only fatal essence of reality would be its
relative, imperfect form. Only if it is out of nothing by the will of God, can the world
be elevated to the level of perfection in God by His omnipotent will and by His
love...369

What Stniloae suggests is that the beginning of the world and man gives meaning to the
whole of existence. Mans consciousness, as the highest form of existence in this world,
shows that the world must find its meaning at a superior level. On the other hand, creation is

366
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 113. Stniloae continues by specifying that Gods influence
acts in much the same way that spirit, ideas and belief exert an influence upon the body, upon human
relations or even upon the material world as a whole.
367
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 239. Stniloae quotes from G. Florovsky, Creation and
Redemption, p. 46.
368
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 241.
108

incomplete so long as God does not reveal its meaning in man. Everything emerges from
Gods will, and His will uses the preceding things. Stniloaes concern is to demonstrate that
the main reason for creation is to establish a dialogic relationship that provides spiritual life.
Creation ex nihilo means in the end that the world and man are totally dependent on Gods
will: on the worlds side to be saved from its absurd relativity, and on mans side to be
oriented towards God through the exercise of responsibility.370
Against all the false views regarding the origins of the universe, Stniloaes position insists
that creation is ex nihilo and is a free act of God. This is against naturalism that sustains that
the material universe is not eternal (but rather self-generating) and is independent of any act
of supreme will or intelligence. Stniloaes view is also against dualism that speaks about two
distinct, co-eternal substances or principles from which all else is derived.371 Repeatedly
Stniloae rejects emanationism, in which the world is a result of emanations or the spilling-
over of Gods being, such that the world and God are the same kind of substance.372 For
Stniloae all these theories deny the transcendence of God and His sovereign power, and
compromise the holiness of God, since evil things in the world are regarded as emanations of
Gods being or mind.373
In Stniloaes view creation ex nihilo is to be distinguished from other types of formation.
Usually when we speak of creation we refer to giving new form to our environment, that is,

369
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 328.
370
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 336.
371
One form of dualism holds that the two self-existent substances are God and matter, while another form of
dualism envisions the eternal existence of two antagonist spirits, one good and the other evil (Augustine had
to counter this view of the Manichees, a theory according to which the two principles are constantly at war
with one another, and what we see is a result of this conflict. The first form of dualism holds that matter is
regarded as negative, sometimes as evil (so Gnostics), and creation is seen as Gods forming this matter into a
specific structure. Process theologians, for example, hold that God creates out of chaos. For a recent critique
of process theology, and especially Whiteheads position, see W. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. II
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), pp. 15-17. In response, Christianity affirms that the eternity of matter is very
problematic because it allows no explanation for the origin of the universe, and it predicates of something that
is finite (matter) something that is infinite (eternity). What is more important, this view posits a God that is
finite, and one who is finite is neither the Creator of the world nor its Sovereign. The biblical belief also
rejects any view that tries to divide reality into two parts. Because God created everything, there is no neutral
or evil part of the universe, and no distinction between a secular and a sacred part of the universe. All of
creation points to God and is here for the purpose of His glory.
372
This is the theory characteristic of all kinds of pantheism. A more modern form of emanation would hold
that the world develops out of Gods being, and perhaps returns back to it. This would be Hegels position for
example, where everything is an emanation of mind.
373
This is similar to what Paul Jewett says: The rejection of all dualistic theories of God and the world, on
the one hand, and all pantheistic theories of continuity between God and the world, on the other, left the
church with only one option: creation, defined as Gods making something (the world) out of nothing. The
church, then, has always recognized creatio ex nihilo as the plain implication of biblical revelation. P.K.
109

reshaping what is already there. But Gods creation in the beginning did not begin with an
already existent substance. Rather, specifies Stniloae, creation out of nothing means that
God spoke (called, commanded) something into being when there was nothing. In the
beginning there was only God and His will to create.374 This is in accord with some Church
Fathers, for whom the purpose of this expression creatio ex nihilo meant that nothing at all
existed previously to creation, no factor whatsoever apart from Gods free will was at work
or contributed in any way towards the creation of the world.375
In conclusion, for Stniloae, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is important to us for two
reasons. First, if God created the world out of nothing, then between Him and the world
exists an essential distinction. Second, Gods otherness is the ground for human freedom.
God enables man to liberate himself from the automatism of this world while maintaining the
freedom of the world. Thus the concept of freedom to self-realisation has been included as an
important part in understanding the general framework of deification. Because the world is
not dependent on itself for this lower existence, it has the possibility of being included into
another level of higher existence outside itself. Only because the world and man are Gods
creatures are they destined for perfection outside themselves. The whole creation has an
anthropocentric character because only humans are conscious of self and able to attempt new
senses.

1.1.3 Creation as a free and triune act


Stniloae sees creation as a harmonious entirety which is sustained by a unitary rationality and
which unites in itself the rationalities of all component parts. This shows that the origin of the
world is not an impersonal essence, but a loving personal Father.376 In the Holy Trinity, the
being of God is lived by the Father as the supraessential source and as the plenitude of
existence par excellence. For this reason He cannot be understood apart from the Son to

Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation. A Neo-Evangelical Theology, p. 456. For further disscusions, see J.
Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, pp. 36ff.
374
The Hebrew verb for create (bara) was used in Genesis 1-3 exclusively for Gods activity, and expresses
the uniqueness of Gods creative work as opposed to the refashioning which is characteristic of human
creativity. The verb is also interesting in that it never appears with an accusative which denotes an object
upon which God worked to form something new.
375
J.D. Zizioulas, Preserving Gods Creation, II, Kings Theological Review 12 (1989), p. 43. See also the
views of Gregory of Nyssa given by I.P. Sheldon-Williams, The Greek Christian Platonist Tradition from the
Cappadocians to Maximus and Eriugena, pp. 447-448. For the theory that maintains that the doctrine of
creation ex nihilo arose in the second century of Christianity, see G. May, Creation ex nihilo. The Doctrine of
Creation out of Nothing in Early Christian Thought (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994).
376
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 255.
110

whom the Father offers His entire existence supraexistent. The Son receives this infinite
abundance of the being of the Father and enjoys the plenitude of existence as light. The joy
with which the Father looks at His being given to the Son, borne and then returned by the
Son, is the Holy Spirit, who also is the bearer of the Fathers being. Stniloae sees in this
perichoresis the origin of Gods decision to create the world:

But the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have decided to pass the existence they
enjoy to other conscious beings, even though in an infinitely reduced measure. And
thus the creation out of nothing came into existence and reverberates in the variety
of the world - and especially in the constant capacity of thinking and living of
existence with which the created persons are endowed - the infinite richness of being
which is received from the Father, together with its living as a gift and light enjoyed
by the Son, and with the feeling of joy as it is enjoyed in communion by the Holy
Spirit.377

According to the Greek Fathers, Stniloae finds in the life of the Trinity the reason for
creation:

Only because He is in Himself the fullness that transcends all determination and
becoming, all increase and decrease, could God have created a world destined to
participate in His eternity, understood as fullness of interpersonal communion. For
the creating of the world could have no other point. Moreover, a world existing by
itself as an impersonal eternity, increasing and decreasing continually within a closed
circle, would have no reason and would be entirely inexplicable.378

Developing the above, it is easy to see that Stniloae is reiterating once again the personalistic
understanding of creative act, that is, creation resulted from the interpersonal love of the three
persons of the Trinity, which manifests itself ad extra in creative energy.379
This emphasis is extremely important for this thesis, and will be taken fully into account
when we discuss the Christological aspect of deification. It is enough to say that, in
Stniloaes view, in the super-existent personal reality we find the explanation not only for
existence itself, but also for the human person. The tripersonal community is the source for all
existing acts and relations. This dogmatic formula of the divinity unique in being and
trinitarian in persons reveals the basis and support for all the possibilities of communication
between human persons and God. Stniloaes insistence on the trinitarian structure is

377
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 256.
378
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 153.
379
Cf. J. Meyendorff, Creation in the History of Orthodox Theology, SVTQ 27.1 (1983), p. 34. See also D.
Stniloae, Theology and the Church, pp. 112f. A similar position is found in C. Yannaras writings, for
example, De lAbsence et de lInconnaissance de Dieu (Paris, 1971), pp. 103-113.
111

understandable, because, on the one hand, a monopersonal God does not have the
communion in Himself and, on the other hand a dyadic structure is limitative. A full personal
character demands a triadic correspondent. Only a triadic existence assures the personal
character, the distinctiveness of the persons, and the communion. In this trinitarian model, the
Romanian theologian finds the foundation and the explanation for the ontological-dialogic
model of the human selves that aspire for a radical accomplishment of communication. The
highest expression of this communication is love, which, paradoxically, realises the unity of
selves. Love is understood as an ontological act that brings something permanently into
existence. The triadic formula, then, becomes a matrix of communion that we try to actualise
in the mystery of interpersonal love. Outside this communication, the persons existence is
only virtual; it becomes real only through the act of love, as the organic configuration of this
essential reality. In the act of creation, God shows His love, and man responds to God in love.

1.1.4 Summary
In order to understand Stniloaes next premises for the doctrine of deification, the
relationship between creation and its Creator was explained in some detail. According to
Stniloae, the reason for creation must be found in God Himself, that is, in His infinite
goodness.380 The world was created by the divine love and not by any external necessity
imposed upon God, nor by any internal necessity. Stniloae insists that such a notion can
degenerate into a form of pantheism.381 The basic idea found in Stniloaes writings is that
God did not have to create the world out of some inner necessity of His own nature, because,
if He did, He would be dependent in His very essence on the existence of the world.
Stniloae echoes the universal theological assertion in the Christian tradition that creation is a
free act of the triune God. Affirming that God was not constrained to create, Stniloae admits
that the creation is not a necessary moment in the process of divine evolution. Of His own
sovereign will, and for the praise of His glory (Eph. 1), God decided to create. God brought
forth the visible and the invisible universe, and gave it an existence separate yet dependent on

380
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 337.
381
Orthodox theology thinks that the unity and interdependence of man and nature can be asserted without
falling on the side of pantheist extremists who identify them with one another. Peculiar to the mystical
approach of Stniloaes theology is his concern to avoid any idea that could be interpreted as pantheistic. In
fact, mystics can generally fall into variants of pantheism.
112

Him. Accordingly, the created world is intelligible because its Author is a God of order, and is
contingent because its Creator did not have to create it.382
Stniloae argues that what we need to do in order to keep Gods love and His freedom
inseparable, is to insist upon the trinitarian model in creation. Surely creation was an act of
the triune God. Likewise Florovsky clearly states that the creation presupposes the Trinity,
and the seal of the Trinity lies over the whole creation.383 In Orthodox theology, creation is
out of the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. The Father is the Creator of
heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible, the Son is He through whom all
things were made, and the Holy Spirit is the life-giver (zoopoion). As a trinitarian act, the
world was created by Gods will and by His consubstantial Word and Spirit.384 Particularly,
Stniloae affirms also that the creative word was a reflection of Gods eternal conversation
within the Holy Trinity.385 The Triune God wanted to bring other beings into communion
with Him in order that these could experience the divine love already present in the Holy
Trinity and share full communion with their Creator.386 Consequently, creation implies
theosis, a real participation in the life of God.387

382
For further discussions on the doctrine of creation, see: E. Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation
and Redemption, tr. by O. Wyon (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1952); M. Polanyi, Personal
Knowledge (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958); G. Florovsky, Creation and Redemption (Belmont,
Mass.: Nordland, 1976); .P.J. Hefner, The Creation, in C.E. Braaten and R.W. Jenson (eds.), Christian
Dogmatics, vol. I (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984); T.F. Torrance, Theological Science (London: Oxford
University Press, 1969); Reality and Scientific Theology (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1985); J.
Polkinghorne, Science and Creation (London: SPCK, 1988); A. Peacocke, Theology for the Scientific Age.
Being and Becoming - Natural, Divine and Human (London: SCM Press, 1993).
383
G. Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, p. 70. Yet, added Florovsky, one must not therefore introduce
cosmological motifs into the definition of the intra-trinitarian Being.
384
Indeed, the revelation presents us God the Father as the author of this world, as a representative of the
creative activity. But the Holy Scripture reveals that creation is the result of the communion (koinonia) of the
Holy Trinity (Gen. 1:26; John 1:3; Job 33:4). Subsequently, Basil the Great explained this by saying that we
should understand in creation the original cause of the Father as a founding cause, the cause of the Son as a
creative one, and the cause of the Spirit as an implementing one. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto (PG 32, 136B).
See also Gregory of Nazianzus, Homila 38. 9 (PG 36, 320), and John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa 11.2
(PG 94, 865).
385
W. Pannenberg says that the Greek Fathers used the term activity (energeia) only for the outward actions
of the Holy Trinity, and the Cappadocians made unity of operation a proof of the essential unity of the
Father, Son, and Spirit. In this context, theologia (the trinitarian life) must be clearly distinct from
oikonomia (the salvific dispensation). The acts of the trinitarian persons in their mutual relations must be
sharply differentiated from their common outward actions. This differentiation finds support in the rule that
posits an antithesis between the inseparable unity of the trinitarian persons in their outward action relative to
the world and the distinctiveness of their inner activities relative to one another, which is the basis of the
personal distinctions of Father, Son, and Spirit. Cf. W. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. II
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), pp. 1-3.
386
Pannenberg asserts: From the standpoint of Christian theology the participation of creatures in the
trinitarian fellowship of the Son with the Father is the goal of creation. W. Pannenberg, Systematic
Theology, vol. II, p. 73. Similar ideas, although in a different context, are found in Eriugena: Everything that
is, is either participant, or participated, or participation, or [both] participated and participant at once. Cf.
113

1.2 The dynamism of creation: theosis and kinesis


One of the most attractive explorations in Stniloaes thought is found in his contribution to
the understanding of theosis in connection with the triad: time, space, and power. Stniloae
links creation ex nihilo with creation in time and space. Since the world is not an emanation
from God, and since it does not result from His being or from an existent eternal matter but is
created out of nothing, the conclusion is that it has a beginning and a purpose. Because time
is the measure of both motion and change, and both are linked with the world, the result is
that time should be considered as part of the world. Hence Stniloae frequently specifies that
creation in time and space does not contradict the immutability of God, for the idea of the
world had already existed in God from eternity and, in the act of creation, nothing was
changed in His being. On the other hand, the world and man are in motion because they are
moving towards an absolute that is not in themselves. As the source of their motion, the
eternal God is linked with the temporal world. Stniloae speaks about the phrase in the
beginning as the first moment of Gods dialogue in His descending to the creature.388 God
produces in Himself a now of His will, and that determines time. This, in fact, shows the
fundamental relation between time and Gods will. The divine act of creating time is an
initiatory act, the beginning of Gods descending to His relationship with the world, and
implies the persistence of His continuing descendence in relationship with the whole
movement of the world in time.389 Moreover, Stniloae affirms that an act of God sets in
the previous acts something that develops into new orders of existence. Everything emerges
from Gods will and His will uses the previous orders of existence. Stniloae sees in mans
creation the climax of the act of creation; that is, creation is incomplete until God discloses its
meaning in man.390
He affirms that human nature is not filled from the beginning with the whole substance of its
pre-existent reason (Logos) in God, but it is called to actualise this substance by voluntary

Eriugena, Periphyseon III (PL 122, 630A), cited by J. Meyendorff in Remarks on Eastern Patristic Thought
in John Scotus Eriugena, in B. McGinn and W. Otten (eds.), Eriugena. East and West (Notre Dame and
London: University of Notre Dame, 1994), pp. 51-68 (56).
387
Florovsky writes: There is in creation a supra-natural challenging goal set above its own nature - the
challenging goal, founded on freedom, of a free participation in and union with God. G. Florovsky, Creation
and Redemption, p. 73.
388
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 330. Cf. Basil, Homilia in Hexaemeron (PG 29, 16-
17).
389
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 332.
390
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 332-333.
114

effort. By using his pre-existent reason in God, man becomes penetrated by it and raised in
God. Like Maximus, Stniloae speaks about mans returning to his pre-existent reason in
God, or his returning to God.391 All created beings have stamped within themselves the need
and the capacity to move towards God and their fulfilment. Therefore the creature inclines
towards God by his nature, and in this inclination towards God there is present also Gods
work in the creature, a kind of attraction from God. Thus the creatures motion is seen as a
reciprocity: the engraving tendency towards God, and Gods attraction.392 But how is it
possible in practice for human beings to accomplish this movement towards God? To explain
such a possibility, Stniloae employs three elements: time, space, and power.393 Interestingly,
the theological basis for the idea of movement towards theosis has its correspondents in three
attributes of God related to creation: eternity, omnipresence, and omnipotence.

1.2.1 Time
Stniloaes reason to justify mans movement towards communion with God is found in the
Christian doctrine of time. There are a few aspects in this doctrine that reveal time as both an
interval between God and creature and a medium of deification.394
First, Stniloae sets up the framework in which the idea of Gods eternity as the fullness of
trinitarian communion is fundamental. He explains that the principle of Gods immutability, as
regards both His life and His activity, is a reflection of the Palamite distinction between Gods
essence and energies. Specifically, God in Himself, who is above time, meets with the
creatures of time through His energies. This is possible because true eternity must be the
quality of a perfect subjectivity and characterised by interiority and free will.395 Stniloae
defines the trinitarian life as an infinite fullness that is continuously present but is not sensed,
even as continuity. This is the general context for mans deification, and this explains the fact

391
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har n Teologia Bizantin, p. 394.
392
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har n Teologia Bizantin, p. 395.
393
A short description of Stniloaes thought as regard with the world, time, and space, is found in D. Neeser,
The World: Gift of God and Scene of Humanitys Response. Aspects of the Thought of Father Dumitru
Stniloae, ER 33.3 (1981), pp. 272-282.
394
See also D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, pp. 126-135.
395
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 151. Stniloae writes about the divine life: The life of the eternal
subjectivity must be a fullness which in all respects is not a transitory one; it must consist in a love for another
subjectivity and in a perfect union between itself and that subjectivity which has the same fullness, so as to be,
simultaneously, unfailing life. The life of the eternal subjectivity is an infinite reference to its subjectivity
contemplated within another I so as to be truly love, eternal, unfailing love; it is reference to another I who
is himself also the bearer of his own infinite subjectivity and responds with that same eternal, unfailing love.
A divine I loves with an eternally inexhaustible - a thing proper to the divine - or with its fullness (which is
like that of another I) and this occurs in reciprocity (p. 152).
115

that only because He is in Himself the fullness that transcends all determination and
becoming, all increase and decrease, could God have created a world destined to participate
in His eternity, understood as fullness of interpersonal communion.396
Second, Stniloae asserts that the eternity of God carries within itself the possibility of time.
Again, God created the world so as to make it a sharer in His eternity or communion, not by
reason of its own nature but through grace and participation in it.397
Third, Stniloae says that eternity is found by creatures through their movement towards
God, in time. Stniloae appeals to Maximus who maintained that God has stamped motion
on the rational creatures He created, as the one means by which they can advance towards
final rest in the divine eternity.398 Stniloae develops the point:

The motion which rational beings use to pass from existence, through good
existence, to the eternal blessed existence in God, is a movement brought about
through the agency of the will and so comes to be called work or operation. It is
through work, through operations, that these beings advance towards God,
inasmuch as they purify themselves from passions, acquire the virtues (among which
the foremost is love), and thus, freed from passions, come to know the divine
reasons of things, that is, they see the meanings of these in God or see God in all
things.399

What Stniloae emphasises is that, in the process of deification, there is a strong connection
between time and motion, between grace and work, between participation and love.
Consequently, time is a means in Gods hands to deify man.
Fourth, Stniloae applies the idea of time to the personal relationships between God and
men. Time does not remain exterior to the creature but, from the outset, becomes a condition
of its ascent. Time is the condition of the dynamic relation of the creature (which has not yet
attained to God) with the eternal God,400 and the expression of the fact that we do not
remain and cannot remain in what we are.401 Stniloae applies this fact to the love
relationship between God and men. Time is seen as an interval between Gods calling and
mans response in love. Although we as human creatures are finite, we are enabled by Gods
grace at the same time to transcend ourselves. This introduces time, which is to say, the past

396
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 153-154.
397
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 154. See also V. Lossky, Orthodox Theology, pp. 51-63.
398
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 155. Cf. Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 1072B, 1073C, 1144,
1392B).
399
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 155-156.
400
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 157.
401
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 161.
116

with its discontent with what we have been and with the extent of our self-offering, and the
future with its tendency for us to be something more and to offer more of ourselves.402 From
another perspective, God is offering Himself to His creatures by placing Himself in a position
of expectant waiting. Hence eternity accepts time within itself, that is, God accepts the
creature, who lives in time, into His eternity. Stniloae talks here about a spiritual distance
within the framework of love:

In God the duration of this expectant waiting is reduced to nothing for the love
between the divine subjects is simultaneous in all its perfection. Not being able to
grow any further, nor to fall away from this simultaneity and perfection, the divine
love persists, as offering and as response, in a bi-lateral (or tri-lateral) eternal act.403

Men respond freely through the power of will, growth and effort, but the complete response
will only occur when God gives Himself totally to them, after they have grown in this
direction. Practically, this takes place because God actualises His energies in a gradual
fashion. On this progress of ours towards eternity, He experiences together with us the
expectant waiting (and hence time) on the plane of His energies or of His relations with
us.404 The acts of God in offering His love take into account the level we have reached in our
capacity to respond.

But inasmuch as through our process of becoming we not only reduce the duration
that separates us from full union with God, but also secure a continuous
advancement within the loving atmosphere of His Person, our time can be said to fill
up gradually with an eternity that we sense more and more. And God, waiting
expectantly with hope and living our continual approach to Him, likewise has
eternity present during the time of His expectant waiting.405

Time does not exist in the communion of the Holy Trinity, but it finds its explanation from
that communion, and will come to an end in the infinite fullness of communion, or in
isolation within ones own emptiness.406
Fifth, Stniloae asserts that only by transcending time as a real interval do human beings
attain to eternity. Although this transcendence always remains inadequate during our earthly
life, human persons are expected to stretch out beyond themselves towards other persons

402
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 158.
403
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 159. For a similar idea, see also D. Stniloae, Dumnezeu este
Iubire, pp. 366-402.
404
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 159.
405
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 161.
406
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 163-164.
117

and to give themselves to one another with the help of an impulse given through the holy
sacraments. Stniloae is aware of the process of mans deification, thus the interval between
the offer of Gods love and our response is also prolonged by the necessity we are under of a
growing spirituality. On the other hand, God is participating in mans limitation and
frustration during this process of spiritual maturation:

Through this experience of the interval between our response and His appeal as well
as the appeal to love of our neighbors, God lives all the pains which grow up
between partners who have not yet reached the fullness of love.407

Stniloae cannot avoid speaking about the possibility of refusing to accept Gods love and,
consequently, to be judged both as individuals and as a whole. Stniloae advances the
following explanation to time falling outside divine eternity, and understood as an agonising
immobility:

As long as we preserve a spiritual mobility, time persists with its double possibility
that matches the ambivalent capacity of our own freedom: it can provide the
occasion for rising or falling; it can be a road leading towards the bright or the dark
eternity. Time will cease simultaneously with this ambiguous quality that is proper to
it, when God deems that He can make it possible that we respond to love
simultaneously with the appeal addressed to us, or when we are definitively and
totally locked up within our own solitude; when the appeal and the response of the
dialogue correspond to one another completely, or when there is no more appeal or
response at all; when there is no longer any appeal because there will be no response
to it, and no more response is produced because the appeal is no longer heard. A
continuous refusal to respond to love and to offer oneself will fix the Scriptural
creature within a total absence of any possibility of communication. Then there will
be no more expectant waiting, no more hope.408

In summary, Stniloae underlines that God created time for man and that He is leading the
world towards full communion with Him. In order to define deification as related to time,
Stniloae quotes Maximus: Deification, expressed briefly, is the concentration and the end of
all times and all ages and of all that exists in time and ages.409 For Stniloae, the existent

407
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 166-167.
408
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 167.
409
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 156. Cf. Maximus, Quaestiones ad Thalassium 59 (PG 90, 609A).
As part of the dialogue with man, time is seen as a means for mans deification. Stniloae sees here three
dimensions of time: the initial aeon, historical existence, and the final aeon. The aeon is time without
movement and time is the aeon measured through movement. The initial aeon comprises all atemporal
laws of the creation, the ideas of time; the final or eschatological aeon comprises in itself the experience of
movement and the entire time. Stniloae calls the final aeon also the aeonical eternity that has in itself a kind
of stable and eternal movement that surrounds God. Between these two poles we have history. See also D.
Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I., pp. 335-336.
118

border between the eternal and the temporal does not separate but becomes the meeting place
for two realities that enter in dialogue. Reflecting his personalist preoccupation, Stniloae is
trying to reconcile eternity with time. Time is nothing else than the medium used by God to
lead us towards His eternity, the distance that man is asked to surpass by a process initiated in
the dialogue with eternity. Deification is possible in time because time which is able to move
forward towards the fullness of genuine eternity is creative, and it absorbs life from the
infinite divine energies and transfers it to the created plane.410

1.2.2 Space
As in the case of time, Stniloae justifies his concept of movement between God and men by
making appeal to space as their medium of communion. There are two basic ideas related to
space as means for deification. First, Stniloae emphasises that space has its justification only
in a trinitarian context. Stniloae writes that a unipersonal God would provide no sufficient
basis for the creation of space.411 Although God is supraspatial, He can initiate a perfect
communion with spatial, infinite subjects. In the Holy Trinity, says Stniloae, the possibility of
space arises for it is in the distinction of the divine persons that the possibility of the
otherness of finite persons arises who are to be attracted into communion with Him. As a
form of relationship between God and human persons, space also makes possible the
movement between human persons and towards God. God created subjects with adjacent
existence and clothed in material bodies, in order to make material forms a means of
spirituality.412 Space is an interpersonal relation and an existential reality because it depends
on the other I too. The model is found again in the life of the Trinity:

In the Holy Trinity, through the distinction of human persons and the union among
themselves, both the origins of space and its unity are given. Each human person has
in himself the whole of space, or is linked to the whole of space, for the body of the
person is developed out of all that exists in space and the soul of the person has a
content which has been gathered together from the whole of space. Persons who are
united among one another carry the whole of space together with them. Space is a
single reality borne by each person and borne in common by all human persons;
space is transcended by them, however, in a unity which is theirs beyond space.413

410
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 168.
411
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 173.
412
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 172.
413
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 172.
119

It is another way of affirming the existence of the image of God in man as person, and the
reality of interpersonal communion, in space. Stniloae conceives space in similar terms as
time: it is both an interval and a link, serving the real communion between God and His
creation. This is why space is defined as an interpersonal relation and an existential
reality.414
Second, Stniloae asserts that only by transcending space as a real interval do human beings
attain eternity. Ontologically we are above space, for space was not made to be on its own,
but to be filled with the fullness of communion so as to be the context and the means of
communion, the place of encounter and of interpersonal relation, the medium of reciprocal
revelation. Here we can find the full meaning of space: it is a means of Gods communion
with us and the form of our communion in movement towards perfect communion. In
personal relationships space can be transfigured and overwhelmed by the subjectivity of the
persons. It follows that space was not made to be on its own. Moreover, it is the ambience
of another person in relationship with me.415 It is this principle that makes Stniloae see in
human beings the integrative factor of the parts of the world and of space.
In summary, Stniloae maintains that God, by creating limited beings with the aspiration of
intimate communion with their Creator, established between them a distance in order that this
distance to be overcome by love. Therefore, the main goal of human beings is to make the
spatial distance between them no more a spiritual distance. Above that, human beings are
destined to be transformed into the life of the nonspatial God, through space. This is possible
only if human beings are comprised in God or in His nonspatiality. By viewing us in space,
God is seeing us in Himself, because space is, somehow, around the extension of Himself
through the uncreated energies. Stniloae appeals again to the concept of uncreated energies
to solve the apparent paradox of nonspatiality in act and spatiality in potency, as related to
God and His actual relationships with us. Once more, for Stniloae, to understand space from
a purely individualistic perspective is impossible. Space is the form of our communion in
movement towards the perfect communion in the life of the Trinity. This became possible
when the trinitarian communion descended to us, working as the model of interpersonal
meetings among us. Thus space is a gift because it is a means towards deification.

414
Similar thought are found in D. Stniloae, Dumnezeu este Iubire, pp. 390-394.
415
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 176-177. To expand this point, Stniloae borrows from Symeon
the New Theologian the idea of the energy of a persons subjectivity.
120

1.2.3 Power
Stniloae justifies mans movement towards God by introducing the concept of natural
power. God created persons through His power to move towards the perfection of
communion with Him and among themselves. There is no other reason for the manifestation
of Gods power outside Himself. That is why God implants in the created persons a natural
power of movement towards Himself and also strengthens this natural created power of theirs
with the uncreated power of His benevolence which comes to meet them.416 Stniloae is
much indebted to Maximus system where movement passes from existence bestowed as a
gift to good existence, and finally to eternally, good existence in God.417 Seen as a way to
God, this movement spiritualises man by strengthening the power of the Spirit over lower
tendencies.418 This is possible because the infinite energy of the divine essence is spiritual.
Hence it is capable of overwhelming any physical power, any created power. But it does this
progressively through the agency of the human spirit, gradually strengthening the energy of
the latter by means of its own uncreated energy.419 In manifestation of His power, God
descends and glorifies Himself, and men are capable of receiving God wholly within
themselves. God has created a being capable of becoming god through grace, a nature
capable of being, with this end in view, the nature of a divine hypostasis.420 Stniloae
maintains that God is free in His manifestations, His kenosis (again, kenosis is here linked to
creation, not only to incarnation) being the condition for extending His interior communion to
human beings that they may rise higher towards Himself. Stniloae sums up:

Thus the power given to creation by God and which has as its purpose the ascent of
creation to direct participation in Gods uncreated power - His energies - is itself, as
solidary with time and space, a condition for the relation of Gods omnipotence with
creation.421

In conclusion, Stniloae understands God as omnipotent, and thus able to create human
beings capable of sharing His infinity, with capacity and inclination towards the absolute, with
an ontological link with Himself. Stniloae sees in Gods voluntary and eternal kenosis of His
omnipotence the possibility of free collaboration with human beings. Human creatures were
created for openness and participation in God through the shining forth of uncreated energies.

416
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 187.
417
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 188. Cf. Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 1392AD).
418
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 193.
419
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 193-194.
420
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 189.
121

It is at this point that Stniloae acknowledges the difference between Eastern and Western
theologies:

If in Eastern Christian doctrine the omnipotence of God is the source of the


deification of creation, and hence of the communication of the divine power to
creatures, in the West omnipotence has been conceived more as a means of
defending God against creation... The Christian East has put more emphasis on
Gods love for the world in His will to lead it towards full communion with Himself
in love, while Western Christianity has emphasized more the omnipotence of God
who wants to have the world hold Him in respect.422

Stniloae is right here in his observation of the distinction in emphasis between East and
West, especially regarding Gods love and justice. However, Stniloaes conclusion that
Western Christianity has represented more a mistrustful brake on humanitys path towards
progress, while the Orthodox Churches have always supported the peoples aspirations for
progress, seems to be an unrealistic verdict. Stniloaes optimistic view on Eastern
Christianity takes here an extreme position. First, it is hard to explain the mixture of
soteriological and sociological principles in the same context. Second, it is even more difficult
to justify his statement that in the Western Church mans salvation or deification is brought
about through some external force which exists to frighten man, while in the Eastern
Church it is through condescending love.423

1.2.4 Summary
In summary, in a similar way, time and space are divine gifts and are given for the freedom of
human creatures to draw near or to move away, and to foster the yearning or the desire
between them.424 Both dimensions create an interval between Gods appeal to love and
human response, and between the appeal to love of one man and the response of the other
man. Time is the duration between Gods appeal to love and our response, and space is the
distance linked to this duration. What distances more profoundly is not spatial duration but
temporal duration, because God as Spirit is everywhere with us (so the Spirit vanquishes
space), and time as duration will cease, whereas space will not cease but will be
overwhelmed. Consequently, space no longer matters for those who are united in spirit.425

421
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 190.
422
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 191.
423
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 192.
424
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 172.
425
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 174.
122

The overcoming of time as duration is more difficult than the overcoming of spatial distance
because the former is always a matter of spiritual effort while the latter is a matter of
physical effort.426 The only possible method to overcome this distance depends on freedom
and spirituality. In solidarity with time and space, Gods power serves as a source of the ever
more exalted movement of the creature towards the infinite God, towards theosis. Thus the
limited power will end finally in the unlimited power of God.

As time and space will be overwhelmed by eternity and be spiritual supraspatiality,


so will the physical and worldly powers be overwhelmed by the power of the divine
Spirit which has become mans own. The whole of created being will become bearer
of the uncreated energies.427

That is, time, space, and power are the setting in which mans theosis is realised. There is no
theosis outside time, space, and power. In concluding this section, what Stniloae suggests is
that only within this framework characterised by the transfiguration of time, space, and
power, is theosis possible.428
Basically, Stniloae holds a sound Christian view on time and space. In contrast with Greek
thought that conceived of time as cyclical or circular, returning perpetually upon itself, self-
enclosed, Christianity views time as bound up with the creation and continuous action of
God. At first glance, Stniloae conceives of time as unfolding unilaterally in one direction,
beginning at a single source and aiming towards a single goal, theosis.429
It is known that the Greeks regarded movement and change as inferior degrees of reality.430
For the Greeks cosmic time is repetition and eternal return (anakuklosis), the implications
being seen in the fact that any creation or consummation of the universe is inconceivable, and
that time can never have an absolutely defined direction. This pessimistic attitude towards

426
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 175.
427
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 193.
428
For similar treatment of time and space in Gregory Palamas, see G. Mantzarides, Tradition and Renewal
in the Theology of Saint Gregory Palamas, pp. 1-18.
429
In addition to the idea of time as linearly oriented, Stniloae seems sometimes to advance the idea of time
as representing an open progression from the past towards future in the form of ascending spiral. This image
includes the basic elements of time as one, organic and progressive and, consequently, having a full reality.
Cf. K. Ware, Time: Prison or Path to Freedom? in J. Osborn and Sr. Christine (eds.), Wide as Gods Love
(London: New City, 1994), pp. 108-119.
430
Both the cosmic process and time develop in a circle or according to an indefinite succession of cycles, in
the course of which the same reality is made, unmade, and remade. For further inquiry, see J.F. Callahan,
Four Views of Time in Ancient Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948), Greek
Philosophy and the Cappadocian Cosmology, DOP 12 (1958), pp. 29-57; I.M. MacKenzie, The Anachronism
of Time. A Theological Study into the Nature of Time (Norwich: The Canterbury Press, 1994); B. Otis,
Cappadocian Thought, DOP 12 (1958), pp. 97-124; P. Sherrard, Human Image: World Image: The Death
and Resurrection of Sacred Cosmology (Ipswich: Golgonooza Press, 1992), pp. 56-76.
123

time leads to strict determinism, predestination, or fatality. Whoever accepts the Greek
thought, says Cullmann, must put aside the entire revelatory and redemptive history,
because for the Greeks, the idea of redemption as taking place through divine action in the
course of events in time is impossible.431 Contrarily, in Stniloaes view, time runs no longer
in a circle but in a straight line, finite at its two extremities, having a beginning and an
absolute end. Time, specifies Stniloae, progresses towards an end, a goal, and it is a medium
of a continuous progress towards deification. This interpretation of time rests on a vision of
the world clearly opposed to the Greek view. In opposition to the Greek theory of circular
time, Stniloaes conception is of a rectilinear time in which nothing is seen twice. The world
is created in time and must end in time. The world it is neither eternal nor infinite in its
duration, but is wholly immersed in time. Specific to Stniloae is his insistence that this world
and its destiny stand in a direct relation to the will of God. Human beings have been created
free and can stand directly in the presence of his Creator. God is manifested in time and space
and each of His operations marks a decisive moment in history. Thus history is definitely
teleological and anthropocentric. In relation with his deification, man can know God only in
these temporal manifestations, and especially in His uncreated energies. Furthermore, if time
here has a direction, it has also a meaning for salvation. Stniloae sees in space and time the
cosmological formula of the relationship between the supraspatial and infinite God and finite
persons.
Based on a Christian framework, and sustained by the Church Fathers, Stniloae was
confident in his assertion that time and space appear as a pedagogical instrument employed by
God to form mankind and lead it to a glorious maturity consummated in theosis.432 For this
reason, deification concerns the concrete totality that is man in time and space. Stniloae
maintains that the object of salvation is not as in Hellenism and Gnosis only the nous, the
atemporal self, but is an individual unique in his flesh as well as his soul, the union of a body,
a soul, and a spirit.

1.3 Evaluation
By approaching creation as a free act of the triune God, and creation ex nihilo, Stniloae has
already created a preliminary background in understanding theosis. Although there is a

431
O. Cullman, Christ and Time, pp. 52, 56.
432
See, for example, B. Otis, Gregory of Nyssa and the Cappadocian Conception of Time, SP 14 (1976), pp.
327-357.
124

distinction between God and cosmos, Stniloae believes that the same God created a
yearning cosmos. The whole cosmos is marked by life, energies, love, and hope - in one
word, dynamism. In order to understand Stniloaes view, it is important to locate his
patristic background, much attention having been given to the influence of Maximus on the
concept of movement.
By developing a distinct doctrine of creation, it became obvious that the first Christian
intellectuals were not essentially influenced by Greek philosophical assumptions.433 However,
the Early Church had to face two different views as regards the existence of God and world:
the Gnostic interpretation and the Platonic philosophical view of creation.434 In the face of
pagan learning, most of the Christian Fathers adopted an attitude of controlled acceptance,
which produced Christian philosophy.435 The biblical idea of creation was completely opposed
to the Platonic notion of Gods changelessness and eternity of existence. The Greek mind
conceived of an eternal cosmos, having a dynamism of inescapable circulation. This cosmos
was eternal and immutable in its constitutive structure and composition.436
But the categories of Greek philosophy were inadequate to the Christian view that advanced
a radical contingency of the cosmos in the order of existence. The Fathers were generally
metaphysical realists who believed that universals have independent reality.437 It is at this
point that the major stumbling block for Greek philosophy is presented by biblical thought:

433
For example, the Greek saying nothing comes from nothing, is founded in Plutarch: For creation does
not take place out of what does not exist at all but rather out of what is in an improper or unfulfilled state, as
in the case of a house or a garment or a statue. For the state that things were in before the creation of the
ordered may be characterised as lack of order (akosmia); and this lack of order was not something
incorporeal or immobile or soulless, but rather it possessed a corporeal nature which was formless and
inconstant, and a power of motion which was frantic and irrational. From On the Creation of the Soul in the
Timaeus 1014B, quoted both by J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists (London: Duckworth, 1977), p. 207, and F.
Young, Creatio Ex Nihilo: A Context for the Emergence of the Christian Doctrine of Creation, SJTh 44
(1991), pp. 139-151. For further debate on the origins of the doctrine, see Frances Youngs position from the
above article, in opposition to T.F. Torrance, Divine and Contingent Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1981), and The Trinitarian Faith (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988).
434
For the Stoics and Aristotle, the cosmos is one single and unchangeable reality. On the other hand, for
Plato, the sensible world is only a ladder by which one ascends to the intelligible world. Plato seems to
identify the intelligible world with God. Cf. J.D. Zizioulas, Preserving Gods Creation, II, Kings
Theological Review 12 (1989), pp. 41-42. See also A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition,
pp. 1-74.
435
I.P. Sheldon-Williams, The Greek Christian Platonist Tradition from the Cappadocians to Maximus and
Eriugena, p. 425. Sheldon-Williams uses a very strange and improper term, that is, Christianism, by which
he understands a philosophical system constructed upon Christian doctrine; and as earliest examples of
Christianism we have St. John the Evangelist and St. Paul.
436
G. Florovsky, The Concept of Creation in Saint Athanasius, p. 36.
437
As opposed, for example, to metaphysical nominalism where universals inhere in particular realities, that
is, in Aristotelean interpretations. For example, Athanasius divergence from Platonic thought can be seen in
125

the Creator-creature distinction (and its corresponding base in the doctrine of creatio ex
nihilo).
Meyendorff observes that in the history of the Orthodox Church, the doctrine of creation was
connected formally with two periods: the Origenist, and the sophiologist.438 Regarding the
first period, it is well known that the definition given to the Eastern Churchs stance, as far as
creation is concerned, was a consequence of the confrontation between the thinking of Origen
and that of Athanasius. Origen tried unsuccessfully to forge a synthesis between the
scriptural account of creation and the metaphysical presuppositions of Platonism,439 because
the Origenist system saw creation as an expression of Gods nature. Florovsky rightly
observed that the crucial problem resided in how the creative will of God was related to His
own being. That is why Origen also failed to distinguish between the ontological and
cosmological dimensions and so he was able to speak about everything being eternally
actualised.440 On the other hand, for Origen, says Meyendorff, the original, intellectual
creation is static,441 and it finds its true logical existence in the contemplation of Gods
essence, and its first movement is a form of rebellion against God.442 As a reaction, the
Greek Fathers abandoned Origens viewpoint concerning the concept of the created beings in
a universe shaped by God. Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus, for example, gave a central place
to the distinction between the uncreated and the created levels.

the rejection of a schema of the divine hierarchy of Being. Cf. E.P. Meijering, in Orthodoxy and Platonism in
Athanasius: Synthesis or Antithesis? (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974), p. 129.
438
For a good summary of sophiology, see S. Bulgakov , The Wisdom of God. A Brief Summary of Sophiology
(New York and London, 1937), and F.C. Copleston, Russian Religious Philosophy. Selected Aspects
(Tunbridge Wells and Notre Dame, Ind.: Search Press and University of Notre Dame, 1988), pp. 144-147.
439
J. Meyendorff, Creation in the History of Orthodox Theology, p. 27.
440
This position builds up a system in which the eternal being of God and the eternal existence of the world
were co-existent and co-eternal. One of the consequences was found in the controversies of the fourth century,
namely, the question of the eternity of the Logos in the teaching of Arius. In his struggle with the Arians,
Athanasius placed the main demarcation line between the Creator and the creation, and not between the
Father and the Son, as the Arians contended. Athanasius, however, makes the distinction between the nature
and the will of God (or theologia and oikonomia), claiming that the created world is an act originating in the
divine will and not in Gods unchanging nature. The truth that the divine nature is distinct from the created
nature led later to the two-natures-in-Christ doctrine formulated at Chalcedon. G. Florovsky, The Concept of
Creation in Saint Athanasius, pp. 38-39, 47. See also V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 93
441
J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, p. 133.
442
Origen, following Plato, divided reality into the intelligible and the sensible. According to this teaching,
rational beings or souls preexisted as an entity encompassed in God, the immobile state (stasis), being of the
same nature as His. Moving away from this unity or becoming dispersed, God gave existence to the material
world in order to punish the souls for their sin committed before the dispersion, one of the consequences being
their confinement in bodies. Thus the movement (kinesis) of rational beings began before the creation
(genesis) of the material world and this movement is one of their sins. J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern
Christian Thought (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1987), p. 132.
126

Stniloae grants an important place in his studies to the rejection of the Platonic-Origenistic
doctrine. It is natural then that Stniloaes sources for his doctrine of creation are found in the
writings of the Cappadocians443 and Maximus.444 To understand better what Stniloae says on
his central idea of movement, one must spend much time on Maximus, because Stniloae
draws heavily from his writings and openly acknowledges his influence on this subject.445
In both authors the gulf between God and His creation is an explicit reality due to creation ex
nihilo. Thunberg developed Maximus idea of differentiation within creation by analysing a
number of terms used in Maximus writings.446 One of these terms, diastema-diastasis
(separation, distance), in its cosmological use, is connected with motion or the natural
movement of created beings. This distance is a positive presupposition for a movement
destined to lead to its telos, that is, a Godward movement. At the end of this process, the man
living in Christ will experience deification, a mystical communion with God. Deification is
possible, says Maximus, because diastasis disappears in stasis (rest) where man shares the
non-distance character of His [Christs] hypostatic union of distinct but not separated natures,
energies and wills. It is not a penetration into the essence of God, but only a participation in
His divinity and infinity where every natural movement reposes. Or, in the paradox of
Maximus, if time is motion and eternity is rest, a state in which the two somehow co-exist
would be ever-moving rest.447 It is obvious that Maximus cosmology was combined with
his Christology in such a way that a unified vision of Gods purpose and activity is
gained.448

443
For Gregory of Nyssa see De Hominis Opificio (Jaeger IV.2); for Basil see Homilia in Hexaemeron (PG 29,
3-208); and for Gregory of Nazianzus see Orationes (PG 36, 320C-324D). Gregory of Nyssas view on time is
treated by A.A Mosshammer, Historical Time and the Apokatastasis according to Gregory of Nyssa, SP 27
(1993), pp. 70-93.
444
For Maximus see Ambigua (PG 91, 1062-1417).
445
Stniloae acknowledged this fact in a private interview with the author, in June 1993, in Bucharest, and in
the Introduction to the Romanian translation of Maximus Ambigua (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1983), pp. 5-
42.
446
The key terms are: diaphora (difference), diairesis (division), diastasis-diastema (distance and separation),
and diastole (distinction, expansion). Cf. L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, pp. 51-67.
447
Cf. Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 1221 AB). A similar terminology is found in Stniloaes article, Natur
i Har n Teologia Bizantin, pp. 395f. For a more detailed examination of the moving-rest theme in
Maximus, see P.C. Plass, Moving Rest in Maximus the Confessor, Classica et Mediaevalia 35 (1984), pp.
180; H.U von Balthasar, Kosmische Liturgie, Hhe unde Krise des griechischen Weltbildes (Herder, 1941), p.
115; P. Sherwood, The Earlier Ambigua of St. Maximus the Confessor, and His Refutation of Origenism
(Rome, 1955), p. 112; A. Nichols, Byzantine Gospel, pp. 102-110.
448
L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, pp. 60-62. Cf. Maximus, Quaestiones ad Thalassium 59, 65 (PG
90, 608 D, 760 A) and Ambigua 15 (PG 91, 1217 C). See also Gregory of Nyssa, In Ecclesiasten Homiliae 7
(Jaeger 5, p. 412, 414).
127

Obviously, Stniloae borrowed from Maximus this concept of movement and applied it to
the whole of creation destined for deification. Stniloae himself writes that Maximus assumed
a serious defence of the movement of creatures as being a means towards theosis, during
which and particularly at its end-point in God, created beings enjoy the uncreated energies of
God.449 To explain this idea further, Maximus reversed the Origenist triad - fixity or final
stability (stasis), motion (kinesis), and becoming (genesis) - asserting that firstly the
phenomenal reality begins with the act of creation (genesis) and only then proceeds through
time as a movement (kinesis), ending in a final rest (stasis) beyond time. Thus all created
being is tied to extension (diastema), especially to the extension generated by the kinesis of
time. The result is an inverted triad: becoming-motion-fixity. Maximus triad is a modified
vertical scheme of emanation by adding to it an Aristotelian pattern of forward teleological
motion.450 The doctrine of motion is also an important divergence from Origenism. Maximus
writes:

The principle of all natural movement is the genesis of the beings set into motion;
and the principle of the genesis set into motion is God as Creator (genesiourgos).
The immobile state is the aim of the natural movement of created beings... God is the
principle (arche) and the end (telos) of all genesis and of all movement of beings;
from him they come, towards him they move and in him they shall find immobility.451

Because creation is Gods free act, the movement given to the created world is not something
evil. The reason for that is found in the total dependence of creatures on God. At this point
Stniloae is following Maximus in all particulars. Here are his comments:

To enforce the idea that the movement is not evil, St. Maximus called it passion in
good sense. The movement of the created beings is passion in that good sense
because beings are not movement or power by themselves, but they have the
movement or the power from the One who has created them.452

Moreover, Origen regarded change and diversity in creation as something wrong, while
Maximus and Stniloae understood the movement of beings towards God as a necessity:
God, therefore in creating the world, placed outside Himself a system of dynamic beings,

449
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 188.
450
P.C. Plass, Moving Rest in Maximus the Confessor, p.177.
451
Cf. J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, pp. 132-133. See also L. Thunberg, Man and the
Cosmos. The Vision of St. Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, N.Y.:SVS Press,1985), p. 45, and A. Nichols,
Byzantine Gospel, pp. 158-195.
452
D. Stniloae, notes on Ambigua, p. 73; Cf. Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 1164B,C). See also J. Meyendorff,
Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, p. 133.
128

which are different from Him in that they change and move towards Him.453 Thus the
purpose of kinesis is theosis, that is, the communion of beings in the divine energy, the
participation in God or transfiguration. The logos of each being implies a skopos as a free
movement towards God. To conclude with Stniloaes comments: All that moves is created
because it is in the making, starting from a beginning and developing towards a perfect state
which is its goal, to which it aspires.454
In summary, the Orthodox system of thinking promoted by Maximus and Stniloae
presupposes a personal and dynamic understanding of God and of the created world. The
dynamism of created nature has its ultimate goal God Himself, who is the principle, the
centre and the end455 of all creation. In contrast to the Origenistic system that posited the
continuous succession of other worlds, Maximus and Stniloae assert the eternity of this
worlds rationality.456 The theory of the eternity of the cosmos was unacceptable for the
Christian Church because it lacked a radical division between God and His creatures.
Consequently, the doctrine of the redemption became meaningless. Furthermore, Maximus
and later Byzantine theologians provided a different system for understanding the internal
dynamism of creation, which in turn influenced Stniloaes view on the anthropological and
eschatological aspects of deification.

2. The relationship between world and man

In accordance with Orthodox thinking, Stniloae understands the human creature as


creations master (archon). World reality is completed by man and man cannot exist as a
reality except in the world. In connection with this supposition, the motif by which we gather
together the various affirmations about man is that of created co-creator. That is, man shares
self-consciously and responsibly in the formation of the world and its unfolding towards its
final consummation. Hence man is Gods co-worker and the continuator of creation.

453
Quoted by J. Meyendorff in Byzantine Theology, p. 133. See also his Christ in Eastern Christian Thought,
pp. 100-102, 134.
454
D. Stniloae, notes on Ambigua, p. 228.
455
Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 1085D).
456
Thus concludes Meyendorff, the intellectualistic and monistic conception of Origens world, which
assumed the pre-existence of minds in the eternal contemplation of the divine essence, is replaced by the
biblical dualism of Creator-creatures. J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, p. 133. For further
studies on the subject of creation from an Orthodox point of view, see E. Briere, Creation, Incarnation and
Transfiguration: Material Creation and our Understanding of it, Sobornost 11.1-2 (1989), pp. 31-40; M.
Tataryn, The Eastern Tradition and the Cosmos, Sobornost 11.1-2 (1989), pp. 41-52.
129

Stniloae often draws attention to the paradoxical character of the relationship between the
world and man.457 We are constantly aware of unity and diversity in man and in his relation
with the whole cosmos. Man and the world depend on each other in order to fulfil their
destiny to glorify God by revealing His attributes. When writing about theologys openness to
the world, Stniloae declares in fact the value of creation in mans deification. This is why
theology must give full attention to the saeculum, in the sense of recognising the worlds
stability and value, and of helping the world, as it should, towards a genuine development of
what constitutes true Christian humanity.458 As has been mentioned, God created this world
for the sake of dialogue with human beings.459 Accordingly, the contingent world was created
as a materialised ground where God and human beings might intervene with their free
acts.460 That is why we can speak about mobility in relation until the whole world and man
are deified. Stniloae unfolds the idea of relationship between man and world by
distinguishing the following characteristics of that relationship.

2.1 The world as a gift


The world as a divine gift is defined by Stniloae as the first characteristic of the relationship
between the world and man. The idea that the world exists in a real communion with God and
that man is responsible for the survival of nature, emerges as a central theme in Stniloaes
thinking. The basic premise for Stniloae, therefore, is the affirmation and development of the
image that the world was created by God as a gift for mans knowledge, for material and
spiritual life. In fact, we shall only understand the character of the world when we think of it
in terms of the concept of gift.461 However, even in its character of a gift, the world shows
that it is not the ultimate reality but only an instrument for mans deification. Thus the world
is necessary for humanity because humanity needed the world in order to offer it back again
to God in the interests of its own spiritual development. The practical purpose of the world,
as a coherent word of God towards men, is to establish a progressive dialogue in love with

457
It is important to note that by world Stniloae understands nature as much as humanity or else, when
using the term to refer to one or the other, the other is always tacitly included. D Stniloae, Teologia
Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 323.
458
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 89.
459
D Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 339.
460
D. Stniloae, Chipul lui Dumnezeu i Responsabilitatea lui n Lume, Ortodoxia 3 (1973), p. 353.
461
D. Stniloae, The World as Gift and Sacrament of Gods Love, Sobornost 9 (1969), p. 665.
130

mankind.462 Man and the world are like two partners in the dialogic relationship, finding their
fulfilment in the principle of reciprocal gift in love. Stniloae continues:

Things which were stamped with an unconscious rationality would in themselves


have no meaning; but if one takes into consideration their aspect of having a purpose
for a conscious rationality, they have a meaning. So the gift does not exist in or for
itself, neither does its meaning lie in itself; yet for one who can receive it, it has a
valid rationality.463

In other words, still as a gift, the world is not complete in itself and cannot satisfy us
completely until it accomplishes itself as a means of communion, the meeting place and the
bridge of our meeting with God.464 Stniloae writes:

The whole world ought to be regarded as the visible part of the universal and
continuing sacrament, and all mans activity as a sacramental, divine communion.
The conception of the world as the gift of God or as the vehicle of His love, and as
the visible part of a sacrament of Gods grace, are one and the same.465

In these words Stniloae underlines the sacramental character of the world: on Gods side the
gifts are pure gifts - for God suffers no lack when He gives -, while mans giving is a sacrifice
offered to God - it is a eucharist. This is the reason why every man is called to be a priest of
God for the world. That is, through the organisation and actualisation of the world, man is
able to put the seal of his understanding and of his intelligent work onto creation, thereby
humanising it and giving it humanised back to God, due to the fact that divine freedom and
human freedom can manifest themselves in an unbroken dialogue.466 Accordingly, human
beings are called to actualise the worlds potentialities because the whole world is not only a
gift, but a task for every man.467 For those who use it, the gift becomes a means of
communication and a symbol of spiritual maturation, for it has been enriched by the life
which persons communicate to each other through the love demonstrated by the gift they

462
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 340.
463
D. Stniloae, The World as Gift and Sacrament of Gods Love, p. 665.
464
D. Stniloae, The World as Gift and Sacrament of Gods Love, p. 666. Thus man is also called imago
mundi, because he is a reflection of the creation, so that all created things have their meeting-place in him.
K. Ware, The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1990), p. 63
465
D. Stniloae, The World as Gift and Sacrament of Gods Love, p. 667.
466
D. Stniloae, The World as Gift and Sacrament of Gods Love, pp. 668-669. The theme of deification is
in reality the theme of mans humanisation through divine love. D. Stniloae, Mic Dogmatic Vorbit, p.
168.
467
Nature, as Gods gift, has to be continually renewed. D Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I,
p. 326. An important place is given by Stniloae to human activity, that is, the role of human thought,
imagination and labour.
131

have exchanged: thus the persons give themselves to each other and as a result the gift grows
spiritually.468

2.2 The interdependence and responsibility of man and nature


The interdependence of man and creation is defined by Stniloae as the second characteristic
of the relationship between the world and man. It has been shown that, Stniloae drawing
basically from Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus, declares that the world as nature was created
for human beings; even the meanings of time and space are fulfilled in theosis. Thus between
cosmos and human beings there exists, on the rational and epistemological level, a real and
concrete interdependence.

In our faith, the rationality of the cosmos has a meaning only if it is known in the
thought of an intelligent creative being before its creation and in the whole time of
its continuing in being, having been first brought into existence precisely that it might
be known by a being for whom it was created, might thus be brought about through
its mediation.469

For Stniloae, the rationalities of the world were created from nothing, but they have as
model and sustainer the eternal rationalities of the Logos.470 Thus creation ex nihilo reveals
the worlds total and continuing dependence on Gods will. The eternal rationalities of the
things are located in the divine Reason and, like human reason, have involved in themselves
new meanings or senses. Stniloae often asserts this dependence, saying that the worlds
rationality is for man and culminates in man.471 Things in themselves contain rationalities
with this double purpose: to maintain the biological life and spiritual growth of men. On this
basis, Stniloae elaborates and expands the idea of progress in the knowledge of things and of
language, and applies this progress to mans deification.
Although the cosmos is part of divine revelation, it does not mean that the world has equal
opportunities with human beings. The fact of mans self-conscious existence gives him a sense
of superiority over the world. Actually, the world exists for human beings and has been
created to be humanised, that is, to be a Man writ large or at least to become the content of

468
D Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 341.
469
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 2.
470
D Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 326. See also D. Stniloae, Chipul lui Dumnezeu i
Responsabilitatea lui n Lume, pp. 347-362.
471
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 351. Again: The meaning of the world lies
precisely in its inherent necessity of finding its fulfilment from a source which possesses the power to grant
132

Man, a content which comprehends all things in each person.472 By extension, Stniloae talks
about mans destiny by using Maximus phraseology, who defined man as macrocosm or,
more precisely, a macro-anthropos - a new term that carries the idea of mans call to
become a world writ large, and the world to become entirely humanised. The whole cosmos is
destined to serve human existence. On the other hand, man himself, as a person, is structured
to strive to discover and know the infinite reality that is found in a communion of infinite
Persons.
This concept about the interdependence of man and nature provides the basis for an all-
embracing picture of deification. The reason is that every human person is, in some way, a
hypostasis of the entire cosmic nature, but only in solidarity with all other human beings.473
Although cosmic nature is common to all human beings, every person experiences it in a
different manner. This nature determines the inter-human dialogue that can pass on even its
corruption. Thus man has a certain responsibility towards nature and, implicitly, towards
other men, for he belongs to all of them. Although we should distinguish between nature and
humanity at the level of responsibility, this distinction becomes inapplicable at the
soteriological level. The reason is found in a real reciprocity that functions in the process of
redemption. The holy man irradiates from himself a holy serenity and light, that, in turn, are
renewing and fertilising cosmic nature. Man is called to be the unifying element of all
creation and its wedding-ring, for he is linked through the elements of his nature with all the
elements of nature.474 Man needs to be in union with God, and he brings the world more
into union with God to the extent that he himself grows in that union.475 Within this
framework, Stniloae insists that nature itself is a means by which man is supported in his
existence and brought close to God.

Nature unveils itself to us as a plastic reality which can in principle be shaped by the
conscience in an infinite number of ways and be totally integrated in the content of
this inter-human and loving conscience.476

fullness of meaning, since it gives completion of being. D. Stniloae, The World as Gift and Sacrament of
Gods Love, p. 664.
472
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 4.
473
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 324. Paulos Gregorios thinks that the idea of
experiencing everything as a whole, founded in Gregory of Nyssas writings, was assimilated by Gregory into
a Christian cosmology from the Stoics. Cf. P. Gregorios, The Human Presence. An Orthodox View of Nature,
p. 64.
474
D. Stniloae, Jesus Christ, Incarnate Logos of God, Source of Freedom and Unity, ER 26 (1974), pp.
410.
475
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 147.
476
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 327.
133

Nature becomes thus an instrument for the spiritual evolution of both human solidarity and
mans spirituality.477 More precisely, for a believer, created nature is a medium through which
he receives divine assistance for his spiritual growth.478
In face of these facts, Stniloaes view affirms that this world is anthropocentric, for it finds
its fulfilment in human subjects by serving them. Likewise, man finds his fulfilment in giving
up some of the gifts received through the world and bringing them back to the Creator as a
proof of his total dependence on Him. This is another way of expressing the becoming rich
by giving paradox, found especially in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. This paradox is
explained here by the fact that the received and then returned gift brings people so close to
each other that the object of the gift becomes a mutual and an evident means for perfect
communication between persons.479 The dialogue with man gives a meaning to existence and
to the worth of the world. For only those humans that are aware of the meaning of their
existence and physical-biological nature can surpass the repetition of the laws of nature, being
able to reach through it to the pursuit and fulfilment of other meanings too.480

2.3 Man as mediator


Man as mediator is defined by Stniloae as the third characteristic of the relationship between
the world and man. As a very pertinent articulation of his anthropological purpose, Stniloae
holds the idea of man as mediator and microcosm reflecting unity and diversity in the created
world. The idea of mediation is found in the constitution of man as soul and body. Due to the
fact that the act of mans creation involved God in the process of the worlds deification,
nothing in creation is lost, but everything becomes deified and perfect.481 While God put a
free spirit in man, the divine Spirit can work the spiritualisation of the world only through the
various contributions of each person living in this world. Man is brought into existence as an
incarnated spirit by a special creative act of God; and as an entity who consists in body and
spirit, or in a part of nature where the spirit was put, man becomes the mediator or the priest

477
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 324, 334.
478
Nature can be the medium through which the believer receives the divine grace or the beneficial
uncreated energies. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 325.
479
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 341.
480
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol I, p. 339.
481
D. Stniloae, Natur si Har n Teologia Bizantin, p. 392. Likewise, Meyendorff writes: The true
purpose of creation is, therefore not contemplation of divine essence (which is inaccessible), but, communion
in divine energy, transfiguration, and transparency to divine action in the world. J. Meyendorff, Byzantine
Theology, p. 133.
134

of the entire universe.482 Possessing a soul and a body, man lives in the spiritual and material
realm. Man becomes a mediator, bringing things together in the process of spiritualising
matter. Thus Stniloae sees mediation as possible because man was created as a rational
being.483 Man is called by his reason to be the unifying element of all creation.484 Contrary
to the views that regard man as plunged into an impersonal divine, the Bible discloses him as
being like the divine God, expected even to personalise the world. It is mans privilege to
be the means by which grace penetrates the world, creation being an act of free will and free
love.

2.4 The rationalities of the world


The rationalities of the world are defined by Stniloae as the fourth characteristic of the
relationship between the world and man. Indeed, the rationalities of the world are another
possible means towards theosis. Stniloae begins his Dogmatics with some key statements
about the content of natural revelation. This indicates that man and the world are stamped
with rationality, while man (Gods creature) is further endowed with a reason capable of
knowing consciously the rationality of the cosmos and of his nature.485 The human being is
the only being in this cosmos conscious of itself; it is thus the consciousness of the world,
and the factor able to assert the rationality of the world. Accordingly, the world exists for
the sake of human beings. Between the reasons or inner principles of things and human reason
there is a reciprocal influence. Stniloae develops this thought as follows:

The reasons within things disclose themselves to human consciousness and must be
assimilated by it and concentrated in it. They disclose themselves insofar as they
have human reason as their virtual conscious center and by helping reason to become
their own actual center. They are the potential rays of human reason on the way
towards being revealed as its actual rays, and it is through these that human reason
extends its vision farther and farther.486

For Stniloae, then, the rationality of human beings is infinitely greater than the rationality of
nature, also because the latter has no consciousness of its own meaning. This is why the

482
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 389.
483
Every created thing has its point of contact with the Godhead; and this point of contact is its idea, reason
or logos which is at the same time the end towards which it tends. V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 98.
484
D. Stniloae, Jesus Christ, Incarnate Logos of God, Source of Freedom and Unity, ER 26 (1974), p. 410.
485
On the other hand, the cosmos itself would be meaningless along with its rationality if there were no
human reason that might come to know the cosmos because of its rational character. D. Stniloae, The
Experience of God, p. 2.
486
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 3.
135

rationality existing in the universe needs to be completed by, and seeks an account of itself
within, the rationality of a person. Thus the world bears the stamp of a personal rationality
intended for the eternal existence of human persons.487 Much influenced by Maximus
teaching about logoi, Stniloae writes:

Saint Maximus the Confessor sees the whole of creation prefigured in the totality of
Gods eternal reasons which, in the work of creating and perfecting the world,
branch out from their unity and then return to it, or, more precisely, lead the whole
world towards an eternal unity in God through the very work of perfecting its
individual component parts as a kind of dynamic matrix for the world.488

This statement indicates the ontological unity of the world in God, and suggests, in regard to
the role of the logoi in the economy of salvation, that there is both unity and differentiation.
Hence the logoi are not identical either with the essence of God or with the existence of
things in the created world. The existence of creatures and of the whole creation is given in
the logoi.489
When he speaks about the simplicity of the human person in its spiritual foundation,
Stniloae does not want to suggest isolation, but unity in diversity. Moreover, as one who is
in union with God, man brings the world more into union with God to the extent that he
himself grows in that union.490 The dynamic factor behind the growing unification of the
world and its increasing unification with God is man. Stniloae writes:

According to our faith man is the unifying factor of the world because through the
various parts of man, and especially through his reason, he is linked with all the parts
of the world. For the world as a whole is a system of materialized reasons or inner
principles which human reason gradually gathers within itself through the
collaboration of its various subjects.491

Stniloae insists that the rationality of the world is for mans sake and finds its culmination in
man. Because our progress in knowing the meanings of things stimulates our progress in
communion with God and with others, mans responsibility is to discover new senses or
meanings in things.

487
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 11.
488
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 146.
489
Stniloae distinguishes between the meaning of a thing (noema) and its strict rationality (logos). Cf. D.
Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 347.
490
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 147.
491
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 180.
136

In conclusion, the rationality of things and words is considered by Stniloae to be the means
of the dialogue between human beings and God. There is an inexhaustible common meaning
of things, a meaning that brings everything together in a large unity: the divine Logos. All
created beings have their own rationalities (logoi) of existence in the ultimate Reason or in
the divine Logos. In this context, the human mind can contemplate the partial rationality of
things and phenomena existing in the creation. By contemplating the rationality of things,
human beings attain the supreme reality which confers multiple meanings for their
biological and spiritual growth. But what staggers one is the overall significance of things,
their connection to the ultimate Reason, the personal Logos. Observing the rationalities of
things, man is inspired to respond to this Logos. Indeed, Gods words addressed to human
beings through the things of His creation, stimulate their understanding and, correspondingly,
their response. The progress in understanding the meaning of things invigorates the progress
of language and, finally, the progress of human beings in communion with God, with others,
and with creation.

2.5 Evaluation
Generally speaking, Stniloaes view on the relationship between the world and man reveals
the basic cosmological question of continuity/discontinuity between God and the universe. It
is known that Hellenic cosmology emphasises continuity between God and the world, while
Semitic cosmology puts emphasis on the discontinuity.492 The Orthodox Zizioulas asserts that
under the effect of the Hebrew and Hellenic cultures, the classical Christian cosmology
occupied a central place in Churchs consciousness. The contribution of Hebrew culture is
recognised in its emphasis on history and prophetism at the expense of cosmology, while
Greek culture renounced changeable history in favour of the more stable and secure nature.
Zizioulas compares these two attitudes to nature, and concludes that primitive Christianity
advanced the following sorts of cosmologies: (1) a cosmological prophecy, as a new type
of prophecy that marked the beginning of a new approach to Mans relationship with nature,
which the Church would pick up and develop further later on; and (2) a eucharistic
cosmology, as a combination between the reality of nature and nature itself as a gift and

492
P. Gregorios, The Human Presence. An Orthodox View of Nature, p. 60. Gregorios observes: The
Reformed tradition follows the Semitic pattern in its exposition of the doctrines of the transcendence of God
and the creation of the universe.
137

event.493 It should be obvious now that Stniloaes cosmology advocates eucharistic


cosmology, due to the emphasis put on nature as an instrument for reciprocal dialogue
between the world and man, and the sacramental character of the world.
What is essential for this study is that the apparent interdependence between the world and
man takes a key position in Stniloaes theological thinking, particularly in understanding
Gods plan for the created world as being its deification. To a large degree, Eastern theology
conceives of deification as including both humanity and nature, due to their ontological unity.
Stniloae criticises Western theology in general because of its tendency to separate man and
nature in salvation (the Bultmannian school is considered an isolated phenomenon).
However, observes Stniloae, recent studies accept the relationship between man and nature
as applied to soteriology. The interdependency between the world and man in connection
with deification is obvious in the following paragraph:

Gods economy or His plan for the world is the deification of the created world and,
because of sin, this implies its salvation. The salvation and deification of the world
presuppose the creation, as the first divine act. Salvation and deification have their
focal point in humanity, directly and unquestionably, but not in a humanity
disconnected with nature, rather in a humanity ontologically united with nature. For
nature is akin to, and embraces humanity, and humanity cannot find fulfillment
without mediating with nature or working on nature.494

Hence, for Stniloae, the world and man involve and account for each other in the process of
salvation and deification.
Although human existence is different in quality from non-human creation because of its
privilege in transcending the material world by its spiritual dimension, the natural world is
viewed as integrated with humanity. Stniloae maintains that humanity is functioning as a
conscious altruistic mediator between the world and the divine, and lifts the whole universe
up to God. Stniloae is but echoing the teaching of Maximus concerning the idea that man
himself is a microcosm and mediator between God and the cosmos.495 In analysing Maximus
system (influenced by Gregory of Nyssa496 and Dionysius), Thunberg said that the idea of
man as microcosm, reflecting the world in its manifoldness and diversity, has naturally in

493
J.D. Zizioulas, Preserving Gods Creation. Three Lectures on Theology and Ecology, pp. 2-3.
494
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 323.
495
Thunberg thinks that there were three reasons why Maximus held the idea of man as microcosm: (1) his
profound understanding of unity and multiplicity, (2) his interpretation of the created world in terms of
Christological insights, and (3) the influence of the Cappadocians. L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator,
pp. 140ff.
496
For example, in De Hominis Opificio 16 (PG 44, 180 A); Oratio Catechetica Magna 6 (PG 45, 25B-28B).
138

Maximuss writings to be combined with the idea of man as mediator, who unites in himself
all that is differentiated without violating its integrity.497 Mans role was to overcome them
in complete freedom and to become a natural link between the extremities of creation.498
Consequently, for both Maximus and Stniloae, man stands as a connecting link, a mediator,
between created existence and Creator. This view gives to human nature a dynamic dimension
in relation with creation and God. The mediatorial aspect, found in Stniloaes reflection,
once more sheds light on human natures movement towards theosis. From mans point of
view, that involves responsibility in regard to the material world. Marked by the spirit of
interdependence, this relationship becomes a prelude for the next central relationship, that
between man and God.
Inspired especially by Maximus, the idea of connection between the rationality and the
significance of things in our communion with God is one of Stniloaes favourite subjects.
Both emphasise that God created the world by His will. More precisely, that the unifying
factor between God and creation is the divine wills or intentions, also called the pre-existent
logoi in God.499 Thunberg summarises Maximus doctrine of the logoi in three main points.
First, the logoi pre-exist in God. As fixed in God, all the logoi subsist eternally in Gods good
counsel,500 and pre-exist monadically in God.501 Second, the logoi are held together by the
Logos. Maximus holds a double affirmation concerning the relationship between the Logos
and the logoi: that the many logoi are one Logos, and the one Logos is many logoi.502 Third,
the logoi of creation are intimately connected with the logoi of the economy of salvation and
of Christs incarnation.503 Thunbergs conclusion, referring to the act of creation by the Word,

497
L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, p. 151. Maximus wrote about mans movement towards God in
the context of five recognized dualities or divisions (diaireseis): created and uncreated, intelligible and
tangible, heaven and earth, paradise and universe, and male and female. Cf. Maximus, Ambigua 41 (PG 91,
1304D-1305A). See also J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, p. 139; K. Ware, The Unity of
the Human Person according to the Greek Fathers, in A. Peacocke and G. Gillett (eds.), Persons and
Personality. A Contemporary Inquiry (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), pp. 197-217.
498
J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, p. 139. Similar ideas are developed in the chapter
The Human Image by P. Sherrard in his book The Rape of Man and Nature. An Enquiry into the Origins
and Consequences of Modern Science (Ipswich: Golgonooza Press, 1987), pp. 15-41.
499
Maximus, Ambigua 7 (PG 91, 1080A). Sherwood considers that Maximus was clearly influenced by
Dionysius in totally rejecting Origenism and developing his theology of the logoi. Cf. P. Sherwood, The
Earlier Ambigua, pp. 175f.
500
Maximus, Ambigua 7 (PG 91, 1080A). For further treatement of the history of the logoi, see L. Thunberg,
Microcosm and Mediator, pp. 76-84; J.P. Farrell, Free Choice in St. Maximus the Confessor (South Canaan,
Pennsylvania: St. Tikhons Seminary Press, 1989).
501
Maximus, Quaestiones ad Thalassium 60 (PG 90, 625A).
502
Maximus, Ambigua 7 (PG 91, 1081BC).
503
Maximus, Ambigua 33 (PG 91, 1285C-1288A). Maximus holds a three-fold incarnation of the Logos: in
His coming in the flesh, in the logoi of the created beings, and in the letters and sounds of Scripture. The
139

is that this implies to Maximus not only a positive evaluation of creation but the inclusion of
the latter in a purpose of universal unification, on the basis of the incarnation by grace of the
Logos, in which all the logoi of things abide.504 Stniloae remarks that Maximus teaching on
the logoi as having their origin in the divine Logos, is a particular teaching. The reason why
Stniloae adopts the idea is that it helps him to explain the malleable rationality of the world
and full of multiple virtualities. However, this rationality admits meaning through the
actualisation of this flexibility only if human reason works according to the ethical
principles.505
In order to understand the role of this section in the elaboration of the concept of theosis, the
particular relation between the rationalities and the world must be summarised and reinforced.
It was shown that Stniloae maintains that, by creation, the rationalities are not existences but
thoughts of God according to which human beings were created. In this way Stniloae clearly
rejects the Origenist idea that the rationalities were associated with the pre-existent spirits. By
the will of God, then, in the act of creation everything has been passed from the rational
sphere to the ontological sphere, from the sphere of beings conceived by God to the sphere of
their existence. Often, within an anthropological and/or Christological framework, Stniloae
emphasises that the rationalities of things have their model in the divine Logos, who is the
supreme hypostatic Reason. Calling into existence, and in conformity with their existent
rationalities in the supreme Logos, God plants in human beings that movement by which they
will seek to correspond to those rationalities that are in God, and to be united with Him as a
person. From this perspective, on the one hand, creation produces a ramification of the
rationalities from their unity in the divine Logos and, on the other hand, the re-gathering in
this unity is produced by their movement. In fact, creation means the coming into existence of
human beings according to their rationalities united in the divine Logos who, at the same
time, is helping human beings to advance towards their deification. The rationalities of human
beings - identified by Stniloae as uncreated energies - are working in human beings and,
accordingly, through them the divine Logos is working as well. Thus, through His incarnation
in Christ, the full efficacy of the process of gathering together all rationalities and beings
created in Himself - without confusing them with Himself - is attained by the Logos.

question is whether the logoi are situated in the divine essence or only in the divine energies. See P.
Sherwood, The Earlier Ambigua, pp. 179f, and L. Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, pp. 137-143.
504
L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, p. 84.
505
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 360.
140

Stniloaes approach is what might be called a personalist-communitarian view, which stands


against pantheism and emanationism. This is wholly in keeping with the principle that human
beings are led by the Logos itself in their movement towards theosis, that is, towards a
greater likeness of the human personal reason with the incarnate personal Reason.
Simultaneously human personal reason, the human body and the rationalities of the cosmos
are elevated. This is possible because the virtues, as rational products of the personal will,
sanctify the body and cleanse the cosmos. In his view, Stniloae unifies love and reason based
on the fact that between the created reason and the supreme Reason there is affinity or
reciprocal personal love. Thus one sees that in his vision of radiation and spread of the images
of divine rationalities from the personal divine Reason in the creatures, and their progression
towards divine personal Reason, Stniloae totally supports Maximian judgement.
In proposing the possibility of deification in earthly life, Stniloae also suggests that
deification is not totally transcendent. Like Dionysius and Maximus, Stniloae considers that
the transcendence and apophaticism of God do not exclude the operation of God in human
beings for their deification. The movement of human nature, of course, does not annul mans
deification. Mans stability obtained in God rules out only the sequential movement - that is,
passing from one thing to another, while the stable movement or the movement in
communion still exists. Thus Stniloaes balanced positive attitude towards creation is
discerned in his acceptance of both ideas: that of the creatures movement in eternal life and
that of stability in earthly life. This expresses also the dialectic aspect of creation: the stability
of the creatures reason (of essence) and the movement of its modes (tropoi). For this reason,
theosis is attained by keeping the movement and not by coming out from it.
Stniloaes positive vision is subsequently perceived in the destination of creation. In place of
the more pessimistic Platonic-Origenist view, Stniloae employs the optimistic Aristotelian
structure of a world well organised for eternity, a view to which he adds the Christian
dynamism of the progress towards theosis.506 The world is called to advance morally,
spiritually, and in cognitive development until its virtues, incorporated in conformity with the
divine paradigms, will be adequately actualised to embrace God. Thus the worlds structures
and rationalities will be filled with rational divine paradigms, at the same time as being
actualised in these structures and rationalities, and even beyond this actualisation. To sum up,
Stniloae sees the world as a virtual revelation called to advance to a full actual revelation.

506
Maximus speaks about five categories: substance, movement, distinction, combination, and stability.
141

His vision of existence, therefore, repudiates any form of pantheism, sustaining a


communitary personalism and eschatological optimism as two appropriate aspects of
deification.

3. The relationship between man and God

When passing to the most significant relationship that completes the concept of deification,
that is, the relationship between man and God, Stniloae assumes that the first premise in
framing an understanding of human creaturehood is that it is something good. The finiteness
of human life is not regarded as an evil in his understanding, because it is seen from a
perspective wherein each finite part is related to the plan of the whole, to the will of God.
Stniloae always affirms that the distinction between the Creator and the creature is a good
one and must be maintained. We must not bewail the fact that we are finite, as did the
Gnostics. In Stniloaes theological system, man is conceived as a finite personal creature
who lives in a covenantal context. Ontologically, God is the source of our being while,
morally, God is the Creator of life who has ordered its physical, moral, and spiritual
dimensions. In fact, insists Stniloae, we live in a personal universe where each person is
related to God.507
Stniloaes priority given to the concept of freedom becomes very apparent in this section.
His thesis asserts that, as human beings, we live in a particular body, in a particular time that
we have not chosen; we have the power of freedom (for example, self-determination), but we
can only exercise it within determinate limits. Man is a special kind of creature, a person with
a relative independence, a determinate self-determining power, that is, a self-determination
that works within certain limits. In this context, Stniloae suggests the principle that to be a
person is to be a creature of option. Throughout his writings, Stniloae correctly declares
that the mystery of man is that we are both persons and creatures. Thus to be a creature
means absolute dependence on God, and being a person means relative independence: we are
creatures of relative independence. Because the questions treated in this study vanish in the
theme of personhood, the discussions in this section are inevitably related to the key issue of
the relationship between man and God.

507
The individual self is both open and closed. Only individual selves have futures; only selves have
possibilities. While other things are, only selves exist (in the sense of having possibilities). However, the
142

In our modern age we are as far as ever from an agreement about what the person is, and the
great conflicting ideologies of our time (Marxism, humanism, hedonism, etc.) represent
different understandings of what constitutes a genuinely human existence. The question is part
of Stniloaes theological anthropology and is very relevant to the understanding of theosis.
Beginning with his earlier book on anthropology (Iisus Hristos i Restaurarea Omului),
Stniloae firmly stresses that only in the Christian view can we attain a unified view of man to
meet modern fragmentation, and the meaning and purpose of human existence is currently the
object of mans universal search and experimentation.

3.1 The unity of man


In continuity with the previous idea of the relationship between the world and man, Stniloae
understands that the first element to actualise the manifold virtualities of the world is the
union between soul and body in man. It is not possible for us to understand the possibility of a
real dialogue between man and God in view of deification, without taking into account the
relationship between soul and body. Stniloae considers man as a mysterious unity due to this
association.508 From his perspective, Stniloae believes that our proximate origin is
contingent. Rejecting the theories concerning pre-existence souls509 and traducianism,510
Stniloaes position on the origin of the human soul or spirit is faithful to the creationism of
the Fathers, like Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, or John Chrysostom. Stniloae holds that
every soul is thought of as being the result of a direct act of Gods creation. By analogy with
Adam, each soul is seen as created at birth (or conception, or some time in between).511 In the
act of creation, there were not two distinct and successive creative acts but just one
simultaneous act, in which one element was invisible and the other one was visible.512 The

self, even though an infinite number of possibilities stands before it, remains finite. As the self travels through
life, choosing some possibilities closes others.
508
The mystery of the singular and plural in man reflects the mystery of the singular and plural in God. V.
Lossky, Orthodox Theology, p. 67.
509
The pre-existence theory holds that the soul existed prior to its actual embodiment. Origen used this
explanation to account for the disparity of individuals when they come into the world. Perhaps some soul
sinned in their pre-existent state. The main objections to this theory are: that there is no scriptural support for
such a view, that we have no awareness of a prior state, and that it does not explain how we sinned in Adam.
510
Traducianism (from the latin tradux, a branch or shoot), holds that the immaterial as well as the material
part of man is propagated through procreation and the soul is mediately created by God.
511
This would also explain how Christ was sinless. The weak points of this position is that (1) it does not
explain why sometimes there are psychological similarities between children and parents; (2) it tends to imply
that matter is somehow evil (pure soul and impure body); and (3) it makes Gods act of creation dependent on
the exercise of human sexual desire.
512
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 379.
143

unity between these two basic compounds made man to be unique in the universe or, as was
mentioned before, a microcosm. Each person born in this world is given a unique soul and
body, even if these two parts exist in an inter-dependent relationship. Only in this way is the
ontological unity of man maintained.

3.1.1 Soul and body


Stniloae thinks that the relationship between God and man is possible because the soul is
akin to divinity by the very act of creation. Indeed, man is a rational personal being, like
God. Defined as a subjective, conscious rationality that surpasses the entire rationality and
passive sensitivity in nature,513 the soul is the product of the eternally conscious Spirit
intended to lift the rational principles of things to their union with the eternal principles of
the world as it was conceived by God, in a cognitive dialogue and in co-operation with Him.
So, the eternally conscious Spirit does not bring mans soul into existence by a mere rational
act, but by a interrupting act in His creative action, for there takes place a reduplication of
the creative Spirit at the created level.514 Stniloae distinguishes here between the uncreated
ultimately conscious Spirit and the created conscious spirit, the first addressing the latter
as an alter ego. Thus human subjects share a common human conscious content exactly as the
divine Subjects share a common conscious content in themselves. These contents find a
common ground up to a point. The divine Subject of the Logos starts a dialogue with the
created subjects and to share with men the eternal rationalities of things.515 For Stniloae,
therefore, the act of any kind of creation is a dialogic act.
With this general view on the concept of mans soul, Stniloae asserts that the first truth
about human spirit is that it is a free spirit, capable of taking decisions and of transcending
itself.

The human body has a special palpable rationality, due to the fact that it possesses in
itself, from the very beginning, the special work of the soul; this soul is imprinted
both with all the complexity of rational activity and with its sensitive forms.516

513
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 376.
514
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 377.
515
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 377-378.
516
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 376. Stniloae considers that the terms soul and
spirit associated to man are interchangeable. There are not two distinct principles but only two different
functions of the same spiritual nature of man.
144

Moreover, the human spirit can take these decisions further through its body to the external
world.517 Placed in man, the spirit is the source of the worlds spiritualisation, showing the
continuity of the contingent world and the human spirit. In other words, the spirit begins to
transform matter into a body from the very moment of mans conception.518 From this stance,
man, in the integrity of his being made up of soul and body, is called to deify and to unify all
creation.

But penetrating through soul and body, God penetrates through the entire human
nature as well as through the biological and material universe, since all the elements
belonging to this universe converge in the unitary human nature, gaining a unity
whereby God penetrates through man.519

In a particular way, emphasises Stniloae, body is interior or constitutive to the spirit, and
thus participating in the life of the spirit. Accordingly, a body cannot be defined merely as a
pure object, being more than a plasticised rationality; a body is subjectivised matter,
participating in the spirit as subject. Stniloae speaks about a partial non-objectivity of the
body in mystical terms,520 and explains further:

This great mystery of configuring the body as a participant in the subjectivity of the
spirit would not be possible if matter had no specific, rational character. The rational
spirit as subject penetrates the rationality of the matter as object and assimilates it to
the rationality of its body - as a participant in its subjectivity. Furthermore, [the
rational spirit] is doing this through the assimilation of the sensitivity specific to the
plasticised rationality as matter. This opens the perspective of subjectivising the
whole cosmos by each human subject, the perspective of the whole cosmos being
lived by man in his rationality and sensitivity.521

517
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 365.
518
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 78. See also Maximus, Ambigua 7 (PG 91, 1109CD).
Gregory of Nazianzus says that the soul may draw the lower nature to itself and raise it to heaven, to the
divine, in order that the soul may be for the body what God is for the soul. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio
2.17 (PG 35, 425C-428A).
519
D. Stniloae, notes on Ambigua, p. 94. Likewise P. Nellas: Made up of soul and body, he stands at the
midways point of creation, uniting within himself matter and spirit... (Deification in Christ, p. 26). Or, as
Meyendorff says: On this point, the biblical view decidedly overcame Platonic spiritualism; by the same
token, the visible world and its history were recognized as worthy of salvation and redemption. J.
Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, p. 140. For the idea of the deification of matter in the context of iconoclasm,
see the chapter Icon and Reality in A. Giakalis, Images of the Divine, pp. 68-92.
520
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 367-368. Stniloae mentions related ideas in
Gabriel Marcels Journal Mtaphysique (Paris: Gallimard, 1927). See also G. Marcel, The Mystery of Being,
tr. by G.S Fraser and R. Hague, 2 vols. (London: Harvill Press, 1950-1951).
521
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 368-369.
145

Combining existentialist and personalist concepts, Stniloaes concern is the inclusion of


human body in the process of deification, a process conceived this time in terms of the
transfiguration and spiritualisation of the entire cosmos.
The complex occurrence of plasticizing (or plasticization, materialisation), as in the real
world being the rationality of the cognitive world, receives its explanation from Stniloae in
the context of creation (even equal with creatio ex nihilo), and thus disclosing creations
dependency on the supreme Creator.522 The activity of plasticising depends on the will of the
spirit that gives to its rationalities this plasticised form. This inquiry elucidates why the
contingency of the world and the inclusion of the spirit in it - with the capacity to actualise
this contingency - make sense only in the context of deification. Man is deified in contact with
the world, and deifies the world through his personality; hence the world becomes
personalised according to the spiritual stage of his body.
Thus what Stniloae displays in his discourse - in a totally different approach indeed -, is that
the transcendental itinerary of human beings, in the process of actualising and elevating the
contingent world, indicates their proper relationship with God. Created by a free and personal
Spirit, the world is adapted to the freedom of the human spirit.523 The purpose of creation,
then, is that man should raise it to a supreme spiritualisation helped by the supreme Spirit, in
order to meet God in a complete spiritualised world through his union with God.524 Because
mans own work is likewise strengthened by Gods power, one must admit here a synergetic
work. Eschatologically, Stniloae sees the transfigured nature serving as a perfect,
transparent, and flexible medium of communication between human beings and God.

3.1.2 Soul and mind


Passing from the external relationship of the human body with creation to the internal
relationship of the human body with its mind, Stniloae speaks about mans direct knowledge
of God. As the result of the relationship with the world, the minds direct knowledge is
possible through the world that became transparent.525 Due to the fact that the unity
between soul and body is whole, Stniloae affirms a complete unity also between human soul

522
From its mystery other various mysteries receives explanation: the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, the
pneumatisating of the resurrected body, a certain implication of our body in our soul after death and before
resurrection. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 369.
523
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 371.
524
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 372.
525
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 383.
146

represented by its mind and God. Here Stniloae follows again Maximus trichotomy applied
to man. Although the triad is found in Paul and Irenaeus (as soul, body, and spirit), Maximus
seems to be closer to Evagrius of Pontus and Gregory of Nyssa in preferring the term nous to
pneuma.526 Accepting Maximus division of the activity of the soul in mind, reason and
feeling, Stniloae sees in the superior understanding part of the soul (nous or mind) the
capacity of knowing God directly, intuitively. However, Stniloae stresses, in contrast to
Western theology which emphasises an inferential (deductive) knowledge, that Orthodox
theology affirms the possibility of a direct knowledge by a mind belonging to a purified
body. Following Symeon the New Theologian, and many others before him from Origen
onwards, Stniloae speaks here also about a contact or a feeling of the mind, an obvious
characteristic of the doctrine of the spiritual senses. As did Symeon, Stniloae understands
that Gods reality irradiates a spiritual light that pervades mans mind in the same way as a
material light irradiates things. We may thus speak about a knowledge of God through
sight, a knowledge which we achieve through our mind in union with the body.527 Thus
through the minds movement towards purification, union and knowledge are identified. In
order to emphasise this, besides Symeon and Maximus, Stniloae mentions Gregory Palamas
teaching, where the human heart is considered the innermost part of body, the meeting centre
of body and soul, and the place where the nous may experience Gods grace.528
Under the influence of Palamas, then, Stniloae maintains that the relationship between God
and man is possible because of the implantation in man of a living soul and of divine grace,
that is, the uncreated energy of the Holy Spirit. This is a significant point, namely, that with
the act of creation man receives also divine grace, for he is worthy of this gift through his
conscious relationship with God. Participation of man in God through the creation of the
soul, is based on Scriptural passages that talk about the breath of a living soul as the
manifestation of a relation between the divinity and man.529 The divine breath, asserts
Stniloae, puts spiritual life in man and responds to his aspiration for fellowship with God.
We need to reiterate that the divine breath is the communion with divine energy and not with

526
A. Nichols, Byzantine Gospel, p. 161.
527
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 383-384. Cf. Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical
Discourses V (SC 129, p. 98). For an excellent study of the doctrine of spiritual senses, see H.U. von
Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aestetics, vol. I, Seeing the Form (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1982), pp. 365-417; B. Fraigneau-Julien, Les Sens Spirituels et la Vision de Dieu selon Symon le Nouveau
Thologian (Paris, 1985).
528
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 384-386.
529
Gen. 2:7, 1 Cor. 15:45.
147

Gods essence. Hence divine grace is in an incorruptible relationship with the nature of man;
even after the fall, because he still possesses a soul, man benefits from a certain grace from
God.530 Making a distinction between the grace of deification and what is proper to human
nature, Stniloae remarks:

This distinction does not mean that natural power is unable to obscure grace and to
cooperate with it, but rather that natural power is alone unable to achieve deification
as the superior state of the nature or as the way towards it. It also does not mean
that the soul does not experience aspiration after God, but rather that it is not able to
come in relationship with grace by itself. Grace is not constrained by the soul to
come in relationship with it, but it can enter into relationship with the soul by its own
will. Grace does not belong to the category of relation in the sense that this
relationship is not a result of the souls natural power. Yet grace cannot initiate the
relationship with the soul by its own free choice, even though it is capable of it and
aspires after it. Nature tends to God, but is not able to reach Him without being
helped by grace.531

3.1.3 Summary
What Stniloae holds onto in spite of all else (including modern science) is the idea that the
appearance of man on the world scene was a special event, somehow connected to Gods
specific intention for deification, and not merely an accident of nature. There is a qualitative
difference between man and other animals not only in their physical or empirical aspects, but
also in what pertains to the immaterial aspect of man, whatever it may be called. For
Stniloae, man was created by a special act of God and possesses kinship with God through
his soul.532
Further, the issue with which we are confronted regarding human existence per se is mans
place in creation. Stniloae often mentions that when God entered His creative act of man for
the first time, He addressed Himself and engaged the divine interest in contrast with the rest
of creation, implying the elevation of man over all else. In almost everywhere else, there is
mediacy in creation; in the case of man, God is the direct agent.533

530
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 392. D. Stniloae, Image, Likeness, and
Deification in the Human Person, Communio 13 (1986), p. 68.
531
D. Stniloae, notes on Ambigua, p. 210.
532
D. Stniloae, Image, Likeness, and Deification in the Human Person, p. 65. For this phrase Stniloae
appeals to Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica Magna 5 (PG 45, 21CD), and Macarius, Homilia 45,5 (PG
34, 789BC).
533
All other creatures except man were created after their kind, that is, according to a pattern which God
had devised. In the case of man, the pattern is designed after the character of God Himself (Gen. 1:27). Man
was not created ex nihilo but from dust of the ground. It is more a formative than a creative action. God
148

Finally, Stniloae maintains that the fact that man was created means he is not autonomous
but has an ontological relationship with God. We are absolutely dependent on God because
we are created as derivative beings and with real limitations. Human nature has a teleological
dimension, although its purposes have not been fully accomplished. Holding that, Stniloae
emphasises once more that man was created to fulfil a role not simply in relation to the world
but in relation to God. He was created to live in unending communion with God. For
Stniloae, then, the cosmological vision in which the entire cosmos is called to be deified is
present in the very constitution of the human being.

3.2 Imago Dei and theosis


Just as God is both related to and distinct from the world, in Stniloaes view, so is man
related to and distinct from the world. For to speak of man as being created in the image of
God is to stress mans distinctiveness from the rest of creation. While all other beings were
created after their kind, human beings were created in the image and likeness of God. The
concept of the imago Dei is a key notion for a theological anthropology, because the imago
Dei is the essential determination of the humanum - of that which constitutes human
existence as opposed to nonhuman existence. As normally understood, man in the image of
God refers primarily to man in his original condition. So there are two issues here: first, what
does it mean to be in the image of God; second, is fallen man still in that image?
For all its expansiveness, the concept of imago Dei is elaborately ordered in a way which
itself expresses fundamental theological convictions. In the anthropological section, Stniloae
eschews the divisions of material traditional in other dogmatics, and develops his particular
agenda in approaching the question of image from a creative perspective. The purpose of this
ordering is to penetrate behind the conventional dogmatic structures to reach the matter of
the communitarian and participatory dimension of the image. Indeed, the whole idea of the
image of God in man assumes the indispensable peculiarity of participation by grace to the
divine life.

3.2.1 The ontological and personalist character of the image

breathed into man and man became a breather. The expression living soul is not unique to man, but the way
man became a living being is distinct.
149

Stniloae admits that it is very difficult to establish the content of Gods image in man
because man, as an image, must have in himself all that God has.534 Man reflects in himself all
the complexity of the divine life, therefore Stniloae argues for a variety of expressions given
by the Church Fathers to the image of God in man. For one thing, they define this image in
terms of the multiplicity of qualifications that the human being possesses,535 on the other
hand, they regard it as unknowable and indefinable.536 The apophatic theology that speaks
about the mystery of the Godhead is found here as an apophatic anthropology that leads to
the mystery of man. The human being is both known and apophatic. Stniloae motivates this
paradox saying that man is apophatic because of his uncomprehending depth even of himself,
as a proof that he did not create himself, but that God, He who is truly apophatic for man,
created him.537 Reflecting the plenitude of its uncognizable Archetype, the image of God in
man is also uncognizable and indefinable. This reflects the antinomical and paradoxical
character of the image. By analogy and extension, as there is a negative theology for the
mystery of God, it is also true that there is a negative anthropology for the mystery of man.
While regarded as a mystery, we have nevertheless laid open Gods image in man as personal
existence, the highest form of existence.
Thus Stniloaes particular theological approach concerning the God-man relationship, is
made apparent in his way of defining Gods image as well as the personal character of man.538
From the very beginning, Stniloae is at pains to establish that God created man in order to
imitate the communion existing between the persons of the Trinity. God is not an impersonal
essence:

534
Or, to use Gregory of Nazianzus own words: The image is not a genuine image unless it possesses all the
attributes of its model. Cf. D Stniloae Starea Primordial a Omului n cele Trei Confesiuni, Ortodoxia 3
(1956), p. 325.
535
According to some Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory Palamas, not only the
soul, but also the body partakes to the honour of being an image. Palamas, for example, identifies the image
with the man as a whole when writes: The name of man is not applied to the soul or the body, taken
separately, but to both of them seen together, for they were created together after the image of God. Gregory
Palamas, Prosopopeae (PG 150, 1361). Bishop Kallistos Ware mentioned me that this writing is not in fact by
Gregory Palamas, but by Michael Choniates (d. 1222).
536
See V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, pp. 144-145.
537
D. Stniloae, Studii de Teologie Dogmatic, p. 163.
538
D Stniloae Starea Primordial a Omului n cele Trei Confesiuni, p. 327. Cf. K. Ware, The Ortodox
Way, p. 65. We suspect that a strong influence on Stniloae in shaping this stance, seems to have been
Maximus and Vyscheslavzev. In 1934, Stniloae translated from Vyscheslavzev the article nsemntatea
Inimii n Religie, in RT 1-2 (1934), pp. 31-40. Stniloae often quotes from B. Vyscheslavzevs work, Das
Ebenbild Gottes im Wesen des Menschen, in vol. Kirche, Staat und Mensch, russisch-orthodoxe Studien
(Genf, 1937).
150

Niether the emergence into an impersonal essence, nor the subjection to a


monopersonal despot-god who keeps us separated and in a struggle for domination
over one another is the goal the human heart is longing for, but the eternal
communion with one another, watered at the eternal spring of communion which is
the Holy Trinity.539

Accordingly, God created a multiplicity of personal beings who bear in themselves the divine
image and whose integrity is related also to the others. The personal nature that man has is
established especially by the necessity to transcend himself for the existence that is beyond
being and that lifts him above his environment. Connecting the concepts of time, existence,
and person, Stniloae writes:

Man as a being is extremely aware of the value of time, since he is preparing himself
for eternity in temporality by his relationship with others. Being in time, he
experiences the consciousness of eternity and moves towards it. His experiences are
pervaded with this concern for eternity.540

Stniloae here defines man as a self-conscious existence, finding himself in an endless


transcendence towards his own mystery and towards the absolute One he depends on. By his
self-consciousness, man returns to himself contemplating his person in the light of this very
self-consciousness. Although both human being and human person are a mystery, to identify
person with self-consciousness is a mistake, affirms Stniloae, because, on the one hand,
person is more than self-consciousness and, on the other hand, human nature has self-
consciousness itself. Man is a self always aware of himself, but who constantly asks the
question: what am I? The self partially nurtures this light of self-knowledge. Thus, as in a
circle, man experiences questions and answers that still do not satisfy his aspiration after the
absolute. At the same time, he is aware of the reality of genuine infinity. There is an alleged
contradiction between the centrality of man and his dependence on anothers centrality.
Stniloae looks for the explanation in the I-thou-he relationship.541 Trying to contemplate

539
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitate i Comuniune n Liturghia Ortodox, p. 379.
540
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 29.
541
Stniloae writes: In fact, I, thou and he are not merely external, but in a certain sense, thou and
he are linked by my interiority and condition it, forming together a multiple triangle. I hold the position of
a fixed angle, but an angle that is not outside the relationship with the other two angles. All that I most
directly know is about myself, yet I do not know anything about myself unless, by this very self-knowledge, I
have also knowledge about you and him. I know that I can not be fulfilled unless I answer to their conscious
claims and to my need to share myself with them. D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 61.
Similar idea is found in S.L. Frank, Reality and Man. An Essay in the Metaphysics of Human Nature, tr. by
N. Duddington (London, 1965), p. 113. The I-Thou relationship, writes Frank, is the essence of the purely
religious attitude as such. In order to avoid the danger of diminishing the unique role of Christ in the whole
scheme, Frank insists that there is an immeasurable difference between the average man and the God-man
151

deeper the sensitivity of the human personality, and invoking Buberian concepts, Stniloae
understands by the image of God the presence in man of a certain Thou who belongs to
God, for which Thou is able to say I in its own right, and in its own right can also address
God as Thou, and the spiritual breathing of God produces an ontological spiritual breath of
man.542
In this relationship between I, you and him one can see reflected the relationship existing
between the persons of the Trinity. Man feels that the power is not in himself, but in someone
else. There is a kind of ultimate communicable and attractive centre. The impossibility of
being always together, an ideal of all created beings, shows the necessity of a Self that secures
complete satisfaction. There is, concludes Stniloae, an infinite Self in whom we may put our
hope, a Self that turns His full attention to me.543 Thus Stniloae comes close to the
definition of the One who so imaginatively created all human beings.

He must Himself be an ineradicable Self in communion with other eternal selves


impossible to be replaced because of the unity of being, so that He too could have
imagined and created such Selves of irreducible originality in communion. Unless
somebody does experience in himself His uniqueness in communion with other
subjects, He cannot imagine and create this multiplicity of selves of an irreducible
uniqueness in communion. And as this uniqueness in communion can only be a
consciously experienced fact, for in the unconscious individualities everything is
uniformly repeated or otherwise they could not enrich one another without being
altered, the Creator must be Himself a communion of conscious Selves.544

In other words, Stniloae sees in the trinitarian model the source of mans uniqueness and
predilection for creativity and communion. These two basic assertions that were already
indicated are applied to the horizontal level. On the vertical level, Stniloae regards man as a
person who develops himself by practising his responsibility towards the supreme court. At
the horizontal level, Stniloae says that the more man grows in his faith in a supreme court,
the more he becomes responsible towards others.

Jesus Christ (p. 140). The idea of participation in the divine life implies that God creates creators... and
grants His creatures a share in His own creativeness (p. 157). For further examination of Franks thought,
see F.C. Copleston, Russian Religious Philosophy, pp. 65-79.
542
D. Stniloae, Image, Likeness, and Deification in the Human Person, pp. 68-69, and Starea Primordial
a Omului n cele Trei Confesiuni, p. 331. Cf. M. Buber, I and Thou, tr. by R.G. Smith, 2nd edition
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1987). V. Lossky identifies the image with a divine seal which impresses the nature
setting it in a personal connection with God, an absolutely unique connection for each being. Cf. V. Lossky,
Mystical Theology, p. 155.
543
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 62.
544
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 65.
152

This is why Stniloae focuses his attention on the uniqueness of each human person and his
value in relationship with others, which resides in the fact that each human being has a distinct
name. The name stirs self-consciousness and reveals to the others that each specific person is
irreplaceable and possesses an irreducible uniqueness. The name indicates the inter-
relationship between persons as unique persons; not a merely memorial, formal, statistic, but
an affecting and ontological relationship.545 The true value of each person in society is
maintained through their reciprocal acceptance.

3.2.2 The communitarian character of the image


Appropriately, then, Stniloae turns to a more extensive description of the image and its
communitarian character. First, the creation of the divine image in man is the result of the
dialogic relationship between the divine Logos and the created image of Himself as subject, as
hypostasis. In the act of mans creation, specifies Stniloae, the activity of the Logos is
different. The Logos enters Himself as subject in a creative dialogic relationship with a
created subject which is the visible image of His spiritual subject - the result being human
person.546 In a different place, Stniloae writes:

Into the biological organism God breathes the spiritual support of the soul, and to
the latter He addresses His call while at the same time providing it with the capacity
to respond. By breathing into man God begins to speak with him; He gives man the
assurance that it is God Who is speaking to him and that he must reply.547

Second, in line with earlier discussions of imago Dei, Stniloae insists upon the fact that the
image of God is born in man, alongside with the soul, and it aspires after the absolute, after its
model, or after its likeness with God. Man tends towards God inasmuch as God is absolute,
and he tends towards the absolute inasmuch as the absolute is the personal God.548 The
transparency of this image in man is made apparent when it finds itself in a loving relationship
with others, having its model in the same kind of relationship existing in the Trinity. Man is
not fulfilled by his relationships with finite entities, but only with the infinite reality.549

545
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 64.
546
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol I, pp. 379-380.
547
D. Stniloae, Image, Likeness, and Deification in the Human Person, p. 68.
548
D. Stniloae, Image, Likeness, and Deification in the Human Person, p. 70.
549
Ware said: Man is a finite expression of Gods infinite self-expression. K. Ware, The Orthodox Way, pp.
64-65. On most occasions the infinite reality is identified with love in Stniloaes writings.
153

Stniloae emphasises that man in his integrity tries to partake with God in His integrity.550 He
stands in a dynamic relationship with God, possessing power even before he becomes united
with God and thus experiencing an existence rooted deep in Gods infinity. Quite in
agreement with Maximus, Stniloae speaks about the eternal rest in infinity that crowns mans
elevation from his earthly life. Eternal rest will always have a communitary nature.551 Even if
sin has obscured mans communion with God, the rationality of the human soul preserves an
ongoing participatory relationship with the divine light. Indeed, God is no more known as a
Person but only as impersonal truth and good that emerge from His covered face, while we,
as men, are particles of God552
Third, the communitarian character of the image derives from the emphasis put by Stniloae
on the fact that man was created in the image of the Holy Trinity. Interpersonal
communion, writes Stniloae, is an image of the trinitarian communion and a participation
in it. Hence the divine image in man is an image of the Trinity and reveals itself in human
communion.553 In a special way, the Trinity shapes the ideal form of communication among
men.

Communication among the divine Persons is the ultimate form of communication.


The Birth of the Word is the Fathers final movement towards another Person, while
remaining forever the Persons Father. The Son is the supreme Being, the Word
uttered by the Father and also the Word which answers to the Father, thus fulfilling
the Word in God. So, being the Word, He brings together His ontological and
dynamic qualifications. The Word is a Person and, at the same time, a movement
towards another Person to which He belongs.554

This is explained by the communion of hypostases in the Trinity and in humanity. Speaking of
the unity of nature in mankind, Stniloae compares human nature to a thread, on which
persons, like knots, are held together by a common bond.

550
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol I, p. 395. In Evdokimovs words: The image is that
centrality or that basis of the spiritual life animated by the aspiration after the absolute. Cf. P. Evdokimov,
LOrthodoxie (Neuchtel, 1959), pp. 81-82.
551
D. Stniloae, Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox, p.30. Cf. Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 1031-1418).
Likewise, Plass writes: In ever-moving rest the finite creature (ever-moving) is open to infinity (rest).
Cf. P.C. Plass, Moving Rest in Maximus the Confessor, p.182.
552
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p 393. Here Stniloae finds his support in Maximus
and Gregory of Nyssas viewpoints, rejecting Bulgakovs idea that the spirit of man is a small part of Gods
being, a circumstance in which God would sin in man. Cf. Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 1077D), Gregory of
Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica Magna 5 (PG 45, 21C).
553
D. Stniloae, Image, Likeness, and Deification in the Human Person, p. 77.
554
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 107. But is not the Father also the supreme Being?
154

In a way, each human hypostasis bears the whole of nature as this is made real in the
hypostatic knots and the string which unites them. Individual human beings, in the
proper sense, cannot be spoken of as if they were concrete expressions of human
nature existing in total isolation. Each hypostasis is linked ontologically with the
other and this bond finds expression in the need they all have to be in relation. They
are thereby characterized as persons and they develop genuinely when they develop
as persons by strengthening continuously the communication between themselves.555

This paradoxical union between persons, as ontological entity and as movement towards
other persons, is essential for Stniloae in explaining man as the image of God. The human
person is the source of communicating movement, a word towards other persons. Stniloae
once defined man as a communitarian word-person.556
In sum, we are brought in Stniloaes presentation from a one-sided perspective concerning
the man-God relationship into a pluridimensional one, caused by the scope of multiple
relations made accessible to man. It has been shown that, as result of the divine Logos, man
receives an in-built tendency towards communion and begins a conscious dialogue or
relationship. This explains the fact that man's soul thirsts for knowledge, communion and
eternity. Even if this communion with others has a certain insufficiency and monotony, this
will not keep him from aspiring after a communion with a perfect subjective conscience.
Mans feeling urges him to believe in a personal Absolute. Though limited by his very thirst
for the unlimited, man feels he is capable of an intimate relationship with the limitless
Absolute. Moreover, man can see this Absolute by experiencing limited things and
persons.557 Finally, Stniloae believes that man is created for communion, since the image he
bears in himself is the image of the Trinity. The more he tries to know things, the more he is
urged and strengthened to know his Creator.
Once we proceed along this route, Stniloae argues that the divine image in man has a
communitary nature, reflecting and shaping the image of the Trinity. The ontological structure
of man was intended to aspire after the communion with the divine persons.558 This aspiration
after the eternal communion with God involves the mysterious partaking of the image within
us with its model and the active functions of the divine powers. The human person is created
according to the image of the supreme communion of divine persons. This is why in the

555
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 253.
556
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 108.
557
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, pp. 12-13.
558
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 410.
155

communion between person and person lies the life of a person.559 In a sense, man lives
indeed only in communion. Applied to the human interrelationships, the principle of
communion is that human beings can infinitely progress in their communion with one
another, since with in their mutual attraction there works the Holy Spirit.560 Thus Stniloae
is generally concerned to include in his argument the principle that the desire for
transcendence is common to all men.

3.2.3 The dynamic character of the image: image and likeness


One of the essential marks of Orthodox theology is its anthropological dynamism due to
acceptance of the distinction between image and likeness. The distinction is obligatory in
order to preserve the Orthodox teaching on mans continued kinship with God after the fall.
Thus Stniloae declares from the beginning: image speaks about mans dignity, while likeness
about his ethical duty. Thus image is a gift; likeness is a mission. In support of this distinction,
Stniloae mentions, among many others, Irenaeus, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, John of
Damascus, and Gregory Palamas.561 Not all Greek Fathers, of course, make the distinction
between image and likeness but this is very clear in Stniloaes works. If the image involves
mans potentiality to live in God, says Stniloae, likeness means the fulfilment of this
potentiality.562 The image has also an ontological and deontological nature as well. It is
likeness as a potentiality, and likeness is the image about to be actualised.563
The distinction between image and likeness is regarded by Stniloae as a journey in time, a
movement having its starting point in the goodness given to man by the act of creation and

559
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitate i Comuniune n Liturghia Ortodox, p. 378.
560
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 32.
561
D Stniloae Starea Primordial a Omului n cele Trei Confesiuni, p. 337. Irenaeus helds that these two
words referred to two different aspects of the human individual: image referred to bodily form, likeness to
mans spiritual side. Origen interpreted Genesis 1:26 by making the distinction between imaginis dignitatem
and similitudinis perfectionem, that is, between the dignity of the image and the perfection of the likeness.
Man was placed by his Creator on a certain ontological eminency, because the dignity of the image was given
(perfectio initiis data per imaginis dignitatem), while his perfection in likeness should be attained by himself
only through a personal effort in imitating God (ut ipse sibi eam propriae industriae studiis ex Dei imitatione
conscisceret). Cf. Origen, Homiliae in Genesim (PG 12, 146-262). See also H. Crouzel, Thologie de lImage
de Dieu chez Origne (Paris, 1956), pp. 66-70, 153-156. A similar view is taken by John of Damascus in De
Fide Orthodoxa XII, De Homine (PG 94, 920).
562
Image may be characterized as potential likeness, and likeness an actualized image. Cf. P.K. Chrestou,
Partakers of God (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1984), p. 21.
563
Stniloae mentions Gregory of Nyssas inconsistency, which uses alternately the notions of image and
likeness, contending that the two aspects of our being are necessarily complementary. Cf. D. Stniloae Starea
Primordial a Omului n cele Trei Confesiuni, pp. 337, ,340- 341. For a different view on Gregory of Nyssa,
see J. Danilou, Platonisme et Thologie Mystique. Essai sur la Doctrine Spirituelle de Saint Grgoire de
Nysse, 2nd edition (Paris: Aubier, 1954), p. 52.
156

leading to the achievement of the perfection impressed in this goodness itself.564 God provides
man with a desire for Him, and, at the same time, He works in man its satisfaction. Therefore
deification is equated with likeness, that is, the dynamic element inherent in the human
nature. The basis for understanding this distinction lies in the active characteristic of the
human image. Gods image in man tends to become the ultimate likeness with God.565
Following the Fathers, Stniloae understands by likeness both the process and the final stage
of deification. Stniloae explains this by saying that mans deification claims the action of two
different wills. Creation implied only one will, in order to bring into existence the image; in
order to transform the image into likeness, both divine and human wills are necessary.
Accordingly, the image becomes likeness by mans will assisted by divine grace.566 Here again
we ascertain the dynamic sense of the image in becoming.

3.2.4 The imperishable character of the image


It is not difficult to notice that the Orthodox point of view is quite different from the
Protestant concepts concerning mans condition after the fall. This is another reason found in
Stniloaes writings for employing the distinction between image and likeness. It was
mentioned that, after the fall, man did not lose his kinship with God. In Orthodoxy, specifies
Stniloae, we cannot speak about mans total, radical fall, since man holds, even after it,
Gods image as a sufficient reason for the continuation of the deification process. Thus the
image of God in man expresses an original ontological dependence, and not only an ethical or
normative significance.567
Stniloae maintains that the image of God in man was created without evil tendencies, but
man was not strengthened in this purity. Following Irenaeus, Stniloae asserts that, in his
primordial condition, man was like an innocent child facing the world, yet he did not possess
that transparency of the saints who overcame the obscurity of the world.568 Man and God
were in a perfect relationship, the former regarding everything around him as divine gifts. He

564
Cf. D. Stniloae, Studii de Teologie Dogmatic, pp. 30-32.
565
Man is a creature who received the commandment to become god, says Basil the Great. Quoted by
Gregory of Nazianzus, In Laudem Basilii, Oratio 43, 48 (PG 36, 560A).
566
In this framework of divine providence, Lossky sees the climax of Gods almightiness in the imposing to
the existence of a certain deliberate inability, as a divine risk. We are facing here a clear paradox: God risks
the eternal ruin of His highest creation in order to make it the highest. Cf. V. Lossky, In the Image and
Likeness of God, p. 214. See also D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 414.
567
D Stniloae Starea Primordial a Omului n cele Trei Confesiuni, p. 338.
157

was made liable to the law of corruption, since he lacked any stability in his innocence that
would have been caused by consistent actions. The explanation of this is that man was free
but he used his freedom to give up that very freedom. But man can reconsider or wish to
reconsider this renunciation any time, at least in part. Stniloae mentions Basil the Great who
suggests that, in order to fulfil the commandment of becoming god, man should have the
possibility to decline it. God puts of His almightiness before mans freedom, writes
Stniloae - a freedom that originates in Gods almightiness.569
As Gods image, man is immortal, for he possesses the capacity for a cognitive relationship
with the infinite God. The aspiration after the infinite and its grasping is a proof of the eternal
potentiality of the divine image within man. The progress towards the infinite is made in his
soul and body and it can be easily noticed in mans ongoing perfection, namely a continuous
vertical and horizontal transcendence.570 Thus in championing the idea of ambivalence as far
as primordial incorruptibility and immortality are concerned, Stniloae agrees readily with the
Eastern doctrine concerning mans original condition. Man already possessed a condition of
incorruptibility and immortality, but this was not thoroughly consolidated and assimilated.
Man had to struggle and persist of his own volition in this relationship with God, also
including his senses, in order to become free of the monotony of doing and undoing, which
for the individual human person means death and to become the linking chain that brings
together the whole nature and God. In sum, deification implies a double aspect: man is not
destined to disindividualise or to cosmicise himself, but to personalise the world. Only
through man can the world become a christosphere or a pneumatoshere from a
logosphere.571
Nobody knows how long man stood in this primordial condition, but, writes Stniloae: He
could not have consolidated himself in obedience to God and progressed in His knowledge,
for in that case the fall would not have happened so easily, if at all.572 It is possible that the

568
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 410. For a detailed analysis of this idea, see G.
Wingren, Man and the Incarnation. A Study in the Biblical Theology of Irenaeus (Edinburgh and London,
1959), pp. 14-38.
569
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 414.
570
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 11.
571
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 417-418. The idea of the worlds personalization
obviously belongs to Maximus. For a recent debate, see D.S. Yeago, Jesus of Nazareth and Cosmic
Redemption: The Relevance of St. Maximus the Confessor, Modern Theology 12.2 (1996), pp. 163-193.
572
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 465.
158

fall was motivated by conceit through satiation which in turn degenerated into imprudence
or laziness of the will.573
However, Stniloaes view on the image reveals its next important aspect: the presence of
freedom. Mans freedom is a gift and a responsibility. As a rational spirit, man possesses the
power of self-determination and moral freedom, being able to advance towards God through
the union of his own freedom and responsibility. Mans freedom is not superior, but
perfectible because of its abiding in the good and can strengthen or weaken the person. But
man declined his part, his own effort, the action of his own potentiality, that is, the spirit
given by the Creator.
Giving priority to the distinction between Gods image which man possessed from the very
beginning, and Gods likeness which he was to achieve, Stniloae emphasises that the
possibility of mans likeness with God was the final purpose, seen as theosis. Potentially,
theosis existed in man from the very beginning and this was to be fulfilled by human
endeavour. In Stniloaes view, mans image meant also a tendency towards the good, that is,
a somehow intuitive watching of the divine presence. This tendency did not disappear after
the fall, man still possessing the will to do good, but not the power. The image is preserved in
man, even if it is dimmed.574 It is just a dimmed image of Gods Logos because it remains in
a relationship with the creation and the Logos and is impressed by His rationality. Being a
rational construction and something created, the image cannot die forever. Emphasising this
idea, Stniloae finds support in the fact that God never annuls any of His created reflective
images.575
It has been noted that for Stniloae the image is given by God, while the likeness is achieved
by mans own will assisted by Gods grace. Likeness signifies moral perfection, but the image
has also in itself a moral aspiration. The image aspires after the model existing at an infinite
distance. Again, Stniloae stresses the dynamic character associated with Eastern
anthropology. The distinction between image and likeness is preserved even after the fall, in
order to secure a further balance with the antinomic nature of sin. Stniloae argues that sin
presupposes Gods image in man, it presupposes a free and rational person.576 However, in

573
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 467.
574
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol.I, p. 398. About Christ it is said that He restored the
image, but it is not said that He built it anew.
575
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 10. V. Lossky says: Even when he removes himself as
far as possible from God, and becomes unlike Him in His nature, he remains a person. The image of God in
man is indestructible. V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 124.
576
D Stniloae Starea Primordial a Omului n cele Trei Confesiuni, pp. 338-339.
159

spite of its originality, Stniloaes point remains obscure when he claims that, if someone
commits sin against God, this is nevertheless a proof that he is a personal being.
However, the patristic tradition admits that after the fall the image remains unchanged in its
actuality, but in its action it is reduced to an ontological quiescence.577 In this abnormal
condition, the image in man is still integral, but ineffective, passive, altered, for it has lost its
likeness. Stniloae explains it as follows:

The image as an aspiration after God, mixed itself up with a contrary aspiration; that
is, it preserved itself as an aspiration for the absolute, but this aspiration covered its
personal face as far as man is concerned and, consequently, mans image lost its
brightness and transparency; its features were still preserved, but they were partially
distorted in exactly the same way as in a caricature the features are preserved in a
distorted manner. The structures of the human nature remain essentially the same,
but they work in a way that is contrary to their nature.578

The results were immediate: mans ability to know the personal God weakened, the body-soul
harmony was broken, communion with others was affected. To be more specific, the
alteration of the image is seen in the obscuring of the mind, in the perversion of the heart and
in the weakening of the will. Mans knowledge becomes more restricted and his person loses
its transparency even for himself.

This knowledge is adapted to the human passions and pride, under the power of
which man fell and it sees in creation a vast and ultimately obscure object, lacking
any transparency or mystery that surpasses it. It is a knowledge that started with a
spiritually unevolved man and it remained at that very stage, stopping his spiritual
growth for a far higher realm than the sensory world. It is a knowledge that obscures
what is more sensitive in the creation, so it is a knowledge in the ironical sense
which God employs in Genesis 3:22. It is a knowledge that will never know the
ultimate meaning of reality and its purpose.579

The fall directly affected mans dialogue with God and thus the main purpose of worlds
existence, that is, to be a place where we can respond to God through our words and acts.
Because of the fall, the world became essentially obscure, because of the withdrawal of the
divine spirit from the weakening of its nature as a transparent medium both between God and
man and between human beings.580

577
P. Evdokimov, LOrtodoxie, p. 88. D. Stniloae, Image, Likeness, and Deification in the Human Person,
p. 74. Stniloae repudiates the Protestant view, especially that of Karl Barth, who asserts the destruction or
the abolition of Gods image in man after the Fall.
578
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 398.
579
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 473.
580
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 474.
160

To be sure, the consequences of the fall became apparent in many areas of life in the
universe. Peculiar to Stniloaes position is the fact that it sees in the negative consequences
of the fall (corruptibility, death) new opportunities for mans development, the divine
providence being fulfilled by a progressive creative work. Stniloae understands the
conservative dynamic providence as a synergy between God and the conscious being and
contends that God uses both evil and good powers in order to lead history to higher
positions, and ultimately to redemption and deification.581 In the effort to raise human
nature, new ways, new stages adequate to our age, by which God works in co-operation with
man are made accessible.
In conclusion, by contemplating mans condition after the fall as opposed to his condition
before the fall, Stniloae thinks that mans progress towards deification was not stopped after
the fall, man being yet able to break through the obscurity interposed between creation and
its Creator. In the most evident way, this breakthrough is accomplished only by the saints
who combined these spiritual powers by the permanent unification of reason and feeling.582
Moreover, for believers in Christ, the consequences of sin become means against sin. Mans
spirit is strengthened by suffering pain and death. Therefore Christs death on the cross must
be seen through His resurrection, His total victory over evil. Mans predicament after the fall
is not at all a consequence of Gods doom, but it is exclusively the result of Adams act.
Thus, in Stniloaes view, Orthodox theology is quite different from Western theology when
it speaks about the importance of the incarnation and the death of Jesus Christ.

To believe that God is the cause of pain and death is a fundamental misconception, it
is a blasphemy against Him. Soteriologically speaking, it is a heresy, for it deprives
Jesus cross of its actual historical and anthropological content, which is that of
victory against Satan and turns it into a mere instrument for pain and the
appeasement of Gods wrath.583

These remarks are doubtless due to an eschatological point of view peculiar to the Romanian
theologians way of thinking. Stniloae believes that God guides the world through movement
to the goal of perfection in Himself. A Christian abides in the renewal of the spirit, being
always open towards what is new. This is the stability in the ascendant movement that
Gregory of Nyssa speaks about, a stability that at the same time means movement without

581
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 490.
582
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 475
583
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p. 486-487.
161

which man is not abiding in this ongoing novelty and, as a result, falls down.584 For Stniloae,
sin is the proof of the old mans continuing existence. The new means to surpass oneself in
holiness, to rise above repetition, it means opposition against any absolutism of inter-human
structures and conditions. God tries to shape a humanity penetrated by a love that urges us to
a maximally high humanity indefinable before.585 Accordingly, the Orthodox Church thinks
that one can experience this genuine life with God already here on the earth, even if he still is
in the condition of a fallen man. Finally, as the result of what Stniloae believes and in
contrast with Protestant belief, there is no place for a crisis in the life of the Orthodox
Christian, a decisive time for regeneration, for he already is in the process of deification.

3.3 Evaluation: person and nature


What became obvious in Stniloaes view is that man was endowed by the act of creation
with the special qualification of imago Dei. He contends that Gods image in man does not
refer to some external impression which man bears in his life but to the divine image that
involves participation in the divine nature. The image God put in man assures a personal and
dialogic relationship with God, the absolute person. Thus the relationship between image and
model is of a special importance in Stniloaes theology.586 The image involves congeniality
and a special relationship with the model; the transparency of the image is secured by its
partaking in the originals life, by the continuous communication existing between image and
model.587 The act of divine breath is the act by which the image of the model is shaped in
man, the Creator imprinting in man a life after His own life. Commenting on Maximus idea
that God and man are models for each other, Stniloae asserts that God is the model whose

584
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, p.492. See also Gregory of Nyssa, De Vita Moysis (PG
44, 300D, 405C). Gregory of Nyssa rejects Origens kind of intellectualism, and employs the idea that
beatitude is progress without limit, the eternal epektasis of the soul towards God. On epektasis as a
theological concept original to Gregory of Nyssa, see J. Danilou, Platonisme et Thologie Mystique, pp. 291-
307. Epektasis (Greek, lit. expansion or reaching forward) is for Gregory of Nyssa a peculiar and
profound mysticism of endless or constantly progressing divine blissfulness and vision of Gods Kingdom.
585
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 493-494.
586
Spidlik makes the distinction between the Western mind which examines the efficient cause or causa
efficiens and the Eastern mind, which focuses on the causa exemplaris or pondering the meaning of
emerging facts. Cf. T. Spidlik, The Spirituality of the Christian East. A Systematic Handbook, tr. by A.P.
Gythiel (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1986), p.55.
587
Or, in Losskys words: It is a participation in the divine energy proper to the soul, which is meant by the
phrase part of the deity. V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 147.
162

image became the saint and the man who became a saint is the model according to which God
became man.588
To place Stniloaes distinctive theological connection between imago Dei and theosis in its
appropriate context, it is important to mention two observations that: (1) the influence on him
comes from that line of interpretation in the history of dogma which saw a clear continuity
between the Old Testament concept of man after Gods image and the New Testament
concept of Christ as Gods image, a continuity found in the formula: man is the image of the
Image589; (2) although Stniloae never claimed an explicit position, however, he seems to
adhere to an inclusive view. To be more specific, sometimes Stniloae seems to hold a
substantial or ontological view, in which imago is grounded in some aspects of the humanum;
it is this which provides the continuity of the imago Dei, even after the fall. Other times,
Stniloae seems to support a functional or ontic view, in which man images God by what he
does, and notes the proximity of the creation mandate to the creation account.590 More often,
Stniloae seems to involve a relational view in which the imago Dei is the orientation of the
person towards God.591 Since the image includes the whole person, it must include all aspects
of mans structure or function. Hence the idea of imago Dei in Stniloaes view covers human
nature in its total extent and in all its parts. The advantage of this holistic view of man is that
it rejects all kind of reductionism. What is essential in understanding theosis is that, for
Stniloae, the idea of the image of God in man has a relational, dynamic and directional
meaning. This enables Stniloae to maintain that the directional appearance of the image

588
D. Stniloae, notes on Ambigua, p. 112. Analysing Maximus, Stniloae regards nevertheless that it is
venturesome to assert that God and man are models to each other. Cf. D. Stniloae, Studii de Teologie
Dogmatic, p.32.
589
This is why Nellas thinks that this theme serves as an axis around which not only Orthodox cosmology,
but also Orthodox anthropology and Christology itself are organised. Cf. P. Nellas, Deification in Christ, pp.
22-24. See also V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, pp. 114-134, and Image and Likeness, pp. 125- 139. We
remember that the term image of God was employed in Greek philosophy (for example, in Platonism,
Stoicism and Neoplatonism), in the Old Testament, and in Philos works, finding its climax in the
Christological framework in the apostle Pauls writings (for example, in Col. 1:15-18; Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 4:4;
Heb. 1:3; 1 John 3:2). The anthropological literature on man as the image of God is voluminous, and the
theological interpretations are integrally related to the worldviews that their representatives produce.
However, Scripture nowhere offers a systematic theory of man as imago Dei. For a biblical overview on this
issue see G. Bray, The Significance of Gods Image in Man, Tyndale Bulletin 42:2 (1991), pp. 195-225;
F.M. Young, Adam and Anthropos, Vigilae Christianae 37 (1983), pp. 110-140; M.C. Horowitz, The
Image of God in Man: is Woman Included? Harvard Theological Review 72 (1979), pp. 169-206.
590
Stniloae makes indirect references to the fact that man is like God not because he has a particular
property, but because he functions in a particular way. To be precise, man functions as a representative of
Gods lordship over creation.
591
For example, the image can be seen to have been preserved in personal relationships between humans.
Thus the content of the imago is intersubjectivity.
163

implies mans participation to the divine life as personal being. And the personal form of
existence is the highest form of existence that cannot be expressed in concepts.
The consistency with which Stniloae adheres to the communitarian characteristic of the
image is re-encountered in the distinction between nature and person. Stniloaes thinking is
an actualised theology of the person. For him, the person is the metaphysical compression of
Christian reality. The metaphysical paradigm where the person is placed is the relation
between image-archetype.592 At this point, Stniloae employed the idea of inclination towards
the divine Archetype. Sometimes he calls it the aspiration of the human spirit to the infinite
person, and, at other times, lan or the onset of the human being towards God. The basic idea
is that man is totally involved in this movement. When he discusses the image, Stniloae
always is working at two levels, individual and community, trying to avoid by that any
psychological manoeuvre. Man is a relational being, and he is fulfilled as a human person only
through the interaction of these two structures of communication that results in a dialogic
relationship.
The question of person is one of the most debated issues in the theological field today.
Stniloae is one among many Orthodox theologians in this century who embraces apophatic
personalism as an essential part of his theological approach, in particular as a reaction to the
rational essentialism found in Western theology. In line with Florovsky and Meyendorff,
Stniloae adopts existentialism and apophaticism as key hermeneutical categories in
interpreting the Orthodox experience. At the same time, Greek theologians such as Zizioulas
and Yannaras apply the axioms of the existential personalism in their patristic Neo-Hellenism
and liturgical (eucharistic) framework, while Lossky maintains the apophatic and the
metaontologic character of person, both trinitarian and human.593 To understand and
appreciate fully the implications of theosis, the following paragraph will analyse Stniloaes
assertion in parallel with John Zizioulas, one of the scholars contemporary with him.

592
Stniloae develops this relation especially in the chapter entitled The Holy Trinity: Structure of Supreme
Love, from his Dogmatics (In English, The Experience of God, pp. 245ff). For other contemporary
discussions, see: R.W. Jenson, The Triune Identity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982); E. Jungel, God as the
Mystery of the World, tr. by D. L. Guider (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1983); J. Moltmann, The Trinity and the
Kingdom of God. The Doctrine of God (London: SCM Press, 1981); J. ODonnell, The Mystery of the Triune
God (London: Sheed & Word, 1987); K. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith. An Introduction to the Idea
of Christianity, tr. by W.V. Dych (New York: Crossroad, 1993); T.H. Speidell, A Trinitarian Ontology of
Persons in Society, SJTh 47 (1992), pp. 283-300; T.F. Torrance (ed.), Theological Dialogue between
Orthodox and Reformed Churches, vol.II (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1993); K. Ware, The Human
Person as an Icon of the Trinity, Sobornost 8:2 (1986), pp. 6-23.
593
V. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, p. 123.
164

Ontology is not the central tenet of Zizioulas writings, rather it is personhood that forms the
centre and primary concern. In contrast to the Western idea that personhood can be defined in
reference to the individual in isolation,594 Zizioulas sees that it is only in relation that true
identity can be found. Being a person is basically different from being an individual or
personality in that the person cannot be conceived of in itself as a static entity, but only as it
relates to.595 The nature of Gods Being is communion, and therefore the nature of our being
is communion. Speaking about mans mysterious capacity to enter into a relationship of
communion with God, he suggests that capax Dei makes sense only in the scheme capacity-
in-incapacity. Thus the highest form of capacity for man is to be found in the notion of
imago Dei.596
Zizioulas sees the basis for communion not in the divine substance but in the person of the
Father.597 This concept of communion finds expression in the term ekstasis, a derivative word
used as a contrast to the idea of hypostasis. Ekstasis refers to the outward motion in
personhood, that aspect that is directed towards others. Being is not restricted but in its
ekstasis breaks through boundaries in a movement of communion. More precisely,
communion is found in love, and through love persons exist in ekstatic relationship. Love not
only constitutes Gods being, it also constitutes our being. While claiming patristic support,
Zizioulas provides only minimal citations from the Greek Fathers, basically from the
Cappadocians. Zizioulas maintains that, for the Cappadocians, the basis of unity in the
Godhead lay in the hypostasis or the person of the Father. This, it is claimed, establishes
communion and relationship as the ultimate ontological category in God. As an essential
moment in the history of Christian dogma, this ontological mutation produced a revolution
with regard to Greek and especially Aristotelian ontology.598
The first question is a general one, and is related to the validity of reducing ontology to
personology (Zizioulas, Yannaras) or metaontology (Lossky) based on the patristic texts.
Both alternatives seem to operate with a kind of existentialist reductionism which is not found

594
C.E. Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), pp. 86-90.
595
J.D. Zizioulas, Human Capacity and Human Incapacity, pp. 407-408. See also C. E. Gunton, The One,
the Three and the Many. God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993), pp. 188-195, and The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, pp. 31-57.
596
J.D. Zizioulas, Human Capacity and Human Incapacity, p. 446.
597
J.D. Zizioulas, On Being a Person. Towards an Ontology of Personhood, in C. Schwbel and C.E.
Gunton (eds.), Persons, Divine and Human (Edinburgh: T&T Clark), 1991, p. 38.
598
J.D. Zizioulas, Human Capacity and Human Incapacity, p. 409.
165

in the Fathers.599 In the case of Zizioulas, the essence is reduced to the person and, in the case
of Lossky, the person is reduced to grace. However, nowhere in the Fathers do we encounter
such an excessive separation between person and individual, and nowhere is person or the
hypostasis a supernatural category and nature a simple necessary data which has to be
surpassed by the existential freedom of person.
Furthermore, it is known that the Cappadocians believed that the ousia and not the
hypostasis is the basic unity in the Godhead.600 While Lossky cautioned against the idea of
confounding the Godhead and the Father,601 neither he nor Zizioulas have adequately watched
against falling into ontological subordination. Gunton questions the basis of ascribing pre-
eminence to the Father on the basis of Cause since these relations are mutual. Communion,
says Gunton, is not based solely in the Father but is a constituent part of the nature of the Son
and the Spirit.602 Zizioulas stress on the Father as source and monarch is so great that he
seems to have compounded the person of the Father and the Godhead.603 Thus Zizioulas has
simply overstated the case in his desire to downplay the ousia.604
Stniloaes assertion tries to avoid any existentialist reduction.605 His ontological vision about
personhood is detected earlier in his book on Christology (Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea
Omului, 1943). He maintains the paradox of hypostasis as being at the same time a reality
which is distinct from being, and the actualisation and the realisation of being.606 Referring
to the Holy Trinity, Stniloae writes: the spiritual essence that is subsistent only in a subject
always implies a conscious relation between subjects, and consequently a hypostatisation of
that essence in numerous subjects. Moreover, that subsistent essence which is supreme and
spiritual is not a singular conscious subject but a community of subjects who are fully

599
For an ample historical analysis of this view, see A. de Halleux, Personnalisme ou Essentialisme Trinitare
chez les Cappadociens? Une Mauvaise Controverse, Revue Theologique de Louvain 17 (1986), pp. 129-155.
600
For a recent demonstration, see T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 177-180.
601
V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 59.
602
C. Gunton, The Promise of trinitarian Theology, p. 165.
603
As Williams said: Who on earth says that the divine ousia has a causal relation to the persons of the
Trinity? Cf. R. Williams, Review of J.D. Zizioulas Being as Communion, SJTh 42.1 (1989), p. 104.
604
For further analysis of Zizioulas and Gunton, see T.G. Weinandy, The Fathers Spirit of Sonship.
Reconceiving the Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), pp. 61-65. Weinandy thinks that in trying to
preserve the personhood of God on the basis of the monarchy of the Father, they [Zizioulas and Gunton] have
ensnared themselves in Neo-Platonic emanationism, the very Greek philosophy from which they wich to be
liberated (p. 63).
605
Cf. I.I. Ic, Persoan sau/i Ontologie n Gndirea Ortodox Contemporan, in Persoan i Comuniune,
pp. 359-385.
606
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, pp. 104-127; Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I,
pp. 295f, vol. II, pp. 37-39;
166

transparent. The Trinity of the divine persons belongs to the divine essence and yet the three
persons are not confused with the unity of the essence.607 For Stniloae, then, divine love is
an essential divine act and this act is a relation, both implying the persons. The divine person
is unity and relation is the quintessence of unity. Unity must not be destroyed for the sake of
relation, nor relation abolished in favour of unity. In conclusion, reciprocal reference is act,
and in God this act is essential and points simultaneously to a distinction of those who have
reference one to the other.608
With this background, Stniloae proceeds to the anthropological aspect of the relation
between person and nature. He criticises Lossky who allows for the existence of at least a
partial opposition between them, attributing to person (in contradistinction to nature) the
apophatic intimacy of the image which is determinative for the individual.609 This reflects
the confusion made by Lossky between human nature as such and the distorted condition
of that nature.610 Answering to Lossky, in which there is allowed a partial opposition
between person and nature, Stniloae writes:

In fact, the Fathers in general make no distinction of content between person and
nature. Person is only nature in its real existence. In the normal state, moreover, all
persons in common comprise the whole of human nature, bestowing and receiving it
reciprocally among themselves, just as this is done in the Holy Trinity. This is
precisely why human beings can only bring about this state, which is simultaneously
an ontological state and a state of love, out of that power which comes from the
communion of nature and of supreme love present in the Holy Trinity, that is, in the
culmination of communion (if not by nature, then certainly by grace or by uncreated
energy and love) with the Holy Trinity.611

In other words, for Stniloae, the relationship between nature and person has an analogical
and complementary character.
Again, for Stniloae, human nature is found only in hypostasized forms. The nature truly
subsists in a multiplicity of hypostases. Beside the common participation in the life of the
Trinity, says Stniloae, we are attracted also by the common nature we share as persons.

607
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 256.
608
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 258.
609
D. Stniloae, Image, Likeness, and Deification in the Human Person, p. 80. Lossky says: But, in a
certain sense, individual and person mean opposite things, the word individual expressing a certain mixture of
the person with elements which belong to the common nature, while person, on the other hand, means that
which distinguishes it from nature. V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 121.
610
D. Stniloae, Image, Likeness, and Deification in the Human Person, p. 81.
611
D. Stniloae, Image, Likeness, and Deification in the Human Person, p. 82. See also C. von Schnborn,
LIcone du Christ: Fondements Thologiques Elabors entre le Ier et le Iie Concile de Nice (327-787), 2nd
edition (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1976).
167

Hence hypostasis must be conceived as a concentrated centre of totality.612 At the same time,
the hypostasis cannot exist emptied of nature or separated from relationship. The hypostases
are the nature in the concrete existence and form of their inter-relationship.613 Thus we may
conclude that Stniloae rejects both extremities: the metaontology of Lossky, and the
ontological personhood of Zizioulas. Zizioulas ontology of communion and person is close
to the radical existentialist distinction between person and individual. His approach holds the
primacy of a relational over an essential category of person, its ekstatic, catholic, and
unitarian character. This understanding, of course, is a consequence of a patristic model that
is primarily concentrated on the sacramental experience. On the other hand, Stniloaes
patristic model is rather Palamite, concentrated primarily on apophaticism and the person-
energy relationship.

4. General conclusions

The three forms of relationship developed above (that is, God-creation, man-creation, and
man-God), revealed the fact that deification is seen by Stniloae as the eternal divine purpose
for mans participation in the life of God, based on reciprocity and sharing. Man aspires after
the absolute with a personal character, due to the fact that the need for transcendence is
organic in human beings. Hence Stniloaes personalism became obvious when he defined
man as person in relation. We have also seen that, for Stniloae, a creature was a creature,
and would always remain so, even after the attainment of theosis. Our created vocation of
progressing towards theosis does not do away with our creatureliness; rather it fulfils it. For
one to be deified is to be a creature of God, as God intended one to be. Stniloae suggests
that theosis cannot be taken literally. One cannot literally become God since that would be as
absurd as if we were to state that God is a creature. If God is a creature, then He is, by
definition, not God, for only creatures have a beginning in time. Stniloae in no way identified
God with the world, therefore, or with any part of it, including mankind; nor the world with
God. Theosis does not eliminate the distinction between God and creation.
Following this line of thought, we may affirm firstly that in Stniloaes system of thinking,
theosis was descriptive of a relation between God and creation, not a definition either of us or

612
See for example, D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, pp. 103, 123. See also T.F. Torrance,
The Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 112-135.
613
D. Stniloae, Image, Likeness, and Deification in the Human Person, p. 83.
168

of God separate from one another. Although we and God are separated as creature and
Creator, the gulf in between is not absolute, the distance is not infinite. From the time of
creation, mankind and the Creator have been bound together, first by Gods creative
goodness which called us into being, and subsequently by the divine oikonomia which has
ever sought to guide us towards our ordained destiny, including time and space as
instruments for deification. The infinity of God can be described, then, not in terms of the
distance between God and us, but in terms of the conviction that no matter how far we flee
from our Creator, we are never beyond the infinite reach of Gods creative and redeeming
compassion. This binding relation between God and humankind is also part of our created
nature. Our somatic constitution, as we have seen, is akin to our noetic and spiritual nature;
and our spiritual nature, by virtue of the image of God breathed into us by the Creator Word
is, in turn, akin to God.
A second thing we must say about theosis, is that this relation between us and God is a
dynamic relation. We were created to grow into an increasingly intimate relationship with
God. In this sense, the process of theosis is adoptive, not natural, because it depends on
Gods creative and sustaining initiative. Adam, we have seen, as created, was immature; he
was created to grow. Thus theosis means after the fall a return to a previous capacity for
growth. This is why we recognise in the Eastern Orthodox understanding of salvation a
dynamic process rather than a static condition. Stniloaes supplement at this point is that he
saw theosis as a process having its initial roots in the purposes of creation. It follows that
there is no one time within the divine economy which can be called specifically deificatory.
Everything, at least potentially, contributes to our deification. For this reason, theosis
described as a relation is perceived as a relation that is constantly changing and multi-
directional.
A final observation regards the special connection between theosis and the Holy Trinity.
Stniloaes contribution in advancing the concept of theosis, becomes distinct when he asserts
the principle that the tripersonal community is the source for all existing acts and relations.
This dogmatic formula of the divinity unique in being and trinitarian in persons reveals the
basis and support for all the possibilities of communication between human persons and God.
Stniloaes insistence on the triadic archetype is understandable because, on the one hand, as
noted above, a monopersonal God does not have the communion in Himself and, on the other
hand, a dyadic structure is limitary. A full personal character demands a triadic
correspondence. Only a triadic existence assures the personal character, the distinctiveness of
169

the persons, and the communion. In this trinitarian model, the Romanian finds the foundation
and the explanation for the ontological dialogic model of the human selves that aspire for a
radical accomplishment of communication. The highest expression of this communication is
love which, paradoxically, realises the unity of selves and not being identified. Love is
understood as an ontological act that permanently brings something into existence. The triadic
formula, then, becomes a matrix of communion that we try to actualise in the mystery of the
interpersonal love. Outside this communication, the persons existence is only virtual; it
becomes real only through the act of love, as the organic configuration of this essential
reality. In the act of creation, God shows His love, and man responds to God in love.

CHAPTER V. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL ASPECT OF DEIFICATION: THE


PERSON OF CHRIST

Introduction
This chapter seeks to interpret and appraise the Christological aspect of deification in the
theology of Stniloae with particular reference to the person of Christ. It will be argued how,
in Stniloae's view, the incarnation is the epistemological ground for humanity's salvation and
knowledge of God, to being taken up and given to share in the inner life of Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. That is, Stniloae understands that God and man are connected profoundly and
inextricably together within Christ and hence the incarnation is the centre of all thought of
God and of the world. This fact reveals the incarnational structure of Stniloaes theology in
relation with the doctrine of deification.
The systematic centre of this chapter lies in its contention that Stniloae develops doctrines
of the incarnation and redemption which are utterly decisive for his theological system, and in
particular his theology of deification. This study therefore aims to assist in interpreting and
evaluating Stniloae as a theologian who establishes an appropriate synthesis of deification
upon incarnational and redemptive foundations. It will be pointed out that the underlying
systematic principle organising Stniloaes position on Christ as related to the question of
deification is his assumption of hypostatic union and its consequences.
Methodologically, Stniloae follows three stages in his presentation of the deification of man
in Christ. He starts with the relationship between God and the world, for the world was
170

created for the communion of God with man in view. The second stage is that the world is
created in view of the incarnation of God. Hence Christ, the incarnate Logos, is the meeting
place of two mysteries, or two births. In Him God becomes man and man becomes god by
grace. Finally, Stniloae builds up the ontological foundation of the incarnation in man, that
is, the incarnation is not only a descending movement of God but also the ascending
movement of man. Surely, it is not difficult to observe that in Stniloae's vision the
incarnation of the Logos has a cosmic significance. Therefore in the person of Christ, the
transfiguration of the entire cosmos is anticipated.

1. Deification and incarnation

According to Stniloae the general revelation (including the sensible world and inherent moral
law) is introductory and preparatory, while the special revelation in Christ is final and
decisive. Contrary to Origen's theory, Stniloae argues that we have good reason to hold that
history has a positive role, being the medium by which man is prepared and developed in the
process of deification. God created the history of man and the world in order to bring men to
deification by His own power and will. Stniloae asserts:

For since God, as a tripersonal communication, decided to create man, it was


impossible that this decision should not involve also the decision to bring them, by
their own will, to eternal happiness or to deification, to their completion with all that
God has. Men, as limited but free beings, were endowed with a free movement
towards God's infinity.614

God created man as a being within time, and time becomes for him cause and purpose. Still,
because man was unable to give an answer to God's call, God made Himself man, remaining
at the same time God in order to listen to Himself, both as God who calls and as man who is
called.615 Thus Christ is intended to be God in order to reach for the man and, as a man, to
discover God. For only if the Son of God becomes man is it possible for man to become

614
D. Stniloae, Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox, p. 15.
615
D. Stniloae, Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox, p. 15. This perspective does not suggest that the
incarnation occured solely because of the fall. For Stniloae the incarnation is part of Gods eternal purpose.
The fact that the incarnation was performed by the Son and not by the Father or by the Holy Spirit is a
mystery. Yet, Church Fathers tried to give an answer on the basis of the attributes of the Persons in the Holy
Trinity. John of Damascus thinks that the Son of God became the Son of Man in order to preserve the
attribute as born. Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria and others believe that the Son came to redeem or to re-
create men, because He was the Word who created them. As the Father's image, the Son re-made in man
God's image. See also Teologia Dogmatic i Simbolic, vol II, pp. 572-573.
171

God. The Son of God became man in the full sense, that is, He did not come only as man, or
as a content of man, but He makes Himself a human subject for communion. The divine
Subject came down having the function of a human subject. Hence Stniloae boldly affirms
that in incarnation God makes Himself a reality. An interesting postulate is found in the idea
of the eternal law as the law of obligation to the Father. The possibility to accomplish this
law is restricted only to a man whose communion with God was not broken by sin and who
sacrificed himself. Thus, anticipates Stniloae, the death of Christ for humankind cumulates in
itself the maximal effect in preparing human beings for communion with Him and God.616
It is important to notice that Stniloae understands the significance and the necessity of the
incarnation in view of the fall and its consequences. After the cosmic catastrophe caused by
man's fall, followed the most important event, the incarnation of the Son of God, that was
intended to unify man and God. By altering the image of God and by forfeiting the divine
grace, man became more and more separated from God and from any possibility of
restoration. What was underlying creation will underlie the re-creation too: God's loving
kindness. The history of how God prepared His Son's coming is apparent especially in the
history of the Jewish people and it demonstrated that the fall did not mean a radical condition,
like that of the rebellious angels' fall.617 Surely, man still possessed the desire for truth and
good and the awareness of his wrong acts. The optimistic spirit, peculiar to Stniloae and the
Orthodox theology as far as redemption is concerned, is evident once more at this point.
Admitting man's abnormal condition that imposed a unique solution, Stniloae thinks that the
necessity of the incarnation is motivated not as much by the satisfaction of divine justice, as
by the lifting of the fallen man. The incarnation of the Son of God, intended to bring
redemption, is a spring of harmony in the divine attributes. However, despite the effort of
Stniloae to maintain an equilibrium between God's love and justice, there will be some
indications that this has been only partially achieved.
In addition to these preliminary ideas, Stniloae explains the possibility of man's deification
based primarily on the person of Christ, by making appeal to a pair of concepts: first, the idea
of the Logos as a unifying principle in the universe, and second, the idea of hypostatic union
in the person of Jesus Christ.

616
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau ndumnezeirea Omului, pp. 106-107.
172

1.1 Communion with the Logos and transcendental Christology

The first idea on which Stniloae builds up the Christological aspect of deification is the
theology of the Logos. Previously, when the anthropological aspect of deification was
analysed, we observed that Stniloae spoke about human beings as beings called by the divine
Logos to have communion with Him through the world of created things. This kind of
communion is possible because the rationality of things involves a creative person. From the
beginning, then, Stniloae employs a perspectival and synthetic approach in understanding the
unitarian and personalist mark of salvation. The goal of creation is to bring into existence not
only impersonal objects but essentially personal subjects destined for an eternal dialogue with
the Creator. According to Stniloae the person has a fundamental intentionality towards
communion.618 From this point of view, our coming into existence actually coincides with
establishing the interpersonal dialogue. Our movement towards existence, says Stniloae,
is based on our being called into existence by the Logos. Thus man's movement towards
eternal dialogue is understood by Stniloae as the Logos' attraction, that gives consistency to
the subject and who is seen as a kind of projection created by Himself.619
All personal subjects, emphasises Stniloae, reflect the truth that this universe has its origin in
a supreme person. Because this agreement is in a process, the rationalities of the things are
means for dialogue and communion between human beings and the Logos, based not only on
intellect but also on love. However, the fall distorted the comprehension of things as images
of the rationalities possessed by the supreme reflective Person and as words of divine love.
Man started to regard things as reasons per se, facing alone a world of things. Therefore,
man could not find any help, against the irrational tendencies and passions originating in
himself, in the reason still left in the human being and in the rationality left in the objects
(which no longer possess the transparency of the divine Logos).620 The link between the
Logos and human reason weakened, affecting their complex unity. This, in fact, justifies the
necessity of the incarnation of the Logos.

617
The angels sinned from their own initiative and by themselves, without any temptation from the outside;
man did not fall only by himself, but he was deceived by the Devil. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic
Ortodox, vol. II, p. 569.
618
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, p. 84.
619
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 9-10.
620
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 12.
173

First, says Stniloae, in incarnation the humanity of the Word, enhypostatized in Him and
penetrated by His energy, is the leaven working secretly within the whole body of mankind,
the foundation of the doctrine of man's deification.621 Further, Stniloae affirms that the
personal Reason, the hypostatic Word, is the Logos that unites all things in Him without
confusion. Although human beings have a common reason, that does not mean that they are
identical with the Logos, the centre of creation. The unity of all is the Logos, but He does not
identify Himself with the human creatures that are distinct from Him and from each other.
The original state, where man was united with divine grace, constitutes the natural state of the
humanum. Hence there is no such thing as pure state, neutral, without divine grace. It is in
this sense that we exist only because the Logos called us to life. What Stniloae wants to
point out is that the Logos created subjects able to be in dialogue with Him. And since we are
partners in this dialogue with the Logos and are also able to speak and think, we have the
challenge to bring together in ourselves all the rationalities of things and to express them, for
they secure our fulfilment. Stniloae develops this thought and writes:

Every man is a reflective word in dialogue with the personal divine Word and with
every other personal human word; every man extracts his power from the divine
Word, as well as from things, brings together their rationalities in his thought and
their power in his life and conveys them to others, receiving in turn the
communication addressed by others and developing in this way his relationship with
the Logos of God and his understanding concerning things, origin and meaning.
What plasticising means for the rationalities of the Logos or for the images of these
rationalities and the human body, the human body also means for the human subject,
created as an image of the personal Logos. The human subject is invited to a
spiritual-material conscious life in communion with the Logos, he is invited to bring
together in himself all the created plasticised rationality in order to share thus a
thought and a life content in common with the divine Logos.622

In other words, the communion to which the Logos invites human persons is mediated by the
created things. Human subjects receive, mediated by objects, meanings, material and spiritual
goods and, after these are processed by the others, they receive from God new meanings and
utilities. This dialogue promotes love, the Word shares Himself developing new meanings,
words and standards.
By His incarnation in man, continues Stniloae, Christ opened the opportunity for us to have
communion with God in its consummate form. He achieved what we could not: the unity with

621
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 191.
622
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 8.
174

man's model, with the divine Logos. Thus by His human nature, He brings together in Himself
not only human beings but the whole world.623 Stniloae explains this possibility in Christ as
follows:

The Logos as a Personal Reason, as a subject of loving reflection embodies in


Himself human nature, resulting in a culminating human personal achievement. For,
if man is shaped after His 'image', the model potentially involves in itself His image, a
model which He achieves, inherently and ultimately, by assuming the human nature
as the unfolding image in Himself, an image inseparable united with its model. His
human image, as a special partner in the dialogue with the Logos, is no more such a
special partner in Christ, but the Logos Himself is in dialogue with the Father and
with us, both as a divine Son and as man.624

Stniloae concludes that in incarnation the divine Subject can change the human subject,
remaining as subject of the divine nature. In His Son the Father loves also the humanum
assumed by His Son including His Spirit that is resting in His Son from eternity.625 We have
here the ontological sense of salvation, deriving from the relation between the triadic Persons.
In conclusion, Stniloaes concept of deification in connection with the presence of the
Logos in creation clearly carries with it personalistic meaning. The ontological pursuit for
ultimate transcendence for the human person reveals the existence of a supreme personal
transcendence, that is, the supreme personal reality made known to us in the person of Jesus
Christ. Indeed, only through man as a person can the supreme personal reality descend in the
order of the created nature, to fully integrate it into the human person through it, into the
divine person.626 Essentially, in order to relate the doctrine of the deification of man to the
work of the Logos, Stniloae employs the basic idea of humanity's communion with the
Logos in the act of incarnation. This is inevitable (1) because the fundamental law of spiritual
existence is the law of communion, and (2) because the restoration in communion with God
cannot be effectuated through the being itself but only as the result of the initiative from
God.627
The idea of the Logos presence in creation leads Stniloae to admit a transcendental
Christology, similar to the position of the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner. Basically,
Stniloae suggests a need for Christ written into the spiritual constitution of man, that is, an

623
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 12
624
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 33-34.
625
D. Stniloae, notes on Athanasius, Epistola ctre Serapion (Ad Serapion) II, 9 (PSB 16, p. 77).
626
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 47.
627
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, pp. 90ff.
175

ontological Christology founded in our very existence. Stniloae interprets Rahner's position
and accepts that there are three specific elements involved in it: the need of man for an
absolute love, the understanding of death as accomplished in the death of Christ, and the hope
in the future.628 Transcendental Christology claims to be a Christology from below, and
adopts the basic truth that man is in a transcendental necessity, that is, man has a thirst for the
absolute and a hope of a free self-communication on the part of God. From this hope Rahner
deduces the essentials of Christology. This understanding derives probably from one of the
more interesting confrontations today between some Roman Catholic theologians and
liberation theologians. It is generally accepted that after Vatican II there is an exciting
plurality within the Roman Catholic Church. However, one of the outstanding teachings in
Medieval Catholic theology was that there is no salvation outside the Church, for the Church
is the means of grace which is transmitted through the sacraments. Presumably this
understanding was partially determined by the fact that in the Roman Catholic world view
there was a dualism of nature and grace.629 In post-Vatican II theology this strict dichotomy
between nature and grace has been questioned, so the Second Vatican council seemed to
allow that grace may be present in nature. This blurring of the distinction between nature and
grace has some important implications for their understanding of the Church and for
salvation. In this context, Karl Rahner's theology advanced the doctrine of supernatural
existence. God being related both to humanity and to the world, this supernatural existence
means that human beings have both a capacity for God or the transcendent, and that this
capacity is being exercised even if we are not aware of it. For Rahner, that is, there is no such
thing as pure nature, because nature is always graced. Grace on this understanding is not
a static thing but rather a dynamic orientation towards God. According to Rahner, this
supernatural existential, this orientation towards grace, pervades human experience even if
this happens in an implicit way.630 The incarnation signifies that God is embodied in the world
and in humans. Rahner equates self-acceptance with implicit faith, and says that it is very

628
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 14-16. Cf. K. Rahner, Grundlinien einer
systhematischen Christolologie, in K. Rahner and W. Thsing, Christologie systematisch und exegetisch
dargestellt (Herder, 1972), pp. 62-63; In English, A New Christology (London: Burns & Oates, 1980).
629
Of course, the principle No salvation outside the Church is in itself far more ancient than the medieval
nature/grace dichotomy (for example, in Cyprian in the third century).
630
The consequences of this position are significant. In one sense, due to the fact that there is grace in nature.
This means that the grace is no longer an exclusive property of the Church, and it may be obtained outside the
traditional Roman Catholic Church. On the other hand, the very conception of Church has been broadened.
While the majority of people do not have an official connection to the Church, there is such a thing as
176

plausible that one can be justified without a conscious commitment to the Jesus of history.
Indeed, says Rahner, everyone is an anonymous Christian. Anonymous theism exists
whenever a person is open to the mystery that grounds human existence. Rahner argues that
preaching makes clear the fact that even sinners are living in a sphere of grace. Nevertheless,
the Church remains special in that it is the visible sacrament of salvation, the historical
manifestation of the grace of God's self-communication to humanity.
A similar tendency, then, but in a different context, is found in Stniloae's theology of the
Logos. The presence of the Logos in the world could be a basis for a transcendental
Christology. The question is whether this transcendental method can really be accepted in
Christology, in spite of its advantage of setting forth doctrinal affirmations prior to historical
inquiry. The mode in which Stniloae and Rahner start to develop their Christology is build
on a deductive foundation that could imply a transfer of transcendence to man himself. Both
theologians seem to demand, for understanding the plan of salvation, to start within the heart
of man, prior to any consideration of the Scripture texts. That involves a subtle reversal
regarding the starting point: from the Gospel to a kind of preliminary revelation posited in
human life. Although this certainly is not Rahners or Stniloaes intention, this approach may
suggest a critical attitude to traditional Christology and, therefore, may lead to a
demythologizing tendency concerning beliefs about Jesus the Christ. On the other hand, the
question is if Stniloaes view implies that every human being has the capacity for a
transcendental Christology. If the answer is positive, Stniloaes methodology seems to
support an anthropologically-oriented Christology, or a Christology from below.
However, throughout his writings, Stniloae is never concerned to name his Christological
approach (as from above or from below, ascendant or descendent). What he tries
actually to avoid is the disunity of the two types. His main intention is always to hold a
balanced position in the unity in difference of the two types, an equilibrium granted by
transcendental Christology. Nevertheless, the danger of misinterpreting Stniloae is present.
This is the reason why the author asks to confine the whole approach to the truth that
advocates that the human heart has a secret aspiration for an absolute Saviour, but this
aspiration can be revealed only in the presence of the Saviour described in the Gospels. For it
is Christ who reveals the human heart to itself.

invisible membership. What was happened is that the old formula has been reversed: not outside the Church
177

1.2 Deification and the hypostatic union

The second idea on which Stniloae builds up his Christological aspect of deification is found
in the doctrine of hypostatic union. No doubt, the type of Christology with which we have to
deal in Stniloae's case is very closely linked with the formulations of the Council of
Chalcedon. The frequent allusions to Chalcedon and the key terms used to describe the
incarnation and deification, clearly indicate the theological context in which Stniloae
develops his Christology. Therefore the foundation for his theology of deification arises from
the question of the communicatio idiomatum of the two natures in Christ. Basically, Stniloae
affirms that the unity of the natures in Christ is according to the hypostasis. Thus in
conformity with the formula affirmed at Chalcedon, the subject is one in Christ but his natures
are two. The communion of these two natures was called hypostatic union, by hypostasis
being meant first of all the integrity of reality.631 One major assertion for Stniloae is that in
the act of incarnation the Son of God Himself entered into a maximal union with us, and thus
in the plane of our common experience. In this way, He made Himself the Person of our
human nature, being in the same time the Person of divine nature.632 Hence Christ is not a
twofold hypostasis, but the same hypostasis has a twofold quality: of God and man.633 This
understanding shows both the value of human persons and the capability of human nature to
receive the Logos as hypostasis. It is this capacity that becomes the focus for Stniloae in the
subsequent section.
Stniloae admits from the very beginning that we are facing here a mystery. However, in his
attempt to answer the questions risen by the Chalcedonian formula, Stniloae gathered into a
coherent synthesis various themes from Scripture, the Fathers (in particular Leontius of

there is no salvation, but rather, where there is salvation there too is the Church.
631
See D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, p. 101. In theological language, the hypostasis
designates a reality which has a specific content by which it distinguishes itself from others of the same kind.
Hypostasis is synonymous with the notion of individual or person. In the Romanian language, the
distinction is apparent by the differentiation between the terms hypostasis and appearance (which changes
according to the circumstances).
632
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 36-37.
633
Stniloae specifies of course that, becoming man, the Word of God did not multiply the hypostases of the
Trinity; Christ remains even after His incarnation a hypostasis belonging to the Holy Trinity, in a substantial
community with them. Similarly, John Meyendorff writes: The Word remains impassible in his divine nature
but suffers in his human nature. Since, from the moment of the incarnation, the human nature had become as
fully his own as the divine nature, one may (and one must) say that the 'Word suffered' hypostatically, in his
own flesh, because his hypostasis is not a mere product of the divine nature but is an entity ontologically
distinct from the nature... J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, p. 77.
178

Byzantium, Maximus, and John of Damascus), and modern Orthodox thought. It is important
to mention three major themes.

1.2.1 The enhypostasized human nature in the pre-existent hypostasis of the Word

The first theme is related to the enhypostasized nature in the pre-existent hypostasis of the
Logos. From the beginning, Stniloae is interested to define correctly what is a hypostasis.
Thus, in his view, the hypostasis is something that cannot be described by features that belong
to the law of being. However, analysing man's structure, Stniloae comes to understand that
each man possesses both a hypostasis (as a subject) and a nature (as an object or means)
without implying that the hypostasis is something introduced from the outside, but the
necessary form nature assumes as soon as it really exists. In a more comprehensive context,
Stniloae defines what the hypostasis is:

The hypostasis or the person is the self-condition of a spiritual nature or also


spiritual nature; it is one of the unities belonging to such a nature, in close
relationship with other unities, and, as far as the human person is concerned, in
relationship also with the personal God.634

Thus the hypostasis is a unitary centre of all its relationships, a concrete mode of existence.
This definition, although it is applied to the human person, can be extended at once to the
person of Christ.
Stniloae employs in his argument Leontius of Byzantiums idea of enhypostasy - that is,
to have a reality as hypostasis - in order to say that Jesus Christ is the same person as the Son
of God before the incarnation. Stniloae explains that the Hypostasis of the divine Word was
not united with another human hypostasis, but He formed for Himself, by the incarnation, a
human nature, assumed and integrated in His eternal hypostasis, thus achieving the Hypostasis
of human nature.635 What is essential here is that Christ was not united with a human person
but He assumed in His person, alongside with the divine nature He possesses from eternity, a
human nature too. The assumption of the human nature is not achieved by the divine nature
but only by one of its hypostases. The assuming nature can do this because it is situated
within the person, and consequently, the assumed nature starts a new life in the person.

634
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 37
635
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 36. See also Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului,
p. 101.
179

However, Christ's hypostasis has a different extension from man's hypostasis, unifying in itself
the divine and the human natures in such a way that the Self is not alien from penetration in
the infinite God.636
There was achieved in Christ, by supernatural intervention, a completion of the human
nature not in itself, but rather in the larger unit of the wholeness previously existent, the
divine hypostasis of the Logos.637 One can speak of a divine-human centre in which humanity
exists not as a self-existent reality, but in the framework imposed by the divinity. Stniloae
comments:

A man walked among men, whose center is no more outside God, but in God or He
Himself is God. The relationships established by other men with this person are not
relationships experienced outside God, but relationships within God Himself. All the
power necessary for man's elevation to God irradiates from a human hypostatic
center. Since this hypostatic center has an attractive energy for good by which it
surpasses all mere human centers, it is in a certain way the center of humanity. There
was established a divine center among men. Humanity achieved in its ontological
sphere a center and this center is God the Word.638

Here is the distinction between Christ and all other human beings. As a hypostatic centre,
Jesus was endowed to work in two directions: (1) He had a special power that drew Him by
attraction towards God, and (2) an irradiative power for good towards other beings. Thus
incarnation changes the levels at which the divine Person is experienced, from the level of
special experience in the Old Testament to the level of common experience of those who
believe in Him. Assuming a human body, the Son of God becomes completely humanised
and completely deified. In Him, the human nature received actual existence not as a private
centre, but in a pre- existent centre, in the unity of the divine hypostasis in the divine
Logos.639
In sum, for Stniloae, the humanity assumed by the Logos is hypostatized in the Logos and
deified by the Logos and becomes the source of divine life. Human nature is the Word's own
flesh. In addition, human nature, appropriated and personalised by Christ, has some personal
features that are distinct from other persons, since the potentialities of human nature are no
more put in motion by a human hypostasis but by the divine hypostasis. Thus Jesus Christ

636
D. Stniloae, notes on Ambigua, p. 48.
637
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, pp. 106-107.
638
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 41. Cited also in , Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea
Omului, p. 117.
639
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 39.
180

holds in creation the role of human and divine personal centre, completely unselfish, because
human nature recognised in Him its true movement towards deification.

1.2.2 The complete actualisation of the human nature in Christ

The second theme in Stniloae's approach of the doctrine of hypostatic union is the
actualisation of the human nature in Christ. The Son, says Stniloae, glorified the Father by
His will and acts, due to the fact that His human will is moved by its divine hypostasis in
conformity with His own divine will, and hence in accordance with the will of the Father.640
Because of His total devotion to the Father, in turn, this means the sanctification of the
humanity He assumed. All the holiness of His divinity becomes proper to His humanity and
takes on human form. Stniloae employs here the Pauline concept of the second Adam, or in
Cyril's terminology, the second root of the human race.641 In incarnation, God has renewed
the human race, and because our human nature was borne by the divine hypostasis of the Son,
it has indeed become holy and righteous in its very root.642 By re-establishing human nature
in conformity with itself, the will was harmonised with nature and we can experience
reconciliation with God. This could only have been achieved in men after it had been realised
in Christ in whom the human will was the will of the divine hypostasis. As a consequence,
the relationship between God and the man Jesus includes within itself, potentially at first but
increasingly also in act, all those who believe in Christ.643 Thus all believers, in a relationship
of union with Christ, can become saints.
Thus, continues Stniloae, human nature brings in Christ its natural will which is never
activated against human nature.644 We may therefore affirm that Christ personalised human
nature in the most authentic way, because it is not possible to actualise a nature except by
personalising it. In the case of Christ, the hypostasis of the Logos has personalised in the
most authentic way the assumed human nature, because in Himself, as the model for man,
there is virtually included the potency of mans personal character. The perfect
substantiation of human nature in Christ is apparent in the orientation of His will for all men's
benefit, according to God's will. Stniloae states:

640
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 188.
641
Cyril of Alexandria, De Adoratione in Spiritu et Veritate 9, 10 (PG 68, 620D, 704C).
642
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 189.
643
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 190.
644
Cf. Maximus, Disputatio cum Phyrro (PG 91, 292D).
181

Human nature is willingly subjected in Christ to His divine will, for its rationality is
illuminated by His divine reason as its model and origin and regards soundly and
thoroughly things, human beings and the relationships between them.645

The divine Logos is the ultimate foundation in which human nature subsists, and that is why
He is keen to actualise not only human will but also its reason. In the same time, Christ's
human reason was opened to the infinite horizon of divine reality. Therefore Christ's
humanity became transparent for Godhead and mankind. As the man for men in the highest
possible degree, Stniloae defines Christ as a human personal centre, as the re-established
Man in conformity with God, and the irradiative centre of life and power, in the
unmediated relationship with us.646

1.2.3 The maximal realisation of the union of God and man in Christ

The third theme employed by Stniloae in understanding hypostatic union is the maximal
realisation of the union of God and man in Christ. Not only do believers aspire to unity but
God Himself is pleased to see and to realise the intimate unity of all. And this unity is actually
realised in Christ, in whom the divine will meets human will. Stniloae delimits: (1) the union
according to being or essence, impossible between man and God; (2) the union according to
the work (or energy), proper for the relationship existing before the incarnation; and (3) the
union according to the hypostasis, peculiar for the divine and human nature in Christ's
hypostasis.647 For Stniloae, however, the complete union between God and men should be
realised only according to the hypostasis.
Stniloae explains that the two natures in Christ are in a relationship of intentional
community. The unity between the divine and the human is absolute and, although these are
not mixed together each is experienced by the same Person with an extreme intensity, in a
mutual interpenetration.648 Thus the Son becomes the subject of the human nature in
communion with us. Becoming an hypostasis of the human nature, He provided it with the
function of acting as a medium for God's love. Therefore, in the incarnation, the divine

645
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 43.
646
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 44-45.
647
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 45. Here Stniloae uses the classification made by
Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and Gregory Palamas for the ways of union. Cf. P. Nellas, Deification in
Christ, p. 32, and L Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, pp. 142-143.
648
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 276.
182

hypostasis by becoming also a human hypostasis, took over men's behaviour, wrapping up His
intentionality in human intentionality. Christ reveals Himself as man and as God through the
human nature, which means that the human nature is an adequate transparency for God,
that is, it possesses the image of deification. One can assert in this framework that the
intentional communion with others is the main aspiration of the subject. Jesus Christ becomes
the linking chain that brings together mankind as a whole and God. It is here that we see the
main reason of Stniloae's insistence on this doctrine.
Moreover, the relationship between the Word and men, a relationship that originates in this
unity, is more complete and direct than before the incarnation. The reason for this is twofold:
first, the communion of His human nature with men and the mutual communication of His
human and divine natures, so that all the human hypostases have as an ultimate hypostasis
the hypostasis of the Word, and second, their hypostases meet in this relationship.649 The
unifying power of the Word explains the possibility and potentiality of unifying all personal
beings in His unity. This explains also the maximal union realised in Christ.
Having the Logos hypostasis as the ultimate hypostasis, human hypostases are reinforced in
their relationships with it. Stniloae is equivocal when asserts that, in Christ, any human being
aspires to the infinite horizon of the divine life and, to some extent, any human being shares
into it [horizon] through its relationship with the non-incarnate Logos. Stniloae becomes
even more ambiguous when writes that:

If it is made for unconfounded living in infinity, human nature lives in its separate
hypostasis this tendency, not spontaneously but advancing eternally in it [tendency].
But in the real existence of the Words hypostasis, human nature lives instantly the
whole real openness towards infinity, yet unconfounded with the divine infinity. As
man, Christ knows always that He is sharing from infinity and is resting in it; at the
same time, Christ knows that He is the source of this infinity not as man but as
God.650

This statement echoes the idea of theosis as progression and participation in the divine life.
Still, the kind of relationship between the Logos and all human persons, and the kind of
power conveyed by the Logos to all human hypostases, is not precisely specified by Stniloae.
Stniloae follows the Fathers idea of mutual interpenetration and asserts the doctrine of the
perichoresis of the two natures. The human nature acts and shares with the other through the

649
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 48.
650
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 49.
183

hypostasis, and the human one receives also from the other through the hypostasis. So we can
talk about Christ's acts as divine and human acts at the same time, that is, theandric works.

So close a unity between the divine work and the human work or passion is called by
Dionysius the Areopagite the theandric work. There is no separation between one
work and the other; but the absence of separation does not mean that the two works
are merging. The divine work is humanized by its intimate union with the human
work. The phrase theandric work keeps us from the idea that the unification of these
two works would produce a middle work. The natures cannot suppress themselves
by merging. God did not create human nature in order to merge it later in His own
nature. Human nature is respected by God forever. So its work was received by
Creation and not by the fall, in the Origenistic sense. Here is the basis for the
understandable mystery of the concrescence, without any merging of the two natures
and works. The divine work humanizes and the human work deifies in their union,
but neither of them loses its own character.651

In sum, the mystery of the harmony initiated in Christ reflects itself in those for whom He was
incarnated. The possibility for our perfection is made open by the fact that the Son of God
floods His human nature with the powers and gifts of His divine nature, not in order to
destroy it, but in order to bring it to perfection. Without this communication of the
properties, God would not have humanised Himself and man would not have deified
himself.652
The consequences of the unification of these two natures in Christ are reflected in man.
Hence, to an extent hand-in-hand with Cabasilas, Stniloae holds that Christ appropriates our
senses in the holy sacraments; He appropriates our thinking and our sensibility; He conveys
the qualifications of His deified nature to our bodies; and He performs all these actions in
order to deify us.653 As God and man, Christ provides the gift of harmonisation and
deification to all those who embark upon a relationship with Him. To quote again Stniloae:

All human subjects living on this earth feel the compulsion and the guidance which
this divine-human agent provides to the common stock of human energy. The wave
of cosmic spiritual energy, common to numberless created subjects, is effectively
possessed by the divine Subject, penetrating it with divine energy and transfiguring
it, accomplishing thus the most intimate relation and inter-penetration between God
and His creation, the ultimate reason for the incarnation of the Son of God.654

651
D. Stniloae, notes on Ambigua, p. 61.
652
D. Stniloae, notes on Ambigua, p. 61.
653
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 52-56. Cf. Nicolas Cabasilas,De Vita in Christo
(PG 150, 593C, 612D-613A, 673B,C,D, 513B); see also P. Nellas, Deification in Christ, pp. 223-226.
654
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, p. 127.
184

In other words, in the act of the incarnation, and as the divine subject, the Son of God
becomes the central agent of theosis. The hypostatic union achieved in Christ the absolute
proximity and communion of man and God, being also the model and the power of the moral
unity between man and God. Thus Christ is the central hypostasis which connects all human
hypostases to one another because He first connects them to Himself.655 Man's unity with
God is performed in Christ as the unifying centre of all.656
Summarising, for Stniloae, the union between the two natures in Christ is the highest
possible union through the fact that they are united in a hypostasis. In this way, the hypostasis
of Christ is the basis of this maximal union between two different natures just as a common
nature is the means that unites persons of the same nature. In a certain way, all human beings
are united through their nature in the hypostasis of the Logos. To achieve this highest
possible union God made His Son man.

1.2.4 Summary

In summary, Stniloae maintains that the hypostatic union has accomplished three things.
First, the human nature is elevated to its personalised status in God and the person of the Son
of God has descended to the status of humanum, without ceasing to be a divine person or
losing anything of His human nature. Second, the basis is set for an unfailing dialogue of any
willing person and God, the incarnated Word, a dialogue which on the one hand is due to the
Son of God who descended to man's level, and on the other hand lifts man, humanised by His
descent, to God's level. Finally, human nature is reunited with God in a very intimate mode,
and men are reunited with one another.657
In the gradual construction of his view on theosis, Stniloae comes to the insight that our
deification has its basis in the deification of the human nature assumed by Christ. Besides the
regular emphasis put on the direct personal relationship, Stniloae considers that the fact of
the transmission of the qualities specific to the deified nature of Christ to human beings
through the community of nature has to complete the whole picture of Christs hypostatic

655
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 191.
656
In Meyendorff's words: In Him divinity and humanity, the model and the image, are united in a perfect
personal unity (hypostatic union), and humanity finds its ultimate destiny in communion with God, that is, in
theosis, or deification. J. Meyendorff, Theosis in the Christian Eastern Tradition, in L. Dupr and D.E.
Saliers (eds.), Christian Spirituality, vol. III, Post-Reformation and Modern (London: SCM Press, 1989), p.
472.
657
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, pp. 321-322.
185

union in view of mans deification. Thus, in the concluding part of this section, Stniloae
gathers together the ideas of personalisation and deification as two pairs of concepts that
determine our understanding of theosis. The hypostatisation or the personalisation of human
nature in Christ and the personal relationship between Him and human beings achieved their
complete personalisation. The immediate result is that Christ appropriates our modes of
thinking and living in order for them to be transfigured or deified. For Stniloae, Christ is the
total man for God and for men: fully humanised as God and fully deified as man. And all
those who enter into a personal relationship with Him are humanised and deified. In Him we
perceive and actualise the humanity as fully transparent for God and the divinity as fully given
to us.

1.3 Consequences of the hypostatic union

1.3.1 The communication of the properties.


As a result of hypostatic union we are able to see two categories of salvific outcomes: those
which are directed towards the human nature that was assumed by the Logos, and those
which are directed towards us. Stniloae makes here the distinction between the implications
of this unity as fundamental for hypostatic union (for example, kenosis and the quality of
Mary as theotokos), and the consequences of this unity as actualised due to the incarnation
(for example, our deification and Jesus' sinlessness). The most important one for Stniloae is
the communication of properties, or communicatio idiomatum - the hypostatic union
involving the communication of the properties and the actions of the two natures, divine and
human.
Because the Logos is the hypostasis of both natures, and because in this hypostasis the
properties and the actions of both natures subsist and are activated, through this hypostasis is
maintained the essential stability of the natures and, at the same time, a real communication is
established. Stniloae insists that the communication of properties is accomplished through
the unity of the Person, and this is possible because God can make Himself a Person of His
creature, through His will.658 From the person of Christ iradiates the divine love, through
the acts performed by the human nature, and, on the other hand, through the person of

658
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic i Ortodox, vol. II, p. 57.
186

Christ, the human nature impresses its particularity in the acts performed by His divine
nature.659
Each nature, states Stniloae, participates in this union through their common person, based
on oikonomia and not on necessity. Through the person of the Logos one nature
communicates to the other its actions (or energies), not as person to person, but in the
interiority of the same Person. Thus the communication was performed within the same
Person in the highest degree allowed by the condition that the properties do not merge
together.660 It was supposed that Stniloae affirms that the communication of the properties
does not mean the change of the two natures, nor a direct communication of the properties of
the one to the other. For example, the divine nature did not suffer, nor did the human nature
perform miracles. However, Stniloae follows Leontius of Byzantium in saying that, through
its hypostasis, the power of the divine nature produced a change in the human nature by
leading it to its aspirations. Stniloae explains this by making the distinction between that
which is conformed to nature (kata physin), and that which proceeds necessarily from the
nature (ek physeos). Accordingly, in Christ, the first is accomplished through oikonomia,
which is the result of the will. Stniloae specifies, therefore, that in the assumed human
nature, the properties of the divine nature were impressed not because of necessity, but
through the will of the Word's hypostasis, or through oikonomia.661
The paradox is apparent: for one thing, each nature preserves its properties and action, but
for the other, the mutual communication drives them to action. The solution to this paradox,
says Stniloae, is that both actions are performed by and through the same hypostasis. Thus
the communication is made indirectly, on the basis of these very properties.
The communication of the properties occurs only when the two natures are regarded as being
in their hypostatic union, namely in the personal actuality to which these properties belong
and not in the abstract, when they are thought to be in themselves and separated.
Stniloae appeals to Maximus' idea that one nature is imbued by the properties of the other
nature only to a certain degree. The suggestion is that the human nature was deified to a
certain degree during the Christ's earthly existence, and this will be completed after His

659
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic i Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 57-58. See Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 105B).
660
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 57-58. See also Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea
Omului, pp. 146-149.
661
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 59. For Leontius of Byzantium references, see
Adversus Nestorianos IV (PG 86, 1, 1581D-1584A), and Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos (PG 86, 1,
1289).
187

resurrection. Stniloae sees the paradox and accepts that, on the one hand, there is a
continuous progress in the deification of human nature in Christ, and on the other hand, there
is an existing restriction of the human nature by its very definition as human.662
In conclusion, communicatio idiomatum means not only ascribing human properties to Christ
as God and divine properties to Christ as man, but also a real impressing of human properties
with the divine properties and viceversa.663 Stniloae uses again the analogy between soul and
body in trying to illustrate how the Son of God overwhelmed His human nature with the
powers and gifts of His divine nature.664 Hence, the way towards theosis was opened.

1.3.2 Kenosis
Another aspect of the incarnation of the Son of God is His kenosis, that is, His decision to
give up the glory that He had before assuming human nature (John 17:5, Phil. 2:5-8).665
Stniloae states in simple terms: Christs descendent to us is the condition of our deification.
The kenosis of the Son of God does not refer to His act of giving up the human nature he had
appropriated, but rather to the Son Himself who appropriated the human nature and its
weaknesses, apart from sin. Christ accomplished our redemption by pain and miracles; thus
the role of kenosis is to make possible the Son of God's direct participation in the
strengthening of the human nature in order to make it an active medium for the divine love
through its manifestation of power and by its resistance to and surpassing of pain.666

662
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 61. Cf. Maximus, Opuscula Theologica et
Polememica (PG 91, 117B, 120A, 108).
663
Stniloae remarks that Lutheran theology followed the Alexandrian emphasis in upholding the
communicatio idiomatum. Comparying the Lutheran's Formula of Concord (1580) and the Calvinist
Heidelberg Catechism, we observe that the two sides agreed: (1) that in Christ there was one person in two
natures, fully divine and fully human; (2) that there was a close intercommunion of the natures in a personal
union; (3) that these natures kept their identities and were not commingled and yet did not exist separately in
two different persons; (4) that the attributes of the natures were preserved. Although the Lutherans and the
Calvinists coincide on the main points regarding the Chalcedonian formula, the distinctive feature came in
the doctrine of the exchange of attributes. The Lutherans proposed (beside the idea of exchanged actions and
qualities between person and natures), but the Calvinists rejected, that divine properties such as omnipotence
and omnipresence are attributed to the human nature (the so-called genus majestaticum). Cf. C. Braaten,
Christian Dogmatics, vol. I, pp. 507-509.
664
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 63.
665
Lossky explains kenosis saying that: [it] is not a sudden decision, nor an act, but the manifestation of His
very being, of personhood, which is no longer a willing of His own, but His very hypostatic reality as the
expression of the trinitarian will, a will of which the Father is the source, the Son, the obedient realisation,
and the Spirit, the glorious fulfilment. There is therefore a profound continuity between the personal being of
the Son as renunciation and His earthly kenosis. V. Lossky, Orthodox Theology, p. 101. Losskys
interpretation seems to imply a heavenly kenosis, not only before the incarnation, but also prior to the creation
- a kenosis in the eternal Trinity itself!
666
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p.71.
188

Although He could have demonstrated His power in its plenitude, Christ repressed it so as not
to annul the body. He descended, in the power of the human will enforced by the divine will,
to the condition of human struggle abolishing in the human nature the selfish disorders
caused by wrath and lust and restored and completed it in and through His Person.667
According to Stniloae, the Son of God can no more use man for humankinds redemption,
for a new pair would repeat Adam and Eve's mistake. The initiative must come from above,
as a new start. The virgin birth of the Son of God means that the Word comes to life as a
man. Moreover, in Christ, the Word of God is calling Himself into existence as man, thus
the deeper hypostasis of human hypostases becomes this time directly the hypostasis of His
human nature.668 The Holy Spirit and the Word co-operate in the act of the virgin birth from
the very beginning.669 As a consequence, by the Spirit's breath Christ's human soul is
produced, the Spirit being sheltered in the hypostasis of the Word. By this, the Word itself
creates, helped by the Spirit, the soul united with Himself as His hypostasis. Therefore, the
Word's hypostasis creates its body, in co-operation with the Holy Spirit. As regarding Mary's
purity as the basis for the Son's incarnation, God being touched by her love for others,
Stniloae summarises all this process by saying:

Descending Himself as an hypostasis in her and starting to shape His body in hers,
alongside with the work of the Holy Spirit as a person, her body, kept in its virgin
purity, in its total availableness for God, is cleansed of the Adamic sin, in order that
the divine hypostasis should not take as its body a body still under sin and the law of
birth as a result of lust.670

Thus, consistent with the idea of dialogue, Stniloae uses the principle of Christs continuity
with nature, in terms of which the Son appropriates to Himself the nature of Adam's
descendants in order to make it new from the inside. Thus Christ traverses the entire process
of the structuring of His nature, of His shaping as man so as to traverse from the very
beginning the entire evolution of man, the nature being restored to its original state.671
Man's dialogue with God is completely taken over by the Son Himself. God created us for
this dialogue with Him, shaping us as His images, and this dialogue is continued in us by His
Word. Christ's divine nature is united with the human nature in His person, so that the

667
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 72-76.
668
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 79.
669
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 82.
670
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 85.
671
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 80. That does not mean that, at the incarnation,
Christ takes unfallen, not fallen human nature.
189

human nature should partake with the divine and the divine nature should take over man's
weakness. Saying that, Stniloae rejects the anthropological pessimism specific to the
Protestant theology where man receives forgiveness without being transformed.672
Stniloae notices the theandric work in the communication of the two natures by their
energies. In Christ, the communication by the energies is different from the communication
between two persons who bear opposed natures (between God and man), or a common
nature (between man and man). The interpenetration of these natures results in the
communication of the energies from one to the other. The divine nature conveys to the
earthly one the absence of pain and the human nature conveys to the divine one the human
affections or passions. Moreover, the divine nature, being sinless, represents, in its real
existence in Christ, a filter where all sinfulness which could activate its affections is
destroyed.673 Hence the secret of Christ's sinlessness lay in two elements: in the power of His
human will received from the Word's hypostasis, and in the fact that He did not inherit the
Adamic sin. These elements are essential for Stniloae in teaching Jesus' solidarity with all
men. Likewise, those who are in a personal relationship with Christ have the possibility of
overcoming all their sinful affections. It seems that here Stniloae suggests a sort of
perfectionism, when he asserts that the believers may use their will in the way Jesus did,
because the same hypostatized will of Christ is communicated to them. Thus men's sharing
in His divine nature is helpful for the overcoming of sin, depriving sinful nature of its evil
powers and making room for the resurrection to a painless and incorruptible life, as
Christ's.674
In conclusion, for Stniloae, the opposite to the kenosis of the divine nature is the deification
of the human nature. Or, putting it in Maximian terms, God's incarnation helps man to
become God at the same degree He Himself becomes man.675 The deification of the human
nature in Christ means its maximal elevation and perfection, but within the limits of its created
being, rather than its widening to the divine dimensions or its change in nature. Again
Stniloae specifies that deification is not a physical, substantial dilatation of the human

672
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 91-92. However, a possible common ground
between Orthodox and Reformed theology in this issue is found by D.J.C. Cooper in The Theology of Image
in Eastern Orthodoxy and John Calvin, SJTh 35 (1982), pp. 219-241.
673
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 93. See also Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului,
p. 166. Maximus thinks that Jesus did not possess a human free choice, because there was no human subject
to decide apart from God.
674
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 97.
675
D. Stniloae in Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, p. 182
190

nature, but a spiritual purification and intensification.676 The human nature that the Son of
God received at the moment He was conceived in His hypostasis remains forever united with
the divine one. Although the hypostatic union occurred in time, it will endure in eternity. In
Christ, human nature experienced perfect purity and absolute divine love, being traversed
and filled by the uncreated divine energies.677

2. Patristic influence

Having elaborated Stniloaes aspect of deification as related to the person of Christ, we are
now in a better position to present his most characteristic ideas in Christology. To do that, a
general Christological framework is required. While it is not our intention to describe the
whole process of the formation of Christological doctrine during the first centuries, in order
to understand Stniloae's approach to Christology, we will simply point out a few distinctive
aspects, and in particular the essentially ontological emphasis of early Christological thinking.
Historically, the issue of deification stands as a necessary background to the clash between
Alexandrian and Antiochian Christology in the fifth century.678 Both schools of thought were
formative centres of Christological thought and each had its distinct theological
perspective.679 However, the theologies of the two schools were complementary, not
antagonistic.680 The flavour of Antiochene theology was literal not allegorical, rational not
mystical. On the other side, Alexandrian flavour was influenced by Platonism and followed an
allegorical hermeneutic. Although the object of council of Chalcedon (and of all councils),

676
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, p. 177.
677
D. Radu, ndrumri Misionare (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1986), p. 330.
678
J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, p. 32.
679
Antioch put its stress on the humanity of Christ and understood incarnation in terms of inspiration. The
problem of this was that it constantly has to show how Christ was not just another inspired prophet, and, since
salvation had to do with the whole person, therefore the Saviour had to be a whole person. If this were the
case, did He have a human person, and if so, did this not mean that there were two persons in the
incarnation? Alternatively, Alexandria was much interested in the divinity of Christ, the Logos. This
Johannine Christology put the emphasis on the Word of God, His Son, the Logos. However, this tended to
belittle the humanity of Christ. Salvation, consequently, was understood in terms of the Logos coming to
make us like Him: that is, God became like us so that we could become like Him.
680
Sellers may be overstating the case when he concludes that there is no fundamental difference between the
Christological teaching of the Alexandrines and that of the Antiochenes, yet he is right to suggest that there
are two principles on which the two schools would agree. First, In Jesus Christ, the Logos, while remaining
what He was, has, for our salvation, united manhood to Himself, thereby making it His own; He is not,
therefore, two Persons, but one Person, the Logos Himself in His incarnate state. Second, In Jesus Christ,
the two elements, each with its properties, are to be recognised; therefore, since these remain in their union in
His Person, any idea of confusion or of change in respect of these elements must be eliminated. Cf. R.V.
Sellers, Two Ancient Christologies, pp. 202, 243, 253.
191

from the imperial point of view, was to establish a single faith throughout the empire, the key
theme of Chalcedon was the definition of faith, and asserts two basic Christological facts: (1)
the reality and integrity of the two natures, and (2) the union of the two natures in one
person.681 Consequently, the divine Word is regarded as the unique subject of the incarnation
(thus preserving the essential truth of Alexandrian theology), but the reality of Christ's human
life was also affirmed (thus preserving the essential truth of the Antiochene tradition). There
is human nature in the Christ of Chalcedon but no separate human hypostasis. Chalcedon
affirmed that the divine Logos was joined to a human nature (ousia or physis) rather than to a
human person (hypostasis or prosopon). The human nature had no existence apart from its
union with the divine which had created the single person: Jesus Christ. This is what is meant
by hypostatic union: the human nature had no personal subject of its own.682 Some
theologians think that Christology stopped at Chalcedon, but post-Chalcedonian development
is a proof that there was an authentic clarification of Chalcedonian teaching.683 However, both
Alexandrian and Antiochene interpretations of Chalcedon emerged.684

681
Hence the council rejected any union of the natures which might obscure the integrity of either. The human
was not absorbed into the divine, nor did the divine adopt the human. Jesus Christ is truly God and truly
man - a statement which avoids the error of Arianism with its intermediate being. Christ was co-essential
with the Father according to His deity and co-essential with us according to His manhood - a statement
which avoids the danger of Apollinarianism with its human body without a rational soul. In addition, the
Chalcedonian definition avoids both the heresy of Nestorianism and that of Eutychianism: both the unity of
the person and the integrity and separateness of the two natures are maintained.
682
But how can we speak of a human nature without a self-conscious ego? Chalcedon left this issue
undecided. The council does not give us a fully coherent position with regard to the two natures. In a sense
Chalcedon is not the answer: it is the question.
683
See for example, J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian
Tradition, vol. II/2,.and J. Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition.
684
It has become obvious that the Chalcedonian definition was not intended to formulate a particular system
of thought, but rather was the authentic expression of patristic Christology as a reflection of the gospel datum.
In this way, Chalcedon was a stage and at the same time became a starting point for new researches. Although
the Chalcedonian formula does not explain what a nature, a person, or hypostasis is, the Church tradition has
accepted the boundaries set by Chalcedon. For the fifth century theologians, Chalcedon served to refute the
contemporary errors as well as provide an statement of concord. In turn, the Church has recognised its
efficacy down through the ages. Some important attempts tried to solve the union of the natures in Christ in
the last two centuries. Jaroslav Pelikan argues that from the sixth through the ninth centuries the three major
Eastern groups (the Nestorians, the Monophysites, and the Chalcedonians) articulated distinctive
Christological positions that would endure for centuries. J. Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-
1700), in The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1977), pp. 37-90. For his part, Meyendorff classifies the post-Chalcedonian
theologians into four groups: (1) Antiochene Dyophysites who rejected Nestorius but interpreted Chalcedon as
a victory for Antioch and for Theodore, and partially as a disavowal of Cyril; (2) strict Monophysites who
rejected the Council of Chalcedon as Nestorian; (3) the neo-Chalcedonians who interpreted the council as a
condemnation of Eutyches; and (4) a creative and Origenist view of the council, exemplified in Leontius of
Byzantium. This last interpretation, and in particular Leontius of Byzantium, had influenced decisively the
whole Christological approach of Stniloae. J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, pp. 29-30.
For a criticism of Meyendorffs view on Leontius of Byzantium, see B.E. Daley, The Christology of Leontius
192

The structure of Stniloaes doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ, his concept of the unity
of the person, and also his language about Christ support the view that his position is basically
Alexandrian. If historically it holds the Alexandrian tradition, theologically Stniloaes
approach is Chalcedonian, that is, he maintains that the Christological aspect of deification
has at its basis the dogmatic definition of the Chalcedon. He recognises in Christ the true God
born of the true God, who was incarnated as true man and possesses two natures in one
person or hypostasis: divine and human.685 According to Stniloae, then, the doctrine of
deification as the heart and soul of soteriology is based on the presupposition of an
interpenetration of divine and human life, manifest in the hypostatic union or the deified
human existence of the incarnate Word. This union does not negate or diminish the
specifically human but rather restores it to its natural state of union with God. This is why, for
Stniloae, the predominant way of understanding salvation and one of the several prominent
images for salvation (along with other theologies articulated more fully in modern Christian
theology, for example, resurrection, justification, liberation), is salvation as deification. This is
surely because deification would always require a doctrine of incarnation. In Stniloaes view,
the two would go hand in hand.
Methodologically, in Stniloae's view, Christology from below supports Christology from
above. Christological investigations pointed out that there were two themes running parallel
in the proclamation of Jesus Christ in the early Church: the eternal Son of God, and the
historic Jesus of Nazareth. The so-called Christology from below begins here on earth, with
a consideration of Jesus' life and death. The argument proceeds from Jesus' humanity to His
divinity. Practitioners of this position argue that Christology from above merely assumes its
conclusions rather than arguing for them.686 Alternatively, the Christology from above

of Byzantium: Personalism or Dialectics, in Papers from the Ninth Conference on Patristics Studies,
Patristic Monograph Series (Oxford: The Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1983).
685
Meyendorff comments about two Chalcedonian implications: first, there is no absolute symmetry between
divinity and humanity in Christ. Second, the human person of Christ is not personalised into a separate
human hypostasis, that is, the concept of hypostasis designates personal existence. Hence the notion of
hypostasis is irreducible to the concepts of particular nature or individuality. J. Meyendorff, Byzantine
Theology, p. 154.
686
In the twentieth century the method is particularly associated with Karl Barth. On this approach the basis
for understanding Christ is not the historical Jesus but the kerygma, the Church's proclamation, about Him.
Christologies of this type seem to prefer the writings of Paul and John rather than the Synoptics. For this
position, faith in Christ cannot be based rationally or scientifically. The content of faith lies outside the sphere
of natural reason or historical investigation. The culmination of this strand was perhaps Bultmann's Jesus and
the Word, which argued that faith in Christ may not necessarily be connected with the historical life of Jesus
of Nazareth. See J. Macquarrie, Jesus Christ in Modern Thought (London: SCM Press, 1992), pp. 278ff; In
Search of Deity (London: SCM Press, 1984); K. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/1 (pp. 150, 357f), IV/1 (pp.
135f, 179f).
193

begins from a God's eye point of view. On this view, the Trinity and the incarnation are
simply assumed, and then one reaches Jesus' humanity by arguing downwards. This was
Stniloae's view and the approach of the Church throughout most of its history, when the
historical reliability of the Gospels was never questioned.687
From this Christological perspective, the essential trends of Stniloaes theology of
deification become obvious. In order to underline his understanding of theosis, the further
presentation of Stniloaes Christology in this section will gather together several strands of
his thought under some specific headings.

2.1 Leontius of Byzantium and enhypostasia


The first idea on which Stniloae builds up the concept of deification as related to the person
of Christ is the idea of enhypostasia. Built on the assumption of Leontius, Stniloaes
Christology conceives a dynamic union between the two natures of Christ and having in view
a soteriological goal. The great strength of Stniloaes Christology is that it insists on the
completeness of Jesus' human nature and also on the fact that its metaphysical subject is the
person of the divine Logos. By doing this it also provided the immutable and infinite God
with a human nature in which He can perform human acts and undergo human experiences.
Thus, as part of the Alexandrine tradition, Stniloaes Christology focuses its attention on the
historical concreteness of the person of Christ. For Stniloae, Christology's task is to look at
the fact of Christ, and to reflect on the mode of union. To emphasise this dynamic mode
of union (not only unity), Stniloae propounds the theory of Leontius of Byzantium, with a
new perspective in the interpretation of Chalcedon.
At the fifth ecumenical council in Constantinople (553), Leontius of Byzantium proposed the
doctrine of the anhypostasia and enhypostasia, a doctrine that clearly stands as a platform for

687
Moreover, argues Pannenberg, Christology from above tends to neglect the significance of the distinctive
historical features of Jesus of Nazareth - in particular, His relation to the Judaism of His day. Pannenberg
claims that historical enquiry behind the Church's proclamation is both possible and necessary by
demonstrating, for example, Jesus' messianic self-consciousness (that is, His claim to be God) and then the
actuality of the resurrection. Cf. W. Pannenberg, Jesus - God and Man (London: SCM Press, 1992). However,
the problem for both positions is how to link the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith. The Gospels do not
appear to make this distinction. The message of the Gospels is that the Word was made flesh. We cannot have
the Word apart from the flesh, not the flesh apart from the Word. In the Gospels, event and interpretation are
held together, history and theology are not incompatible. The content of the kerygma is the starting hypothesis
to interpret the data supplied by inquiry into the historical Jesus. In other words, the interpretation of the
Gospels is held to make better sense of the historical data than any other option.
194

Stniloae's interpretation of hypostatic union.688 Leontius theological system and its


terminology see the concept of nature (physis) as identical with essence (ousia).689 What is
characteristic for Leontius' concept of hypostasis, writes Florovsky, is that nature is real only
in hypostases, in what is indivisible. In the spiritual world hypostasis is person. Moreover,
nature can be 'realised' in a different hypostasis as well. There exists a complexity, and in
complex hypostases one nature exists in the hypostasis of another. Here Leontius introduced
the notion of something having its existence in something, which he calls enhypostaton.
Again, hypostasis designates someone in particular, while enhypostasia implies an essence
that is not accidental but has real existence in another.
When Leontius applies the possibility of interaction of natures to the mystery of the
incarnation, he insists that the natures are distinguished from one another but not divided.
Since the human nature in Christ is not a distinct hypostasis in relationship to the Logos,
Christ's human nature is enhypostatic, not hypostatic. In the incarnation, Christ is the name of
the Logos, and the Logos receives not human nature in general but an individualised human
nature. The human nature is individualised in the hypostasis of the Logos.690 Thus
Leontius posits an enhypostasized nature in order to explain the union of the two natures of
Jesus Christ in one hypostasis.
The essence of this theory, uphold both by Leontius and Stniloae, is that the personal centre
of the life of Jesus Christ as the incarnation of God is to be found not in His humanity but in
the divine Word who is incarnate there. However, some scholars speak about Leontius as

688
Pannenberg thought that the concept of enhypostasia was even older. Cf. Jesus - God and Man, p. 338. For
a historical survey, see: B.E. Daley: Leontius of Byzantium: A Critical Edition of his Works, with
Prolegomena, Doctorate dissertation (Oxford, 1978); The Origenism of Leontius of Byzantium, JTS 27
(1976), pp. 333-369; The Christology of Leontius of Byzantium: Personalism or Dialectics, in Papers from
the Ninth Conference on Patristics Studies, Patristic Monograph Series (Oxford: The Philadelphia Patristic
Foundation, 1983); P.T.R. Gray, The Defense of Chalcedon in the East, 451-553 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1979); A.
Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. II/2, The Church of Constantinople in the Sixth Century, tr. by
J. Cawte and P. Allen (London and Louisville: Mowbray and The Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995), pp.
181-229; R.V. Sellers, The Council of Chalcedon. A Historical and Doctrinal Survey (London: SPCK, 1953),
pp. 304-320; K.P. Wesche, On the Person of Christ. The Christology of Emperor Justinian (Crestwood, N.Y.:
SVS Press, 1991).
689
Florovsky says that Leontius was a scholastic and dialectician, but not a systematic thinker. However,
Leontius subjects the old and undisputed definitions to a strict analysis, bringing them into an orderly and
complete system. For the following ideas and quotations, cf. G. Florovsky, The Byzantine Fathers of the
Sixth to Eight Century, in Collected Works, vol. IX (Vaduz: Bchervertriebsanstalt, 1987), pp. 191-203.
690
In the same work, Florovsky remarks on Leontius' inconsistency when he tries to express the idea of
differency of Christ in comparison with human hypostases, inconsistency based merely on the imprecision of
language.
195

influenced by Origenism and Evagrius Ponticus,691 or suggest that enhypostasia slips easily
into anhypostasia.692 Other critics angrily dismissed this doctrine.693 This critical line of
thought was heavily influenced by Evans who suggested that Leontius taught that the nature
or ousia of any being in its mode of union is an enhypostasized nature. Therefore, states
Evans, in their union in Jesus Christ, in which Word and flesh remain distinguished as
natures, the natures of Word and flesh are both enhypostasized natures. In consequence,
Leontius is an Origenist heretic, for whom Jesus Christ was not the Word incarnate but an
incorporeal nous. In Him, God and flesh are united not to one another, but each to the nous
Jesus Christ, and only in Him to one another. Evans' final conclusions are excessive: God
and man are components of Jesus Christ, and as such, equals; so, Leontius cannot say that
Jesus Christ is God.694
On the other hand, there are other theologians with a different opinion on the contents and
implications of Leontius' Christology. Daley, for example, an acknowledged authority on
Leontius, argues that Leontius' main interest was in the mode of union and the product of
it.695 In Daleys view, Leontius explains that both universal and individual beings are defined
by means of distinguishing characteristics (idiomata) or properties, which play a unifying and
distinguishing role. With two sets of qualities, Christ forms in the divine economy an essential

691
Cf. D.J. Goergen, The Jesus of Christian History (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1992), p. 150;
H.U. von Balthasar, Theo-Drama. Theological Dramatic Theory, vol. III, Dramatis Personae: Persons in
Christ (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), pp. 216-217. Holding a like position, Meyendorff seems to be
influenced by Evans. See J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, pp. 155ff.
692
For a critical position, see W. N. Pittenger, The Word Incarnate: A Study of the Doctrine of the Person of
Christ (Digswell: James Nisbet, 1959), pp. 99-111. See also D.M. Baillie, God was in Christ. An Essay on
Incarnation and Atonement (London: Faber & Faber, 1977), pp. 85-93. Loofs, for example, understood the
word enhypostaton not to mean hypostatic, having a concrete existence, but to mean hypostatized or
existent within something else. Cf. A. Harnack, History of Dogma, pp. 232-237.
693
Paul Althaus, for example, asserts: One cannot separate the nature from the person. Human personality is
an essential constituent of human nature. Hence 'anhypostasia' abolishes the true humanity of Jesus, his
believing and praying human ego, the truth of his being tempted. P. Althaus, Die Christliche Wahrheit
(Gutersloh: Bertelamann, 1948), 2:225, cited by C. Braaten in Christian Dogmatics, vol. I (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1984), p. 506. Again, M. Richard believes that, for Leontius, all natures are enhypostasized,
so, we must conclude that he believes that both natures of Leontius' Christ are enhypostasized (like Leontius
of Jerusalem). Cf. M. Richard, Lonce de Jrusalem et Lonce de Byzance, Mlanges de Science Religieuse
1 (1944), pp. 35-88.
694
D.B. Evans, Leontius of Byzantium (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oakes Studies 13, 1970), pp. 132-146.
695
Cf. Leontius of Byzantium, Epilyseis (Solutiones Argumentorum Severi) 8 (PG 86, 1940 BC). Cf. B.E.
Daley: Leontius of Byzantium: A Critical Edition of his Works, with Prolegomena, Doctorate dissertation
(Oxford, 1978), and The Origenism of Leontius of Byzantium, pp. 333-369. A similar position is taken by
A. Grillmeier in Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. II/2, pp. 181-229. Karl Barth too observed that
anhypostasia as a negation must be linked with enhypostasia as an affirmation. K. Barth, Church Dogmatics,
IV/2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1958), pp. 49-50, 91-92.
196

part of the set of characteristics that distinguish Him from the other persons.696 The
relationship between divinity and humanity in Him is an essential or substantial
relationship because it engages two substances in their essential character, forming as its
product a concrete individual. The result is a single hypostasis, a single concrete historical
individual. Saying that, Daley rejects the idea that frequently depicted Leontius' doctrine of
enhypostasia as the view that an impersonal human nature was enhypostatized into the
person of the divine Logos, thus becoming personal.
Daley thinks that such a theory resulted from inherited misconceptions. Alternatively, Daley
suggests three positive implications in accepting this interpretation of enhypostasia. First,
every individual being is ontologically comprised by both its similarities to other beings and by
the particular qualities and circumstances that make it unique. The concrete human individual
is a composite hypostasis, a kind of hypostatic union of spiritual and material reality. Second,
in incarnation, the Word of God and a normal human being share a single, concrete, historical
existence, while each of them remains fully itself. The good news of the Gospel is that,
because Jesus was a normal human being, the promise to all of us of a share in His humanity's
eschatological transformation, rests on the realisation that God's humanity and ours have truly
become one in Him, within our own history. Finally, the heart of Leontius' system is really an
insight into the relationship between God and the world. The notion of relationship is an
ontological rich one: it is the connecting and articulating link between universal and particular
being.

2.2 Maximus the Confessor and perichoresis


The second idea on which Stniloae builds up his concept of deification as related to the
person of Christ is the idea of perichoresis. For Stniloae, perichoresis expresses both the
mode of existence of the persons in the Trinity and of the natures in the person of Christ. The
difference between the trinitarian and Christological perichoresis reveals new aspects of the
latter: the trinitarian perichoresis is complete, reciprocal, because the persons are one
according to the being, the same being existing in all three; the Christological perichoresis is
incomplete, unilateral, because the natures are essentially distinct. Furthermore, the
ontological basis of the trinitarian perichoresis is the identity of being or nature, while of the

696
These two levels of being can never be blended into one. However, one unique set of personal
characteristics results from the Son's place within the Trinity and Jesus' place within human history. Christ
197

Christological perichoresis is the unity of person. With regard to the Christological


perichoresis, then, in the most intimate mode, the divinity inter-penetrates humanity,
conveying its exceptional powers and benefits. Although it is true that Stniloae takes as its
basis the doctrine of enhypostasia, this does not imply that perichoresis is the dogmatic
reversion or consequence of the hypostatic union. It is the mysterious mode of existence of
the natures in the human person of Christ.
Stniloae closely follows Maximus idea of perichoresis as the divine penetration into the
human level. The term perichoresis in Maximus, observes Thunberg, is frequently used in
relation with the whole doctrine of deification, defined as an ascent (epanodos) of the
believers to their Cause and End.697 The human penetration is into the totality of divine
nature,698 the result being a real not illusory union, without confusion. Moreover, perichoresis
means a reciprocity within the divine-human relationship, a double penetration. The active
reciprocity employed by perichoresis is found again in the distinction between term
adhesion and penetration as expressing the unified activity. Adhesion denotes the
relationship established between the two natures through the incarnation, while penetration
denotes a consequence of this relationship. This union is never of nature but there is a
newness of modes.699
The most important aspect of perichoresis refers to the union as based on a certain polarity
between the two natures, a formula of reciprocity called also tantum-quantum: ... and that
God makes himself man for the sake of love for man, so far as man, enabled by God, has
deified himself - and, mutatis mutandis, that man is rapt up by God in mind to the
unknowable, so far as man has manifested through virtues the God who is by nature
invisible.700 Thus man's ability to deify himself through love for God's sake is correlative to

embodies a unity of distinct realities that neither confounds its components nor condemns them to radical
dualism.
697
L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, p. 27. Cf. Maximus, Ambigua (PG 90, 608D).
698
Cf. Maximus, Ambigua 5 (PG 91, 1053B).
699
To illustrate the union, Maximus used the analogy of fire and iron. Similarly, Lossky describes it as
follows: The divine energies radiate the divinity of Christ and penetrate His humanity: the latter is therefore
deified from the moment of the Incarnation, like an iron in a brazier that becomes fire though remaining iron
by nature. V. Lossky, Orthodox Theology, p. 99.
700
This enables Maximus to say that man and God are examples of one another. Cf. Maximus, Ambigua 10
(PG 91, 1113BC). Cf. L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, p. 33, and P. Sherwood, The Earlier Ambigua,
p. 144. Maximus fundamental tantum-quantum formula (which goes back to Irenaeus and Athanasius), is
that Christ deified us by grace in the measure that he became man by nature, the katabasis of the divine
incarnation being matched by the anabasis of human deification. Maximus, Quaestiones ad Thalassium 22
(PG 90, 320B). Cf. N. Russell, Partakers of the Divine Nature, in J. Chrysostomides (ed.), Kathegetria:
Essays Presented to Joan Hussey on Her 80th Birthday (Porphyrogenitus, 1988), p. 63.
198

God's becoming man through compassion for man's sake.701 Thunberg summarises and asserts
that this statement (followed in Maximus by the expression blessed inversion) could be
applied to the Christological issue of union of the two natures, because it implies that the
incarnation of God and the deification of man condition each other mutually.702 This involves
two levels: the ontological level in which reciprocity is expressed in terms of archetype and
image, and the existential or dynamic level where the reciprocity is expressed in terms of
movements, or actions, between God and man (seen in the incarnation from God to man, and
in deification as imitation from man to God).703 For Maximus, theosis is God's gift of Himself,
a supernatural gift, which has its fulfilment in heaven when we shall behold with unveiled
faces the Lord's glory.704 It makes us partakers of the divine nature not through identity of
essence but through the power of the Son's incarnation. In other words, deification is
identity with respect to energy.705 So deification takes place first of all because Christ
deified our nature through the incarnation.
Following Maximus, Stniloae sees in perichoresis the real act of the deification of human
nature. Stniloae affirms that the divine nature becomes united with the human nature in the
person of the Word by mutual inherence or by inter-penetration. Again, it is not a
consequence of the hypostatic union but another aspect of it, in which the divine nature is
assigned human properties and conversely. Likewise, influenced by Leontius, Stniloae
discusses also the expression new theandric energy as divine and human energy in co-
operation.706 In Christ, says Stniloae, as unique person, the communication of energies is

701
This is based on what L. Thunberg, paraphrasing Maximus, has aptly called a reciprocity of natures
between God and man. Cf. L. Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, pp. 53-54.
702
In Thunberg's words: Man becomes god as it were, in proportion to God's becoming man, and he is
elevated for God's sake to the extent to which God has emptied himself, without change, and accepted human
nature. L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, p. 33. Maximus ontology is summarised when writes that
man is deified by emplacing himself wholly in God alone, having wholly impressed and formed God on
himself, so that he is and is called God by grace, and God is and is called man by condescension; and the
power of the reciprocal disposition is shown in this, which both deifies man to God... and hominifies God to
man, by a fair inversion, and makes man God by the deification of man, and God man by the hominification
of God. For always and in all the Word of God and God wills to effect the mystery of his embodiment.
Maximus, Ambigua 7 (PG 91, 1084CD), quoted by E.D. Perl, Metaphysics and Christology in Maximus
Confessor and Eriugena, in B. McGinn and W. Otten (eds.), Eriugena. East and West (Notre Dame and
London: University of Notre Dame, 1994), p. 257.
703
L. Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, pp. 53-54, 62.
704
Maximus, Capitula Theologica et Economica I, 97 (PG 90, 321A).
705
Maximus, Quaestiones ad Thalassium 59 (PG 90, 609A).
706
On perichoresis in Stniloae, see D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 60ff, 91ff. On
Leontius, see Adversus Nestorianos (PG 86, 1, 1725, 1728). The term perichoresis, in Latin circumincessio,
refers primarily to the coinherence of the persons of the Trinity in the divine essence and in each other, but it
can also indicate the coinherence of Christ's divine and human natures in their communion or personal
union. Certainly, this doctrine goes against Nestorianism and Monophysitism. R. Muller, Dictionary of Latin
199

different than in a common human being. Dwelling in the same person, the natures
communicate to each other their energy as part of an inter-penetration process, the effect
being a reciprocal communication of their powers.707

2.3 Cyril of Alexandria and the soul/body analogy


Stniloae uses the union and the relationship between soul and body as an analogy of the
union and relationship between the divinity and humanity in Christ. Indeed, Stniloae writes
that as our body, due to the soul that penetrates it, is not merely a material composition and
cannot be conceived as separated from soul, so is with the human nature hypostatized in God
the Word.708 Man is a composite hypostasis because his nature is composite. On the other
side, Christ is a composite hypostasis not only because He has a composite human nature, but
rather because He freely united in Himself the divine nature with the human nature.709
However, there are two aspects to this analogy. First, as the soul/body form one ontological
reality or being (man), so the divinity and humanity form one ontological reality (Jesus).
There is a substantial union between the divinity and the humanity analogous to that of
soul/body. Second, the soul/body relationship illustrates also the type of relationship between
the humanity and the divinity. As the soul is united and relates to the body, so the divinity is
united and relates to the humanity. The first aspect of the analogy is legitimate, but the second
is not. This is because the divinity and humanity are not united to one another, nor do they
interact with one another, nor are they related to one another as the soul/body are united,
interact and relate. Thus the incarnational union is not a compositional union of different
natures or parts which is inherent within the analogy.
The problem, to this point, is that the soul/body analogy has been used not only to illustrate
the oneness of the divinity and the humanity but also the type, manner and nature of the
union. However, in Stniloaes view, the incarnation is not the union of natures nor is it then
like the union between the soul/body. Christ is one ontological being but He is ontologically
one in a different kind of way than that of the soul/body. In order to advance his view,
Stniloae appeals to Cyril of Alexandria who seems to perceive the true nature of the

and Greek Theological Terms. Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Baker Book House, 1988), pp. 67-68. For a recent inquiry into the subject of perichoresis in the Fathers, see
the chapter Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity, in T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, One
Being Three Persons, pp. 168-202.
707
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 92.
708
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 63.
709
Cf. Maximus, Epistula 13 (PG 91, 517C).
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incarnational union.710 Cyril makes a distinction between person (the who) and nature (the
manner of person's existence). One and the same person, who is eternally God, comes to exist
as man. To become incarnate does not mean that the nature of the Word was changed and
became flesh, or that it was converted into a whole man consisting of soul and body; but
rather that the Word, having personally united to himself flesh animated by a rational soul, did
in an ineffable and inconceivable manner become man.711 The incarnational union is not a
compositional union of natures, similar to the soul/body, but rather the person of the Son
taking on a new mode of existence.
A careful investigation would therefore disclose that, for both Cyril and Stniloae, Jesus is
the person of the Son of God, in the fullness of divinity, existing as man, in the fullness of
humanity.712 Moreover, the manner of the union is quite different from that of soul/body.

710
Oppositely, Tertullian, for example, understood that, as soul and body mix and interact without losing their
individual qualities, so do the divinity and the humanity in Jesus, becoming substantially one. In order to
show that Jesus is composed of two substances, Tertullian uses the Stoic understanding of the relationship of
soul/body, that is, of krasis/mixtio - mixture or mutual compenetration - but without each nature losing its
natural properties (cf. Tertullian, Adversus Praxean 27, in H. Bettenson, (ed.), The Early Christian Fathers,
pp. 123-124. This understanding is not satisfying, first because it is difficult to imagine how two substances
can mutually mix and compenetrate without losing their distinct qualities; and second because the incarnation
is not the compositional union of substances or natures. The full implications of the soul/body analogy are
found within the extreme forms of Logos-sarx Christology, where it is acknowledged that as the soul is united
to the body so the divinity is united to the flesh (only). In Arianism, for example, the incarnation is
understood as the Logos uniting to Himself flesh (without soul) so as to form one reality. The Logos becomes
the life principle within this substantial union. However, because of this the Logos directly assumes the
experiences of the flesh. Therefore the Logos cannot be God. God cannot enter into such a compositional
union, for He is changed in the process of becoming man and, moreover, the human experiences would be
located within His very nature as the Logos. The Nicene Fathers had difficulties in responding to Arius'
objections partly because they were attempting to conceive the incarnation in an analogous way to the
soul/body. We find the same problem in Apollinarian Christology, where it was conceived that if Christ must
be one ontologically, and if Christ had a soul, then there would be two complete wholes and two wholes
cannot form a third whole. In this view, Christ is mia physis because the Logos and flesh form one organic
whole with the Logos being the vivifying and governing principle just as the soul is to body. Within
Apollinarianism it is the humanity that is now jeopardised precisely because the incarnation is modelled after
the soul/body relationship. The Cappadocians were against Apollinarianism and so insisted on the full
humanity, yet they nevertheless see the incarnation according to the soul/body analogy, though now once
again in Stoic terms. The union is explained in terms of mingling and mixing, the emphasis being on the
divinization of the humanity. The mingling and mixing cause the union of natures in Jesus. While the
Cappadocians distinguished person and nature within Trinity, they did not do the same within the
incarnation because the soul/body analogy does not allow them to gain this insight.
711
Cyril of Alexandria, Epistola ad Nestorius 2, quoted by T.G. Weinandy, Does God Change? The Word's
Becoming in the Incarnation (Still River, Mass.: St. Bede's Publications, 1985), p. 54.
712
Those who criticise Cyril and Chalcedon often do so because they believe these understand the incarnation
from within a soul/body framework - the compositional union of natures. The objection is that if Jesus is a
divine person then He can not be a human person, and therefore He is lacking something essential to His
humanity. But these critics do not grasp the idea that the identity (the who) is that of the Son, but the manner
of His existence is as man and therefore He lacks nothing human. Similarly, mentions Stniloae, Leontius of
Byzantium and Maximus used the analogy of body and soul resulting in one hypostasis. However, Thunberg
argues that there is a distinction between the hypostatic union employed by Leontius and the natural union
used by Maximus (L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, pp. 106-110). The fact remains that Maximus
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Stniloae clearly affirms that Christs divine nature is not united with the human nature in a
similar way as soul and body are united in man: the analogy does not illustrate the relationship
between divinity and humanity but only their ontological reality. Accordingly, between
Christ's divine nature and His human nature there is an infinite ontological distinction.713
Again, this unity and distinction between the natures is produced and maintained exclusively
by the one composed hypostasis, and not by the unity of being as a result of the natures.
Finally, in agreement with Cyril, Stniloae rejects kenotic Christology which proposes that the
Son must either empty Himself of, that is, give up, those divine attributes which are
purportedly incompatible with the incarnation (such as omniscience or omnipotence), or He
must hold them in abeyance during His earthly human life. Stniloae rightly says that the
primary misconception within kenotic Christology is that it conceives the classical
interpretation of the incarnation in an essentialist mode.714 Correspondingly, for Stniloae,
Christology is not an essentialist, but personal/existential.715 Hence the incarnation is not the
fusing together of two incompatible natures but the person of the Son coming to exist as man
or coming to be man.

2.4 Evaluation
The Christian doctrine about the incarnational claim of Jesus, fully sustained by Stniloae, has
been said by some critics, to be nonsensical or absurd in a logical, or semantic, or conceptual
sense. However, Stniloaes position rejects the charge of patent incoherence that claims that

found in the example of body and soul an illustration of the perichoretic unity of humanity and divinity in
Christ. Recently it was stated that Maximus admits that the comparison of soul and body, as a way of grasping
the mystery of the incarnation, is not useful. However, Maximus perceives the limitations of analogy when he
writes: In man there is identity of hypostasis and diversity of substance, because while man is one, the
substance of his soul is one thing and that of his body is another. In the same way, in the case of the Lord
Christ, there is identity of person and diversity of substances, because the person is one, that is the hypostasis,
while the divinity is of one substance and the humanity is of another. Maximus, Opuscula Theologica et
Polemica 13 (PG 91, 145C-148A). And in total agreement with Madden we should acknowledge that a
literal insistence on a strict parallelism would obviously empty the incarnation of divine content and reduce
Christ to the status of a mere creature, since the Word would be no longer eternal. N. Madden, Composite
Hypostasis in Maximus Confessor, SP 27 (1993), pp. 175-197.
713
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 310.
714
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 67. Indeed, kenotic Christology sees the
incarnation as the compositional union of natures analogous to the soul/body. In one sense, kenoticism is
Apollinarianism in reverse. It denies those divine attributes that are incompatible with or would interfere with
the humanity. In other words, it thinks the act of incarnation brought together and united two contrary and
incompatible natures or essences containing within themselves contradictory attributes. For example, in the
writings of Thomas Morris, B. Hebblethwaite, or Process Theology.
715
This line of thought is recognised in T.G. Weinandy, Does God Change? The Word's Becoming in the
Incarnation, and In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh. An Essay on the Humanity of Christ (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1993), pp. 11-13.
202

some individual could be divine without some properties that are constitutive of deity (for
instance omnipotence, omniscient, incorporeability). Conversely, Stniloae claims that in the
incarnation Jesus Christ was both fully human and fully divine. Stniloae's position is that the
one concrete person of Jesus Christ in reality possessed two natures from His conception and
birth. The second person of the Trinity condescended to partake in or share our humanity.
The human nature of Christ differs from all other human natures, negatively, by not having a
different human personality of its own (anhypostasia) and positively, by subsisting in the
divine personality (enhypostasia). For Stniloae, in the personal, hypostatic, union are the
two distinct natures, but the two sets of attributes are neither mixed nor confounded. In the
God-man we find complexity but not confusion. In conclusion, according to Stniloae, the
most coherent proposal suggests a personal union of the divine and human natures in one
hypostasis.
It has been shown that, in his understanding of the doctrine of hypostatic union, Stniloae
follows the elaborated version of Maximus in the context of perichoresis or mutual
permeation.716 Indeed, Maximus develops the concept of hypostasis by speaking about a
synthetic hypostasis that includes the universal human nature and its individual qualities. In
the synthetic union, the human nature is maintained and confirmed with the divine nature in
Christ and is enhypostasized there.717 Further, in his desire to preserve the integrity of Christ's
two natures within the one person by means of the term enhypostatos, Stniloae is adopting
the position of Leontius of Byzantium. Both theologians hold that Christ's authentic humanity
had no subsistence in itself but came to subsist only in union with the Logos from the moment
of the incarnation. To illustrate that divinity and humanity form one ontological reality - that
is, the Son existing as man -, both Stniloae and Cyril of Alexandria use the soul/body
analogy.718 Although the ideas of John of Damascus and Gregory Palamas were not explored,
we should mention that they also speak about Christ's humanity that realised personal
existence in and through the Logos. John of Damascus writes that what the Logos took in
His incarnation was the 'first-fruit of our substance,' individual nature, which did not

716
L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, pp. 21-50.
717
Cf. L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, p. 49.
718
A similar understanding is found in Justinian's Edict on the True Faith, against those who used the
analogy to prove one nature in Christ. Justinian argues that, although man was constituted from the beginning
of body and soul and possesses one nature by creation, this is not the case in Christ. The analogy was used by
some fathers to show that just as one man, not two, is produced from the body and soul, so also Christ,
though constituted of divinity and humanity, is not two Christs but one and is not divided into two sons. Cf.
203

previously exist as individual itself, but came into existence in His hypostasis.719 When the
Logos took on human nature, He delivered it from corruption and death and deified the
human nature He assumed. Finally, as the culmination of this interpretative tradition,
Stniloae adopts Gregory Palamas interpretation when he speaks about the regeneration of
human nature and not of the individual human hypostases. Christ renewed, not our
hypostasis, but our nature, which He assumed, united to it in His own hypostasis.720 For
Palamas, the flesh (human nature) of Christ is the unique point of man's contact with God.721
Thus through the deification of Christ's human nature, a new root was created as an
inexhaustible source, transmitting this divining energy to men and thereby deifying them.722
In the light of these premises, Stniloaes position might be set in line with the physical
view of deification developed by Irenaeus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria,
Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus and Gregory Palamas - a view that became the
common property of the Orthodox tradition.723
To explain the above observations, we need to add that Stniloae's thought is that God is in
His essence what He does or what He is towards us.724 While basically rejecting much of
Platonism, Stniloae partly utilises Platonic thought in speaking of God. This must not be
interpreted as if Stniloae adopted Platonic theories uncritically but he used these ideas in
connection with his theology. Hence, while Stniloae would not necessarily see his view
under the heading of physical theories, this more properly belongs there. It is important to
mention that, to a certain extent, Stniloaes concept of salvation is physical. For him, the
incarnation achieved a deification of human nature, spiritual and physical. However, the term
physical theory is misused today to imply a purely mechanical and automatic bestowal of
salvation or an assimilation of mankind due to the presence of Christ and who He is.725 Thus

K.P. Wesche, On the Person of Christ. The Christology of Emperor Justinian (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press,
1991), pp. 38ff, 171-173. For Cyril of Alexandria see his Epistola ad Eulogium.
719
G.I. Mantzarides, The Deification of Man, p. 30. Cf. John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa 3, 11 (PG 94,
1021D-1024D).
720
Gregory Palamas, Homily 5 (PG 151, 64BC).
721
See J. Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, p. 149.
722
G.I. Mantzarides, The Deification of Man, p. 33. Lossky asserts that there are therefore two
consubstantialities, but a single real presence, a single person, at once true God and true man. The hypostasis
encapsulates two natures. V. Lossky, Orthodox Theology, p. 95
723
G.I. Mantzarides, The Deification of Man, p. 29. Cf. J. Gross, La Divinisation du Chrtien d'aprs les
Pres Grecs, p. 347.
724
This main premise means that Christ must always be God because He is Son from eternity, otherwise, God
must have changed and can change again. Thus the Son is ontologically the Son of God.
725
Mantzarides points out a similar idea when he writes: The physical view of deification developed by the
Greek Fathers and by Palamas does not imply any mechanical commutation of humanity, but an ontological
regeneration of human nature in the hypostasis of the incarnate Logos of God, accessible to every man who
204

by physical theory is meant that in Christ becoming man - that is, on the very assumption of
humanity or human flesh - there was not only a change in the second person of the Trinity but
also a change in humanity's nature. There has been a change of some sort in mankind effected
by the incarnation and this has been expressed as a restoring of the divine nature in man or
even as deification. In supporting this point, it has been noted already in Stniloae's thought
that not only was the divine nature of Christ united with His human nature but, by becoming
man, Christ entered into ontological relationship with all men.726
Thus Stniloae understood that the deification is possible not by nature but by participation,
the incarnation being the ground for our participation in Christ. Hence Stniloae goes beyond
Platonist thought, and asserts that Christ has entered into an ontological relation with all
people, affecting the being of all.727 What happens to the person of Christ happens to the
human race because human flesh is joined with true divinity. This is why, if Christ were not
fully man, man could have no solidarity in suffering with Him.728 The supposition behind
this is that the divine hypostasis in which believers participate is the agenetic hypostasis
(ousia) of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and not just of some unassumed human body.
When Christ assumed a body He also brought about a change in that body (the universal in

participates personally and freely in the life of Christ. G. Mantzarides, The Deification of Man, p. 31. For a
similar debate in the case of Athanasius, see H.E.W. Turner, The Patristic Doctrine of Redemption. A Study
of the Development of Doctrine during the First Five Centuries (London and New York: Mowbray, 1952).
726
These ideas, basic to Greek patristic theology, attracted wider attention. For example, E.L. Mascall writes:
We are, I suggest, the victims of needless timidity if we write off as merely imaginative or rhetorical the
language in which many of the Eastern Fathers have seen the human race redeemed and transformed from the
moment when the eternal Word was enfleshed within it. E.L. Mascall, Whatever Happened to the Human
Mind? (London: SPCK, 1980), p. 51. Similarly, Karl Barth stated: In Jesus Christ it is not merely one man,
but the humanum of all men, which He posited and exalted as such to unity with God. K. Barth, Church
Dogmatics, IV/2, p. 49
727
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 98-101. According to Plato, particulars are related
to universals either by archetype or by participation. The archetype idea designates that particulars are related
to universals somewhat like a copy to an original. For patristic thought, this model is not as important as the
participation concept. Similar ideas are found in Athanasius. Hence the position of Stniloae and Athanasius
seems to be according to the Stoic-Alexandrian Logos doctrine, in which the world is created in the Logos
who acts as the life-giving principle to the world. The Logos could concentrate itself in Jesus Christ because
the human soul (rational) is the most perfect copy within the earthly, corporeal creation. The Logos in Christ's
flesh gives the sarx life and power, and effects the redemption of that body. The Logos thus becomes the sole
motivating principle in Christ and hence the Logos was the bearer of all Jesus' spiritual functions, the body
being only a tool. The communication of the Logos is the cause of the redemption of the whole body/man, and
hence Christ must have assumed the whole man to save it wholly. Through the communication of the Logos
in Jesus Christ, the incarnation brings about participation in the divine nature for all mankind. Cf. A.
Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. I, From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451), tr. by J. Bowden
(Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975), pp. 193-219.
728
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 100. In a private conversation, Stniloae
acknowledged that Moltmanns theology of hope is close to his view on solidarity in suffering. On his side,
Moltmann himself confesses the influence of Stniloae. Cf. J. Moltmann, History and the Triune God.
Contributions to Trinitarian Theology (London: SCM Press, 1991), pp. 173, 179.
205

which people participate). This assumption of the body actually deified or divinized that flesh
so that all who participate in it participate potentially in divinity. Thus the renewing of the
image is for Stniloae another way of speaking about deification, and it is predicated on the
idea of Christ taking us from corruption to incorruption via the incarnation. Because it is
impossible for human nature - which is corruptible in character - to be renewed from within,
participation is only possible with the transformation and renewal of it. Precisely, only by
Christ becoming incarnate could mankind be redeemed, for He is being per se and thus can
overcome our corruption.729

3. General conclusions

One of the problems which the concept of deification sought to resolve in the theology of
Stniloae is how to build a bridge between the uncreated God and created man. To solve this
issue, Stniloae understands deification as fundamentally a Christological concept. Giving
priority to a Logos-sarx approach to Christology - that includes Irenaus, Athanasius, Cyril of
Alexandria, the Cappadocians, and Maximus the Confessor -, Stniloae's theological method
is centred on this Christological axiom, that the normal ontological state of man is based on
his unity with God as it was accomplished in the divine-human nucleus of Christ. This
principle is fully applied in Stniloae's thought, for whom the human nature is restored to its
authentic condition in the person and work of Jesus Christ.730
One of Stniloaes disciples, Ioan Bria, remarks that the essential part of Stniloae's
Dogmatics was devoted to Christology, where he approached the basic ideas of redemptive
incarnation (following Athanasius), hypostatic union (following Leontius of Byzantium), and
the ontological aspect of Jesus' sacrifice (following Cyril of Alexandria).731 Although an
unfinished observation, Brias summary is helpful at this stage in attempting to find a proper

729
Again, Stniloae breaks with Platonic ideas by understanding that the soul of man is not in any way co-
natural with God (because of the ontological gulf between them). Therefore Stniloae has no room for
Origen's deification by theoria, the concept that the soul contemplates God and so becomes divine. Rather
deification is the result of the incarnation. Cf. A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition, p.
78. Neither does deification imply, as in Origen, some direct relationship with God. Instead, man is deified as
he is restored to conformity with the Image of God (that is, the Word) by the Word (Logos) taking on the flesh
Himself.
730
In this sense, Russell is right when he asserts that each writer's concept of deification is correlative to his
Christology. N. Russell, Partakers of the Divine Nature, p.60. Or, as Lossky explains: What man ought to
have attained by raising himself up to God, God achieved by descending to man. The impassable barrier
formed by death, sin, and nature, is broken through by God in the inverse order, beginning with the union of
the separated natures, and ending with the victory over death. V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 136.
206

model of deification in Stniloaes theology. First, following Athanasius, Stniloae maintains


that it is possible for man to participate directly in the deified flesh of the incarnate Logos.
Through participation in the body of Christ, men participate in the divinity with which that
body was endowed, which leads them to participate in incorruption and immortality, and
ultimately in the resurrected life and eschatological fulfilment of heaven. Then, following the
Cappadocians and Maximus, Stniloae adapts the doctrine of deification to a Platonizing
understanding of Christianity as the attainment of likeness to God as far as is possible for
human nature. Thus human beings are deified in an ethical sense, the emphasis being as much
on the ascent of the soul to God as on the transformation of the believer through sacraments.
Furthermore, following the more spiritualized sense of Cyril of Alexandria, Stniloae prefers
to speak about man's deification as the transformation of humanity that took place in principle
through the incarnation.
As it has been suggested, by understanding deification as participation in the divine nature -
that is, the flesh is deified by participation in the divinity of the Logos -, Stniloae seems to
favour a Logos-sarx framework.732 In line with the Alexandrian theology Stniloae maintains
that the transformation of the flesh by the Logos was mirrored by the transformation of the
believer by Christ. Stniloaes view on deification, therefore, combines its physicalist
dimension common to Athanasius, its metaphysical sense from the Cappadocians and
Maximus, and the ontological and dynamic aspect of participation that characterises the

731
See I. Bria, Spaiul Nemuririi sau Eternizarea Umanului n Dumnezeu (Iai:Trinitas, 1994), p. 18.
732
Other writers work within a Logos-anthropos framework, and man is deified by intermingling with the
Logos through the mediation of the nous, the higher part of the soul. This is one of the reasons that the writers
of the Antiochene school do not quote 2 Peter 1:4, their theology being classified as essentialist. On the other
hand, the Alexandrine school, whose theology was considered more personalist, used this text to express the
dynamic participation of man in God. Hence the contrast between the metaphysical union of the Alexandrians
and the moral union of the Antiochenes in their Christology is reflected in their attitude to deification. For
further debates on Logos-sarx and Logos-anthropos Christologies, see: R. Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit.
Spirit-Christology in Trinitarian Perspective (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); C.E.
Gunton, Yesterday and Today: A Study of Continuities in Christology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd,
1983); B.O. McDermott, Word Become Flesh. Dimensions of Christology (Collegeville, Minn.: A Michael
Glazier Book, The Liturgical Press, 1993); J. McIntyre, The Shape of Christology (London: SCM Press,
1966); T.F. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction (London: SCM Press, 1965); B. Studer, Trinity and
Incarnation. The Faith of the Early Church, tr. by M. Westerhoff and ed. by A. Louth (Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 1993); T.G. Weinandy, In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh. An Essay on the Humanity of Christ
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993); L.J. Welch, Logos-sarx? Sarx and the Soul of Christ in the Early Thought of
Cyril of Alexandria, SVTQ 38.3 (1994), pp. 271-292; D.F. Winslow, The Dynamics of Salvation, pp. 171-
199.
207

theology of Cyril. This explains Stniloaes realistic model of deification as correlative to a


Logos-sarx Christology and closely connected with the idea of participation.733
It appears, then, that what concerns Stniloae at this stage is the central concept of
reciprocity between God and man that is manifested on the existential level. We have seen this
principle working as a double movement in incarnation and deification. In other words, for
Stniloae, man's deification is a consequence of God's humanisation in the incarnation of the
Logos. Following this dialectic, the result is perceived in the fact that between God and man a
kind of space has been created, in which man can move intentionally to communion with God
and God can deify man. Hence the doctrinal basis of the deification of man is to be found in
the hypostatic unity between the divine and human nature in Christ. The relationship between
the human and the divine has to be activated on the basis of God's will and man's response.
Definitely deification is not a consequence of man's ability but of reciprocal relationship
between him and God. Thus Christology and anthropology are harmonised in the concept of
reciprocity.
Connected with this idea, one must also say that Stniloae's development of the doctrines like
enhypostasia and perichoresis, allows the boundaries encompassing the doctrine of the
hypostatic union to be far wider than the limits set by Chalcedon and the other councils. It is
known that these formulations were originally meant to preserve a mystery and to concede
certain beliefs, beyond which one would fall into heresy. Extending these limits and
extrapolating ontological and doctrinal implications from them, Stniloae is led somewhat far
from the functional purposes of the original formulations. This is not to deny that there are
ontological implications for the hypostatic union. For Stniloae, Christ is real man and God.
The hypostatic union enables mankind to be brought into communion with God in the inner
relations of His own being as Trinity, hence the need for deification. Knowledge of God thus
arises out of direct experience of God, which like all true knowledge is determined by the
nature of what is known, that is, by the mode of being that Christ assumed in our space and
time. However, when Stniloae discusses the question of the deification of man as a result of
the hypostatic union in Christ, and keeping in mind that deification means God's taking of
humanity into Himself, we ask why should we need somebody to be taken up into God if the
whole universe is intimately related to God?

733
On the other hand, the ethical model is correlative to a Logos-anthropos Christology and is connected with
imitation. See N. Russell, The Concept of Deification in the Early Greek Fathers, Doctorate dissertation
208

In Stniloae's thinking, the event of incarnation of the Logos attempts to provide a unitive
theology, since the act of the hypostatic union resolves the duality of difference between God
and man. Here Stniloae follows the Early Fathers, who stressed the being of God in His acts,
that is, the ontological understanding of Christ as incarnate where God is to us as He is
eternally in His own being. One implication of that is that all of creation is somehow
ontologically related to Christ who entered into His creation as a creature. That is why
Stniloae presents Chalcedonian Christology not in static but rather in dynamic and
ontological terms. Thus the world is then made open to God through the incarnation where
Christ constitutes the actual centre.734 Within this framework, God's work in the world is seen
and the redemption of the whole universe is worked out.
A further implication for Stniloae is that the real connection of the incarnation and the
redemption is seen as a restoration of the rational order of the universe, the redemption being
an order-bringing activity. The incarnation seems to have the effect of sanctifying the universe
of God. On the other side, if the world was made open to God through the act of creation and
incarnation, that implies the openness of God for the world He made. Again following the
premise that God is in Himself what He is towards us, Stniloae sees that the coming of
Christ as incarnate implies the reality of the intersection of God's reality and the world's
reality. Thus due to the fact that there is an inseparable link between the rationality of man
and the rationality of the universe, man (as a constituent element in the rationality of the
universe) is the highest level of this ordered universe and has a central role in it. Given man's
interrelation to created being, Stniloae can now move to a consideration of man's redemption
by the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity. Christ fulfils the place of the highest
level of the universe, establishing the validity of personal being as the very essence of reality.
His flesh is not just related to man's nor just interrelated with the created reality, but He is the
restorer and fulfilment of it. In a real way Christ is the theopoietic principle, and the
redemption is order-bringing and order-renewing activity. In other words, Christ deifies our
human flesh.
But there is evidently a confusion in wanting to say, as Stniloae wishes to, that in the
hypostatic union God is joined to humanity or that humanity is taken up into divinity and that
this divinity is truly God. Of course, Stniloae is not wanting to say that mankind is divine in

(Oxford, 1988), and G.W.H. Lampe, Christian Theology in the Patristic Period, in H. Cunliffe-Jones (ed.),
A History of Christian Doctrine (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), pp. 23-180.
734
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 98.
209

the sense that God is divine or to posit a pantheistic absorption into God's essence. However,
this gives the impression in Stniloae's theology that the act of the incarnation determines
God's being antecedently. It is known that in the Eastern system there is a separation between
the absolute, unknowable, imparticable ousia of God and the relational, knowable, and
particible divine energeiai. As such mankind is only related to, or united to what the Eastern
Church calls God's proodoi, and never to His ousia.735 This raises questions for Stniloae's
view of deification based on the incarnation, which relies so heavily on Greek patristic
formulations. There seems to be a contradiction in drawing extrapolations from the fact of the
hypostatic union to include mankind in God, and a statement that mankind encounters not all
of God as He is in Himself.
The other side of the problem implies man's being in relation to God's being. Despite the
strong Chalcedonian formulation behind Stniloae's ideas, there is a danger of subsuming
human nature to God's nature, due to the identification of God's being as relation with the
person of the man Jesus and hence of all men to God. The Chalcedonian phrases of without
confusion, without change, without division, without separation are somewhat blurred here.
Stniloae asserts that the incarnation of the Logos unveils the man as the most accessible
being for us, and the most capable being in becoming the medium of God's
manifestation.736 It is sometimes difficult to see where the idea of man's deification really
stops and prevents the tendency towards pantheism or to obscure the Creator-creature
relation. Our humanity, writes Stniloae, came to its climax in Christ, because it
participated in the loving communication and in the absolute character of His divine
hypostasis, and through this, it participated in His absolute freedom. Consequently, we are
enabled to become persons capable for a perfect communion, free from any kind of
egoism.737 These tendencies in Stniloae's theology become evident when taken out of the
Chalcedonian context, where they may lead to either a form of universalism, or a lack of
emphasis on proclamation. This subsumation is true not only of Christ's natures (the human
being subsumed to the divine), but also of human nature in general being assimilated to God's
nature.
Stniloae always tries to maintain the distinction between God's being and human being.
While there is compatibility, as shown in incarnation, God's being is of a different order to

735
See R.G. Williams, The Via Negativa and the Foundations of Theology: An Introduction fo the Thought
of V.N. Lossky, p. 105.
736
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 160.
210

mankind's being. However, while Stniloae wishes to retain the Creator-creature distinction,
it is not always obvious that he achieves this, through his stress on the idea of deification-as-
participation. Surely there will always remain a difference in being between God and man. It
must be remembered that since the beginning there was nothing alien to God in man, for
man's being is the image of God. The incarnation assures us of the compatibility between
God and man since there human mind and body were joined to the Logos of God. These
riders have important implications for an understanding of the purpose of the incarnation,
especially with respect to the ideas of deification.738

737
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 164.
738
This may imply, for example, that the purpose of the incarnation was not to deify man as such but must be
seen in a much more relational, eschatological and teleological way, such as fulfilment, substitution, etc.
211

CHAPTER VI. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL ASPECT OF DEIFICATION: THE


WORK OF CHRIST

Introduction
With Christology we arrived at the centre of Stniloae's understanding of deification. While
all other aspects of the Christian doctrine are organically related to each other, there is a
special sense in which the understanding of Jesus as the Christ is the focal point of deification.
This does not mean that everything that Stniloae believes can be deduced from Christology,
but that the specific, distinctive definition of each of the Christian doctrines is given in and
through the special revelation in Christ. Christ is seen as the mediator that stands between
God and humanity, so a twofold movement of relationships can be discerned: Christ relates us
to God and God to us. In other words, Christ mediates in this double way: from humanity to
God and from God to humanity.739 Thus Stniloae speaks of one person with a duality of
nature, role, or function. Since, as mediator, Christ provides true knowledge of God and
saving power, Stniloae affirms that both revelation and redemption are centred in Him. He
makes possible the restoration of fallen humanity to a state of salvation and wholeness in right
relationship with God.
The main purpose of this chapter is, therefore, to show that throughout his writings Stniloae
aims to present a unitive theology in which the centre and integrating factor of all our
knowledge is the incarnation consummated in redemption. For that, we shall examine the
main suppositions of Stniloae's methodology on the relation between the incarnation and
redemption. It will be obvious that Stniloae has no hesitation in beginning his soteriology
with incarnation and moving on to redemption. In fact, as he presents the matter, Christ saves
us by becoming incarnate and thus deifying human nature.740 Stniloae is following the
Fathers who speak of the incarnation of the Logos as the whole mystery of Gods oikonomia,
the main goal of this incarnation being our re-integration into the natural state based on the

739
This essential dynamic doctrine of salvation, states Meyendorff, supposes a double movement: a divine
movement towards man consisting of making God partakable of by creation, and a human movement towards
God, willed from the beginning by the Creator and restored in Christ. J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern
Christian Thought, pp. 143-144. Similarly, Lossky sees a necessary relation between Christ's katabasis and
man's anabasis in order to understand theosis. V. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, pp. 97-98.
740
Surely, in the largest framework, person and work are interdependent. Christ had to be who He was in
order to save, and He was who He was because of His saving deeds.
212

idea of participation and of communion. According to Stniloae, then, the work of re-
integration is the work of redemption, which is included as a central aspect of the
incarnation.741

1. Background and premises in Stniloae's soteriology

The first supposition of Stniloaes methodology is the close link between incarnation and
redemption. Stniloae is concerned to establish the view that all of Christ's life is integral to
the redemption. He does not want to limit Christ's work or His person to the cross, and at the
same time he wants to avoid splitting Christ's work and person. Although Stniloae does not
exclude the idea of substitution on the cross, this is seen not only in terms of the whole
incarnate life but must also be intimately related to Christ's incorporation into humanity as
man. Incarnation itself is God the Son entering into our human alienation from God, often
expressed as a penetration into our sinful humanity. This means more than merely taking
our flesh and its problems. It means, by and large, that the appearance of evil into the world
has affected all contingent existence, hence the incarnation must be linked to redemption and
creation. Consequently, basic to Stniloae's whole theological method is the view that not just
the death and resurrection, but also the birth, life and ministry of Christ are continuous in the
process of salvation.742
The second supposition of Stniloaes methodology is based on the strong ontological
relationships that characterise salvation. Stniloae defines salvation as something internal to
man and not as an external act unrelated to him. Not only has something been done for man,

741
This is why, in the context of redemption, the idea of theosis seems to be strange and abnormal. Cf. V.
Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, pp. 99-103. Lossky continues: For the atonement made necessary
by our sins is not an end but a means, the means to the only real goal: deification. Salvation itself is only a
negative moment: the only essential reality remains union with God. What does it matter being saved from
death, from Hell, if it is not to lose oneself in God? For Lossky, the incarnation creates as it were a 'void'
between the Father and Son, an open space that follows for the free submission of the Word made flesh, the
spiritual place of redemption. Even if Stniloae himself uses the idea of open space for such relationships,
Losskys expression void sounds enigmatic. Cf. Orthodox Theology, pp. 110-111.
742
In this context there appears to be a shift in emphasis from Stniloae's earlier to his later writings, where
less importance is given to the passion within the life of Christ. The emphasis in Stniloae's later writings is
more on the resurrection of Christ as the determinative factor. Hence resurrection has prominence because of
the holistic, ontological and eschatological nature of his incarnational theology, and probably because of the
lack of emphasis on the penal nature of Christ's death. See for example, the prominence of the resurrection
references in comparison with those which mention the death of Christ, in the following writings: D.
Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 85-92, 226f, 489f, and vol. II, pp. 21-34, 153-192, 224-
229; Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, pp. 9-53, 192-210, 369-380; Iisus Hristos Lumina Lumii i
213

but something has been done in man. It is important then to see that the process of salvation
linked with its goal, both being inseparable due to the hypostatic union. If salvation means to
be united with God or Christ, then this union must be seen to be more than a forensic or
declarative transaction between God and sinners (and especially more than a moral union).
For Stniloae salvation is a real union, a real sharing in the inner relationships of the Trinity.
This trinitarian paradigm for a real union is, for Stniloae, the starting point in understanding
salvation and as such he uses a number of phrases and words to describe the union,
expressing the various sources of his concept: recapitulation, incorporation, or theosis. This
union with God as a goal is a direct result of the importance of the hypostatic union, and of
seeing the incarnation as being directly related to redemption: It is reached by man by being
assumed into the divine life in Christ through adoption into communion with Him. Theosis
refers then to God's self-giving and adoption of humanity into the communion of His divine
life.743 From this point of view, Stniloae's theology is to be regarded as a participation
soteriology.744
The third supposition of Stniloaes methodology is based on the idea of the vicarious
humanity of Christ. According to Stniloae, Christ, in the incarnation, healed and sanctified
nature from within, by taking our nature as fallen. It is from such an internal understanding of
the redemption that other aspects of Christ's work are emphasised or criticised by Stniloae.
For Stniloae, revelation is Christ; not so much an external, revealed truth, but the self-giving
of God to us. If the content of God's self-revelation is not the reconciling life of Christ, the
result is an epistemological and ontological dualism between Christ's person and His work
(seen as external) for us. Stniloae assumes the ontological relation between Christ's humanity
and man's, and the idea of solidarity forms a major base not only for man's inclusion in the
benefits of the redemption but also for the whole concept of union with God.745 Accordingly,
Stniloae sees atoning reconciliation taking place both within the being of God and within the
being of man. It is firstly within the being of God because of the real relationship existing
between Father and Son. What Christ accomplishes He does as God and it must be

ndumnezeitorul Omului, pp. 101-110, 119-143, 189-208; Fiul i Cuvntul lui Dumnezeu Cel ntrupat i
nviat ca Om: Reunificatorul Creaiei n El pentru Veci, MO 4 (1987), pp. 7-24.
743
See for example, D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 194.
744
Cf. K. Ware, Salvation and Theosis in Orthodox Theology, p. 171.
745
This is for Stniloae a particularly Greek patristic concept and somehow alien to Latin theological thought.
Stniloae, though, misses the strong deification aspect of Augustine that had a great influence in Roman
Catholic theology. For the idea of theosis in Augustine, Sermo XIII de Tempore (PL 39, 1097-1098), Sermo
214

understood in terms of the internal relationhip with God. Secondly, atoning reconciliation is
within the being of man since Christ is the hypostatic union between God and man. As such,
there is a union between our sinful humanity and God which is explained by the fact of the
solidarity Christ has with all humanity and the inclusive nature of Christ's person in which
people participate. This is why Stniloae can speak of redemption as being accomplished
within the incarnate constitution of Christ.
Stniloae uses the concepts of theosis and assumption, and indeed a Greek way of thinking
about human nature and God a great deal. For Stniloae, the Son took our position in order
to convert it to obedience and true sonship by His vicarious obedience in all aspects of His
life. His very act of redemption is a recreation of our humanity. Christ Himself is the new
creation, and our incorporation into Him means the recreating of our humanity within His
own life. The entire life of Christ is redemption, recreation. It was a total substitution of
Christ's life and death, and must be seen in the light of the patristic formula: the unassumed is
the unhealed.746

1.1 The plan of salvation


We must deal with two preliminary issues before we develop the previous suppositions. The
first issue in understanding Stniloaes Christological aspect of deification is the personalist
dimension of Gods plan of salvation. According to Stniloae, the work of salvation is
complex, being conceived in eternity but executed on the stage of history. Hence, in
Stniloaes understanding, the whole history of salvation is guided, enlightened, and
strengthened in goodness by divine revelation. Moreover, this plan of salvation unfolds itself
progressively through time. The various means God uses to achieve salvation are not in a
chance configuration but rather they are all parts of a single master plan or pattern which is
only fully seen when we come to Christology. God's acts and words, says Stniloae, form
part of His plan to guide creation towards union with Himself, that is, towards deification,
where Christ is the ultimate stage of supernatural revelation and the fulfilment of its plan.747
Scripture does not encourage us to seek out the logical order of God's divine decree

CLXXXXIV (PL 38, 1017), Sermo VI in Nativitate Domini 5 (PL 54, 216). See also G. Bonner, Augustine's
Conception of Deification, JTS 37.2 (1986), pp. 369-385.
746
Substitution for Stniloae includes elements of the Irenaean idea of recapitulation where the details of
Christ's life are the healing aspects for humanity. Thus substitution is real, being the ontological counterpart
of the redemptive work of Christ and also the ground for the real union with Christ.
747
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, pp. 27-28.
215

regarding salvation; rather, it records the unfolding of the plan. Although this plan is a
mystery, it is important to see how the plan is characterised, for that has a significant impact
on how we understand salvation.748 Stniloae writes:

The incarnation of God as man leads our own absolute aspiration to its perfection
through participation. That is why there can be no other essentially new acts of
supernatural revelation beyond the incarnation and resurrection of the Son of God.
The history of salvation now has as its purpose to provide believers with the
opportunity of making themselves capable, with Christ or in Christ, of participating
completely in the personal Absolute.749

Basically, Stniloae takes a personalist view of the history of salvation in which Christs
incarnation and the resurrection accomplishes God's eternal plan to unite humanity with
divinity.750 In fact, the idea of a plan is significant because it means that God must be
personal. Stniloae fully upholds this principle when discussing the basic idea of the revelation
of the Holy Trinity in the work of salvation. He writes:

A uni-personal God remains an exclusively transcendent God who does not Himself
accomplish the salvation of men but issues instructions to them as to the way in
which they can save themselves. An exclusively immanent God, wholly identified
with the world, is no longer a personal God, or, if He is, then men are no longer real
persons but only apparent ones manifesting a single being, namely, their very own
essence. A personal and saving God is a God simultaneously transcendent and
revealed in immanence.751

In other words, the Holy Trinity reveals God to us as an economic Trinity and as a personal
Saviour-God. The Trinity is reflecting in the plan of salvation something of its unity and
internal love. Thus, for Stniloae, salvation and deification are the extension to conscious
creatures of the relations that obtain between the divine persons. That is why the Trinity

748
Gregory of Nazianzus explains the divine plan where humanity had to be brought to life by the humanity
of God, and where we had to be called back to him by his Son... Let the rest be adored in silence. Gregory
continues: It was necessary for us that God should take flesh and die so that we might have new life...
Nothing can equal the miracle of my salvation; a few drops of blood redeem the whole universe. Cf. Gregory
of Nazianz, Oratio 45, For Easter, 22, 28, 29 (PG 36, 653, 661, 664); quoted by O. Clment, The Roots of
Christian Mysticism, p. 45.
749
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 28.
750
Stniloaes presentation follows the Orthodox understanding of the plan of salvation as the plan of divine
economy, where God prepared man's salvation in the same eternal Logos of God, through whom we are
created, so that even after our fall we may return to immortality. Maximos Aghiorgoussis, Orthodox
Soteriology, in J. Meyendorff and R. Tobias (eds.), Salvation in Christ. A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue
(Augsburg, Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg Fortress, 1992), p. 40. Lossky sees the plan in which God has
foreseen the fall of Adam and the Son of God was the Lamb slain before the ages in the pre-existent will of
the Trinity. V. Lossky, Mystical Theology, pp. 137-138.
751
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 74.
216

reveals itself essentially in the work of salvation and that is why the Trinity is the basis on
which salvation stands.752 In a soteriological context, then, the personalist and
communitarian dimensions of theosis, derived from the trinitarian framework, receive
additional expansions in Stniloaes theology.
Indeed, Stniloae presents a Christianity in which there is no salvation apart from the person
of Jesus Christ. Speaking about the plan and the mystery of our salvation, Stniloae holds
that, because of what the one man Jesus accomplished, salvation is both a possibility and a
reality. Christ is defined as the centre and foundation of that act whereby salvation and
deification are extended to all who believe. In Him, as in its foundation, the plan of salvation
has been fulfilled.753 Moreover, Stniloae boldly declares that on this Person and on our
relationship with Him depends our salvation.754 Stniloaes theology is therefore in
opposition with some modern theologies where this linking of soteriology and Christology
seems presumptuous. In other words, we have to deal in his soteriology with the scandal of
particularity - the scandal being that only this particular Name can bring salvation -, which is
perhaps one of the greatest problems in our times of inter-faith dialogue and religious
pluralism.
The link of soteriology and Christology in Stniloaes theology is proven by the fact that (1)
salvation is always a past fact, a present experience, and a future hope, and (2) in correlation
with that, Christ has won the battle, but the battle continues, until at the last day all His
enemies will be put under His feet.755 Broadly speaking, and referring to this tridimensional
aspect of salvation, Stniloae sees salvation in some sense as an affirmation of reality that
overcomes the contradictions which man's denial of reality forces upon him. Man is in a state
of contradiction against the natural world, against his fellow-men and against himself.
Nonetheless, for Stniloae, the basic contradiction or denial of reality is man in a state of
contradiction against God, when the creature has cut himself off from the Creator, from the

752
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 248. Similarly in Maximus: The Father was wholly in the Son
when he fulfilled by his incarnation the mystery of our salvation. Indeed, the Father was not Himself
incarnate, but He was united to the incarnation of the Son. And the Spirit was wholly in the Son, without
indeed being incarnate with Him, but acting in complete unity with him in his mysterious incarnation.
Maximus, Quaestiones ad Thalassium, 60 (PG 90, 624); cited by O. Clment, The Roots of Christian
Mysticism, p. 44).
753
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 38.
754
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 109.
755
Again, whereas Protestant theology stresses, for example, justification, the Orthodox heritage stresses
sanctification and personal deification. As Meyendorff puts it: Communication in the risen body of Christ;
participation in divine life; sanctification through the energy of God, which penetrates true humanity and
217

very source of his own being.756 This is why, referring to the past aspect of salvation,
Stniloae prefers the term reconciliation because it emphasises the character of both man
and God as 'persons' in the economy of salvation, and makes it clear that salvation is
brought about by re-establishment of a normal personal relationship between man and
God.757 Referring to the present aspect of salvation, Stniloae puts the accent on
sanctification and transformation, a change in one's being or fundamental condition rather
than status.758 Furthermore, referring to the future aspect of salvation, Stniloae understands
that historical deliverance is transformed into eschatological expectation. God's salvation in
the past is understood by the prophets to be a type or promise of a future salvation, one
which would be accomplished at the end of history and result in a new act of creation.759 In
this sense, salvation has also an eschatological reality which alludes to the tension between the
already and the not yet.760
Specific to Stniloae, therefore, is that the scope of salvation is not primarily about rescuing
individual souls from their otherworldly fate. We are confronted in Stniloaes theology with
a communitary and cosmological dimension of salvation. The goal of Christianity is not
merely personal holiness: it is community holiness. Christ's exaltation is the signal that He has
fulfilled, in representative fashion, God's purpose for mankind and therefore for the whole of

restores it to its 'natural' state; rather than justification, or remission of inherited guilt - these are at the center
of Byzantine understanding of the Christian Gospel. J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, p. 146.
756
Salvation resolves these contradictions by giving men new hearts and making them whole. See the original
and illuminating presentation of man's condition by Nellas, in Deification in Christ, pp. 53ff.
757
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 184. However, although Stniloae favours the term
reconciliation, in the context of Christs sacrificial ministry, he uses other soteriological terms (like
redemption and atonement), especially in his first writings. See for example, Iisus Hristos sau
Restaurarea Omului, pp. 242-275.
758
Certainly, for Stniloae, salvation in the theological sense entails the transformation of the whole man. To
become a new man means to become a different person in the social and economic spheres as well as in the
religious sphere. Indeed, there is not a religious sphere per se, for all of life is under Christ's dominion
and all areas have to be affected.
759
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, pp. 100-101. Indeed, the main emphasis in the Old
Testament is that it is God Himself who saves (Ps. 3:8; 32:15; Isa. 43:11). When we move to the New
Testament, soteriology is linked with the idea and arrival of the Saviour. The Gospels represent the ministry
of Jesus as concerned with salvation, but what is distinctive about the salvation which Jesus announces is that
it is offered to sinners. In this respect there is no parallel in rabbinic, apocalyptic, or sectarian Judaism. This is
perhaps one of the greatest reasons for the scandal Jesus presented to the Jews. In the New Testament we
notice again the historical dimension of salvation found in the Christ event and Christian message, not as a
philosophical teaching nor an ethical code, but a kerygma - a proclamation.
760
There is a consciousness in the New Testament that we are standing between the ages. The not yet refers
to the fact that salvation is now seen only with the eyes of faith. Salvation in its final an fullest sense will be
accomplished in the day of the Lord (1Pet. 1:5). As Nellas stresses: Christ accomplishes the salvation of
man not only in a negative way, liberating him from the consequences of original sin, but also in a positive
way, completing his iconic, prelapsarian 'being.' His relationship with man is not only that of a healer. The
218

creation. Thus the salvation of human beings should not be conceived of as a rescue operation
of certain individuals out of a doomed world to participate in an otherworldly existence
unrelated to life on earth. Rather, insists Stniloae, man's personality is so linked with his
environment that he must be saved in the context of all his corporate relationships,
achievement and aspirations.761

1.2 The link between the Person of Jesus Christ and His salvific ministry
The second issue in understanding Stniloaes Christological aspect of deification is the real
link that exists between the person of Christ and His salvific ministry. On the one hand,
Stniloae clarifies the fact that Christian dogma assures the freedom of the believer as a
person and lays the foundation for his spiritual development. Christian dogmas constitute a
system which is not formed by abstract principles but by the living person of Christ. In
Stniloaes words: Christ - the theandric Person - is, as a system, universally comprehensive
in exactly the same manner as He remains open and dedicated to promoting freedom in those
who wish to be saved through Him.762 Thus Christian dogmas express the plan of deification
of all created beings in the person of Christ and His work. On the other hand, the way in
which Stniloae's dogmatic theology unites the person and work of Christ is by reintegrating
and synthesising the traditional doctrines of Christ and His threefold office. The uniqueness of
His person determines the efficacy of His work.763 Christ Himself saves as the irreplaceable
Person, and man receives salvation through a personal relationship with Him. Accordingly,
adds Stniloae, the person of Christ saves us through the transformatory acts of His love, for
there is an indissoluble link between His Person and His salvific acts. That is to say, the
work of Christ in salvation does not take place outside of Christ, as something external to
Him, but takes place within Him. Christ is in Himself God and man in one person, and all His
acts fall within His own being and life. Consequently, His person is present in all salvific acts,

salvation of man is something much wider than redemption; it coincides with deification. P. Nellas,
Deification in Christ, p. 39.
761
In a similar way, Kallistos Ware stresses that we are not saved in isolation but in union with our fellow
humans from every generation, because salvation is not solitary but social. K. Ware, The Understanding
of Salvation in the Orthodox Tradition, in R. Lannoy (ed.), For Us and Our Salvation: Seven Perspectives
on Christian Soteriology (Utrecht/Leiden: IIMO Research Publication 40, 1994), pp. 26-27.
762
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 66.
763
See also J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., Edited by J.T. McNeill (Philadelphia: The
Westminster Press, 1960), especially 2.12,3. Or, in Karl Barth's words: It is in the particular fact and the
particular way that Jesus Christ is very God, very man, and very God-man that He works, and He works in the
fact and only in the fact that He is this One and not another. K. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/1, p. 128.
219

because apart from them His person as man is not truly fulfilled. Christ's acts are historical
acts and, in this sense, they become a motive to believe in Him as a real existence.764
This is the reason why Stniloae insists that Jesus Christ is much more than any other person,
for His Person is everything. For Stniloae, then, Christ is not a static but an active person,
for He does not exhaust His reality in His salvific acts on earth. Christ's person will remain
as an active and permanent presence in the spirit of His acts, being motivated by love.
Moreover, His earthly acts accomplished in Him a continuous irradiation of His love and, at
the same time, became a source of unceasing love towards us.765 God manifests in Christ an
absolute love for humankind by giving Himself as hypostasis in order to irradiate through
Him [Christ] the supreme divine love, as the man completely accessible to other men.766
In conclusion, Stniloae excludes from the beginning any other alternatives for a personal
salvation except in a real and personal relationship with Christ. We cannot separate the work
of Christ from His person, because the former is the necessary manifestation of His personal
structure.767 Stniloae firmly declares: Christianity is personalist; it means salvation of the
human person through the supreme Person.768 Thus the person of Christ is present in the
salvific acts which are the concretisation and the actualisation of all the hypostatic unions
implications.

2. Christ's Tridimensional Ministry: The Saviour as Prophet, Priest, and King

The previous ideas establish two key points in framing Stniloaes soteriology: (1) salvation is
directional, and (2) salvation is personal. The first point reflects Stniloae's special
contribution to the soteriological aspect of deification in implanting the idea of three
directions or intentions of one salvific ministry of Christ.769 The first direction towards His
human nature, which is deified by the power of His divine nature, and so freed from its
passions and death. The second direction is towards our nature which, by the divine powers

764
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 110. This explains why Stniloae is rejecting the
idea of salvation through other teachings, even the Old Testament law.
765
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 111.
766
D. Stniloae, Dumnezeu este Iubire, pp. 401-402. Stniloae works here with the principle that the acts
achieved by a person have been at the same time recorded within that person with all their consequences.
767
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, pp. 199, 204.
768
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 110.
769
Maximos Aghiorgoussis speaks about four obstacles, corresponding to four moments of Jesus' work, that
He had to overcome: the obstacles of nature (incarnation), sin (cross), death (resurrection) and the dominion
of the devil (descent into Hades). Cf. M. Aghiorgoussis, in Orthodox Soteriology, p. 44.
220

extended to us through His body, is liberated from sin. The third direction is towards God, for
the work of reconciliation glorifies Him. Furthermore, in Stniloae's view, the three directions
should be combined with the three forms of ministry (prophet, priest, and king), because only
in such a combination and completion do we see the Person of the Son of God as the Saviour
of the world in His fullness.770

2.1 Christ as prophet (salvation as truth)


The first dimension of Gods salvific work is seen by Stniloae in Christs office as prophet.
According to Stniloae, then, Jesus Christ is the prophet who saves by speaking forth the
truth. He is the last in a long line of prophets, the consummation and the most pre-eminent of
the prophets. Jesus is the unique prophet in that the word He receives is not an external word,
but the word of the Father, with whom Jesus enjoys an intimate union. Christ's prophetic
calling is accomplished by illuminating man's soul through His teaching. One of the main
differences between Jesus Christ and other prophets is that, whilst they proclaimed a received
truth, the truth that Christ proclaimed was precisely Himself. Thus, for Stniloae, the quality
of Jesus Christ as a prophet is directly connected with His person. Jesus Christ did not bring
an abstract doctrine but a teaching intimately connected with His person. He is both the
Teacher and the teaching because in Himself the Subject of His teaching is identified with
its object.771
Accordingly, it is not too much for Stniloae boldly to assert that the way to deification, and
humanitys goal of deification is in Christ Himself. In His teaching Christ interprets Himself,
whilst in His person Christ represents a realistic prophecy about what man is destined to be,
but only in union with God. Because Jesus Christ brought the perfection of doctrine, He as
a person is the culmination of God's revelation, and therefore His teaching is the culmination
of that revelation about God and man. Stniloae sums up these ideas:

He is our ultimate future. And therefore after Him can come no prophet announcing
anything superior to what Christ has announced to us. He is the permanent prophet
in His own person which is not only God most intimately near to us, but also perfect
man risen from the dead. In Him we see fulfilled what will also be fulfilled in us. In
His own person He is the assurance of our ultimate fulfillment, not just talk about

770
After Christ's ascension, the salvific works are continued by the Holy Spirit in the Church. D. Stniloae,
Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 112-115. A similar idea is found in Nellas, Deification in Christ, p.
111.
771
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 116.
221

that fulfillment. But precisely on account of this the words by which He promises
these things also serve to interpret Him to us.772

Although God revealed Himself in a partial form through the prophets, since the incarnation
of the Son God's revelation is no longer incomplete. So we may state that, by Christ's self-
communication, the integral truth was revealed in Him as a living person, and so He started
the most accessible and direct mode of communication with mankind.773
As an example, Stniloae writes that, by revealing the meaning of the Law, we know that
Jesus Christ actually revealed Himself. Christ came from the Old Covenant's indirect level
into the direct level expressed in dialogue with us.774 But while the Word of God came in
Christ into direct dialogue with us, His body and His human words remained symbols of
His divinity. That is, God makes Himself His type or His symbol, considering that a type
is not separated from God. What we need, concludes Stniloae, is to persevere in intimacy
with [Christ], being able to penetrate through Him as type, and reach His infinite divinity.775
Again, Stniloae praises the human nature assumed by the Logos, which was filled by the
divine life and which stays as a dynamic truth open to all human beings to be shared. All
that is true, writes Stniloae, has its origin in the creative act of the personal God, and is
maintained and perfected in life or truth by participation in the divine personal life, or to 'the
truth' par excellence.776 This truth, as life, is communicated through the humanity of Christ
in order to stimulate all those who are in the process of deification. The dynamic quality of
the truth is virtually seen in man's configuration according to Christ's image (that is,
reconfiguration), and in imitating His model through the work of the Holy Spirit. Stniloae
explains this possibility based on the trinitarian activity in which the Son has the Spirit as a
ray of His nature, and spreads the 'brightness of the Spirit;' then, as the Son is the hypostatic
Word, from whom originates all words, so is the Spirit the enhypostatized energy that
dwells in the Son, from whom all energies and works are originating.777 That is why we need
to know Christ's personal words and acts in order to understand the spirit of His person (2
Cor. 4:6). His words, writes Stniloae, are a direct irradiation of His Person as their source
and a self-interpretation of that Person. That is to say, [Christ] Himself as person is the

772
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 166.
773
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 117-118.
774
Here Stniloae quotes from the works of Cyril of Alexandria, especially from Glaphyrorum (PG 69, 88, 89,
241, 508AB, 509).
775
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 121.
776
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 122.
777
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 123-124.
222

Word as divine hypostasis. Being the divine hypostasis and the human Word in the highest
degree, we may conclude that from Christ irradiates the most demanding word. He awakes
then in us the most acute responsibility and deep obligation to respond positively, with our
word or act, to His words and His person, as God and man.778
Stniloae applies these thoughts to the relationship between Christ and man, and particularly
to mans deification. Man is a hypostatic word depending on the supreme hypostatic Word,
and therefore he is compelled to respond. Man was called into existence by the divine
Word, writes Stniloae, and is sustained in his existence because he is called in every
moment to proceed into a like existence with Him.779 Therefore, the specific aspect of man's
deification, or his likeness to God, is seen in the fact that God is speaking to man by using:
(1) his conscience; (2) Christ's words; (3) the words of Scripture; (4) and the words of his
fellow men. Supremely, God speaks in Christ as God and man not only through His words,
but also through His response towards God, as a model for man. Christs whole teaching then
is to cause our immediate response to God's call. Today, asserts Stniloae, the full efficacy
of Christ is exerted on us through the sacraments.780 In this way, Christ is a mediator between
God and men, for He interprets the mysteries of divine will through the means of His human
being.781

2.2 Christ as priest (salvation as communion with God)


The second dimension of God's salvific work is seen by Stniloae in Christ's office as priest,
an idea which is most commonly associated with Jesus' passion and death. This explains the
fact that most people tend to identify it with the notion of salvation itself. Stniloae puts the
point in simple terms: as prophet, Jesus represents God to man; as priest, He represents man
to God. Stniloae attempts to synthesise the major theories of redemption by adopting a
scheme that includes three aspects of redemption: sacrificial, ontological, and
782
recapitulative.

778
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 125.
779
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 126.
780
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 128.
781
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, p. 219 (see also pp. 214-241). Other writings on this
subject are : Iisus Hristos ca Profet, RT 11-12 (1941), pp. 469-485; Iisus Hristos, Arhiereu n Veac,
Ortodoxia 31 (1979), pp. 217-231; Jertfa lui Hristos i Spiritualitatea noastr prin mprtirea ei din Sfnta
Liturghie, Ortodoxia 1 (1983), pp. 104-118.
782
Stniloae developed these aspects in, Aspectele Eseniale ale Operei de Rscumprare n Concepia
Ortodox, in Teologia Dogmatic i Simbolic, vol. II, pp. 616-657. See also nvtura Ortodox despre
Mntuire i Concluziile ce Rezult din Ea pentru Slujirea Cretin n Lume, Ortodoxia 24 (1972), pp. 195-
223

2.2.1 The sacrificial aspect of redemption


First, according to Stniloae, the sacrificial aspect of redemption is primarily directed towards
God. In Christian theology, generally, this aspect is expressed by ransom and penal ideas. In a
specific way, the image which Stniloae calls upon is that which represents Christs death as
renunciation of life itself. In presenting his view, Stniloae simply reminds us that the salvific
work of Christ as sacrifice starts with the incarnation and culminates in crucifixion. In this
sense, salvation is not simply a renewing of human nature but also humanity's return to
obedience to God. Christ's sacrifice demonstrates total obedience to God. Thus, for Stniloae,
the key concept is the infinite value of Christ's obedience, a value sufficient to compensate for
mankind's disobedience. In other words, the reason for God's initiative in sending the second
person of the Trinity to become incarnate is because God's infinite majesty demanded to be
honoured fully again in the creatures' eyes. Therefore Christ's death was not solely a
punishment, but homage to God. We could see in Christ a free movement towards death,
that honoured God's glory more greatly than human beings have disregarded it by their
disobedience.783
Essential for understanding theosis in Stniloae is that, in his view, the Sons offering as
spotless sacrifice to the Father re-established communion between man and God. Sacrifice is
actually a total surrender to the Father. That means that Christ's sacrifice, on the one hand,
restored human nature from its selfishness and, on the other hand, restored God's revealed
and unimpeded love in its will in order to adorn man with its gifts.784 Moreover, in this
surrender of Christ we obtain reconciliation, holiness and the right to communication with
God. Stniloae develops his concept of sacrifice:

Because it is only in this state of total surrender in Christ that we are reconciled with
God, we can say that reconciliation demands sacrifice, the sacrifice of our own
existence, that very existence which we want to hold on to and keep as a good for
ourselves alone when we are in a condition of sin and selfishness.785

212; In English, The Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation and Its Implications for Christian Diakonia in the
World, in Theology and the Church, pp. 181-212); Iisus Hristos, Arhiereu n Veac, Ortodoxia 2 (1979)
783
D. Stniloae, Aspectele Eseniale ale Operei de Rscumprare n Concepia Ortodox, p. 622.
784
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 131.
785
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 196.
224

In conclusion, Stniloaes simplistic idea of Christs sacrifice comprises two parts: a total
surrender to the Father, and a total compassion for humans. The results take a similar
simplistic form: Gods love for human nature and raising up that human nature.786

2.2.2 The ontological aspect of redemption


Second, according to Stniloae, Christ's obedience and sacrifice was also directed towards
His human nature. Stniloae does not spend too much time analysing the juridical aspect of
redemption, because the ontological significance of Christ's sacrifice is the determinative
factor for him. At the same time, the ontological theory he defended is decisive also for
understanding his concept of deification.
In understanding the ontological aspect, the following rationalisation is acquired. In
Stniloae's perspective, God has connected death with the life process of fallen nature itself
and not with its external punishment. Christ's obedience unto death eliminated in His human
nature the affections and death inherited by nature after the fall. As a result He perfected
human nature ontologically but not morally. Jesus redeemed His human nature virtually and
the whole human nature potentially. This was fully possible because He was God and man in
the same person, and therefore exhibited a genuine co-operation between divine power and
moral activity. Thus moral activity receives salvific efficacy only in the unity of His person
and with the help of divine grace. Stniloaes theology therefore sees in Christ's obedience
and death a renovation of the human nature, creating in us the possibility for eternal
communion with God. In such conditions, Stniloae reminds us that the first stage of
deification takes place when moral activities arise as a gradual penetration of the human
nature by the divine nature, or as a process of in-humanisation of the divine. The second
stage in deification takes place when humanity obtains immortality according to the flesh and
is totally overwhelmed by divinity. These two stages reflect, in fact, the death and the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Therefore we can speak of a human nature in process of
becoming in Christ. Following Leontius of Byzantium, Stniloae confidently declares that
the gradual transfiguration of the human nature of Christ is the condition of our

786
The key text for this summary is: Christ as man, correcting through sacrifice the state of enmity between
human nature and God, gains precisely through this the love of God for this nature. Or vice versa:
manifesting through sacrifice the will totally to give Himself to God, human nature is restored precisely
through this from its state of sickness. These are two indivisible aspects of sacrifice. D. Stniloae, Teologia
Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 231.
225

deification.787 Stniloae concludes that in the incarnation there takes place the potential
deification of the whole human nature of the Logos, and so the whole of humankind's
salvation.
According to this approach, Christ's sacrifice has both an internal and an external content.
The external content takes heed of the re-establishment of communion between God and man.
The internal content, specifies Stniloae, signifies a total commitment of Christ as man,
being predominantly motivated by His total compassion for mankind. Christ did not suffer
death from necessity, hence for Himself, but as the culmination of His love for His people.788
This internal, psychological content of Jesus' life has two purposes: to express a total
surrender to the Father, and to infuse a similar surrender, in suffering and self-emptying, to
all human beings.

Sacrifice is the rejection of all selfishness as the very form of sin. It is total surrender
to the Father, and Christ alone was able to offer such a sacrifice. This He did in
order to create in Himself as man the condition of complete surrender to the Father
and thus like a magnet, to attract us also into the same condition as His own...789

Actually, this is another way of presenting the sacrificial aspect of redemption as a reflection
of its direction towards God. It is at this point, continues Stniloae, that Christ must be seen
as remaining permanently in a sacrificial state. Although Christ dies no more, He
nevertheless permanently retains His sacrificial disposition of total surrender to the Father in
order to draw all men into this same disposition.790 Mankind is particularly saved when it
appropriates this sacrificial state and, likewise, the new life attained by Christ's body. It is
this body sacrificed and raised, that receives a permanent central importance in our
salvation.791 Moreover, because this body is the body of the Logos, it became the
incandescent ring through which is transmitted to all of us the divine flame that removed
death in Him. The permanent centrality of His body remains because it was not sacrificed

787
D. Stniloae, Aspectele Eseniale ale Operei de Rscumprare n Concepia Ortodox, pp. 625-627. Cf.
Leontius of Byzantium, Contra Nestorianos (PG 86, 1352).
788
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 349.
789
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 195. See also D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea
Omului, pp. 276ff, and Tranparena Bisericii n Viaa Sacramental, Ortodoxia 4 (1970), pp. 501-516
(507).
790
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 197. Here Stniloae is quoting Nicholas Cabasilas: Christ
thought to preserve in His body the witness of His sacrifice and to bear in His own person the scars of the
wounds He received in His crucifixion. In this way He wished to show that when He comes again in dazzling
light He will remain for His servants the same Lord, crucified and pierced, and these wounds will serve as His
kingly adornments. Cf. Nicholas Cabasilas, De Vita in Christo (Sibiu, 1946), p. 138.
791
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 133.
226

by another subject, but by its own subject, who had in Himself the divinity carried by the
hypostasis of the Logos. Thus as the expression of His divine Sonship, we can talk about a
simultaneity: the permanent central importance of the body of Christ depends on His
identification as the Great Priest with His quality as Sacrifice.792
The internal content of Christs sacrifice introduces the leitmotif of the external content : that
is, the idea of communion. Stniloae states that Christ's sacrifice and His priesthood are
necessary for communion and, at the same time, that communion is the result of the sacrifice.
The Father needed this sacrifice on our behalf in order to establish communion with Him. Not
a sacrifice to satisfy His honour or solely to resolve a conflict, but to open the way for
communion. When he is explaining the efficacy of Christ's salvation, Stniloae is aware of a
new paradox:

The body of Christ is a sacrifice in eternity infusing His spirit of sacrifice into us, but
at the same time it is the place where all the divine glory and power destined for us
resides. It is a body permanently in the actuality of sacrificial condition as well as of
deifying action, or beyond the apparent contradiction given by these conditions.793

In other words, the glorified body of Christ can irradiate from Him deifying power over all.
This power is a new and true power that enables us to give ourselves to God.
In order to link the idea of communion with that of theosis, Stniloae cannot avoid the
mediatory role of holiness in very personalistic terms. In the Christological context, Stniloae
sees the assumed human body of Christ as an indispensable means of bringing man and God
near to one another, and of fortifying the soul to love God. Moreover, God transfigures the
material universe through the human personal body of His Son.794 The Son's sacrifice
became the supreme sacrifice; however, this sacrifice unto death does not have any purpose
except in the context of a personal relationship between man and God. The relational context
validates such a sacrifice. That is, in the act of sacrifice there is involved faith in a personal,
loving, and omnipotent God, and in the eternal value of human persons. And the actual
effect is perceived not only in the resurrection, but also in the sanctifying and liberating of that

792
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 134.
793
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 136-137. Similar ideas are found in Iisus Hristos
sau Restaurarea Omului, pp. 254-257.
794
D. Stniloae, Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox, pp. 296, 300. See also D. Stniloae, Chipul
Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, pp. 184ff. Maximus underlines a similar idea when he says that the
condescending philanthropy, invites man to the very end to an imitation that liberates him from his anti-
human egoism. Cited by L. Thunberg in, Man and the Cosmos, p. 67. Cf. Maximus, Mystagogia 24 (PG 91,
713 B).
227

person from the sin of egoism. This is the meaning of salvation: As sin consists in the
selfishness which separates men from God and from one another, so salvation consists in
going beyond selfishness, in mutual love of all men, and in union with God.795 Christ was
able to conquer death because on the cross He conquered the sin of lack of love.796
This is the reason why Orthodox theology affirms the vital link between sacrifice and
holiness, a link confirmed by the liturgy and practice of the Orthodox Church. Stniloae was
heavily influenced in this point by Cyril of Alexandria who frequently couples these attributes.
Cyril asks: How can humanity recover its wholeness? The answer is: In Christ who took a
body subject to decay in order to destroy in it the power of death and transform it into
life.797 According to Stniloae, there can be no entry before God except in a state of
sacrifice, that is, in a state of death which you have willed in regard to yourself, in a total
offering to God.798 Stniloae's definition of holiness is relevant here, for holiness means a
loving relationship between the human person and the divine personal existence.799 As such,
holiness comes from the total surrender of the human subject to the absolute Person.800 It is
obvious, then, why Christ's self-offering became the model for all human subjects.
Although in some sense, says Stniloae, Christianity has abolished the boundary between the
sacred and the profane, all people have access to holiness due to Christ's incarnation. By
becoming man Christ has kept His divinity active in the humanity he assumed. Thus God, as
the human subject of a culminating purity, sensibility, and communicability, helps us to
discover our own subjective sensibility.

In Christianity our nature was given back the experience of the mystery of its own
existence as subject and, along with it, an awe in the face of our own person and of
others along with the obligation to care for its purity and to work for its eternity.
The experience of this mystery became possible, moreover, through man's intimacy

795
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 200.
796
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitate i Comuniune n Liturgia Ortodox, p. 11. Similar ideas are developed by J.
Galot in the part 4 of his book, Who is Christ? A Theology of Incarnation (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press,
1989), pp. 255-313.
797
Cyril of Alexandria, Homily on Luke V, 19 (PG 72, 172); cited by O. Clment, The Roots of Christian
Mysticism, p. 47. Cyril continues: As iron when it is brought in contact with fire immediately begins to share
its colour, so the flesh when it has received the life-giving Word into itself is set free from corruption. Thus he
put on our flesh to set it free from death.
798
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 163 (and note 29, p. 196). Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, De Adoratione
in Spiritu et Veritate 1, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17 (PG 68, 197B-D, 592C-93A, 824A-25A, 985B-D, 1025B, 1113C-
16B). See also D. Stniloae, Dumnezeu este Lumin, Ortodoxia 1 (1974), pp. 87.
799
D. Stniloae, Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox, p. 298.
800
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 229.
228

with the supreme subject in human form, for man has entered into a relationship with
the absolute subject in human form who is holy par excellence.801

In this way, since direct communication with God has been made accessible to the human
subject, holiness can be an attribute of human beings in their surrender to God. This act of
consecration is a priestly act. All who sacrifice themselves or give themselves to the supreme
Person are priests and are sanctified through their act of offering to God.802 Here we find
one of the most consistent statements of Stniloae, revealing the main character of theosis in
relation to holiness. He believes that holiness is not something static and individual, but a
process of unending Christian humanisation through deification which is brought about in the
relations between men and God, among men themselves, and between them and the cosmos
as a whole.803 To complete such a statement, Stniloae reminds us that we cannot be truly
humanised and we cannot become saints except in Christ, because He takes us in Himself, in
His sacrifice to God, and then gives us the same act or state of sacrifice, or self-transcendence
and fidelity for God, in which He lives.804
Death thus becomes reversible. The Son of God uses death to vanquish death. The positive
role of death is seen in its power to sustain and to indicate the truth of a higher life.805
Because Jesus Christ articulated this truth openly through His life and word, and because He
did not stop calling people to such a truth, in this sense, His sacrificial death should be
considered an anticipated consummation. Christ transformed death from being a
punishment for sin into a way of exaltation of the humanum to God. It receives a kind of re-
orientation in the spiritual life of a Christian who is united with Christ in His death and
resurrection. By death was opened a supreme, intimate encounter with God, a full
transcendence of a human into the life of the absolute God.806 Jesus Christ conquered death
not only because His humanity was in conscious unhindered communication with God, but
also because He accepted the death of His humanity not solely for Himself but for His
brothers. Christ's mercy and love for others became a source of power to conquer all pains,
and finally death. Having a humanity filled with love for us, Christ plunged into the divinity
of the Father (and also into His humanity), moving, as a response, the Father's love and

801
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, pp. 225-226.
802
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 231. Cf. A. Schmemann, For the Life of the World (New York,
1963), p. 69.
803
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 238.
804
D. Stniloae, Dumnezeu este Lumin, p. 93.
805
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 184.
806
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 187.
229

power for His humanity and for all those for whom He suffered death.807 And the main
reason for such a love is that, in the plan of the divine existence, love and being, the
ontological and the spiritual, coincide.808
Once more we face the motif of the double-movement of God towards man and man towards
God which characterises Stniloae's soteriology. We have seen that the idea of Christ's
sacrifice is not developed in the context of satisfaction or substitution, as in Catholic and
Protestant theology, but in the context of communion. On the one hand, God undertakes an
action whereby He lays an immovable foundation for communion between Himself and us,
uniting our nature with His nature within one of the divine persons.809 On the other hand,
Stniloae elucidates that the initiative for sacrifice, which came from the Son, is His response
to the Father's initiative: the initiative of the Father is met by the simultaneous and total
response of the Son before incarnation and with His response as man after the incarnation. In
this way we understand that Christ's predilection for sacrifice was stamped upon Himself
from the beginning of His human existence. Thus Christ was sanctified both by God's
initiative and by His response as man, being accepted into communion with God.810 The
solution offered by Christ creates the new basis to understand mans deification as
movement towards communion. Indeed, on Gods side, His movement towards communion
with human beings creates the framework and the challenge for their response; and when
human beings respond, forgiveness is assured.

Hence God accepts man not because he suffers the punishment for his sin, but
because of his effort to sin no more, since He took over the pains implied in the
notion of punishment for sin, transforming them into the mere consequences of sin
and into the means of resisting against it and of entering into the communion God
has provided. Indeed, this is also a kind of glorification for God, an even more real
one than that resulting from suffering pain and death as a punishment for sin, or as a
satisfaction brought to God's injured honour. But only Christ can do this and so, in
Him, do we.811

Hence, in Christ, death and pain are no longer a punishment for sin, but a consequence that
results in the possibility of confining or surpassing sin. Therefore Christ did not avoid death

807
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 189.
808
D. Stniloae, Dumnezeu este Lumin, p. 95. Cf. K. Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/1, pp. 274ff.
809
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 69.
810
Similarly Breck wrotes that, by the initiative that belongs wholly to the three Divine Persons, humans as
creatures are introduced into personal relationships of participation in the uncreated, divine energies or
grace. Cf. John Breck, Divine Initiative: Salvation in Orthodox Theology, in J. Meyendorff and R. Tobias
(eds.), Salvation in Christ, p. 118.
230

but suffered it and overcame it by His total self-sacrifice, as part of man's effort to fulfil his
aspiration for communion with God.
Christ conquered death in Himself so that the communion between man and God might be
accomplished in Himself through death. To support this idea Stniloae employs Gregory of
Nyssa's thought about death and resurrection.812 He argues that, as a separation of soul and
body, death comes as a result of the separation between the human composite and God.
When somebody turns his back on God, He is the One who reconstitutes the broken relation
between soul and body. In Christ this return or recovery was possible absolutely, for the first
time, because His hypostasis keeps eternal in Himself both the soul and the body, divinity
and humanity. Christ accepted death in Himself in order to create the opportunity for His
divine powers to be manifested in the reunification of soul and body. He does not avoid
death, but He commits Himself to God in order to teach us that communion with God also
involves human effort. We might say that in His resurrection, Christ united Himself with the
soul and body as a unified principle.813 This double aspect of union - first the union of
Christ's humanity with divinity and then of soul and body in His humanity - was possible first
because Christ's humanity had been assumed in the hypostasis of the Logos, and then because
of His total consecration. This union is called by Stniloae the maximal communion
between Jesus Christ as man and God as His Father. Again, the reason is found in the quality
of Christ as the divine hypostasis of the Logos, having the power to remain in a total unity
with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and being able to sanctify His humanity. In this context
we should explain, in the earthly life of Jesus, a previous purification from any kind of
egoism, or a spiritual mortification for God and communion with Him, that culminated in
His death on the cross.814
Accordingly, Stniloae proceeds to a new dimension of Christ's work. The resurrection
accomplished by Christ for His own human nature is extended to all. As the divine hypostasis

811
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 139-142.
812
Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica Magna 32 (PG 45, 80); cited by O. Clment, The Roots of
Christian Mysticism, p. 47. Our whole nature had to be recalled from death to life. God therefore stooped
over our dead body to offer his hand, so to speak, to the creature lying there. He came near enough to death to
make contact with our mortal remains, and by means of his own body provided nature with the capacity for
resurrection, thus by his power raising to life the whole of humanity... In our body the activity of any one of
our senses communicates sensation to the whole of the organism joined to that member. It is the same for
humanity as a whole, which forms, so to speak, a single living being: the resurrection of one member extends
to all, and that of a part to the whole, by virtue of the cohesion and unity of human nature.
813
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 143-144.
231

of His human nature, Christ offers His human nature to be shared by us, and so to establish
the most intimate relationship with us as our fundamental hypostasis. Stniloae emphasises
that, by conquering death, Christ as person re-established the unity and life of man. The divine
and human person of Christ is virtually using death to accomplish the relationship between
God and humankind. Moreover, in re-establishing a perfect communion, Christ's Person
conquers within Himself the death He suffered in the place of other persons. Death without
hope of resurrection, continues Stniloae, comes from the sin of isolation, and death
without resurrection is identical with a decisive sinking into solitude.815 By saying this,
Stniloae rejects once again the theory of satisfaction in which Jesus Christ is seen as a victim
plunged into the abyss of abandonment. This rejection is better understood when we
remember that Christ's final appeal on the cross to the Father shows that, in contrast to an
ordinary human conscience, His conscience was not blunted. Jesus was not despairing.
Even on the cross Christ hopes and knows that He will be saved, because His divine look is
lightning in the darkness, and controls the wretchedness of being abandoned.816
On the ecclesiological level, Stniloae tries to justify his incarnationalist approach, by
emphasising the distinction between the Church given virtually with the incarnation and the
actualisation of the Church in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, that is, in
the sanctified and fulfilled body of Christ. Stniloae explains:

The Church which is considered as realized only under the cross, after acquiring the
whole satisfaction, is a Church exclusively understood as an earthly society of those
whose conflict with God has been removed through Christ. But the Church is an
eschatological community, or the first-fruits, drawn out from Christ's resurrected
body. The theory that everything was solved by paying the price for sin on the cross
and not by the deification of the body as the source of our deification, considers
resurrection only as a simple reward given to Christ because He accepted the cross,
and not as the final point of the work of salvation and the deification of the body, as
a foundation for mankind's salvation and deification.817

In contrasting Catholic theology with Orthodox theology, Stniloae argues here that the
Church was not grounded juridically under the cross, but ontologically from the body of

814
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 145. For an interesting parallel between deification
and mortification in M. Blondel, see J. Le Grys, Blondels Idea of Assimilation to God through Mortification
of Self, Gregorianum 77. 2 (1996), pp. 309-331.
815
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 148.
816
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 149. For an interesting comparison, including the
notion of abandonment, see H.U. von Balthasar, Mysterium Paschale. The Mystery of Easter, tr. by A.
Nichols (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), pp. 49-88.
817
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 150.
232

Christ. To clarify this point, Stniloae claims that some modern Catholic theologians adopt a
wider and, implicitly, better position than the scholastic one (represented by Rahner).
Thssing, for example, criticises the insufficiency of New Testament soteriology which works
with the sacrifice categories. The true New Testament soteriology is the one which sees in
salvation the restoration of communion with God through the present work of Christ.818
Thssings interpretation of soteriology is, therefore, in line with the one presented by
Stniloae above, where the main stress is put on the sacrifice as instituting communion and
perfecting this communion through love.

2.2.3 The recapitulative aspect of redemption


Third, according to Stniloae, the sacrificial work of Christ is also directed towards human
beings, a position that roughly corresponds to the moral theory of redemption.819 As in the
previous cases, the recapitulative aspect of redemption takes a trinitarian framework. Christ
descends from the Holy Trinity and then returns, having united to Himself all of humanity
that desires this. Stniloae explains:

The Holy Trinity determined upon the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and
ascension as man of one of the persons of the Trinity so that this person might
recapitulate all men in Himself and thus bring all into eternal communion with God
in Trinity. We have to do here with a circular movement that sets out from the
Trinity towards men in order to lead them into the Trinity.820

Based on this circular movement, Stniloae maintains the fact that the recapitulation of all
humanity in Christ is virtual and can become actual by faith in Jesus Christ. This is part of
Irenaean doctrine of the economy of recapitulation in two stages: human nature in general is
purified, and mankind is virtually recapitulated in God.821 Virtual recapitulation is part of the
so-called objective salvation, while actual recapitulation is part of subjective salvation. Our

818
Cf. K. Rahner and W. Thssing, A New Christology, pp. 83ff.
819
The moral theory upheld by Abelard, although it rejects the ransom theory, does not believe that Christ's
death was an objective satisfaction of God. Rather, since God is love He is ready to forgive our sins quite apart
from any satisfaction. All He requires is penitence on the part of the sinner. Thus the purpose of Christ's death
was to effect a change in man. This theory, like others, proceeds from certain assumptions about God's nature,
namely, that the fundamental quality of God is His love.
820
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 76. Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentarius in Johannem 12, [Jn.
20:16], (PG 74, 696C).
821
D. Stniloae, Iconomia Dumnezeiasc, Temei al Iconomiei Bisericeti, Ortodoxia 1 (1969), pp. 3-24
(10). Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 3.18 (PG 7, 932). Stniloae sums up three senses for the idea of
oikonomia: (1) the central meaning is that which refers to the incarnation of the Son of God; (2) another sense
embraces the idea of divine revelation; and (3) a third involves the idea of recapitulation of all men in Christ
(p. 21).
233

personal salvation, says Stniloae, is the wilful appropriation of what we have virtually from
the beginning in Christ, that is, a change from virtual union to actual union with Him by
faith.822 Stniloae appeals to the Pauline model of the second Adam, or the new Adam, who
is the source of humanity and who somehow has our existence in Himself. Therefore we
receive our true new humanity directly from Him. Because His humanity is the humanity of
the divine hypostasis, He can give it to all of us as God, but that does not mean it has ceased
to be His own. Christ remains the source and the centre of humanity in both senses: active
(He wants to attract people by His love) and passive (people are attracted by His abundance).
At the practical level, Christ's compassionate love stretches out like an ontological bridge
between Himself and all people.

From this we see that the death and resurrection of Christ do not have the exclusive
role of enabling His human nature to receive those qualities for deification that are
communicated to us by sharing, but to make this human nature more communicative,
both with the divine resources and with us, and to make it more effective for us as an
ontological bridge between Him and us.823

By saying this, Stniloae clarifies the sense of the mysterious unity of nature that exists
between Jesus Christ and human creatures. Because Christ is the centre of the relational
system that virtually functions between Him and us, we are relationally comprised in Him.
He makes Himself central, working for others and pressing through His love for an awakened
Thou in us. He became a powerful Self, attractive and divine, for all human beings
throughout the history of this world.824 That is why we can explain how people are attracted
constantly into a sharing relationship with Him, having the possibility to share His resurrected
body and ultimately His deification. Soteriologically, Stniloae sees Christ as the efficacious
centre of mankind's salvation being simultaneously God who saves human beings and the
man who saves himself from death. Consequently, humankind is called to realise itself as part
of the Person of the Son of God, to receive its personal character in Him, to enhypostatise
itself in Him.825

2.3 Christ as king (salvation as transfiguration)

822
D. Stniloae, Aspectele Eseniale ale Operei de Rscumprare n Concepia Ortodox, p. 637.
823
D. Stniloae, Aspectele Eseniale, p. 639.
824
D. Stniloae, Aspectele Eseniale, p. 640.
825
D. Stniloae, Hristologia Sfntului Maxim Mrturisitorul, Ortodoxia 3 (1988), p. 72.
234

The third dimension of God's salvific work is seen by Stniloae in Christ's office as king. Jesus
Christ not only proclaimed the Kingdom of God as communion in perfect union with God
through His Person; and not only offered His sanctified body as a sacrifice to God, initiating
this communion in His Person; but He also continues to empower the believers' participation
in the Kingdom of God through His kingly office. Stniloae insists that, although Christ's
regal power was partially manifested in His victories over suffering and demons, it was
particularly in His death and resurrection where this power received a culminate dimension.
For Stniloae, the resurrection of Christ is a reality based on His appearances and on the
radical transformation of the human body by a divine work.826 And in this reality of the
resurrection the whole Trinity is active and reveals itself anew and in a still more visible way,
and thus remains disclosed forever with a view to full communion with us.827
At this point Stniloae criticises the Western view in which, he says, the act of resurrection is
exclusively seen as the evidence of God's acceptance of the work of Christ on the cross.828
In other words, the problem is that Western theology considers the resurrection of Christ as
an act of power exclusively applied by the Father on the dead Christ, and neglects the act
of power exercised by Christ Himself.829 This inadequate conclusion, believes Stniloae, is
due to the juridical view of the redemption used by most Western theologians. Eastern
Orthodox theology in turn emphasises the mutual work of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in
Christ's resurrection. The theological basis for the Orthodox position is founded first in the
mystery of the Holy Trinity, and especially in the role of the Holy Spirit. As a spiritual force
that exists only where there is full communion, the Holy Spirit fills Christ's humanity with
divine life because He is received into the perfect communion of the Trinity as man. Christ
lives this full communion even in His body which is filled with the incorruptible divine life
and becomes a medium of His divine powers.830 We need to observe here the crucial role of
the Holy Spirit in Christ's bodily resurrection.

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, but is also in the Son. The Father, in
pneumatising the Lord's body, pneumatises it through the Spirit. But where the
Spirit is active, Christ is active too, since Christ can not be an object. In this

826
Cf. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 156-160. Stniloae is following here the
thoughts presented by Berthold Klappert, in Diskussion um Kreuz und Auferstehung (Wuppertal, 1971).
827
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 73.
828
Cf. K. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/1. To sum up, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the great verdict of
God, the fulfilment and proclamation of God's decision concerning the event of the cross (p. 309).
829
Actually, Western theology also views resurrection as an act of the entire Trinity.
830
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 74.
235

communal act of the supreme pneumatisation of the body, the supreme communion
between the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit is accomplished. As a result of this
total pneumatisation, the Spirit irradiates into the world from the body of the Son;
the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and who, through Christ as man, will be
sent into the world. Therefore Christ is not passive in this irradiation of the Spirit
from His body.831

The immediate resolution in Stniloae's understanding is that Christ Himself participated


directly in conquering death as well.
Stniloae again regards the doctrine of the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ as a
concrete basis for Christ's resurrection. Developing Gregory of Nyssa's ideas,832 he sees the
work of Christ on the cross as the unifying principle for soul and body. Christ's resurrection in
His human nature was extended to all men. Christ gives His human nature to us, as a
communion. Thus He enters into the most intimate relation with us, as our fundamental
hypostasis. Therefore, in the unification of His soul and body through the act of
resurrection there is virtually included also the unification of the soul and body of any man
who dies as a believer in Christ or who is in an unmediated relationship with Him.833 This is
possible because Christ deified the body even here on the earth by His efforts to preserve its
purity. Moreover, at the moment of death the body was still deified. Because divinity was
never separated from Him, we should conclude that during His death the body could not be
emptied by this deification. Christ overcame not only the death present in the spirit of His
appropriated humanity, but also the death existing in the body.834 As result, He strengthens us
and He appropriates our responsibility as men as well. In conclusion, Christ's resurrection was
not only the result of the Father, but was also prepared by the union of His humanity with
divinity, through His divine hypostasis in which human nature was borne.835
Christ's resurrected body is not only a guarantee for our own future resurrection, but is also a
source of power and purity for believers, a source of pneumatisation that assures the process
of deification. This is possible because

831
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 167.
832
Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica Magna (PG 45, 52).
833
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 147-148. See also notes on Ambigua, p. 222.
834
Speaking about Christ's descent into hell, Stniloae thinks that first of all Christ overcomes hell by His
deified soul, and only after that the believing souls in hell. Out of the soul thus filled with the Holy Spirit
irradiates also into the souls of those who hoped in Him the power which saves them from the grasp of the
hell. Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 171-172.
835
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 168. Cf. also Leontius of Byzantium, Contra
Nestorianos (PG 86, 1341 D).
236

through the resurrection Christ combines within Himself the condition of the victim
and the state of resurrection, the full revelation of the divine life in His humanity.
And to those who believe in Him He imparts this same combined nature... From the
risen Christ His Spirit shines forth most powerfully, giving us a foretaste of the
likeness of His death and resurrection and leading us at the same time towards
perfect likeness to Him.836

Even in His earthly appearances, Christ's body irradiated this power and glory, the light and
the power of the Holy Spirit, and filled the hearts of believers. Moreover, this power
continues gradually to spiritualise their bodies.837 This is a real possibility for us today,
because we experience a spiritual familiarity with Christ when we become increasingly open
to Him. Thus Christ is no longer an objective or subjective reality for us, but we and He
become a real unity, beyond objectivity and subjectivity. This bodily transparency means also
a spiritual transparency, and through both of them the transparency of Christ as a person full
of love is realised and affects us. Those who are intimately related with the Son receive from
Him, through the Holy Spirit, new dimensions in life and knowledge. Virtually, it means that
the incorruptibility of His resurrected body is working in us by taking into account our future
resurrection.838 Having in view the moral and mystical aspects of deification, Stniloae
concludes:

Through Christ's resurrected body, the power of Him who made that body
indestructible irradiated and unimpeded, leads all those who partake in Him to
resurrection and indestructibility, and moreover, leads all creation to incorruptibility
and transparency; namely, to the absolute transfiguration and communicability
between persons by the Spirit and to a total personalisation of the cosmos, in Christ
and in men; for there is an ontological communion between the substance of the
body and the substance of the cosmos.839

Having this perspective on the coming transformation, believers are stimulated and
empowered in their spiritual warfare.
The idea of deification continues with the ascension of Christ to heaven. Christ's sacrifice
begins to reveal its power in the resurrection but, in its spiritual essence, remains in a
permanent state. On the level of oikonomia the Son of God still retains His body after the
resurrection, although partially pneumatised, merely to be on a closer plane to us, and thus

836
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 200. See also D. Stniloae, Dinamica Creaiei n Biseric,
Ortodoxia 3-4 (1977), p. 288; In French, La Dynamique du Monde dans l'Eglise, in Procs verbaux du II-e
Congrs de Theologie Orthodoxe (Atena, 1976), pp. 346-360.
837
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 174.
838
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 178.
839
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 180.
237

able to make Himself visible whenever He decides.840 Once more Stniloae rejects Western
theology where Christ's resurrection and ascension occur at the same time, this position
being the result of overemphasis set on the resurrections uniqueness and soteriological
importance. For Stniloae this is not enough. Specifically, Christ deifies His humanity in four
successive moments: the descent into hell, the resurrection of the body, the ascension to
heaven, and the sitting at the right hand of the Father. These last two represent the total
pneumatisation and deification of His human body, by its complete filling with the divine
infinity. In other words, Christ's body became a free transparent medium for the infinite
love of God towards us. Thus the communion between Christ and His believers reveals the
richness of a reciprocal interiority between them. Stniloae is aware of a possible confusion
between the state of pneumatisation and spatial ubiquity. Therefore he defines the state of
pneumatisation as

a presence of such spiritual depth and height that it becomes sensitive to different
degrees of intensity, according to the intensity of the spiritual power or faith which
characterizes the one who is opening himself to Christ, and by doing that is able in
himself to 'see' Him or feel Him.841

Also, the personal presence of Christ is not only perceived in believers, but around
unbelievers and even elsewhere. We do not need to imagine this state as an immense body
extended in space, but as a personal invisible body. Stniloae is now working on two levels:
the human level, where Christ's body is able to live and abide influentially among believers;
and the divine level, where Christ's humanity is filled with divine glory and is now with the
body where He is with His divinity. More precisely, the divinity totally overwhelmed His
body, or in other words, it worked transparently and irradiated freely through the body, yet
not eradicating it.842 Receiving authority from the Father to lead the world towards
deification, Christ remained a man, yet did not cease to be truly God, in order to elevate
human beings into perfect communion with a personal God, through His body. Christ is
leading us as a man, a model-man, filled with divine power and glory manifested in freedom
and love. Christ was exalted as a man to the highest state possible for a man and, at the same
time, He has supreme efficacy over believers. Thus Christ was exalted in heaven and is
present in us.

840
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 183.
841
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 184-185.
842
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 186.
238

In conclusion, in this section we have seen that Stniloae criticises Catholic and Protestant
theology for losing this dimension of continuity and intimacy between Christ's exaltation and
our exaltation from passions, in unity with Him. For Eastern Orthodox theology, the
divine throne is the supreme stage of existence, the stage of supreme transcendence, and
the state of supreme pneumatisation of the Son's body, which coincides with the absolute
communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.843 In the Orthodox perspective, then, the
accent is put on the presence of the Son and the Father in the intimate being of the believers
through the Holy Spirit. This view explains the existence and the unity of believers in the
body of Christ, namely, the Church.

2.4 Summary
Of direct relevance to the summary of this section is the fact that when we approach the
concept of deification in Stniloaes theology as related to the work of Christ, the line
between soteriology and Christology becomes virtually indistinguishable. This is apparent in
the approach of Christ's sacrifice in directional terms; that is, the most comprehensive
understanding of Christ's sacrifice is that which involves a three-dimensional work: towards
God, towards the assumed human nature of Christ, and towards human beings. Correlated
with the threefold offices of Christ, the three directions of one salvific work of Christ
emphasise salvation as truth, communion and transfiguration. As prophet, Christ is the
culmination of Gods revelation and the dynamic truth, from whom irradiates the divine
words that challenge our response towards God. As priest, Christ's obedience to death is a
strengthening work for human nature, a work of restoration and renewal in order that man
can enter again into communion with God. Thus Christ's ongoing obedience worked out in
human nature a constant perfection to the point of absolute deification. Because of its
hypostatic union with the divine nature in the Son's hypostasis, Christ's humanity fills itself
progressively and totally with the divine uncreated energies of the Holy Spirit and becomes
more and more transparent for the Holy Spirit, who always dwells in the Son. The emphasis
placed on the ontological aspect of redemption through Christ is apparent in Stniloae's
theology.844 As king, Christ shows that His death was in fact a passage to resurrection, when

843
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 191.
844
The triad of essence-hypostasis-energy, displayed in the epistemological basis of deification as the leitmotif
of Stniloaes theological approach on theosis, is re-encountered again in this excellent summary: That the
East sees the incarnation of the Lord as so important for the unification of mankind is due on the one hand to
the divine hypostasis in which Christ's human nature has been assumed, and on the other hand to the doctrine
239

His human nature was totally penetrated and filled by the plenitude of the divine life. After
His ascension, it continued to irradiate divine life to those who enter into communion with the
glorified Christ. Motivated by love for His Father and humankind, Christ made His humanity
a perfect medium to irradiate this love in human beings and, consequently, made them
persons capable of loving the Father, like Him, and made the Father overflow His love over
them. Thus the incarnate Son made Himself the unifying centre in love for all kinds of
personal relationships.845 These thoughts indicate that Stniloae conceives of salvation in a
physical sense, not as an antithesis of spiritual but in an inclusive sense;846 that is, salvation
includes man's nature in its entirety. Finally, Christ's work, although potential, becomes actual
by the use of sacraments.
Having employed this approach, Stniloae tries to avoid the errors in Christology of certain
modern theologies which neglect one or more of the aspects of Christ's work (or one or more
of His offices), which experiencing difficulty in accounting for the necessity of the cross, or
which try to discard any notion of the historical reality of the resurrection.847 For example,
Stniloae criticises the classic nineteenth century theological liberalism which see Jesus as a
great teacher who espoused the idea of the universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of
man. Like Stniloae, they see Jesus as the great prophet, and Christ as the great symbol of
moral perfection. What Stniloae attacks is the temptation to make a disjunction between the
historical Jesus and the proclaimed (kerygmatic) Christ. This is why, emphasises Stniloae,
many modern theologians who have abandoned the quest for the historical Jesus still assert
the uniqueness of Christ as a symbol of moral perfection.848 For Stniloae, the problem with

of the uncreated energies. The divine hypostasis is actively opened out by the humanity because the latter is
not enclosed within a human hypostasis and so subjected to the limitations of created nature. The humanity of
the Word, enhypostatized in him and penetrated by his energies, is the leaven working secretly within the
whole body of mankind, the foundation of the doctrine of man's deification, a teaching so dear to the Greek
Fathers. D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 191. The idea of the incarnate Word that entered into the
very depths of or fallen condition and became a leaven to the whole mankind is found, for example, in
Gregory Nazianzus, Oratio 30.21 (PG 36, 132B).
845
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 363.
846
Against Harnack who understood the deification in the Greek Fathers as a chemical transmutation of the
substance of human nature. Cf. George Hendry's reply, in The Gospel of the Incarnation (London: SCM
Press, 1959), pp. 55-57.
847
Evangelical Protestantism is inclined to exaggerate one aspect of Christ's work over the others. Much
popular pietism sees Jesus only as the perfect sacrifice that washed away our sins. Salvation in this view tends
to be associated mainly with the past and with the individual, at the expense of the present and corporate
implications of salvation. Stniloae rightly accused this weak aspect of practical Protestantism on many
ocasions. See for example, Sorin Dumitrescu, 7 Diminei cu Printele Stniloae, p. 13.
848
Bultmann, for example, sees Jesus exclusively as a prophet. The great mystery for him is how the
proclaimer became the proclaimed. For an excellent presentation of Jesus Christs historicity, see in D.
Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 21-31, the section entitled: Chipul Evanghelic i
240

this view is that it diminishes the real purpose of Christ's death. This is the reason why
Stniloae specifies that the significance of Jesus cannot be fully explained by His teaching
office. You are not a Christian simply because you follow Christ's teaching, although this idea
is one of the most popular misconceptions about Christianity. Stniloae is clearly against the
tendency, since the Enlightenment, to reduce Jesus' significance to that of His teaching,849 or
to appreciate the self-giving or sacrificial love of Jesus but to refuse to recognise that this love
is a result of an official God-given office.850 Moreover, although in his view Jesus Christ is
somehow the king and the liberator of the human condition, Stniloae never asserts an explicit
liberation theology in which God's kingdom can only be instantiated by exposing authoritarian
ideologies and by removing political power from those who oppress the weak.851
In contrast with the above views on Christ's work, Stniloae prefers the traditional approach,
in which the work of Christ is seen in terms of the three offices.852 His doctrine of the

Istoricitatea lui Iisus Hristos ca Dumnezeu i Om. See also Chipul Evanghelic al lui Iisus Hristos (Sibiu:
Mitropolia Ardealului, 1992).
849
An example is found in classic liberal theology where Jesus is seen as the great priest, and Christ as the
power of moral perfection. Christ was the archetypal man, in that He possessed to a unique degree a sense of
union with God (God-consciousness). They see Christ entered into history as a kind of holy leaven, making
those who were influenced by Him receptive to God. Christ's example is a life-giving influence which is
continued in His Church, but His voluntary sufferings and death have no atoning significance. This theory of
Christ's work takes no account of the status of sin (but only of its pollution), and is interested only on Christ as
a mediator who communicates a God-consciousness to us. Following Kant, Schleiermacher affirmed that we
cannot know Christ as He is in Himself, but we can only know Christ by His effects on us. This functionalist
Christology finally asserts that we know that Christ is God because He saves us, not vice versa. Jesus is the
archetype of what we cannot accomplish for ourselves. He is more than a mere example, for He communicates
not only the form of authentic life but also its power. Schleiermacher's explanation for this is that Jesus' own
life of God-consciousness had a historical effect. It gave rise to the Christian community, the Church, which
in turn mediates this power (this historical effect) to those who come under its influence. See J. Macquarrie,
Jesus Christ in Modern Thought (London and Philadelphia: SCM Press and Trinity Press International,
1992); D. Ford (ed.), The Modern Theologians, vol. I (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989 and 1994).
850
This view is unacceptable because it is a diminished view of Christ's work. Moreover, this interpretation
(that believes it is the mere idea of Jesus that saves us) has no room for an historical accomplishment and
consequently we are faced with a salvation unaccomplished yet applied.
851
It is primarily in the Latin American liberation theologians (Gutierrez, Segundo, Boff) that we see the
tendency to exalt Christ's kingly role to a position of supremacy. The Kingdom of Christ in this programme is
characterized by justice and freedom, and Christ is portrayed as liberator. Christian love and faith is a matter
of praxis not theory. Thus the principal aim of liberation theology is to generate activity on the part of the
Church that will be of real help to the poor. Salvation is understood to be a realization or fulfillment of
humanity, therefore political liberation is part of salvation. For liberation theology representatives, see: L.
Boff, Jesus Christ Liberator (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1976); G. Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation:
History, Politics and Salvation (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1973); J.B. Metz, Theology of the World
(New York, 1969; J. Moltmann, Theology of Hope. On the Grounds and Implications of a Christian
Eschatology (London: SCM Press, 1988); J.L. Segundo, The Liberation of Theology (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis
Books, 1976).
852
It is one work, with three different aspects. W. Pannenberg argues that there is no a clear evidence that
Jesus ever claimed any of these offices for Himself, but this position is largely due to Pannenberg's
predilection for a Christology from below. Cf. W. Pannenberg, Jesus - God and Man (London: SCM Press,
241

threefold office, or munus triplex, shows an attempt to extend soteriology beyond the death
of Christ, although the main emphasis remained on the priestly office.853 Stniloae alerts us
that Jesus' work was not arbitrary but in response to His specific offices. We cannot speak of
the work of Jesus as a profession or even a moral calling which He Himself preferred.
Rather, Jesus was assigned three offices that interpenetrate: Jesus is a royal priest, a priestly
prophet, and priestly king, etc. Linked with the concept of theosis, Stniloae maintains that
the three offices refer to this original purpose that God envisaged for man. The first man was
created in the image of God so that as prophet he should proclaim the word of God, as priest
dedicate himself to the service of God, and as king rule righteously over the created order as
God's vice-regent. In the exercise of these three offices lies the true purpose and destiny of
man, or the climax of his mission on earth.854 Christ, in taking up these three offices, thus
brings to completion human destiny.

3. General conclusions

3.1 Evaluation
3.1.1 The incarnational view of the redemption
Some general comments on both Stniloae's system and theology can now be made. The first
question in Stniloaes Christological treatment of theosis concerns his incarnational view of

1992), pp. 212-224. For a critique of Christology from below, see C.E. Gunton, Yesterday and Today: A Study
of Continuities in Christology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983).
853
Protestant theology understands by that that Jesus accomplishes our salvation in dealing with each of the
three aspects of sin. Jesus is prophet who declares the will of God for our lives and by His Spirit continues to
lead us into truth. As priest He changes our legal status before God and intercedes for His people. As king He
grants us a new habitus or nature so that we are from now on His slaves rather than slaves to sin. The key idea
here is that the three offices of Jesus are aspects of His Messiahship. Christ must be a prophet to save us from
the ignorance of our sins; a priest, to save us from their guilt; and a king, to save us from their dominion in
our lives. Calvin claims that Christ performs His mediatorial work by executing the three offices, in Institutes,
2.15.1-6. See also J.F. Jansen, Calvin's Doctrine of the Work of Christ (London: James Clarke, 1956), and
Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, ed. by J.C. Bastible, tr. by P. Lynch (St. Louis: Herder, 1955),
pp. 179-191, as a representatives of the traditional Reformed and Roman Catholic theology.
854
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic i Ortodox, vol. II, p. 113; Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, pp.
205-213, 224. The public baptism of Jesus, for example, was the most important step in His preparation for
taking on His office. When Jesus undergoes baptism He subjects Himself to the will of God on the one hand,
and identifies with humanity on the other. In Maximus' words: The Incarnation took first the form of a
bodily birth because of my condemnation, but it was later followed by a birth in the Spirit through baptism
which had been neglected (by a fallen humanity); (this occured) for the sake of my salvation, so that I may be
recalled by grace, or, more clearly, so that I may be created anew. Cf. Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 1348D);
cited by J. Meyendorff in, New Life in Christ. Salvation in Orthodox Theology, Theological Studies 50
(1989), p. 496. Interesting enough is to mention the fact that Stniloae did not allow any special place to
Christs transfiguration on the mountain (much emphasised by Gregory Palamas and the hesychast tradition).
242

redemption. In Stniloae's theology we recognise the classic and the incarnational view of
redemption, which are complementary and certainly constitute the dominant understanding
among Orthodox theologians. Though this theology is grounded in the historic event, its
tendency is to look at the metamorphosis of human life as a whole and the summing up of all
things in Christ. Although Stniloae does recognise the substitutionary aspects of
redemption, his theology strongly emphasises the transfiguration of mankind, delivered out of
the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the sons of God. Hence Stniloae's theology
follows the soteriological model which emphasises Christ in us rather than Christ for us,
that is, salvation through participation.855 Because Christ shared our humanity we are enabled
to share in what He is. Salvation is more than satisfaction or imitation: it is the sharing of
divine life, theosis. In other words, Stniloae's theology is primarily an incarnational
theology because its attention is focused on Bethlehem rather than on Calvary, on what God
achieved in man through the incarnation of the Logos. That explains his preoccupation with
the restitution of man's corrupted nature, rather than the forgiveness of his guilt.856
Accordingly, the starting point of Stniloae's methodology regarding the doctrine of theosis
is the incarnation and the reconciliation which took place within it. In order to grasp his
theological discourse, we need to answer the question of how the incarnation of Christ is
related to redemption. Stniloae has already responded that the relation of Christ to creation
is fundamental to an understanding not just of redemption but of all Christian theology. For
Stniloae this implies that Christology interprets soteriology. More specifically, the assumed
approach to Christology has its starting point in the nature of the person of Christ which
interprets the work of Christ, and not from the work of Christ and its influence upon
mankind. Essentially, for Stniloae, the approach from the nature of Christ enables His saving

855
Cf. J. Meyendorff & R. Tobias (eds.), Salvation in Christ, p. 21.In this sense, Stniloae is heir to Orthodox
tradition, properly expressed by Theodore of Mopsuestia in the following words: If he [Christ] had not taken
a human soul, and if it had been simply the Godhead that proved victorious, then the things that were done
would not be any value to us... The Lord's struggles would seem not to have brought us any profit, but rather
to have happened merely for the sake of display. Theodore of Mopsuestia, De Incarnatione 15. 3 (ed. Swete,
ii, 311), cited by K. Ware, in Salvation and Theosis in Orthodox Theology, p. 169. For a fine overview of
the link between theosis and metamorphosis in the history of dogma, see the chapter The Metamorphosis of
Human Nature, in J. Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture, pp. 280-295. A close view is that of Calvin.
See T. Hart, Humankind in Christ and Christ in Humankind: Salvation as Participation in Our Substitute in
the Theology of John Calvin, SJTh 42 (1989), pp. 67-84.
856
Incarnational theology, roughly speaking, involves primarily a metaphysical theory about human nature
which, in Protestant theology for example, is often neglected. There are, of course, areas of tension manifested
in the partiality of perspectives upon one part or aspect of soteriology, between Eastern and Western (Catholic
and Protestant) theologies, but nowhere are the neglected elements denied or ignored completely. The
relationship between incarnation and atonement is an illustrative case.
243

work to be established ontologically in His divine being. Hence to understand our relationship
with God we must first understand how Christ assumed human nature. In this regard,
Stniloae has already developed the concept that Christs coming had the result that the world
was made open to God and God made open to the world by virtue of the fact that man's being
has been taken up into God. It follows that Stniloae sees that salvation is the redemption of
the whole man.857 The Son of God did not simply come as God in man but as man in his
wholeness as human being. Because of the ontological relationship of Christ with humanity as
a whole, His humanity is therefore seen in terms of vicarious humanity.858 This view includes
the idea of Christ's saving obedient life and self-sanctification on our behalf, so that
redemption takes place within the mediatorial life and person of Christ. Not only is the
redemption accomplished by Christ's vicarious death, but also the very essence of salvation
includes the vicarious nature of the entire humanity of Christ. The whole person is renewed in
Christ's humanity for our sakes, that is, incarnation and redemption are inseparable.
Thus Stniloae's approach is warning us that when we separate Christology from soteriology,
the former becomes impersonal and abstract. The soteriological motive needs to be integrated
in Christology in its personal form. This is a classical Orthodox position which understands
that in becoming man Christ entered into an ontological relation with the whole human race.
That is, the ontological participation of God in the human condition opens the way for
human participation in the being of God,859 that is, for theosis. Hence Stniloaes emphasis
on personal communion as the content of salvation is in accord with the main trend in
contemporary Orthodox theology.860

3.1.2 Redemption as ontological relations


As an extension of the previous ideas, the second appropriate thought as related to
Stniloaes Christological aspect of theosis, is to see in some detail the connection of Christ
with humanity as ontological. His writings definitely support the view that Stniloae's more

857
Here Stniloae is following Athanasius, who says: The Saviour having in very truth become man, the
salvation of the whole man was brought about.... Truly our salvation is not merely apparent, nor does it extend
to the body only, but the whole body and soul alike, has truly obtained salvation in the Word himself.
Athanasius, Ad Epictetum 7, cited by T.F. Torrance in Theology in Reconciliation, p. 230.
858
On this subject, see J.B. Torrance, The Vicarious Humanity of Christ, in T.F. Torrance (ed.), The
Incarnation. Ecumenical Studies in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed A.D. 381 (Edinburgh: The Handel
Press, 1981), pp. 127-147; and C.D. Kettler, The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Reality of Salvation
(Lanham and London: University Press of America, 1991).
859
J. Breck, Divine Initiative: Salvation in Orthodox Theology, in J. Meyendorff and R. Tobias (eds.),
Salvation in Christ, p. 116.
244

concrete concept of union is derived from his reliance on the Greek Fathers, basically Cyril of
Alexandria,861 but also including Irenaeus, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, and Maximus.
Under their influence, Stniloae is able to articulate more extensively how Christ heals and
hallows human nature in His own humanity, Christ's humanity becoming a universal. Thus
Christ entered into some form of ontological relation with humanity as a whole, where His
humanity is universal humanity.862
For Stniloae, therefore, it is Christ in solidarity with humankind that redeems, and mankind
shares in not just the negative but also the positive results of the redemption. Stniloae uses
different notions and metaphors to illustrate that. He speaks about Christ as the central
hypostasis which connects all human hypostases to one another because He first connects
them to Himself,863 and changing the theological metaphor, he writes that Christ became our
Brother.864 Moreover, Christ has entered into an overloaded and voluntary, moral, loving
solidarity with humankind.865 As such, Christ can be truly High Priest in His vicarious
humanity, involving that aspect of redemption which assumes the idea of solidarity between
Christ and mankind where Christ is seen as the archetype or universal figure. Thus Stniloae
may write that the whole economy that God has devised for us through His Son has as its
purpose this eschatological perfection of the union of God with the whole of mankind.866
Obviously, Stniloae has an ontological conception of solidarity. But it is through the
incarnation that the being of all people is bound together in Christ. Thus the incarnation is
the fruit of God's love for mankind with whom He unites Himself definitively and
indissolubly.867 This seems to be the foundation of Stniloae's redemption doctrine. In this
way Christ substitutes in every aspect of His life.
Some understanding of the ontological basis of soteriology in terms of the relatedness of man
and Christ must be retained. In Stniloaes case, it is implied that the ontological relation is
only potential since human beings do not actualise it morally or personally. Yet, the personal

860
J. Meyendorff, New Life in Christ. Salvation in Orthodox Theology, p.497.
861
Most of Stniloaes references to Cyril of Alexandria comes from Glaphyrorum and Adoratio in Spiritu et
Veritate.
862
The problem with the Fathers, says Hendry, was that none really addressed the question of in what sense
Christ's universal humanity was real or how it was related to individuals. Cf. G.S. Hendry, The Gospel of the
Incarnation, pp. 47, 60.
863
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 191.
864
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 362.
865
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, p. 280. See also Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol.
II, pp. 83f; Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, pp. 348-349.
866
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 199.
867
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 198.
245

relationship with Christ is activated particularly by the ontological relation, which stays as a
precondition for it.868 It is at this point, however, that one is tempted to go beyond the
statement of this relation and to speculate a comprehensive theory of how this is so. Thus a
fine balance must be held between the person and the work of Christ, ontology and function.
In the case of Stniloae, three observations are required. The first observation is that the
history of the use of ontological theories linking Christ with mankind shows that there is little
biblical support for them.869 In the Pauline letters, for instance, the concept of solidarity is
conceptual rather than literal. Although the ontological aspects are present, they are
secondary. However, the Adam/Christ parallels show two realms of existence, and a transfer
in relational rather than ontological terms is conceived of.870 It must be stated that soteriology
must be drawn inductively from the data of Scripture rather than philosophically derived.
Stniloae does not adhere strictly to this methodology because of his more ontological
concept of dynamic revelation, where revelation as the substantive person of Christ is often
more important. Thus the ontological, functional and eschatological aspects need to be
recognised and held in balance, especially when discussing the relationship between
incarnation and redemption.
The second observation refers to Stniloae's extrapolations as based on the implications of
the doctrine of hypostatic union. Because Christ assumes perfect humanity and divinity and
humanity are joined, it is implied that Christ is consubstantial with us. This explains why
Stniloae puts a such emphasis on man's real participation in the life of the Trinity. However,
in our view, this weakens the fact that the relation between Christ and the Father is not

868
Cyril of Alexandria writes in Commentarius in Johannem 1:14 (PG 73, 161): So the servile is truly
liberated in Christ by ascending into mystical unity with Him who bore the form of the servant, and in us by
imitating Him who is one by fleshly affinity. Similarly, Gunton acknowledges that the ontological
relationship of creator and created, grounded in the Word and recorded in the enhypostatic humanity of Jesus,
must become ontic. C.E. Gunton, The Actuality of Atonement. A Study of Metaphor, Rationality and the
Christian Tradition (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), p. 170.
869
The solidarity view has been traced back to Schleiermacher, who stressed Irenaeus' recapitulation doctrine.
Schleiermacher postulates that in the corporate life founded by Christ there is a communication of His sinless
perfection. Cf. F. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, Edited by H.R. Mackintosh and J.S. Stewart
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1960), p. 364. On his side, Zizioulas derives his idea of corporate personality from
Judaism. Cf. J.D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, pp. 27-65. For a detailed study on Zizioulas, see P.
McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church. Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1993), pp. 170-186.
870
See Romans 5 and 1 Cor. 15. Cf. C.E.B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1975), vol.I, p. 278.
246

identical to His relation as man to humanity.871 Possibly this confusion traces back to Cyril of
Alexandria.872
The third observation deals with the operative aspect of Stniloaes ontology. He affirms that
Christ's powerful work in the life of the believer is in virtue of his sharing of all the
experiences of His victorious humanity.873 This strong ontologism led Stniloae to posit every
action of Christ as sacramental.874 Faith, for example, is required, but it is seen as Christ
believing and having faith in God on our behalf. So when we speak about our conversion or
regeneration we understand that we are referring to our share in the conversion or
regeneration of our humanity brought about by Jesus. While Stniloae's view of salvation
reminds us of the need to make sure that faith remains Christ's work in us and never becomes
our work, his view of solidarity makes it difficult to give a meaningful place to the existential
elements of human response, or how the benefits of Christ are appropriated by people.

3.1.2.1 Redemption as internal atonement


It is believed that such difficulties in Stniloaes view on redemption as ontological relations
derive in principle from two subordinate ideas. First, the idea of redemption as internal
atonement. It becomes obvious that the bringing together of mankind and God in Himself
means for Stniloae that mankind is taken up into God.875 Hence some idea of inclusivity is
implicit in Stniloae's view of redemption, being one of the most important implications of
mankind's solidarity with Christ. Stniloae wants to reinforce the idea that all of Christ's life
(from the virgin birth to the resurrection and ascension) is involved in His salvific work. More

871
The unity of mankind in Christ (however it is conceived) cannot be the same as the unity of God. Cf.
G.S. Hendry, The Gospel of the Incarnation, p. 54.
872
See Stniloaes notes on Cyril of Alexandria, nchinarea i Slujirea n Duh i Adevr [Adoratio in Spiritu
et Veritate] (PG 68), pp. 161-162.
873
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 88-101. Cf. B. Ramsey, Beginning to Read the
Fathers (New York: Paulist Press, 1985). Ramsey argues that the logical conclusion to the Irenaean and
Athanasian theology of solidarity was that all that Jesus accomplished, no matter how apparently
insignificant, had salvific effects (p. 78).
874
The ground for the Eucharist as sacrifice is found in the act of salvation as ontological identity. Cf. D.
Stniloae, Dumnezeiasca Euharistie n cele Trei Confesiuni, Ortodoxia 1 (1953), pp. 83, 97.
875
While Stniloae does not refer to Moltmann, there are a number of parallels at this point: (1) the event of
the cross is an event within God; (2) Christ becomes guilty in solidarity with mankind, thus identification
with mankind is favoured to forensic elements; (3) pain, suffering and death are taken up into God; (4) and
the concept of deification is present in different forms. See J. Moltmann, The Crucified God: A Trinitarian
Theology of the Cross, Interpretation 26 (1972), pp. 278-299; The Crucified God: The Cross as the
Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, tr. by R.A. Wilson and J. Bowden (London: SCM Press,
1974), p. 277; R. Bauckhman, Moltmann's Eschatology of the Cross, SJTh 30 (1977), p. 311.
Schleiermacher also has an idea of redemption through being taken up into the fellowship of Christ's life.
247

precisely, the reconciliation Christ brought was not just the result of His death, but the result
of Christ substituting for mankind through all of His earthly life.876
Stniloae's concept of salvation then sees in Christ's humanity a place of contact between
Himself and nature; or, in other words, a centre in space and time which organises existence
around itself. Stniloae in this way transfers the idea of Christ as a Platonic ideal outside of
the earthly realm into the world itself, even into intimate, ontological connection with it. In
Christ a creative centre of salvation and integration has been set up within the structure of
human being. This in turn affects the whole created order. Stniloae sums up:

Once drawn into union with God by the sacrificed and risen body of the Lord we,
the works of His hands, are also drawn into union among ourselves. Our own logoi
and the logoi of our existences are attracted to union with the divine Logos, the
Word in whom we find our eternal archetypes and for whom our natures yearn as for
the fathomless depths of life and the secret source of that knowledge we crave of the
essence of all things. When our wills have returned to their conformity with their
own being and their own inner rational purposes and structures (logoi), and have
rejected the arbitrary dispositions of their irrational and unnatural selfishness, then
they are called to be united to the human will of Christ and through it to His divine
will which is one with His human will.877

This placement of Christ is then worked out in relational terms in which use is made of the
idea of hypostatic union. Christ is able to bring God's work to mankind because He is God
and man in union. Since Christ is God in hypostatic union with man, what Christ is towards
man, God is in Himself antecedently. Hence the hypostatic union and atonement are
interwoven.878 It is because of this internalising of the atonement as taking place within the
life of God that the concept of theosis can be used by Stniloae when describing Christ's
sacrifice. To avoid the idea of a mere absorption of man into God, Stniloae describes this as
a re-humanisation rather than a divinisation, so that mankind is preserved in His humanity.879

The Redeemer takes believers up into the fellowship of His unclouded blessedness, and this is His reconciling
activity. F. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, p. 431.
876
As Florovsky stresses: The one redeeming work of Christ cannot be separated into parts. Our Lord's
earthly life is one organic whole, and His redeeming action cannot be exclusively connected with any one
particular moment in that life. G. Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, p. 99.
877
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, pp. 202-203. Similar ideas are found in P. Sherrard, Human
Image: World Image, pp. 147-181.
878
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 132. For the idea of atonement Stniloae uses
different Romanian expressions: simple jertf (sacrifice), jertf ispitoare (atoning sacrifice) and jertf
mntuitoare (salvific sacrifice). Basically all these expressions deal with the traditional theme of atonement,
although Stniloae constantly tries to avoid using the conventional term. However, throughout this section the
term atonement will be used to emphasise all Stniloaes references to the sacrificial work of Christ.
879
See D. Stniloae, Aspectele Eseniale ale Operei de Rscumprare n Concepia Ortodox, pp. 625-627.
248

Once more, from an understanding of the hypostatic union, Stniloae asserts that atonement
takes place within humanity, because atonement takes place within the personal being of
Christ. The hypostatic union brings God and man together in Christ in an ontological
connection of love. This implies that Christ is related to all people,880 being motivated by
love.881 Therefore, because Stniloae places emphasis on the atonement/incarnation
originating in the love of God, it means that the love of God is the cause of the atonement,
rather than the atonement being a necessary precondition to forgiveness. Thus the atonement
is the effect of the love of God, and consequently, forgiveness precedes atonement.

3.1.2.2 The idea of penetration


The second idea on which Stniloae builds up his ontological structure in defining redemption
is the idea of penetration. Stniloae uses the term penetration, or its cognate
interpenetration, to describe the action of Christ in humanity. This concept of penetration
stands objectively behind all of Stniloae's views on the atonement, deriving again from an
extension of the hypostatic union.882 This interpenetration of Christ and man, and man and
Christ, is worked out firstly on the Christ-man side. Christ took upon Himself man's sin and
guilt by assuming flesh and thereby sanctifying human nature from within. Secondly, on the
man-Christ side, mankind is taken up in and through Christ to share God's life and love. By
this much more is meant than a restoration of relationship between God and man: it is a real
sharing in the inner life of God in this earthly life.

For from the risen and exalted Christ the Holy Spirit shines forth immediately and
superabundantly, exactly as heat radiated from an incandescent body. The risen and
exalted state of Christ is His humanity perfectly filled and penetrated by the Holy
Spirit, the unobstructed irradiation of the Spirit from within Him. His body no longer
represents in any way an obstacle separating Him from those who believe in Him. On

880
A similar idea is found in Hegel who introduced the concept of Christ's universality. In reaction to Hegel
came Schleiermacher's formulation. Cf. G.S. Hendry, The Gospel of the Incarnation (London: SCM Press,
1959), pp. 75-78, 80. See also W. Pannenberg, Jesus - God and Man, pp. 127, 263-264.
881
Cf. D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 202. Similarly, Florovsky says that Christ's death was not
the necessity of this world. This was the necessity of Divine Love. The Cross is not a symbol of Justice, but
the symbol of Love Divine. Cf. G. Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, pp. 100, 103.
882
See, for example, D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic i Simbolic, p. 647. At the surface this concept seems
to cross the border between Chalcedonian orthodoxy and some form of theopaschitism. However, John Breck
declares that theopaschism remains the irreducible foundation of any Orthodox theology of redemption. J.
Breck, Divine Initiative: Salvation in Orthodox Theology, in J. Meyendorff and R. Tobias (eds.), Salvation
in Christ, p. 115.
249

the contrary it has received the power to impart most perfectly the Godhead with
which it is united.883

By Christ being in such an intimate relationship at the centre of humanity, wholeness spreads
to all. Actually, the death and the resurrection of Christ have concentrated in themselves a
new life, so that Christ irradiates His state of spiritual renewal in believers.884 Christ then
heals the split between what man is now and what he ought to be by penetrating into
depraved and dehumanised humanity, into that very split, bringing the ends of that split
together in His own person.
In concluding this short analysis of the idea of redemption as internal and as penetration, it is
not difficult to see that such ways of describing Christ's work are expressions of a
fundamentally different view of substitution than the classic Western understanding. We can
explain Stniloaes view based on the implications of the twin Christological realities of the
anhypostasia and enhypostasia in the person of Christ. For Stniloae, in the redemption, the
manhood of Christ is integral and essential and not merely instrumental, enhypostatic and not
only anhypostatic. If we understand in anhypostasia that it is only in God's act that the saving
person of the human Jesus could have existed (substitution/representation), then in
enhypostasia we see that only through the individual human being, Jesus, is salvation a reality
(incorporation). Based on the mystery of the hypostatic union as the humanisation of God,
the assumption of the humanity into the personhood of the Logos (enhypostasia) is not a
depersonalisation but an impersonalisation. In other words, enhypostasia saves redemption
from being merely forensic since it locates redemption in Christ's humanity. By this is meant
not only that atonement is internal to Christ, that is, between man and God in Christ, but that
mankind is included in Christ's atonement. For Stniloae, then, allowing Christ to be a
substitute who is detached from man and who simply acts in our place in an external, formal,
forensic way, without any ontological relationship with those whom He is representing, is an
empty transaction.885 Stniloae does not want to accuse those who hold forensic concepts of
losing the humanity of Jesus, but the emphasis for him is on substitution/representation which
involves incorporation, where Christ as man gathers humanity into Himself and so acts on our
behalf. Christ creates a new humanity and incorporates us into this new humanity.

883
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 199.
884
D. Stniloae, Transparena Bisericii n Viaa Sacramental, Ortodoxia 4 (1970), p. 504.
885
Cf. D. Stniloae, Dumnezeiasca Euharistie n cele Trei Confesiuni, Ortodoxia 1 (1953), p. 114.
250

However, Stniloae's conception might be suspected of depreciating somehow the reality of


Christ's humanity in itself by making it into some kind of universal with mystical implications
for mankind.886 In the incarnation of Christ we observe an overlapping process of the
transcendent structures of communication with human structures, since the transcendent not
only becomes immanent but identifies itself with the human creature. This principle
encourages Stniloae to affirm in a very ambiguous and risky way that Christ became our
sacrifice only because He was the Son of God and the bearer of humanity. Christ, asserts
Stniloae, has accomplished the climax of humanity because He made it part of the divine
personal Absolute.887 In this way, matter receives the capacity to be a transparent medium of
the Trinity in general and of Christ in particular. That does not mean, however, that Christ
came out from His humanity, but that He attained the deepest part of humanity, and
consequently, He lives to the highest degree humanitys exclusive dependence upon God.888

3.1.3 The progressive nature of redemption


A third issue in understanding Stniloaes Christological aspect of theosis deals with the
progressive nature of redemption. We have seen that Stniloae does not limit Christ's work to
some particular act or acts such as the work on the cross. The real work of Christ as man
started at the virgin birth and was carried through to its completion in the resurrection and
ascension. Birth, life, passion and resurrection are continuous and indivisible in the salvation
action.889 There are different moments in this progression of salvific life; for example, His
baptism, temptations, Gethsemane and especially the cross. Since atonement is internal to
mankind, each part of Christ's life is an assumption of depraved humanity in order to heal it
from within. Stniloae suggests that the sanctification of our human nature was brought about
not only through Christ's active and passive obedience, but also through the union He
established between our fallen nature and His divine nature through His birth, life, death and
resurrection. Man's redemption starts from Christ's very birth, so that incarnation is a

886
See the parallel views between T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1983), p.
89, and G.C. Berkouwer, The Person of Christ, tr. by J. Vriend (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1954), pp.
313, 325.
887
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 353.
888
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 358.
889
See for example, D. Stniloae, Dumnezeiasca Euharistie n cele Trei Confesiuni, Ortodoxia 1 (1953), p.
81.
251

redeeming event. At this point Stniloae is in agreement with other Orthodox theologians
who maintain that the whole life of the Incarnate One was one continuous sacrifice.890
While it is important to see Christ's life as a totality and as involved in redemption, the life in
itself is not the redemption. Rather the life is the life of Christ lived for mankind, doing what
mankind could not do, triumphing where mankind fell, so that He could make the one perfect
sacrifice. Scripture attests the fact that the various aspects of His life are primarily to be seen
in the context of His role as Messiah. If we do not see the life of Christ in the context of
biblical theology or in the framework of promise and fulfilment, that leads towards positing an
entirely independent role for Christ's humanity. One must see Christ's work more functionally,
as fulfilling the ideal of manhood or the covenant obligations, that is, all the obligations of
man before God. In this way, the implication emerges that Christ's life, far from being a mere
instrument, is both a preparation and a necessary qualification for and part of Christ's work on
the cross or redemption. It is not separate from it but intimately part of the work. That is,
Christs life is redemption or atonement, but not in a progressive way (in terms of moments)
or as inner healing throughout His life. Rather it is the fulfilment of humanity then offered in
death as the atonement. This fits well with the biblical literature where there is a general lack
of concentration or even omission of details of Christ's life. This is a significant pointer to the
fact that the incarnation itself is not the redemption or atonement, but only an aspect of it. To
conclude, the impression given by Stniloaes understanding is that the idea of ontology has
almost swallowed the functional aspects of his Christology. On the other hand, what is of
value in Stniloae's work is the realisation of the importance of Christ's life and of the need to
have an integrated view of Christ's work, together with such insights as the biblical theology
of Irenaeus' recapitulation.

3.1.4 The question of the nature of sin


A fourth observation, intimately bound to Stniloae's conception of redemption, is his view of
the nature of sin. This is particularly important for his conception on deification because, for
Stniloae, evil is seen as something fixed in the ontological elements of created existence,

890
G. Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, p. 101. Moreover, it is maintained that, everything that Christ
did throughout His earthly life was based on the presupposition that humanity was already saved and deified,
from the very moment of His conception in the womb of Mary, through the operation of the Holy Spirit. M.
Aghiorgoussis, The Dogmatic Tradition of the Orthodox Church, in A Companion to the Greek Orthodox
Church, Edited by F. K. Litsas (New York: Department of Communication Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of
North and South America, 1984), p. 163.
252

having its effects ontologically. Thus Stniloae understands sin organically, and in this sense
his theology remains far from any moralistic view of salvation. Thus it is an infection that
causes disorder. It is for this reason that redemption is seen as an order-restoring event. It has
been shown that in Stniloaes perspective, the coming of Christ exposed the man of sin,
normalised our nature and exalted our humanity in Him because He accepted solidarity with
us. By concentrating on the ontological aspects of evil, the need for redemption is not so
much to subdue man's rebellion but to counteract the consequences of evil. Hence, for
Stniloae, redemption is redemption from corruption.
Questions do arise as to whether or not Stniloae's view of sin jeopardises the reality and
seriousness of the consequences of the guilt about which Scripture speaks. A prior question is
whether his discussion of sin does justice to the sharp distinctions within Scripture between
the man in sin and the man in Christ. Scripture clearly emphasises the idea of transference in
relational terms from one Kingdom to another. However, in Stniloae's view sin has its
consequences in the being of mankind as a type of sickness, hence the emphasis on bondage
to death, corruption and mortality. Sin here is the personal act of man's free will which
deprives him of the means of fulfilling his destiny by overcoming the mortality of human
nature. Thus the purpose of the cross was not to vanquish sin but death, thereby making it
possible for man to return to the state of Adam and renew his progress towards deification.891
Stniloae's concrete ontological view of solidarity necessitates that Christ took upon Himself
the flesh of the post-fall nature of man and, at the same time, reveals our true unfallen nature.
Stniloae's repeated insistence on these aspects stems from the need for Christ to delete the
effects of sin, and to be in solidarity with mankind in order to heal it from within. This is
impossible if Christ has a neutral nature, for what He did not assume He did not heal.
However, the nature of man biblically is that he is defined by his act of rebellion (not neutral),
and that, while Scripturally the wages of sin is death, mortality is not the cause of sin. This

891
Christ does not become incarnate and die simply for the sake of an external reconciliation with us and in
order to make us righteous before Him. The purpose of the incarnation was our deliverence from eternal
death, our complete and eternal union with Him. D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 198. Similarly,
Zankov writes: From sin or from death? Western theologians like to put this contrast, and claim that the
Orthodox put death in the foreground instead of sin. But this is not true. Orthodoxy is rather inclined, it is
true, to conceive of original sin as the result of the first sin, and death as the reward of sins; yet, as has been
said empirically one is not separated from the other; where sin is, there is death also, and vice versa... To the
Orthodox the question 'Why salvation?' is very clear: in order to be free from sin and death, in order to break
down the wall of partition between God and men, to enter into inner and complete communion with God, to
be one with Him Cf. S. Zankov, The Orthodox Eastern Church, tr. by D.A. Lowrie (London, 1929), pp. 49-
50.
253

also explains why Stniloae's stress on the idea of solidarity led him to see the forensic aspects
as secondary.892

3.1.5 The role of Christ's death and resurrection


The final observation on Stniloaes Christological aspect of theosis deals with the role of
Christs death and resurrection. As has been demonstrated, Stniloae's view of the death of
Christ rests on three common grounds: (1) the actual nature of man is assumed; (2) the
unassumed is not healed; (3) incarnation is redemption, and these cannot be separated. The
last point shows that, for Stniloae, Christ's death is not the sole aspect of redemption.
Rather, the cross, along with the resurrection, is seen to be the culmination of the work of
Christ. Jesus Christ is our human response to God, we being able to appear before God as
those accepted by being inseparably united with Christ. Thus His life from birth to grave was
a redeeming human response, and the cross is one of a number of distinct moments in God's
salvation.
Indeed, as Christ's whole life was a struggle with human weaknesses and vulnerabilities, so in
the end His life was an offering of perfect obedience to the Father that we might be reconciled
with Him. But Stniloae concentrates so much on the life of Christ that he gives the
impression that he tries to fit Christ's death into the system, and thus is in danger of giving
less significance to His death.893 This is the reason why it is hard to justify Stniloaes
rationalisation of the essential acts of divine revelation, where he does not include among
them the act of crucifixion.894 Moreover, Stniloae's theology implies that the putting on of
humanity resulted in an automatic taking of man's guilt upon Himself. This idea is, first, a
direct consequence of the view which maintains that the purpose of the incarnation is
communion with God and man's deification, being at the same time opposed to an exclusive
soteriological motive for the incarnation. Second, Stniloae's idea shows similarities to
incarnation even without sin theories, which cause a certain determinism and a lack of
freedom on God's part. At this point Stniloae seems to follow Maximus for whom the

892
James Dunn sees this as a consequence of stressing solidarity. Cf. J.D.G. Dunn, Paul's Understanding of
the Death of Jesus, in R. Banks (ed.), Reconciliation and Hope (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974), p.
139.
893
By contrast, a concentration on the death of Christ would allow the inclusion of the life of Christ in it and
enable His death to be seen as a final act in a life of total, obedient self-sacrifice.
894
Cf. D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 28.
254

incarnation was foreseen and foreordained independently of man's tragic misuse of his own
freedom.895
While Stniloae stresses that the cross is the culmination of this incarnational penetration,
it can only be considered part of a process. The impression is given that the cross is an ending
rather than a decisive event. When this is considered with respect to the ontological
explanation of the atonement, the death of Christ becomes not so much a propitiation or
expiation, as another aspect of the wrestling with humanitys plight. In other words, the cross
effects the destruction of evil, more than dealing with the penalty of it. Christ's penetration
into the perverted structure of human existence somehow reversed the process of
corruption.896 For Stniloae and other Orthodox theologians, this is a real process where all
of Christ's life was a sanctification of every stage of humanity. Thus the cross is part of the
incarnation. The cost involved was not the bearing of penalty but the sorrow, pain and agony
of the universe which He took into Himself.
Although the cross is seen as a culmination of the ontological penetration of God into
humanity, it is the resurrection that is important in terms of fulfilling all Christ's work.
Following Cyril of Alexandria, Stniloae believes that the Trinity and the resurrection are the
fundamental dogmas, the alpha and the omega of our salvation.897 This includes both the
bestowing of the incorruptible divine life upon humanity and the taking of the human nature
personified in the Logos into the communion of the Holy Trinity. Hence, for Stniloae, the
resurrection is the climax of the economy of salvation and of man's deification, because it is
through the resurrection that the eternal divine life common to the three persons is
communicated, and thus those who believe are elevated into the fellowship of the Holy
Trinity.898

895
J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, pp. 160-161. Cf. Maximus, Quaestiones ad Thalassium 60 (PG 90,
621AC). D. Stniloae, Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox, p. 21. For the influence of St. Isaac the Syrian
and Duns Scotus on this view, see K. Ware, Salvation and Theosis in Orthodox Theology, p. 179, and G.C.
Berkouwer, The Work of Christ (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1965), p. 25. Similarly, Florovsky
states: It seems to be more coherent to regard the Incarnation as an organic consummation of the primordial
creative purpose of God than to make it essentially dependent on the Fall, i.e., upon the disruption of that
purpose... G. Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, p. 163.
896
See for example, P. Nellas, Deification in Christ, where he writes: By descending, however, to death the
Logos renewed humanity in general and made it incorrupt along with the human nature which He had
assumed and by means of it. Just as on the cross human nature was purified from sin by the blood of the Lord,
so in the tomb it was purified in an organic manner from the state of death by laying aside the earthly
'garments of skin,' that is to say, by laying aside mortality (pp. 112-113).
897
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 72. Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentarius in Johannem 12, [Jn.
20:24-25] (PG 74, 724BC).
898
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 72.
255

While this is a biblical perspective (1Cor 15:12-19), the resurrection gains prominence at the
expense of the rest of Christ's work because the nature of man receives such a high place.
Stniloae's overemphasis on the resurrection is also the result of his reliance on the Greek
Fathers, who put immense stress on the bodily resurrection. Resurrection assumes this
importance, again, because the purpose of the incarnation is to heal and restore mankind (and
the universe) ontologically.899 However, Stniloaes view on resurrection as the final
ontological side of redemption, tends to neglect its biblical sense of a vindication and
expression of God's satisfaction with Christ's work on the cross. Rather, Stniloae's place for
the resurrection is in terms of its substantial effects on mankind, being joined to Christ's
exalted flesh.

3.2 Assessment
Stniloae has been trying to bring together the patristic and the modern Orthodox
understanding of the redemption by taking as his prime theological principle the ontological
implications of the hypostatic union in Christ and of His life. However, the strong ontological
aspect of his theology in the end causes his system to be partially reductionist, where
everything tends to be seen in substantialistic terms. One of the main reasons is that
Stniloae's theological approach is inclined to be more reflective and contemplative than
biblical. A second reason is that Stniloae's problem here results from the inadequacy of
taking the hypostatic union as the epistemological centre from which to unify Christology and
soteriology.900 One major result is seen in Stniloae's system which tends to neglect other
purposes of the incarnation and other dimensions of the work of Christ, like the idea of
satisfaction and substitution. Thus the redemption becomes an inward healing and is to some
extent anthropocentric in terms of salvation as humanisation.901
In order to confirm the above observations, some details on Stniloaes place in the modern
theological field are required. One significant consequence of Stniloaes concentration on

899
Stniloae states that between the resurrection of Christ and our own resurrection stretches the interval in
which Christ works to unite us all completely in Himself, and in which we strive towards the same end,
stimulated and sustained by His activity. D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 200.
900
In fact, Stniloae himself recognizes that this approach could be explained also as a kind of overreaction
from the Eastern side against the Western view on soteriology. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox,
vol. II, pp. 129-130.
901
A similar idea is found in Nellas who says that, through His sacrifice on the cross of the blessed flesh of
the Lord, Christ's wounds become the means of healing for humanity (Deification in Christ, p. 112). The
second major result, as will be emphasised in the next chapter, is that Stniloae's ontology also leads to an
256

Christ's incarnation is that the cross becomes more a revelation of mercy than a vicarious
substitution. This also explains the rejection of the satisfaction theory taught by Anselm, who
was concerned with articulating a rational explanation of the necessity of the atonement.902
Orthodox theology regularly rejects this theory because it would be a regression to a non-
biblical idea of sacrifice,903 separating Christ too sharply from the Father, and making too
emphatic a contrast between Incarnation and Crucifixion.904 Stniloae himself remarks that in
the last four centuries Orthodox theology has indeed been influenced by Western
soteriological ideas, but beginning, however, with the Russian theology of the last century,
Orthodox theology has returned almost completely to the broader understanding of salvation
proper to the Greek Fathers, and in recent years has been elaborating those pan-human and
cosmic dimensions of salvation.905
The second major consequence is with regards to the idea of penal substitution. It is
surprising to see Stniloae as resistent to this idea; this is a biblical principle, being the
foundation of the Old Testament system of sacrifice and - essential in this debate - is related
to the notion of corporate solidarity.906 To object that guilt is non-transferable, and that to

obscurity in the distinction between justification and sanctification, by stressing the ontological change at the
expense of the work of the cross.
902
Anselm argues that the cross was necessary because of the perfection of God's nature, namely, His honour
(not justice). Because in disobeying God man dishonoured Him and contracted a debt, only punishment or
satisfaction could vindicate divine honour. How then could satisfaction be made which could at the same time
defeat Satan? It is just here that Anselm argues for the necessity of the incarnation. Christ's death, because
unmerited, went beyond what was required of Him and hence could serve as a genuine satisfaction of God's
honour, for the death of Christ, the God-man, was of infinite value.
903
O. Clment, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, p. 44.
904
K. Ware, in Salvation and Theosis in Orthodox Theology, p. 172. Moreover, Florovsky's argument is
that the death on the Cross was effective, not as a death of an Innocent One, but as the death of the Incarnate
Lord. Quoted by M. Aghiorgoussis, in Orthodox Soteriology, p. 46. More hostile still, Yannaras states that
the satisfaction theory of the atonement, changed the truth of God by subordinating the freedom of his love to
the relentless necessity of an egocentric and savage justice which demanded sadistic satisfaction. C.
Yannaras, Elements of Faith, p. 112. Yannaras continues: The schema 'guilt-redemption-justification' is a
typical symptom of every 'natural religion,' an expression of human psychology which refuses to give up the
individualistic version of existence and seeks to defeat death by its own meritorious accomplishments, even
strengthened by the exchange value of some transcendent 'ransom' (p. 113).
905
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 199.
906
In a broader sense, the concept of substitution is essential to all of the biblical analogies (passover sacrifice,
ransom, redemption, propitiation, victory, and reconciliation). John Stott writes: So substitution is not 'a
theory of the atonement.' Nor is it even an additional image to take its place as an option alongside the others.
It is rather the essence of each image and the heart of the atonement itself. J. Stott, The Cross of Christ
(Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1986), p. 203. Even Lossky accepts the judicial aspects of the atonement
by writing that, through dereliction, through accursedness, an innocent person assumes all sin, 'substitutes'
Himself for those who are justly condemned and suffers death for them.. Lossky concludes that the
atonement was both a debt to God (which emphasizes the judicial aspect) and a debt to the devil (which
emphasizes the atonement as a victory over death, since the devil has authority concerning death). See V.
Lossky, Orthodox Theology, p. 110-114. The idea of corporate solidarity is treated by Stniloae in Iisus
Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, pp. 276-305.
257

substitute an innocent person for a guilty one is itself immoral, means to neglect the fact of
corporate solidarity found in Scripture in which Christ involves us in His sin-bearing as the
second Adam just as the first Adam involved us in his sin-committing. Moreover, in the
history of dogma, penal substitution was seen as grounded in this ontological solidarity (for
example, in the apostle Paul and Luther).
In spite of this possible common ground between Orthodox and Protestant theology, modern
Orthodox theology emphasises more the classic view on redemption as a reaction to an
excessively judicial notion. Besides Stniloae, modern Orthodox theologians like Lossky,
Florovsky, Bulgakov,907 correctly insist that Christ's death also achieved victory over death
and mortality. Thus, on the surface, Stniloaes view might be associated with the idea of a
subjective theory of redemption because he explains the redemption as consisting in a
change which takes place in man rather than in God. This is in opposition to the objective
form of the redemption, where God is the object of Christ's atoning work. This is why
Stniloae considers that the Latin interpretation of the atonement, which draws upon images
taken from the law court, is too preoccupied with the forensic idea of sin as a transgression of
the law.908 Although Stniloae started his theological career taking an inclusive position (see
Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, 1943), in the second part of his life (see Teologia
Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, 1978) he favours the classic type of approach, in which the
work of the redemption is the triumph of God over death, sin, and the devil, salvation then
being regarded positively as liberation and deliverance. Stniloae claims that the idea of
victory over demonic forces deals not only with individuals but with the whole world. The
background of this view, although not absolute or metaphysical, is dualistic and the action is
dramatic, the essential features being found in Irenaeus' theology of recapitulation. Thus

907
Cf. V. Lossky, Orthodox Theology, pp. 110-114; G. Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, pp. 102-104; S.
Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1988), pp. 107-109. The view against which
they argue is one which so strongly emphasizes God's wrath towards sin that it omits His love for those whom
He is justifying by means of the cross. Nevertheless, the view of the atonement as Christ's dying in our place
because of our sins, is clearly an indispensable element in understanding Christian soteriology because it
confirms the biblical emphasis on the sinfulness of man, it shows that there is no contradiction between God's
love and His justice, and it reminds us that our salvation is a costly one.
908
Though the Latin type intends to emphasize the gravity of sin, in fact, says Stniloae, it does not succeed in
doing so, linked as it is with that penitential system of the Medieval period which is essentially a moralism.
So, complains Stniloae, there is no direct relation between Christ and men in this view, for it tends to regard
salvation as something negative (the remission of punishment). Justification is a separate act following upon
atonement whereby God transfers the merits of Christ to sinners. Stniloae goes so far as to claim that
Protestantism was involved in a fundamental inconsistency in seeking to unite the theme of sola gratia with a
juridical doctrine of the atonement.
258

incarnation and redemption are both necessary and mutually defining, and the double-
sidedness of the view is seen in the fact that God is both reconciler and reconciled.909
A strict examination reveals that Stniloaes view oversimplifies the biblical materials on the
atonement, as a protest against any legalistic rationalisation that oversimplifies the human
problem. However, the first dogmatic question for the victory motif deals with the necessity
of Christ's death and resurrection. If defeat of demonic powers is all that is necessary, why
could not the almighty God have done it some other way than to send His Son to die on the
cross? The second dogmatic question is on the cosmic-dualistic battle which easily lends
itself to a kind of triumphalism that says nothing to the despairing, the losers in the world.
The persistent criticism is that the victory motif found in Stniloae tends to overlook sin and
guilt and to shift the emphasis to mortality, finiteness, and death.
Despite of the fact that Stniloae's works provide a valuable insistence on the primacy of
God in all things, this does not counteract the essential motive of the incarnation as being
Christ's coming to die for our deliverance from sin and death. Our view is that the incarnation
cannot be made the dividing line of Christian theology without disrupting the biblical
centrality of the cross.910 Although the act of the incarnation is not specifically identified with
redemption, Stniloae's approach implies that the incarnation is the sacrificial act which
incorporates all that Christ has done for man's salvation.911 This position shows the reality and

909
The most important advance in accepting Stniloaes view is the manner in which the resurrection regains
its proper place in the redemption doctrine. The cross apart from the resurrection would be a catastrophe, for
it would mean that death had the final word. Stniloaes view has the advantage of conceiving of the idea of
victory as the effect of the incarnation, life, death and resurrection taken as a narrative whole. The process of
redemption is not concerned simply with the reformation of the moral person, but with the recapitulation of
all things in Christ: the extension of the benefits of the divine victory to all parts of the created order.
However, this view owes more to Origen than to the New Testament. C. Gunton, The Actuality of
Atonement, pp. 55, 79. A classical Reformed position says that the danger of this theory is that it sometimes
overlooks the truth that the devil, death, and sin are simply agents of the wrath of God and that no final
redemption can come until the wrath and holiness of God have been satisfied. D. Bloesch, Essentials of
Evangelical Theology, vol. I, God, Authority, and Salvation (San Francisco: Harper), p. 159.
910
Hence it is hard to avoid Brunner's statement that: The incarnation as such is not the pivotal point of the
Biblical revelation, but rather the work of the Redeemer. Jesus Christ... came to redeem. To be sure only the
Incarnate Lord - very God, very Man - can be the Redeemer. But the Bible leads us to ponder less the secret of
the Person of Jesus than the mystery of His work. Let me reiterate once more that apparent common place: not
the substantive, but the verb is the chief word in Biblical language... The Bible is never substantialist, but
always actualist. It is essentially historical; but the contemplation of the nature of Christ misleads to a certain
Naturalism. E. Brunner, The Divine-Human Encounter, tr. by A.W. Loos (London: SCM Press, 1944), p.
102.
911
In this sense, Stniloae is closely following the Greek Fathers. Hendry accurately sums up this approach
when he writes that: By their interpretation of the incarnation as the assumption of an ontological relation
with mankind, the fathers were able to take the position that the work of Christ for man was done in man
prior to its appropriation by man and thus to establish an objective ground for the work of Christ in its
vicarious character. G. Hendry, The Gospel of the Incarnation, p. 62.
259

the possibilities of the deification of manhood through suffering which Christ has wrought for
us. This is a distinctive element in the incarnational view of the redemption due to the fact
that the incarnation is to be regarded primarily in the light of the divine purpose of creation:
the attainment of the deification by humanity. In other words, in Stniloae's view, the
incarnation has to be seen in terms of God's purpose for man rather than primarily in terms of
what was necessary in order to save man from his sin. The immediate premise of the
incarnation is not sin and redemption, but death and deification.
The advantage of Stniloaes view on redemption as implying an ontological change is that
the redemption is understood as an act of reversion, a restoration of relations. However,
Stniloaes concept of deification deriving from this understanding endangers the authenticity
of Christ's humanity. Stniloaes too optimistic view regarding the role of the cross and
resurrection does not allow one to give proper attention to the reality of the crucified
humanity of Jesus and to the necessity of fulfilling the process of the sanctification of our
bodies.
This also explains why some theologians have objected to the shift from Calvary to
Bethlehem, claiming that this shift exchanged the biblical accent on the moral problem for an
accent on metaphysical ones.912 The person of Christ can hardly be described apart from what
He accomplished as Saviour. It can scarcely be doubted that the death and resurrection of
Jesus are seen by the New Testament writers as the focal point of God's saving action. The
New Testament overflows with a rich abundance of metaphors, principles and ideas drawn
from the Hebrew and Hellenistic contexts to express this. For these theologians the real point
at which God is revealed to man is upon the cross, where God in Christ is shown to be a
reconciling God. If this is seen as the centre of theology, then it throws its own light back
showing what God did at the incarnation, and pointing forward to its consummation. As such,
to see the cross as the centre of theology does not mean central in importance but central to
God's self-revelation to man. And the difference would be seen in the way in which the
Church regarded the facts; because it matters whether the Church thinks of itself primarily as
a continuation of the incarnation or as an extension of the redemptive work of Christ.

912
P.T. Forsyth says that the principle from which we must set out to understand the person of Christ is the
soteriological principle. Any metaphysic must follow that and not preceed it. P.T. Forsyth, The Person and
Place of Jesus Christ (London: Congregational Union of England and Wales, and Hodder & Stoughton,
1911), p. 332.
260

CHAPTER VII. THE PNEUMATO-ECCLESIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF


DEIFICATION: DEIFICATION IN THE CHURCH

Introduction
According to Stniloae, deification means mans personal communion with God in Jesus
Christ, with Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ filled with the Spirit, and the place where
this communion is taking place is His body, the Church. Even from the beginning of his
theological career, in his book on Christology entitled Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului
(1943), and then continuing with his Dogmatics (1978), Stniloae engaged in communitarian
categories. Here, the Church is defined as an entirety formed by all those who believe in
Christ, a temporal and supertemporal entirety, both a communion and a community of human
persons being bound up with Him.913 The ontological and personal dimensions unveiled by
Christology and soteriology are thus prolonged and developed within the ecclesiological
community. The Church is a spiritual reality, closely connected with the mystery of the
relationship between the Creator and His creatures, with the mystery of the Trinity, and with
the mystery of incarnation.914 The theandric mystery, the personal union of God with man in
Christ, becomes the primary premise of the personal union of God with humanity in the
Church through the Holy Spirit. Thus we can participate in the body of Christ through
communion (general and eucharistic), and share in the uncreated energies of God Himself.
Therefore the Church constitutes the locus of our deification. In a concise passage, Stniloae
sums up and announces his communitarian and personalist agenda:

Through the Spirit, the faithful are linked with Christ not in isolation, but together
among themselves. Whoever attains to faith in Christ attains it through the faith or
the sensitivity of someone else. The interpersonal sensitivity of faith in which the
Holy Spirit is manifested links those who believe within the community of faith, that
is, in the Church. The joyful sensitivity of communion with the absolute person of
Christ spreads in the joy of communion and of works done in communion with

913
D. Stniloae, Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului, p. 398.
914
Hence Stniloae prefers to name the Church as the mystical body of Christ in the Holy Spirit that
reproduces on the human level the trinitarian communion, and the reciprocal interiority of all those who
share in the reciprocal interiority of the Holy Trinity Persons, interiority that was brought about in us through
Christ made man. D. Stniloae, notes to Athanasius, Scrieri, vol. II (PSB 16), p. 85.
261

others, and in the participation of others in the Personal reality of a God come down,
in Christ, to the level of communion with human beings.915

Anticipating (but not identifying with) the ecclesiologies of Afanassieff and Zizioulas,
Stniloaes ecclesiology is an ecclesiology of communion,916 where koinonia is understood
primarily as a communion with God through participation (metalepsis) in Christ. In other
words, for Stniloae, the vertical communion is fundamental for the horizontal community.
The question for us is how to understand Stniloaes view on the centrality of the Holy Spirit
and of the Church in mans deification, both as communication of divine life and as
communion of those who participate in this divine life. Therefore the purpose of this chapter
is to show that, in Stniloaes view, the Church prevails as a communion between human and
divine persons, a communion that assumes a trinitarian, Christological, and pneumatological
character. It will be presented how in this spiritual laboratory, as Stniloae likes to call the
Church, Christ is gradually extended into the believers that they may continue their process of
deification, a process that entails both the Spirits intervention by the operation of divine
energies, and their individual effort. Thus salvation is conceived as the culmination of synergy
between divine and human, that is, the deification of human beings by divine grace.
Methodologically, we shall study in this chapter the concept of deification in the Church, that
is, the communitary character and the theandric constitution of the Church, particularly seen
in Stniloaes discernment of objective deification. In the next chapter we shall explore the
subjective aspect of deification in the Church, that is, deification by grace and its personal
appropriation. This aspect is seen in the work of the Spirit through the uncreated grace in the
process of sanctification, including the role of the sacraments and good works. The last part
of the second chapter will be dedicated to some general remarks on Stniloaes specific
emphases in his theology.

1. The communitarian character of the Church. Trinitarian basis

915
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 40.
916
Cf. O. Clment, Orthodox Ecclesiology as an Ecclesiology of Communion, One in Christ 6 (1970), pp.
114-115.
262

The Church has consistently been concerned with issues of ecclesiology. During its history,
the Eastern Church has only experienced insignificant modifications regarding ecclesiology.917
However, in recent years the interest in a more lively theology of the Church within Eastern
Christendom has evidently increased.918 One of the major tendencies today in Orthodox
contemporary theology is its emphasis on trinitarian ecclesiology; that is, the Church is
grounded in, and is a manifestation of the mystery of the Trinity. Stniloae is one of these
theologians who underline the prominence of the doctrine of the Trinity in understanding
ecclesiology.919 His ecclesiology is principally a consideration on and a synthesis of the
ecclesiology of the Greek Fathers, where the constitution of the Church by the outpouring of
the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is viewed as the outcome of the active co-operation of the Son
and the Spirit, the final act of the Trinity in the world, following the Christ event.
As is true of other aspects of his theology (especially Christology and soteriology),
Stniloaes view on the Church is a reflection of his theology of the hypostatic union. In this
perspective, the Church is that creation which is progressively joined to the Logos by the
activity of the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit of communion, active in the enhypostazation of
human nature in the divine Logos, the third person of the Trinity was sent by Christ into

917
In contrast with Western ecclesiology, Eastern teaching about the Church remained immature, not to say
archaic, in the post-Nicene period. J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: A&C Black, 1989), p.
401.
918
Although Orthodox writers have brought about nothing comparable to the writings of the Western
theologians in the area of ecclesiology, nevertheless, some recent works are relevant at this point, most of
them incorporating the data of the anti-Latin polemics. See for example: E. Benz, The Eastern Orthodox
Church: Its Thought and Life, tr. by R. Winston and C. Winston (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963); P.I.
Bratsiotis, The Greek Orthodox Church, tr. by J. Blenkinsop (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame,
1968); D.J. Constantelos, The Greek Orthodox Church: Faith, History, and Practice (New York: Seabury
Press, 1967); G. Every, Understanding Eastern Christianity (London: SCM Press, 1980); G. Florovsky, Bible,
Church, Tradition. An Eastern Orthodox View, vol. I, in Collected Works (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1972);
A. Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church, 2nd edition (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1908); I.N.
Karmiris, A Synopsis of the Dogmatic Theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church, tr. by G. Dinopoulos
(Scranton: Christian Orthodox Edition, 1973); N.A. Nissiotis, Unity of Scripture and Tradition: An Eastern
Orthodox Contribution to the Prolegomena of Hermeneutics, Greek Orthodox Theological Review 11.2
(1965-1960), pp. 183-208; S. Runciman, The Great Church in Captivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1968); T. Ware, The Orthodox Church, New edition (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1993); J.D.
Zizioulas, Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: Darton, Longman and
Todd, 1985).
919
For Stniloae, writes Bishop Kallistos Ware, The divine intersubjectivity of the Trinity constitutes the
model and paradigm of all human relationships, and more specifically the model and paradigm of the
Church. K. Ware, in foreword to D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. xx. For Stniloae on the doctrine
of the Trinity, see Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. I, pp. 282-320; Trinitarian Relations and the Life of
the Church, and The Holy Trinity: Structure of Supreme Love, in Theology and the Church, pp. 73-108;
Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, pp. 211-271; Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox, pp. 157-248;
Studii Catolice despre Filioque, ST 7-8 (1973), pp. 471-505; Fiina i Ipostasurile Sfintei Treimi, dup Sf.
Vasile cel Mare, Ortodoxia 1 (1979), pp. 53-75; Sfnta Treime: Creatoarea, Mntuitoarea i inta Venic
263

human persons, drawing them also into communion with God and one another, by binding
them to Christs deified humanity. Using a trinitarian idea, Stniloae defines the Church as
the dialogue of God with the faithful through Christ in the Holy Spirit. Moreover, this
dialogue, conducted formerly by the Word from afar, becomes an intimate dialogue through
the incarnation of the Son of God as man and begins to spread through the Church.920 Thus
Stniloae is constantly emphasising the inseparability of the relationship between the Son and
the Spirit in the immanent Trinity and in the economy of salvation.

Thus the Church, existing potentially in the body of Christ, takes actual existence
through the irradiation of the Holy Spirit from His body into other human beings,
beginning at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended over the apostles, making
them the first members of the Church, the first believers into whom was extended
the power of the pneumatized body of Christ.921

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit through the risen body of Christ is possible because it was
freed of all obstacles that could overshadow the Spirits shining forth from it. Consequently,
the body of Christ became fully transparent as the medium of the Spirits interaction of the
divine energies to humanity. Stniloae asserts that, while Christ has achieved our salvation
and deification in an objective way in our nature, the Holy Spirit is the one who applies them
in a subjective way to our persons, through the divine grace, through the holy mysteries, and
through the Church. Thus the plan of salvation (divine economy) is fulfilled by the Holy Spirit
(economy of the Spirit).

1.1 The Trinity as a model for the Church


There are two practical and relevant aspects in Stniloaes view that the Church has a
trinitarian basis. First, the Holy Trinity is a model for the Church. According to Stniloae, the
Church is the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, being named also an icon of
the Trinity, because it reflects the perfect reciprocity within the Holy Trinity. The trinitarian
principle of life is revealed by the Son and the Spirit to the Church not as something abstract,
but as a rule of life after the image of the Trinity. In virtue of its universality, the Church
presupposes an internal, vertical dimension of its living relationship with God, and an

a Tuturor Credincioilor, Ortodoxia 2 (1986), pp. 14-42; Sfnta Treime i Creaia Lumii din Iubire n
Timp, MO 2 (1987), pp. 41-70, and 3 (1987), pp. 28-47.
920
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 38.
921
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 196.
264

external, horizontal openness, holding its dynamic form.922 That is, the trinitarian principle of
self-giving is found in the spiritual life of the Church as a mystical participation to the eternal
relationships existing among the persons of the Holy Trinity and, in this sense, the believers
life become somehow trinitarian, or a life of grace.
Stniloae amplifies these basic thoughts saying, first, that one of the roles of the Spirit is to
maintain the unity in diversity in the Church and unity between believers and the Trinity.
Therefore, argues Stniloae, it is impossible to conceive of the Church outside the Trinity, as
a Church exclusively of Christ or of the Spirit.923 Along with Florovsky, Stniloae regards as
inaccurate Losskys idea that Christ realises the Church only as unity, and the Spirit only as
diversity.924 For Stniloae, the role of the Spirit in the Church is to empower the unity in
diversity by entering into a personal relationship with everyone in the body of Christ.
Similarly, Christ not only actualises the Church as a unity, but, as a person both divine and
human, He represents a person as a distinctive principle who enters into a personal
relationship with the Church and affirms the personal fulfilment of its members. That is, the
two hands of the Father work in the reciprocity and the complementarity of the same divine
activity.925
Acquiring life from the life of the Holy Trinity, continues Stniloae, the Church has a second
role, that of reflecting this truth in its life, being the depiction of trinitarian relationships. The
Church is a hypostatic, iconical presence of God in the world; not dominant or inhibiting, but
kenotical, performing the symbolic passing of the trinitarian mystery into the world and that
of the world into mystery. As icon, the Church is outside nature, the hypostatic mode of
Gods presence in the world and of the world in God.
In this context, Stniloae applies the principle of trinitarian inter-relationships, and
specifically the reciprocity between the Son and the Spirit, in salvation. The third role of the
Church, then, is to continue the salvific work of Christ, being led and assisted by Christ
through the grace of the Spirit. Moreover, Stniloae affirms that in the Church we all share
with the Son and the Holy Spirit the ultimate and absolute source of our existence, that is, the
Father, but not according to nature as the Son and the Spirit, but according to grace.926 If

922
D. Stniloae, Sobornicitate Deschis, Ortodoxia 2 (1971), pp. 179-180.
923
D. Stniloae, Duhul Sfnt i Sobornicitatea Bisericii, Ortodoxia 1 (1967), p. 46.
924
D. Stniloae, Duhul Sfnt i Sobornicitatea Bisericii, p. 44.
925
D. Stniloae, Duhul Sfnt i Sobornicitatea Bisericii, p. 45.
926
D. Stniloae, Relaiile Treimice i Viaa Bisericii, Ortodoxia 4 (1964), p. 521.
265

Christianity is an imitation of divine nature,927 then the Church has been called to promote
mans spiritual growth in Christ because he received the power to become god after
grace.928 And this power comes forth from the perfect altruistic model given by the
trinitarian relationships. In virtue of the trinitarian perichoresis of the common energy and
action, the Son imparts the love shared by the divine persons to believers. In this way the
believers participate themselves through the grace of the Spirit in the divine-human life of
Christ. The Church therefore appears as the locus where the eternal plan of the Trinity is
accomplished, and as the common medium of salvation and deification of humankind after
grace, in Christ and through Christ. The life poured into the Church at Pentecost in which the
Church participates by grace, is the life of Christ Himself, through which the trinitarian life is
inserted in our life.
The fourth role of the Church as the icon of the Trinity is reflected in its cosmic dimension.
Stniloae does not forget to reiterate that not only the Church, but the entire creation is the
work of the Trinity, with a fundamental, ontological relation operating between them.
Accordingly, all creation has been called to universal transfiguration by grace. And the basis
for this has already been established through the incarnation of the Logos and through the
descending of the Spirit.929 The ultimate mission of the Holy Spirit is to bring all creation into
union in Christ, from whose divinized body the Spirit flows. Stniloae explains the close
relation between the Spirit, the Logos and the Church as follows:

The Holy Spirit is the one in whom this communion is in fact actualised. The Holy
Spirit of the One who re-establishes, by means of His divine fluidity, the weakened
unity of the elements of the created structure, but [this is] a unity which does not
confuse them, precisely by the fact that he re-establishes it in the incarnate Logos, in
the divine structure in which all elements and meanings are contained without
confusion. The Spirit flows forth from the Head of the Church, as a Spirit of unifying
life into all the members of the Church, just as blood flows through all the cells
holding them together.930

What Stniloae intends to say is that the work of salvation should not be considered solely as
the work of Christ. Salvation is in fact the result of two encounters coming from two
directions. The first direction comes from above, in which Christ meets the community of
believers, the source of this movement being the Father, carried on by Sons incarnation in the

927
Gregory of Nyssa, De Professione Christiana (PG 46, 244C).
928
Gregory of Nazianzus, In Laudem Basilii Magni 43, 48 (PG 36, 560A).
929
D. Stniloae, Sintez Eclesiologic, ST 5-6 (1955), pp. 275-276.
930
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 69.
266

community of the Church, through the Spirit. The second direction is generated by the
communitys response, through the grace of the Spirit, and carried on by Christ to the
Father.931

1.2 The Trinity as the principle of life of the Church


The second practical aspect of the trinitarian basis in connection with the existence of the
Church, is found by Stniloae in the very fact that the Holy Trinity is the principle of life of
the Church. The spiritual essence of the Church is to introduce us into the sphere of trinitarian
life and to enter into a personal relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In
this divine-human theandric reality we are called to pursue our deification by grace. Stniloae
insists that in the Church we experience Christ in the Spirit, both being inseparable in the
economy of salvation.932 The idea of the community of the Church in the image of the
trinitarian community means to experience the new divine life within the Trinitys new
creation of (that is, the Church), for to live in communion is something specific to human
persons. However, the plane of economy does not represent an escape - so to speak - from
the trinitarian plane. Although there is a distinction between the two levels, the trinitarian
level is seen as an extension into the heart of the Church, through the divine uncreated
energies.933 A vital source of life springs from the Father, goes through the Son, and is poured
out into our hearts by the Spirit, in order to elevate us to share in the life of the Trinity.

1.3 Summary
In summary, for Stniloae, as the basic reality of divine existence and the primary datum of
theology, the triadic character of the divine remains at the foundation of the Church. For him,
the principle of unity in the Trinity is personal, not impersonal, based on the relationships of
reciprocity and of community in the Father. That is, the Son and the Spirit reveal and manifest
the Father who is their unique hypostatic source. The Spirit distinguishes the Father from the
Son within the Trinity, and it is in the Spirit that God goes out of His essence and manifests

931
D. Stniloae, Relaiile Treimice i Viaa Bisericii, p. 517.
932
Stniloae is deliberately polemical in giving emphasis to the Orthodox position regarding the relationship
between the Son and the Spirit in perfecting the work of salvation. In order to avoid, on the other hand, the
Catholic mistake, that confounds the Spirit of God and the spirit of the Church by replacing Filioque with
Ecclesiaque, and on the other hand, the Protestant mistake, that confounds the Spirit of God with the spirit of
man by replacing Filioque with homineque, Stniloae insists on the indissoluble relationship between the
Spirit and the Son. See D. Stniloae, Relaiile Treimice, pp. 523-524.
933
D. Stniloae, Sfnta Treime, Structura Supremei Iubiri, ST 5-6 (1979), pp. 338f.
267

His glory. As such, the Eastern pneumatology has not evolved as an independent and distinct
doctrine, but always in connection with and reference to Trinity, Christology, and
soteriology.934 Although a precise definition of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit is impossible,
Stniloae is following here the basic ideas of Basil the Great, who explains the activity of the
Spirit by asserting that the principle of all things is one, which creates through the Son and
perfects in the Spirit, and in the economy of salvation, the Son and the Spirit are
inseparable.935 It must be emphasised, however, that the hypostatic function of the Spirit is
not identical with that of the Son. Moreover, that does not mean that at Pentecost there was a
new hypostatic union between the Spirit and humanity. In Orthodox tradition the three
persons of the Trinity are seen as sharing in the activity of each of them, so the Father and the
Son are included in every action of the Spirit.936
Thus Stniloaes view on the nature of the Church continues the tradition of the Greek
Fathers where the Church is the common living or participation of human beings within the
life of the Holy Trinity. It is a society that includes human persons and divine persons. The life
existing within the Trinity is poured out in humanity. As a theandric medium, the Church
gives to human life a profound religious sense. Stniloae suggests that, living in the image of
the Trinity, the Churchs existence indicates the antinomic character of its simultaneous
identity and diversity. What seems to be important in Stniloaes approach is that, in
comparison with the divine existence where the distinction is on the persons, essence, and
energy, in the Church the distinction is on the persons, nature, and acts. As we shall see later
in Stniloaes view, the Church is a society, or more appropriately a communion, in which the

934
For example, Orthodox theologians agree that, except in the controversy around the Filioque debate, there
was little conceptual development of pneumatology in the Byzantine Middle Ages.
935
Basil the Great, De Spiritu Sancto 16, 8, 21 (PG 32, 136B). The complete passage is as follows: In
creation, consider first the initiating cause of all that has been made, who is the Father, next, the effecting
cause, who is the Son; and finally the perfecting cause, who is the Holy Spirit. Therefore by the will of the
Father the heavenly spirits exist, by the operation of the Son they come into existence, and by the presence of
the Spirit they are made perfect... Let no one conclude that I have said these three persons are separate origins
or that the activity of the Son is incomplete. For there is one origin of all things, which is put into effect
through the Son and perfected in the Spirit. Nor have I said that the Father, who works all things in all things,
has an imperfect activity; nor that the Son has a work that is incomplete until it is perfected by the Spirit. It is
not that the Father has need of the Son, for he creates merely by doing so; yet he does will to create through
the Son. Nor does the Son have need of any help, for he works as the Father does; yet he does will to bring
things to perfection through the Spirit. See also De Spiritu Sancto 26 (PG 32, 180); 22, 53 (PG 32, 26, 63,
64, 165); (PG 27, 68, 184-185); (PG 32, 193A-196). For a survey of Stniloaes study on Basil, see
nvtura despre Sfnta Treime n Scrierea Sfntului Vasile, Contra lui Eunomie, in the Romanian
monograph Sfntul Vasile cel Mare. nchinare la 1600 de ani de la Svrirea Sa (Bucureti: EIBMBOR,
1980), pp. 51-69.
936
Cf. Basil the Great, De Spiritu Sancto 26, 63, 64 (PG 32, 184-185).
268

human and visible dimensions are intrinsically united with the divine and invisible dimensions
in the same manner as Christ-man and Christ-God are the same Saviour, Jesus Christ.
The Romanian orthodox Ion Bria made the observation that Stniloae is introducing here, for
the first time in the theological arena, the idea of open sobornicity, or open communality.
This open communality is realised by the Church in space and time for all members in
reciprocity and complementarity.937 The horizontal communion between the members of the
Church is developed based on the structure of the vertical communion of the Trinity. The
communion of the Church, being imbued by the trinitarian communion, receives in this way
the mark of an ontological plenitude, all participants sharing the same unifying divine power.
This sharing, continues Stniloae, is extended into our soul, which was created to gaze not on
the uni-personal God, but on the trinitarian God. Therefore the whole Christian life is seen as
a salvific work in communion.938 In all these, Stniloaes explanation implies that the Holy
Trinity works both from inside by implanting a new principle of life from above in stimulating
our spiritual potencies, and from outside in sacraments and liturgy. The faithful do not share
in the Church simply common behaviour, but the intense communion of the same principle of
life. This is why the communion of faith tends to substitute our subjectivity with Gods
objectivity, and the communion of love transforms the essence of our natural love by deifying
it.
In conclusion, what is predominant in Stniloaes thought, is that the communion of the
Church could not be conceived and lived except in conjunction with the model of the
trinitarian relationships, from which it receives the power of communion and deification. Like
the Holy Trinity, the Church is at one and the same time a communion of persons. By
extension, it is this conception of the Trinity that is the mission and bond of the structure of
interrelationships between the local churches. Thus the Churchs communion in the image of
the Trinity, should lead naturally to involvement in social communities.

2. Deification and pneumatological Christology

2.1 The transparency of the Spirit in revelation and in the Church

937
Cf. I. Bria, Spaiul ndumnezeirii, Ortodoxia 3-4 (1993), p. 97. For similar ideas, see N. Chiescu,
Condiiile nsuirii Mntuirii, ST 1-2 (1950), pp. 7-8; and Aspecte ale Eclesiologiei la Sfinii Trei Ierarhi,
ST 7-8 (1962), pp. 403f.
938
We shall see later that Stniloaes view is that we are saved in communion, in the Church and in creation.
269

The epistemological basis of deification in Stniloaes theology established the fact that the
divine person who makes God transparent through the power and light beyond nature, and
who brings about the souls sensitivity, is the person of the Holy Spirit. In Him, the revelation
is accomplished through divine power and then taken into the human creature. As such, the
creature itself becomes transparent, that is, open to the Spirit. More specifically, Stniloae
stipulates first that the Holy Spirit makes the Son of God and His words transparent, due to
the fact that He [the Spirit] reveals Himself as a transparency through His power.939 One
result is that the Spirit produces in the believer a particular sensitivity to the divine character
of the Word, in union with the human mind. The Holy Spirit, says Stniloae, is like a special
brightness from above, which passes (as a pervasive presence) from the Word into our human
minds, just as the suns light passes into our natural eyes in order to make them see that light
around them.940 This is why the Fathers considered the mind (nous) as the peak of the soul,
because it has a transparency or a special openness to God, being helped by the Holy Spirit.941
Stniloaes unifying theme or leitmotif of essence-hypostases-energies, so important in
understanding theosis, is apparent in this ecclesiological context. Due to His special position
within the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit is regarded by Stniloae as the one who introduces
the divine energies into creation. He is the bridge between God and creation to deify and to
eternalise creation. These energies come forth from the Father, and then are received in a
proper manner by the Son, and by the Spirit together with the Son.942 The trinitarian
principle of co-operation and self-giving within the life of the Trinity - this time applied to
ecclesiology - is essential for Stniloaes theological discourse. Reflecting Orthodox
pneumatology in general, and Palamas position in particular, in which the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Father and shines forth from the Son, Stniloae considers the Holy Spirit
as that person who brings forth divine energy not merely into creation, but also into human
souls, as a power of spiritual knowledge and love.943 Accordingly, in Palamism, by bringing

939
Cf. D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i Biseric, pp. 217-218.
940
D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i Biseric, p. 218.
941
Stniloae mentions here the works of Evagrius of Pontus, Cuvnt despre Rugciune 3, 59, 61, 62
(Filocalia I, pp. 51, 62, 75, 82), Diadochus of Photike, Cuvnt Ascetic 74, 75, (Filocalia I, pp. 367-368), and
Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 31, 26-37 (PG 36, 161).
942
Cf. D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i Biseric, p. 224. Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Not Three Gods,
in E.R. Hardy (ed.), Christology of the Later Fathers, in Library of Christian Classics, vol. III (Philadelphia:
The Westminster Press, 1954), pp. 261-262.
943
On the pneumatology of Palamas, see: P. Evdokimov, LEsprit Saint dans la Tradition Orthodoxe (Paris:
Cerf, 1969); J. Lison, LEsprit Repandu: La Pneumatologie de Grgoire Palamas (Paris: Cerf, 1994); J.
Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas (London: Leighton Buzzard, 1964); St. Gregory Palamas and
Orthodox Spirituality (Crestwood, N.Y., 1974); Byzantine Hesychasm: Historical, Theological, and Social
270

forth divine energy into the intimacy of human consciousness, the Holy Spirit causes as such a
kind of sensitivity to God.944 Stniloae develops this aspect by explaining that this sensitivity
is first of all an exceptional capacity of the human soul to perceive God as distinct from the
world. But this sensitivity is at the same time an emphasis put upon human consciousness
itself and upon the believers proper place as a human being in existence.945 On the practical
level, the Holy Spirit is working within the believer different steps of sensitivity: the first is
faith, being followed by a sense of responsibility towards God, and the sanctifying work of the
Spirit in man as part of the spiritual growth process.
Changing the setting, from man in himself to man in communion, Stniloae justifies the idea
of sensitivity by appealing to the operation of the uncreated energies within a Christological
and ecclesiological framework. First, in the Christological framework, it was mentioned that
Stniloae constructs the reality of Spirits work in human nature based on the doctrine of
hypostatic union in Christ. Christ, expands Stniloae, has the Holy Spirit united with Himself:
before, and after incarnation, the Spirit is hypostatically present in the Son of God. Therefore
we should speak about the hypostasis of the Spirit not only as united with the hypostasis of
the Son, but as the hypostasis increasingly penetrating through His uncreated energies into the
assumed human nature of Jesus Christ, and making in this way the hypostasis substantially
transparent for Christ. Christ receives then the sensitiveness from the Spirit through whom
His humanity becomes the irradiant of divine energies.946
Second, Stniloae transfers similar suppositions into the ecclesiological sphere. Based on the
Scriptural data, Stniloae assumes that Christs Spirit is the Spirit of power and His words are
credentials of divine irradiation (Acts 10:38; Matt. 8:28, 12:28; John 20:22-23). Thus the

Problems (London: Variorum Reprints, Collected Studies 26, 1974). Evdokimov had tried to explain the
special link between the Spirit and divine energy, and to see in the procession of the Spirit as energy through
the Son a possibile reconciliation concerning the Filioque issue. For Stniloaes response see D. Stniloae,
Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i Biseric, pp. 225-228.
944
See also Athanasius, Oratio Contra Arianos III (PG 26, 373).
945
D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i Biseric, p. 229.
946
Stniloae explains the relationship between the Spirit and Christ as follows: This full presence of the
Spirit in Jesus is due to the union between Him [the Spirit] as hypostasis and the hypostasis of the Word.
Therefore, the possibility was suggested that the presence of the Spirit return to the centre of the human
subject, where the Spirit was present from the beginning, and consequently the possibility for the
rehabilitation of the human subject to its natural state. If this original capacity of human nature to know the
Spirit did not exist - that is, the necessity and the capacity of human subject for conscious relationship with
the supreme person, according to the relational model of the Son with the Father -, the Holy Spirit would
never have made His most proper centre of action and irradiation the centre of human subject; for even the
Son would not have been able to be hypostatically united with the humanum, to give the possibility to the
humanum of participation in the hypostatic relationship of the Son with the Father, and so its hypostatic
participation into this relationship. D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i Biseric, p. 235.
271

Church, in its quality as the kingdom of God in expansion, has started and developed in the
power of the Gospel. The Spirit of God is manifested in the Church, which is defined by
Stniloae as well as the revelation which continues to be active through the Spirit and
power.947 As a result, the Church becomes the medium of manifestation for the divine
energies and the incarnate revelation of God in those who are united with Christ. Stniloae
specifies:

But inasmuch as we are united with Christ, the Spirit who shines forth from Christ
also shines forth from us, or from the Church. He does not however shine forth as a
complete hypostasis in the manner in which He shines forth from Christ, and this for
two reasons: firstly, because unlike Christ the faithful are not divine hypostases, and
secondly, because the shining forth of the Spirit from the faithful is in proportion to
their respective stages of growth in virtue, and this could scarcely be the case were
the Spirit to shine forth from them in the fullness of His Person. In other words the
human persons of the faithful are penetrated only by the activity of the Spirit who, as
Person, is united with Christ the divine Head of the Body and Head of every believer
who is a member of His Mystical Body.948

According to the above suppositions, there occurs a clear distinction in Stniloae's view
between the virtual existence of the Church in the body of Christ, and the actual existence
through the irradiation of the Holy Spirit from this body. The actual existence takes place
when the descending of the Holy Spirit inaugurates not only the real existence of the Church,
but also the dwelling of Christ's deified body in other human beings. The act of descending
therefore is an act of transition from the saving work of Christ in His personal humanity to
the extension of this work into other human beings. Accordingly, the Church is defined as
the divine life extended from Christ's body into believers as a power for deification.949

2.2 Christ and the Spirit


According to Stniloae, the act of sending the Holy Spirit by the Father is not to be envisaged
as taking the place of Christ's work, because there is an indissoluble union between the work
and presence of Christ and that of the Holy Spirit. Stniloae sees the reason for such a union
in the image of the Trinity and in the act of adoption.950 That is, the presence of the Holy
Spirit in believers is directly linked with the presence of the Father and the Son in the act of

947
D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i Biseric, p. 236.
948
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, pp. 27-28. Gregory of Nyssa also speaks of the Spirit shining
eternally through the Son. Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomius I (Jaeger, 107).
949
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 196.
272

adoption. The Son imprints in believers both His person as an active model and the filial
sensitivity to the Father. Hence the Son receives us in a similar intimacy with the Father and
places us in a similarly intimate relationship with the infinite love of the Father into which He
entered as man.951 Once more, since the body of Christ became transparent, the Spirit works
from Christ within us by irradiating God's power and love.952
We have referred to the fact that Stniloae seeks from the beginning to establish a trinitarian
groundwork for the unity of the Church. Certainly the constitution of the Church is viewed by
Stniloae as the final act of the Trinity, as the outcome of the active co-operation of the Son
and the Spirit in the world. More precisely, Stniloaes perspective shows that the Church is
that achievement which is being sequentially joined to the incarnate Son by the operation of
the Holy Spirit. He reasons that the Church is one because Christ is one. This is grounded on
his understanding of the Church as the extension of Christ's risen and deified humanity into
the world. A consequence of this is that the Church is loved by the Father with the same love
with which He loves the Son; and the members of the Church, in the power of the Holy Spirit,
love the Father with the same love with which the Son loves Him. United in the one Christ,
believers realise that they are brothers and sisters and children of the same Father, a truth that
creates unity between the members of the Church. More exactly, Stniloae affirms that the
principle of this unity within the body of Christ is the Holy Spirit.953 In the fully pneumatized
body of Christ, the Holy Spirit is like a person full of loving initiative in order to reveal to us
the fact that Christ too is a loving person.954
In particular, in the plenitude of hypostasis the Holy Spirit has established Himself in the
ascended body of Christ.

The Holy Spirit comes as hypostasis because He has been established in hypostatic
fullness in the exalted body of the Lord. The Spirit as hypostasis was able to reveal
Himself to us only in the body of Christ which had become fully transparent for the
950
The Church is rather a monarchical, patriarchal and hierarchical community in imitation of the Trinity.
Cf. T. Hopko, God and Gender: Articulating the Orthodox View, SVTQ 2-3 (1993), p. 173.
951
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 198.
952
Stniloae quotes from Cyril of Alexandria, De Sancta Trinitate, Dialogus 3 (PG 75, 853D) and Dialogus 7
(PG 75, 1093, 1116).
953
And because the body of Christ is full of the Holy Spirit, who irradiates from Him as a unifying energy
and as giving of the life and holiness [which are] contrary to separatist egoism, the second foundation of the
unity of the Church is, according to the holy Fathers, the Holy Spirit. Properly speaking they depict the body
of Christ and the Holy Spirit as an undivided duality producing, sustaining, and promoting the unity of the
Church. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 258.
954
Stniloae interprets, for example, Jesus words from John 16:14, He will bring glory to me by taking from
what is mine and making it known to you, by explaining that the Holy Spirit will take not from an
impersonal deposit but from a continous active Christ together with the Holy Spirit.
273

infinite and fully intensive depths of God in their work on our behalf. Only as
hypostasis does He make the presence of His divine energy felt with full power. The
imperfect transparency of the Spirit in the body of Christ before the resurrection was
due to the fact that neither was the body of Christ fully transparent in the conditions
of its earthly existence. The full transparency of the Spirit through the body of the
Lord after the ascension, along with the awareness of the intensity of His hypostatic
presence, is due to the full pneumatization of the body of the Lord, which makes
Christ also more felt as hypostasis, more felt in the intensity of His energy. This is
why the full transparency of the Spirit is spiritual, and conveys a much increased
intensity of Christs presence.955

In sum, Stniloae stresses that, during the earthly life of Christ, Christs revelation as divine
hypostasis was partial, because the Holy Spirit was not fully revealed as God. Only after
Christs ascension and the Spirits appearance, was Christ able to reveal Himself fully as
divine hypostasis and so through Him the Holy Spirit revealed Himself as hypostasis. At
Pentecost, the Holy Spirit revealed Himself much more through the senses to prepare the
apostles for the beginning of His irradiation as hypostasis from the humanity of Christ. From
this point of view, explains Stniloae, we may say that the Church came into concrete
existence through the descending of the Holy Spirit, for now Christ descends for the first time
into human hearts.956
Moreover, because Christ is dwelling in and among believers hearts (that is, in the
communion of the Church), we may also affirm that the Holy Spirit remains eternally in this
state of irradiation and in the Church. In addition, Stniloae is extending the work of the
Spirit that comes also from outside the Church. This is the reason why, on the one hand, the
Church has Him [the Holy Spirit] continuously, although, on the other hand, the Spirit is
continuously invoked.957 Christ and the Holy Spirit are not static in the constitution of the
Church because they are not impersonal powers but persons in communion. The divine
persons come and remain freely from the beginning and at the same time they come or
remain in order to come in a higher degree, to maintain the communion alive and to grow up
in this communion. In this way, the Church is fundamentally connected to both the initial and
the continuous descending of the Holy Spirit as hypostasis in human beings.

955
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 202. Parts of the following quotations are taken
from the English translation of R.G. Roberson, Contemporary Romanian Orthodox Ecclesiology. The
Contribution of Dumitru Stniloae and Younger Colleagues, Doctorate dissertation (Roma: Pontificium
Institutum Orientale, 1988).
956
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 203.
957
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 204.
274

Stniloae explains, then, how the activities of the Son and of the Spirit in the Church are
inseparable, for they subsist in a special reciprocity.958

Coming to rest eternally in the Son, the incarnate One, [the Holy Spirit] also comes
to rest upon the personal humanity of Christ after the incarnation and subsequently
upon all those united with Christ by faith. But by means of this coming to rest in
Christ, He does not unite them only with Christ and among themselves in Christ, but
also with the Father, as sons of the Father together with Christ. Not proceeding
beyond the Son, neither He nor the Son can belong to believers apart from the one
Another. The Spirit is the principle of relation between believers and God, not of
separation. This is why the Church cannot be conceived apart from the Trinity as a
Church exclusively of Christ or exclusively of the Holy Spirit.959

Hence having the role of sustaining union, the Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of communion
both between all members of the Church and between them and the Holy Trinity. Stniloae
insists:

Just as in the Trinity the Spirit subsists in a continuous procession from the loving
Father towards the beloved Son, and in a loving irradiation from the Son towards
the Father, so within us the Spirit exists within a ceaseless flowing of the Son
towards us and of ourselves towards the Son from whom we receive the Spirit.960

Another way of putting this is that the hypostatic descending of the Spirit shows two things:
first, it shows that Christ wills to extend the divine power and the holiness of His humanity to
all human creation; and second, it shows that Christ wills that the identity of every person
should be maintained in the unity of love. Accordingly, the Church is viewed by Stniloae as
the place where people can experience a real communion with God and other persons. In such
a context, Stniloae contends that salvation is obtained only among those who share the life
of Christ, that is in the Church.

Christ saves men because He extends Himself into them, because He incorporates
them into Himself, and because He assimilates them in stages into His risen

958
Stniloae writes that ... Christ is the central, fundamental hypostasis of all human beings. As such, the
hypostasis of the Spirit united with Him and within His human temperament can also extend into all
humanity. The human temperament of Christ became so much more capable of including all of creation after
the resurrection and ascension since in this pneumatized state it opened itself to the divine infinity which
wishes to pour out His love upon us all and in us all and to gather us together into unity with Himself and
with each other. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 205-206. On the presence of Christ
in the Church through the Holy Spirit, see also Purcederea Duhului Sfnt de la Tatl i Relaia Lui cu Fiul,
ca Temei al ndumnezeirii i nfierii Noastre, Ortodoxia 31 (1979), p. 592, and Criteriile Prezenei
Sfntului Duh, ST 3-4 (1967), pp. 113f.
959
D. Stniloae, Sfntul Duh i Sobornicitatea Bisericii, Ortodoxia 19 (1967), pp. 45-46.
960
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 25.
275

humanity. The Church is this extension of Christ into humanity, this laboratory in
which the gradual assimilation of men into the risen Christ is realised. If believers are
gathered together in the same Christ, if the same Christ incorporates all those who
are saved, lifting them up to the state of His humanity, through the energy of the
grace which He transmits from Himself, salvation cannot be obtained in isolation.
Salvation is obtained only in the Church, in the body of those gathered together in
Christ. It is the field of action of the energy of the grace which springs forth from
Christ, that is, of the Holy Spirit who dwells fully in the risen humanity of Christ, and
from this humanity He communicates Himself to us.961

Hence, for Stniloae, the state of salvation, which started in the human nature of Christ and is
then accomplished in the constitution of the Church, is equivalent to membership in the
Church, to the common participation in the body of Christ. This is based on the principle of
Christs extension in each believer through the Holy Spirit.962 In a word, as an extension of
the incarnation, the Church is constituted by a trinitarian act in which the works of the Son
and the Spirit are inseparable and human persons can obtain their salvation.

2.3 Summary
In summary, for Stniloae, pneumatology is fundamental in understanding the world and the
Church, and a gateway to the Christological and trinitarian mystery. Instead of a theology of
the Spirit, Stniloae develops a theology in the Spirit. Although we have seen that Stniloaes
teaching on the Trinity is largely Christological, there is also a noticeable pneumatological
character in a way that the doctrine of the Trinity is related to the theme of deification.
For Stniloae, the role of the Spirit in uniting the Logos to the humanity of Jesus is paralleled
by the role of the Spirit in uniting Christ to humankind. That only Christ could bring
redemption, and with it a new creation, is a major preoccupation of Stniloae. But even
Christ could not bring this redemption to creation and into the hearts of believers, except
through the Spirit, through whom Christ binds humankind to Himself. As the unique source
of relationship with God and salvation, the Spirit is also the unique means of union. In this
sense, pneumatology fulfils a mediating function. The Spirit is understood as the sole
possibility of entrance into the trinitarian mystery. In elaborating a theology in the Spirit,
Stniloae intended to demonstrate that the knowledge of God is a knowledge from within. 963

961
D. Stniloae. Sintez Eclesiologic, ST 5-6 (1955), p. 267. Cf. Cyprian, Epistola 73 ad Iubaianum, n. 21
(PL 3, 1123B), who formulated the formula: salus extra ecclesiam non est.
962
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 207.
963
Likewise Basil: If we are illuminated by divine power, and fix our eyes on the beauty of the image (Son)
of the invisible God, and through the image are led up to the indescribable beauty of its source (Father), it is
because we have been inseparably joined to the Spirit of knowledge. He gives those who love the vision of
276

Thus the Spirit serves in addition a contact function, giving to pneumatology a hermeneutic
character. Therefore pneumatology becomes in some sense epistemology, and Stniloae
applies emphatically this proportionality in ecclesiology. In a word, the Spirit is not only a
way of knowing Christ, but also a point of entry into the Church.964

3. The theandric constitution of the Church

Although Stniloae understands the Church as the result of divine activity, a free human
response is needed. This view is developed by Stniloae on the basis of the Greek patristic
idea of synergy between divine grace and human freedom, a dynamic co-operation with
salvation in view. As such, the Church exists as the result of this synergy between divine and
human, which also serves as the ground of the theandric constitution of the Church.965
Stniloae begins to develop this significant aspect of ecclesiology with the idea that the
Church is the fulfilment of Gods eternal plan and has a cosmic scope; it is destined to
encompass the union of all existence, God and creation.966 In the Church we have:

... eternity and temporality - the latter being destined to be overwhelmed by eternity;
the uncreated and the created - the latter being destined to be overwhelmed by the
uncreated, to be deified; all things spiritual and matter - the latter being destined for
spiritualization; heaven and earth penetrated by heaven; the non-spatial and the
spatial; you and me, us and me, you and us, united in the divine You, or in the
direct dialogic relationship with Him. The Church is a communal human I in Christ
as You, and at the same time the I of the Church is Christ.967

In order to set an ontologic and personalist framework for further debates, Stniloae becomes
very ambiguous in using new phrases. The idea of the created as overwhelmed (and not

truth the power which enables them to see the image, and this power is Himself. He does not reveal it to them
from outside sources, but leads them to knowledge personally. No one knows the Father except the Son, and
No one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Notice that it does not say through the Spirit, but in
the Spirit...He reveals the glory of the Only-Begotten in Himself, and He gives the true worshipers the
knowledge of God in Himself. The way to divine knowledge ascends from one Spirit through the one Son to
the one Father. Cf. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 18, 47 (The Book of Basil, ed. Johnson, 94-95).
964
Irenaeus spoke also about this when said that the Church is entrusted with the gift of God (Holy Spirit)...
And in the same gift is dispensed the communion of Christ, that is, the Holy Spirit - the earnest of
incorruption, and confirmation of our faith, and the ladder whereby to ascend to God. Irenaeus, Adversus
Haereses 3, 24, 1 (SC 211, 472).
965
Stniloae deliberately does not use the phrase theandric nature in order to avoid the impression that, in
the Church, the divinity and the humanity were united in one nature, in a monophysite sense.
966
O. Clment states that: The Spirit abounds most plentifully in the sacramental body of Christ, but
wherever the Spirit is at work in history and in the universe, the Church is secretly present. Cf. O. Clment,
The Roots of Christian Mysticism, p. 96.
967
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 208.
277

taken up into!) by the uncreated may imply the loss of the identity of the created, while the
definition of the Church as the communal human I is never clearly explained.
It is in this context that Stniloae applies the Pauline metaphor of the Church as the body of
Christ where all things are characterised by unity and diversity.968 As the extension of Christ
in humanity with His deified body, the Church follows a movement of self-transcendence in
which the immanent contains the transcendent and the trinitarian community of persons is
filled with an infinite love towards the world. By taking a human body as the unifying bond
between God and creation, Christs theandric union is passing on a similar theandric
constitution to His Church. That means that the two key factors, Christ and humanity, are
inseparable and interchangeable in the Church.969
In Stniloaes view Christ has a special position in the life of the Church by virtue of the
divine hypostasis decision to assume the human image and, therefore, becoming the head of
the Church.970 As God, Christ is the head of all creation par excellence and, as man, He is the
head of humanity brought together in Him. Hence Christ is the source of divine life and grace,
while the Church is the only reality that stands in unbroken relation to Christ. This is why
Stniloae links the Churchs birth, its life, and its future, with Christs major works:
incarnation, sacrifice, and resurrection.

3.1 The Church founded by Christs incarnation


In Stniloae, the Church is seen as a kenotic mystery that can save through the incarnate
Christ. Being recapitulated in Christ, the Church became the object of Fathers love,
through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. This objective salvation, seen as recapitulation, has in
view Gods dynamic communion with people, that is, the Church, which is necessary for

968
Among the metaphors used by Eastern tradition regarding the nature of the Church we encounter the
image of the Holy Trinity, the people of God, the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the great
mystery of salvation, the Ark of salvation, the inaugurated Kingdom of God, and the communion of saints.
Stniloae prefers the image of the body, for its inclusive and incorporating value and for its eucharistic
implications.
969
Stniloae writes: These two factors, Christ and humanity, are so united in the Church that in the Church
the one cannot be seen without the other and the one cannot be spoken of without the other. One says about
Christ that He is head of the Church, and about the Church that it is the body of Christ. Christ has the same
position of head of the Church, of foundation, and of course of infinite life. Any statement about one
implicates the other and vice versa. Cf. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 209.
970
The idea of recapitulation of humanity, in the context of Christ as the head of the Church, is taken and
developed by Stniloae from Cyril of Alexandria and John Chrysostom. See for example, in Cyril of
Alexandria, Commentarius in Johannem 16:6-7 (PG 74, 422), Glaphyrorum (PG 69, 303, 141AB, 325A,
296A), and in John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Epistulum Primam ad Corinthios 8, 4, 24 (PG 61, 72).
278

acquiring the fruit of redemption.971 Christ became the head, the principle, and the hypostasis
of the risen nature that is His body, the Church, in order to draw all believers into Himself.
Thus in incarnation, by assuming the ripeness of our nature, Christ set up the first
foundation, while in His death and resurrection, the assumed body became the complete
foundation of the Church. In turn, human persons are considered equal heads by grace and
under their head - Jesus Christ.972 Having Christ as its head and being constituted in the
Church, humanity has the supreme transcendence in the intimate relation with itself, and it
can even transcend itself, being assisted by Christs hypostasis.
Referring to the implications of Chalcedonian Christology, Stniloae affirms that the above
possibility was conceivable because a certain conformity between God and humanity already
existed before the act of incarnation. On the other hand, the Churchs life is based on divine
life and glory that are seen in the quality of its believers as adopted sons. This state of
adoption is obtained through the way of transcendence, beyond natural and finite life, in the
light of Gods infinite life, in the intimacy of filial relationship with Him,973 and it implies the
inevitable process of deification. The existing relationship between Christ and the Church
creates a kind of living space for humanity to share the communion and experience of filial
sensitivity. Indeed, believers can partake of the most intimate communion with God, which
consists not only in seeing, but also in sharing in the glory of the Son. And because He is
organically linked with the body, His glory overflows the whole body.974
In conclusion, the incarnation of Christ is the beginning of union between God and humanity,
following the union of natures in Christs hypostasis. Therefore the Church is an existence of
two natures, two wills, two operations, simultaneously inseparable and distinct, which confer
on it a Christological structure. This Christological configuration determines from the
beginning the necessary and permanent action of the Holy Spirit in the Church, an action that
functions through the theandric relation between the Church and Christ. The Churchs
theandrism emerges then as a fundamental phenomenon that is integrated in the relationship
already existing between the two natures in Christ, as the extension at the human level of the
perfect correlation between the divine and the human in Christ. Hence due to the theandric

971
D. Stniloae, The Experience of God, p. 76. Similar ideas are found in Maximus. Cf. G. Berthold, The
Church as Mysterion: Diversity and Unity according to Maximus Confessor, Patristic Byzantine Review 6
(1987), pp. 20-29.
972
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 217.
973
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 218.
974
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 218.
279

constitution of the Church, we may conclude that the deification of believers was made
possible. Indeed, the incarnation of the Logos became the foundation of salvation and the
beginning of the Church, extending the life of its head, Christ, into a humanity recapitulated
and renewed.

3.2 The Church stamped by Christs sacrifice


One consequence of this relationship between Christ and the Church is the spirit of sacrifice,
which is undoubtedly an axial thought in Stniloaes theology. Christs sacrifice offers both
objective redemption and subjective participation to the consequences of redemption.
Furthermore, Christs sacrifice implies the Churchs sacrifice through the Spirit. In virtue of
the fact that Christs humanity actively co-operated with His divinity and thus provided the
basis for human salvation, similarly, human persons may become participators in the life of
God. Stniloae argues:

Only in this way was the nature assumed by Him able to enjoy all the transcendence
of its very self in God, which the divine hypostasis in which it was assumed was able
to offer it, and only in so doing can we also, from the power concentrated in it,
thanks also to its effort, be raised up in a real way towards participation in that
which Christ the Head can procure for us: the infinity of divine life and freedom in
it.975

The act of the incarnation definitely established Christs position as head of humanity for
salvation, but this does not exclude human natures effort in the process of salvation.
Stniloae applies here the principle of sacrifice which all true believers are expected to share
in as a preliminary basis for entering into the presence of God in heaven.976 By gaining entry
into this state of sacrifice in Christ, the faithful enter into a complete and sanctifying openness
to God the Father that takes place in the ambience and the community of the Church.
Stniloae explains:

We are only received [by the Father] in a state of sacrifice, of our surrendering [to
Him], by breaking out of egoism. But we only arrive at this state of pure perfect gift
(1) with the imprint of Christ's sacrifice in us, in order to die both to ourselves and to
the world as Christ died, and (2) from the power of the sacrifice of Christ.977

975
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 219-220.
976
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 220. Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyrorum (PG
545D, 549-552, 553C), and Adoratio in Spiritu et Veritate11 (PG 68, 736, 748); 2 Cor. 2:15.
977
D. Stniloae, Liturghia Comunitii i Jertfa Interioar n Viziunea Filocalic, Ortodoxia 30 (1978), p.
397.
280

In other words, says Stniloae, the Father opens the way to Himself in love as the objective
side of this relationship, while the believers response in purity and freedom secures its
subjective side. All members of the Church, being in union with Christs state of sacrifice,
offer this sacrifice from the power of Christ and together with Christ in the Church. The
Church has the Holy Spirit as an animating soul, yet the sacrifice is offered to the Father in
a transcending movement towards this ultimate personal source of its existence, of unending
life and love, because He is the source of the other two divine Persons and of the will to
create and save the world.978 In this way the whole Church shares the specific relationships
of the infinite love that marks trinitarian life.
Accordingly, Stniloae defines the Church as a community of love immersed in the infinite
relationships of trinitarian love.979 For all those who are united with Christ in the Church, the
activity of the Holy Spirit is seen as leading them into Christs state of sacrifice. The
believers responses are called by Stniloae the sacrifice of the virtues, an accurate sign of
their unlimited openness towards God and their neighbours, through love of Christ and in the
Church.

[Love] irradiates like a magnetic power from the sacrifice of Christ, drawing us to
our own sacrifice. Thus our self-sacrifice is filled with the self-sacrifice of Christ...
Our sacrifice consists essentially in renunciation of ourselves in order to enter into
loving relation with the infinite God.980

That is, in the Church we participate in the sacrifice of Christ through our personal sacrifice
and, alternatively, Christ participates in our sacrifice in virtue of His grace.981 Stniloae
explains then that Christ, in His priesthood, presents His own humanity as sacrifice and the
Church as the mystical body. Christs surrender is passive and active, becoming as such a
model for believers lifestyles. For Stniloae, therefore the Church's sacrifice is accomplished
in the power offered from Christ in the Holy Spirit. In this way, the process of deification
continues, for the faithful earn the privilege of participation in the life of the Trinity as the
result of Christs sacrifice extended into the Church.

3.3 The Church pneumatized by the Spirit of the risen Christ

978
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 221.
979
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 221.
980
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 232-234.
981
D. Stniloae, Spiritualitatea Ortodox, p. 44.
281

Operating with the categories of the Eastern Fathers, Stniloae understands that the Church is
always in movement.982 Hence the Holy Spirit continuously leads the Churchs members
towards resurrection through their self-sacrifice. In practical terms, Christs resurrection and
ascension enabled Him to extend Himself through His Spirit and with His body in those who
put their trust in Him. In this way, from being a virtual head, Christ becomes the Churchs
actual head. The resurrection is the starting point for the Churchs extension in the world, in
the power of the Spirit. Moreover, the Church has the virtuality of resurrection permeating
not only into the personal body of Christ resident in the Church, but also in the being of those
who constitute it as His mysterious body.983 The soul of the believers are filled with the
power of Christs Spirit. In this eschatological context, Stniloae confidently states that the
Church is the laboratory of resurrection, the place where the believers advance towards
resurrection, and towards a certain level of pneumatization. Accordingly, believers are
destined for deification:

The first fruits of this consists in the beginning of their pneumatization, which does
not grow without the Cross, or without the Spirit; in the beginning of the realisation
of a transparency through which they see the infinite life of Christ and partially share
in it. This comes to them from the risen body of the Saviour, thus pneumatized and
subjectivized to the highest degree, and from the relation with Christ which has
reached great intensity thanks to this pneumatization and accentuated
subjectivization of their body.984

In other words, the resurrection became the source of spiritual life for the Church, and
holiness is seen as the key attribute for salvation. Because Christ is the source of holiness,
having deified the assumed humanity, the Church is dependent on union with Him. Christs
holiness is then communicated by the Spirit to the faithful united to Christs deified humanity.
Scripture asserts that Christ indwells the Church, and so the Church is considered both holy
and capable of granting holiness as the source of grace in the world. However, Stniloae
insists that the Church still has a responsibility to pray for holiness.985 Moreover, holiness is
understood by Stniloae as relational, that is, related to the Church as communion and being
opposed to individualism.986 This fact explains why the leitmotif of laboratory is present

982
Cf. Maximus ever-moving immobility.
983
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 225.
984
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 227-228.
985
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 271-274.
986
It is not indifference towards men, but is one with enthusiasm for brotherhood, one with fervent love for
humanity in God, one with sincerity and openness, with communication, with sacrificial generosity and with
282

again in Stniloaes thought, this time being applied in an ecclesiological context, to the
communitarian life of the Church for mans deification, and including the practice of the
virtues.

The Church is the laboratory in which Christs Spirit makes us holy or, more fully,
makes us images of Christ, in whom is concentrated as in a person the holiness and
love of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit does this, maintaining in us at the same
time an active concern for holiness. The Church is primarily occupied with the
sanctification of its members, because only in this way is one saved.987

As a process, holiness begins for the individual at baptism, involving the believers activity on
the basis of the principle of synergy. Thus holiness is regarded as a calling that points towards
eschatological perfection. Although the Church as an entirety is holy, individual believers are
called to progress and to assist one another in the process of deification.988.

3.4 Summary
In summary, for Stniloae, the Church is the communitary life that is appropriate to the
persons of the Holy Trinity and extended to humanity.989 The Church is the result of Christs
salvific work, or the extension of His incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension. It is
through the person of Christ that the divine life came to the Church. That is, as the dynamic
prolongation of Christs incarnation, the Church is destined to be extended into the entire
humanity encompassed by Him. Further, in His kenosis, Christ accomplished the hypostatic
formation of the Church by recapitulating in Himself creation and humanity. The Church
extends and transmits in humanity the sacrifice of Christ in a mysterious but real way.
Emphasising the link between the Holy Spirit and the cross,990 Stniloae admits that the
Pentecost was truly anticipated in humanity on the cross, and the life of the risen Christ was
extended in the Church by the irradiation of divine energies.
Therefore, claims Stniloae, the Church is maintained and realised in the divine plan by being
nourished from Christs holiness, deification and resurrection. Furthermore, as the head of

purity of the intentions and acts directed towards every man. D. Stniloae, Criteriile prezenei Sfntului
Duh, ST 3-4 (1967), p. 127.
987
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 275.
988
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 276-281.
989
This is why Origen declares that the Church is filled with Trinity. Cf. Origen, Selecta in Psalmos 23.1
(PG 12, 1265). For a development of the intra-trinitarian basis of the Church, see D. Stniloae, Sintez
Ecleziologic, ST 5-6 (1955), pp. 270-273.
990
See also J.V. Taylor, The Go-Between God. The Holy Spirit and the Christian Mission (London: SCM
Press, 1972).
283

His Church, Christ continues to exercise His threefold office in the life of the Church.
Stniloae develops the point:

In this threefold service He does not treat the Church as an object, but addresses it
as a free partner, called to freedom and to loving relation with Him. This is because
the Church is made up of persons endowed with freedom and called to freedom and
everlasting love. As partner, the Church on the one hand receives His teaching,
sacrifice, and guidance, and on the other responds to them in a free and positive way
as to a call; itself teaching, offering sacrifice, and guiding; or participating in His
ministry as Teacher, Priest, and King. Through the continuation of His threefold
ministry in the Church, Christ maintains with the Church and with each of its
members a deepening dialogue in which neither He nor the Church nor any of its
members are passive.991

The relationship between Christ and the Church, being so intimate, creates a kind of
perichoresis or reciprocal interiority analogous to the one existing between the two natures of
Christ. For Stniloae, the principle of the hypostatic union in Christ has become the basis of
the theandric constitution of the Church in communion with the Trinity.992 On their side,
believers must strive to grow in grace, sharing Christs state of sacrifice that leads to
resurrection, and being part of a gradual pneumatization that will reach its term in the state of
final theosis.

4. General conclusions

In order to understand the pneumato-ecclesiological aspect of deification, we need to recall


some general observations regarding the theological positions in East and West. The
epistemological, anthropological, and Christological aspects of deification reveal the fact that
East and West represent two different theological systems that involve two different modes of
understanding of Christian realities and the Church.993 Accordingly, working in a mystical
framework, the Orthodox tradition understands the Church as the coming of eternity into

991
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 230.
992
Another dimension of the theandric constitution of the Church is the Church's four traditional marks, or
properties, found in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, where the Church is defined as one, holy, catholic,
and apostolic. In the Western theological tradition, these marks have generally been reflected upon in the
context of apologetics. Theologians attempted to demonstrate the identity of the true Church by determining
which Christian communion possessed these four properties. Although Stniloae is convinced that only the
Orthodox Church fully possesses these four marks, demonstrating this is not his primary concern. Rather, he
reflects on each of the four properties as a means of further elucidating the role of the divine and human in the
mystery of the Church.
284

time, an icon or manifestation of the Trinity, Christs mysterium, or His theophany. In the
West, although the Church is considered a mystical reality of life with God, by Christ, and in
the Holy Spirit, the emphasis is put more on the historical and institutional aspects.
Consequently, in the East the principle of unity of the Church finds its deepest foundation in
the idea of communion, while in the West it is based more on authority.994
As a result, when we turn to detailed ecclesiology, Orthodox theologians, in defining the
nature of the Church, consistently avoid any connection to the categories of the juridical,
institutional or social order, concepts considered worldly.995 In order to prevent secular
influences - and hence running the risk of being exposed to institutionalism and weakening its
mystical distinction - the Eastern theologians declare firmly that the Church should be
basically defined in a spiritual setting. Therefore in the East, the Church is grasped as an
organism, a living solidarity, the mystical body of Christ, marked by mutual love under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit.996 On that account, the Orthodox are hesitant to give form to a
system of ecclesiology. They did not attempt to delve into the question of the nature of the
Church, because the Church is her own life.997
Not that the Church is a purely spiritual, invisible reality. Although the Church is primarily a
fellowship of faith and love, nevertheless its unity is visibly expressed in prayer, the mysteries,
and the liturgy.998 The heavenly essence of the Church is linked with earthly forms and with
them forms a symbol. Thus the Church is not regarded as still on its pilgrimage, as in the
West, but as already living eschatologically the new life of Christ in glory.999 The life of the
Church cannot be reduced to a hierocratic institution or an event, for the Church is the

993
The formal separation of East and West in 1054 had much earlier roots, in the cultural divergences and
different emphasis in philosophical and theological culture, and was not completed until much later.
994
In many cases these various theological articulations can be considered as mutually complementary rather
then conflicting.
995
Although, like the Roman Church, the Orthodox Church possesses its episcopal hierarchy and traditions of
canon law.
996
As Bulgakov writes: The Church of Christ is not an institution; it is a new life with Christ and in Christ,
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. S. Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, p. 1.
997
Cf. N. Nissiotis, The Main Ecclesiological Problem of The Second Vatican Council and the Position of
the Non-Roman Churches Facing It, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 2 (1965), p. 38.
998
Cf. G. Florovsky, The Holy Spirit in Revelation, The Christian East 2 (1932), pp. 49-64.
999
It is another reason why such saints of the Church, as Symeon the New Theologian or Seraphim of Sarov,
Nectarius of Aegina or Father John of Kronstadt, witness to the ever-continuing free action of the Holy Spirit
in the Byzantine and recent history of the Orthodox Church. C.N. Tsirpanlis, Introduction to Eastern
Patristic Thought and Orthodox Theology (Collegeville, Minn.: A Michael Glazier Book, The Liturgical
Press, 1991), p. 88. Symeon the New Theologian, for example, declares that the Church, as the mystical body
of Christ, continues in every age to obtain the same spiritual charismata as in ancient times, and that all those
who refuse the possibility of deification for every man, in all ages, are heretics. For a critical edition of the
Catechetical Sermons, see B. Krivocheine (ed.), Catcheses et Actions de Graces I-III (SC 96, 104, 113).
285

spiritual koinonia, communion in God and with God, the Mystery of mysteries, the holy
eucharist, the mysterious body of Christ.1000 The Christian East, therefore sees the Churchs
mission in direct and vital connection with the Holy Spirit. Theosis means, in this context, to
emphasise spirituality as a call to perfection and holiness, to the conscious and personal
experience of the Holy Spirit, but implies constant striving, growth, and ascent.1001
Stniloaes contribution to the above common characteristics of Orthodox tradition, is on the
special emphasis put on the reality that the mysterious or theandric being of the Church has an
eternal intratrinitarian basis. Divine trinitarian relationships are not just a model for human
relationships in the Church; rather they constitute an interior principle, a power in producing
and penetrating such relationships. Between these two categories of persons, human and
divine, a real union by grace subsists. It follows that, because the eternal foundation of the
Church is reflected from God in human nature, we can also ascertain a natural-human basis of
the Church.1002 In other words, for Stniloae, the Church, as a theandric being, consists in the
encounter between the natural and the supernatural.
In particular, Stniloae follows in some degree the so-called slavophile ecclesiology, which
has been powerfully stated by Russian writers like Khomiakov, Berdyaev, Bulgakov, and
(partially) Florovsky.1003 Stniloae believes that the Church possesses the consciousness that

1000
Meyendorff writes: The Spirit does not suppress the pluralism and variety of creation; nor, more
particularly, does He exclude the truly personal experience of God, accessible to each man; He overcomes
division, contradiction and corruption. He Himself is the symphony of creation, which will be fully realised
in the eschatological fulfilment. The Churchs function is to render this fulfilment accessible by anticipation
through her role of sanctification, effected by the Spirit. J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, p. 174. Also,
acknowledged also as a great liturgist, Nicholas Cabasilas writes about mans re-creation in Christ in a
similar pneumatological framework: He restores life to us not by forming anew a vital principle which He
formerly maintained in the natural order, but by shedding His blood in the hearts of communicants that He
may cause life to spring up in Him. Of old He breathed a breath of life, now He imparts to us His own Spirit.
Nicholas Cabasilas, De Vita in Christo IV (PG 150, 617AB).
1001
However, the Western Church holds that Orthodox ecclesiology does not lay sufficient stress on the
human side of ecclesiastical reality, on the ambient factors proper to the Church militant and terrestrial, that
require specific actions. This lack of realism somehow disregards the concrete earthly realization of the
Church. It is true that the Holy Spirit has been given, but we cannot say that the Church experiences the full
effect of the Spirit. Therefore, insists Western tradition, the two elements of the immanence of Christ in the
Church by the Spirit and the transcendence of Christ to His Church as Lord, must be held simultaneously. The
Church is both the mystical body of Christ and an institutional reality.
1002
Some Orthodox theologians (Lossky, Bulgakov) already suggested that the history of the world is a history
of the Church, as its mystical foundation.
1003
According to this teaching, because the Church is life in Christ under the guidance of the Spirit, the
authority of the Church holds an inward character, for it belongs to the whole Church. Deriving its meaning
from the Russian word sobor (council, or gathering of the Church), the ecclesiology of sobornost (that is,
conciliarity) gives a dynamic image of the Church, indicating the Churchs superconscious in which it knows
that it is full of the Spirit and truth. As result, authority is perceived inside the Church as a whole, its
conciliarity being superior in decisions over doctrinal statements. The ecclesiology of sobornost is more a
reaction to the influence of Western culture (the so-called Western captivity following after the fall of
286

authority comes from the Holy Spirit, which is in it, and is conveyed by conciliarity
(sobornost). As such, sobornost forms the ontological constitution of the Church.1004 The
Holy Spirit is the power of cohesion in the community, and the constitutive force of the
whole body. He binds men to one another and creates in each an awareness of belonging to
all the rest. It is this, writes Stniloae, which gives the Church the nature of a whole, and
from all its parts forms one single unity, thereby giving it the character of sobornicity that
translates the Greek word for this notion of wholeness: catholicity.1005 Further, sobornicity is
a certain kind of unity, and to clarify this, Stniloae develops the idea of sobornicity as
communion in the following words:

The unity of communion is the sole unity which conforms to the dignity of the
persons involved in the union. It is the sole unity which does not subordinate one
person to another, or in which the institution is not conceived as something external
to or superior to and repressive of the persons involved in it. In the unity of
communion persons are united in equality and the institution is the expression of
their communion. In the unity of communion structures are communities of persons
with identical ministries.1006

In fact, the above statement expresses again the mystery of the Church as organism. To
explain the ontological structure of the Church, Stniloae finds support in the Greek Fathers
and also in the writings of Martin Buber. Echoing Basil the Great, Stniloae defines the Spirit
as the spiritual milieu in which all are brought together, the life-giving fluid or place, an

Constantinople in 1453) which had debased the Christian idea of brotherly love and the wholeness of life. As
a conciliar model, it tries to solve the tension between institution and the Spirit, and to avoid both Catholic
over-institutionalized and Protestant over-democratized ecclesiologies. Stniloae does not argue powerfully in
favour of eucharistic ecclesiology (generally associated with Afanassieff and Zizioulas) because of its
residual individualism and eschatological insufficiency. For different debates on the subject, see: N.
Afanassieff, The Church which Presides in Love, in J. Meyendorff (ed.), The Primacy of Peter. Essays in
Ecclesiology and the Early Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1992), pp. 91-143; G. Baillargeon,
Perspectives Orthodoxes sur Lglise Communion. Loeuvre de Jean Zizioulas (Montreal and Paris: ditions
Paulines and Mdiaspaul, 1989); I. Bria, Living in the One Tradition, ER 26.2 (1974), pp. 224-233; G.
Florovsky, Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church, in E.L. Mascall (ed.), The Church of God (London:
SPCK, 1934); A.S. Khomiakov, The Church is One (Seattle: St. Nectarios Press, 1979); A. Nichols, Light
from the East. Authors and Themes in Orthodox Theology (London: Sheed & Ward, 1995), pp. 114-128, and
Theology in The Russian Diaspora. Church, Fathers, Eucharist in Nikolai Afanasev (1893-1966)
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 17-24, 135-162; P.P. OLeary, The Triune Church. A
Study in the Ecclesiology of A.S. Khomjakov (Dublin, 1982); J.S. Romanides, Orthodox Ecclesiology
according to Alexis Khomiakov (1804-1860), GOTR 2 (1956-1957), pp. 57-73; D. Stniloae, Biserica
Universal i Soborniceasc, Ortodoxia 2 (1966), pp. 172-173.
1004
For a developed tratement of sobornost in Stniloae, see the article, The Holy Spirit and the Sobornicity
of the Church, in Theology and the Church, pp. 45-71.
1005
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 54.
1006
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 57.
287

atmosphere in and from which all who make up the Church live and move spiritually.1007 On
the other hand, for Buber, the ontic element is found not in the two existents but between
them. In the dialogue between two there is a third which transcends both the individual and
the social, both the subjective and the objective. The Holy Spirit assures the living relation
because He is the person between the two. Thus in the Spirit we find a position between
ourselves and the other, for He is the mid-point between us, the milieu in which we really
transcend both the one and the other. These suppositions provide the ground for communion
with God and with other humans. Stniloae concludes:

Orthodoxy therefore does not explain the Church from an exclusively Christological
point of view: the Church is the Body of Christ only because the same Spirit of the
Son has united all her members in Christ as His brothers and as brothers among
themselves, and by so doing has brought them all together within one filial relation
to the Father.1008

However, the Christological basis remains indispensable to understanding the communitary


character of the Church. This is why Stniloae asserts actual salvation as taking place when
Christ dwells in the believers with His pneumatized body. In principle, this residence actually
produces the Church. Therefore states Stniloae, the salvific work of Christ could not be
accomplished outside the Church.1009 Both as a divine institution and as the organism of all
those gathered together in Christ, the Church has a necessary role in sanctifying and deifying
the life of its members. The Church is the action field of divine energies shining forth from
Christ, that is, the action field of the Holy Spirit. We are facing here another paradox:
although Christs personal humanity is permanently in the state of resurrection, the Church, as
the social extension of the risen Christ, is for the time being only mysteriously engaged in the
process of resurrection, by anticipation. In one sense, deduces Stniloae, the Church is
unfolded between these states.
Further, the Church recapitulates the route of Christ, that is, in a very mysterious way, Christ
Himself is repeating this route in, for, and with human beings. In very controversial phrases,
Stniloae defines the Church as the social, or the communitarian Christ, achieving the
route of the personal Christ together with the personal Christ. In practice, this means that
man is saved in union with Christ by reiterating the way of Christ through the holy mysteries.

1007
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 61. For Basil the Great, see De Spiritu Sancto 26 (PG 32,
181C), and In Epistola I ad Corinthios Homilia 31.3 (PG 61, 260-261).
1008
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, pp.63-64.
1009
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 196.
288

However, this recapitulation is possible only within the ambience of the Church where the
Spirit of Christ works by grace. In this way, on the other hand, Christs divine life is offered
personally through the holy mysteries, as particular acts, in the Church; on the other hand, the
body of Christ, that is the Church, is nourished through the mysteries. Consequently, the
Church has both an objective, divine aspect, that does not depend on people, being given
from above, and a subjective, human, aspect. However, the inter-human relationships are
essentially part of the Churchs composition.
By virtue of the process of deification, there is both solidarity and continuity between the
earthly and the heavenly Church. In spite of the fact that Orthodox tradition highlights the
communitarian character of the Church, Stniloae firmly strives to defend also its institutional
character, because Christ is the founder of institutions like family and the Church, yet He does
not cease to remain a person. This is the reason why the principle of communion is central to
Stniloae's understanding of the function of ordained ministry in fostering the Church's unity.
All ordained ministers in the Church are bound by it, and no one outside this communion can
function as a minister of the Church:

A person who is not in communion with other persons who have been given the
same ministry by God cannot fulfil any sanctifying action including therefore actions
of pastoral illumination and leadership, in the Church. No one in the Church can put
himself outside the law of communion.1010

Consequently, Stniloae's theology of ministry is developed on the basis of his ecclesiology of


communion and the patristic principle of synergy. In this model, the Church actively and
freely responds to and participates in Christ's saving activity in the power of the Holy Spirit,
truly teaching, offering sacrifice, and leading believers to salvation.1011 The ordained ministry

1010
D. Stniloae, Temeiurile Teologice ale Ierarhiei, ST 22 (1970), p. 169. This is a natural corollary of
Stniloae's understanding of the Church as a reflection of the communion of the Trinity in the world, and
underlies his assertion that Christ left a communion of bishops, for the guidance of the Church rather than a
single apostle and his successors. Just as the communion within the Trinity is the mode of its unity, so
communion is the mode of the unity of the Church. Consequently, every bishop must be integrated both into
the life of his local church and into the communion of the episcopate. Even the personal salvation of the
bishop is dependent upon his link with the community of the Church, as it is for all Christians.
1011
This unity is also manifested in the Church by unity in mysteries, dogma, and hierarchy that are closely
related. Stniloae writes: Because dogmas are the expression of the experience of the integral saving power
of Christ present in the fullness of His activity in the Church, the unity of the Church also consists of its unity
in mysteries and in its being invested with a unitary hierarchy which celebrates all the mysteries without
differences, and preaches the same dogmatic faith. Consequently, the one Church possesses unity in these
three areas: But in dogmas, in mysteries, in the hierarchy which preaches the dogmas and celebrates the
mysteries, the Church is one. Only a Church one in dogma, in mysteries, in hierarchical organization and
communion, is a Church truly unitary and only the Church which keeps these three undiminished is the one
289

gives cohesion and unity to the ministry of the faithful, and represents the community before
God and God before the community.1012
In conclusion, Stniloae tries to maintain the unity between the economic ecclesiology, in
which the Church reveals itself in its relationships with the economy of salvation as the work
of Christ and the Holy Spirit, and the ontological ecclesiology. This ontological-functional
inclusion of the Church in the economy of salvation shows the relations existent between the
Church and the plane of deification. The Church coincides with the plane of salvation in
Christ and with the period destined for deification, thus revealing the nature and the function
of the Church. In the Church, therefore, we have the ontological and existential consequences
of this economy.

Church. Cf. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 265-266. Similar remarks are found in
Autoritatea Bisericii, pp. 203-204, and in Sintez Ecleziologic, p. 281.
1012
This finds its highest expression in the communion, or synodality, of the episcopal college. The episcopate
is both the highest expression of the Church as communion, and the most perfect image to the Church of the
Trinity as communion of divine persons. Florovsky writes: Every local church therefore finds its center and
its unity in the bishop, not so much because he is its local head and pastor, but because through him it is
included in the mysterious sobornost (catholicity) of the Church-body for all times. Cf. G. Florovsky, The
Sacrament of Pentecost, in Creation and Redemption, p. 191.
290

CHAPTER VIII. THE PNEUMATO-ECCLESIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF


DEIFICATION: DEIFICATION BY GRACE

Introduction
Stniloae affirms that the resurrection is not a simple addendum to Christs work on the
cross, but both the resurrection and the ascension pertain to the completion of our salvation.
In transforming and glorifying Christs person, the resurrection constitutes Christ as life-
giving spirit and inaugurates the new age, the age of the Spirit, the age of the already and the
not yet. For Stniloae, the whole mystery of salvation resides in this connection between the
historical departure of Jesus and the subsequent arrival of the Spirit. We shall see how, in
Stniloaes view, the Holy Spirit is the power of the possibility of new life. In other words,
Christs incarnation, sacrifice, resurrection and ascension may have made salvation and
deification possible, but the Spirit is the power of this possibility.1013 The work of salvation
realised on the objective plane by Christs person and work, is then accomplished in the soul
of man, or is applied on the subjective plane, through the sanctification worked out by the
Spirit.
Accordingly, Stniloae speaks of the subjective work of salvation in response to the question
of how we have access to Christs work.1014 If the incarnation was the basis of salvation and
the cross its accomplishment, and if we make a transition via the resurrection and ascension of
Christ, then the cornerstone with regard to the application of salvation is Pentecost. It is
thanks to Pentecost that we can participate in Christs salvific work and its benefits: the birth
of the Church and the transition to the new covenant. This is the context in which Stniloae
elaborates his understanding of personal appropriation of salvation and deification, as the
product of divine grace and human freedom.

1013
Some modern theologians speak of the cross and the resurrection as representing new possibilities for
human existence. But what are the conditions for new life? Is representing it in story or symbol form enough?
Is it enough simply to imagine the possibility of new life? This seems to be the idea of Bultmann, Tillich,
Ricoeur, according to whom faith means changing your self-understanding, viewing your life in the light of
new possibilities. Stniloaes emphasis on the objective value of Christs resurrection, for example, stress its
cosmic scope and, consequently, the biblical idea of a new creation.
1014
Some call this the appropriation of salvation, others the application of salvation, while Calvin, in book III
of the Institutes, speaks of participation, which is a fundamentally patristic concept!
291

Methodologically, this chapter will study in its first part the work of grace and its personal
appropriation, with the emphasis put on the role of the Holy Spirit and His uncreated energies
and gifts. The second part of the chapter is dedicated to the exploration of the doctrine of
deification and justification, revealing the process of sanctification in the faithful. The last part
will prospect the strategic themes of the pneumato-ecclesiological aspect of deification, based
on the relations between Christ and the Spirit in the economy of salvation, nature and grace,
and justification and sanctification.

1. Deification by grace and its personal appropriation

1.1 The work of grace and the state of grace


In Stniloaes view, the work of the Holy Spirit of God in the Church is particularly identified
with divine grace. As the one who irradiates from Christ, the Holy Spirit is the sanctifying and
unifying power in the Church, so that the general salvific work of Christs Spirit in the
Church is accomplished through divine grace.1015 The nature of grace then is not disjoined
from God but in direct communion with Christ in the Spirit. Stniloae establishes that the role
of the Spirit in the economy of salvation was made manifest at Pentecost, when no
incarnation of the hypostasis of the Spirit or communication of the essence of God took
place. Afterwards, the work of the Spirit or the operation of grace was achieved through
divine uncreated energies and through divine gifts, having in view that special state of grace
in which a genuine dialogue with Christ becomes possible. Again, Stniloaes basic triad of
essence-hypostases-energies is re-encountered as the unifying theme of his theological
approach.

1.1.1 The work of grace and uncreated energies


Pivotal for Stniloae is that the purpose of sending the Spirit into the world as uncreated
energy was mans virtual deification.1016 The actual presence of the Spirits uncreated energies
was recorded right from the beginning of the Church, when although the Spirit was sent

1015
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 303.
1016
We remember that Stniloae gives two senses to the Greek term energeia: that of operation and energy.
Due to the principle that there is no operation without operator, we need to understand energeia as both
actualized energy of the Spirit (that is, operation), and the energy which is impressed into the being of that
person in whom the Spirit works. See also the analysis of distinction energeia-energema given by Kallistos
Ware in God Hidden and Revealed: The Apophatic Way and the Essence-Energies Distinction, pp. 125-
136, and The Debate about Palamism, pp. 45-63.
292

within time by the Son, His manifestation was considered as eternal.1017 Although it it is a
common work of the Trinity, grace is primarily the deifying energy of the Holy Spirit.
To exemplify the personalist framework of deification by grace, besides the specific Palamite
ideas,1018 Stniloae also appeals to Gregory of Cyprus. The reason is that Gregory offers a
much more dynamic meaning to the shining forth of the Spirit through the Son, not as
hypostasis, but as the one who enhypostatizes the energies.1019 The shining forth of the Spirit
through the Son is the expression of a personal relation, or a direct bipersonal relation.
Receiving the Spirit in Christ, and because they are not divine hypostases, the believers
share only partially in the energy of the Spirit. Consequently, says Stniloae, we do not
possess the Spirit in his hypostatic fullness, but only as much as we can obtain and as
corresponds to the person of each of us.1020 In associating the doctrine of grace with the
doctrine of uncreated energy, Stniloae writes:

Taking these sayings as a foundation - and the doctrine of the Spirit who proceeds
from the Father and shines forth through the Son, so that simultaneously the Son
shines forth in the light of the Spirit -, the Fathers regarded the Holy Spirit as the
person who brings into souls divine energy, which becomes in them the capacity for
knowing God and loving Him.1021

The phrase who brings into souls divine energy is fundamental in underlining the twofold
role of the Holy Spirit: to illuminate the Son and permeate our consciousness for knowing

1017
D. Stniloae, The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and His Relation to the Son, as the Basis
of our Deification and Adoption, in Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ. Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque
Controversy, Faith and Order Paper, No. 103 (London: SPCK and Geneva: WCC, 1981), p. 178.
1018
For a more detailed presentation on Palamas, see our chapter on the epistemological basis of deification.
On this subject, Palamas writes: The grace is therefore uncreated and it is what the Son gives, sends and
grants to His disciples; it is not the Spirit Himself, but a deifying gift which is an energy that is not only
uncreated, but also inseparable from the Holy Spirit. Gregory Palamas, Triads 3.8.
1019
D. Stniloae, The Procession of the Holy Spirit, p. 184, and Theology and the Church, pp. 16-29. For
Gregory of Cyprus, see Expositio Fidei Contra Veccum 3 (PG 142, 239D-240C, 242BC). Other relevant
works on Gregory of Cyprus are: A. Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium: The Filioque Controversy in the
Patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283-1289) (New York: Fordham Press, 1982); and M.A. Orphanos,
The Procession of the Holy Spirit according to certain Greek Fathers, Theologia 50 (1979), pp. 763-778.
1020
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 27.
1021
D. Stniloae, The Holy Spirit in the Theology and Life of the Orthodox Church, Sobornost 7.1 (1975),
p. 5. Again, the Spirit brings into the very depths of man the divine energy which makes us one in the Son
and makes us sharers in the relationship of the Son to the Father (p. 15). This idea is explained by Paul
Evdokimov as follows: During the first eight centuries, we witness the Christological cycle which in the
ninth century gives place to the pneumatological cycle. This latter, by way of hesychasm, reaches its highest
point in the fourteenth century and finds its dogmatic support in the doctrine of St. Gregory Palamas and the
definitions of the Synods of Constantinople. The saying of the Fathers: God became man so that man might
become god, postulates the deification of the human being as the goal of the economy of salvation. This
idea gains decisively in depth in the light of the theology of the Holy Spirit and of the doctrine of the divine
energies. Cf. P. Evdokimov, Le Saint-Esprit dans la Tradition Orthodoxe (Paris, 1970), p. 70.
293

God. Stniloae calls it the consciousness of sonship, which appears to us as the


awareness of our own individual selves, of the Spirit, and of the Son.1022 Moreover, the
Spirit was made accessible to us by the Son, and, in turn, the Spirit makes the Son accessible
1023
in His divine interiority. Consequently, being united with Christ, the faithful are also
raised up in the Son, becoming filial dwellings for the Spirit. This new language and
conception in Stniloaes pneumatological approach reveals a key perspective, that of
deification as adoption, which completes the multidimensional interpretation of theosis.
Stniloae appeals again to the principle of creation. Stniloae asserts that human nature is
maintained in its normal state through the life-giving Spirit that works closely in a constitutive
relationship with mans life-giving spirit for deification. We recall that, for Eastern
theologians, the divine breathing encompasses the creative act, so mans life-giving spirit is
seen as created and uncreated at the same time. For instance, says Stniloae, as mans spirit is
the bearer of the souls love for his body, likewise the love of the Holy Spirit works in the
spirit of man by irradiating through man, towards the whole man. 1024 In the act of creation,
the Holy Spirit introduced divine energy into the deep recesses of the creature, together with
a sensitiveness to God. That is why only the Spirit can awaken in us the response to the love
and calling of the Father, which the Spirit Himself brings us. Then Stniloae explains:

Indwelling and operation in the human soul are the marks of the Holy Spirit because
the soul is by nature made ready for this action of the Spirit in it. As an expression of
human hypostasis, the soul is an image of the divine Logos and, by the attraction
that it naturally feels towards a personal God and towards human persons, it has had
the Spirit of God within it from the beginning. By weakening this tendency towards
a relationship with the supreme Being and with other human beings, sin has put the
soul in a state contrary to its nature. The indwelling of the Spirit restores and
strengthens the soul in its capacity for relationship with God and with its neighbour;
He thereby restores it to the state which conforms to its own nature - pros to ek
phuseos kallos - as St. Basil the Great says.1025

Described in a classic Orthodox way, mans history is viewed by Stniloae too optimistically,
with a soul inclined to seek God, despite its state of contradiction in relationship with God

1022
D. Stniloae, The Holy Spirit in the Theology and Life of the Orthodox Church, p. 5.
1023
D. Stniloae, The Procession of the Holy Spirit, p. 181. Stniloae develops: The repose of the Spirit
as Treasure, in the Son as Treasurer, shows the special relation between the Spirit and the Son more than the
inseparability between the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the begetting of the Son from the same
Father. The Son is the living, personal, spiritual place of the repose of the Spirit. He is the place where the
Spirit dwells as if at home. He proceeds from the Father with a view to His repose in the Son. The one
cannot be thought of without the other. For Gregory of Cyprus, see PG 142, 242B and 250C.
1024
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, p. 424.
1025
D. Stniloae, The Holy Spirit in the Theology and Life of the Orthodox Church, p. 8.
294

and other humans. In this view, the main role of the Spirit in creation was for the soul to
become transparent to God and God for the soul.1026
Thus Stniloae asserts that, given the combining principles of creation and personalism, the
presence of grace in man has two levels:a power impressed on man, which presence is also
identified with the operation of the Spirit; and a presence fully assimilated and perceived by
man as the operation through his [mans] own operation. This is a particularly Eastern
Orthodox doctrine about grace, declares Stniloae, because it has the quality to establish
man in an unmediated bond with God who works in him.
In conclusion, according to Stniloae, God has decided to reveal Himself and to manifest His
grace towards humanity. Once the second person of the Trinity came to assume human nature
and to restore it, the whole issue of grace receives a Christological and, implicitly, a
pesonalist flavour. Stniloae sees divine grace as having the quality to be that inexhaustible
power coming to us from the infinite divinity placed in the humanity of Christ, to fulfil our
desire for personal, infinite transcendence.1027 In a word, divine grace is understood as an
effective means, a divine uncreated energy poured over us by the Spirit through the deified
humanity of Christ, in order to help human persons in the process of theosis. The results are
seen in mans consciousness of sonship, the souls transparency to God, and an interior power
to continue the process of theosis.

1.1.2 The work of grace and the gifts


The process of deification continues at the ecclesiological level. Here, the Holy Spirit is active
in the life of the Church through His gifts, that lead to the sanctification of the man holding

1026
Echoing Palamas, Stniloae employs the mystical idea of introducing mind to the heart. The so-called
circular movement of mind, towards itself or towards the heart, is not only different, but also follows linear
movement, that is, towards external things. The human mind has to forget all things in order to be able to see
itself and in itself, or beyond itself to experience God. The vision of God through the mind looking on itself,
or beyond itself, is an act of love for God. In this way, the human mind receives transparency from God.
Moreover, the mind that encountered God is not abstract or disassociated from the whole being, but is the
mind in which is concentrated the whole man. God is experienced by the whole man that enjoys pure
relationships with other persons or things. As the centre in which are concentrated the powers and thoughts of
the soul, and the affections of the body, the heart is seen as the meeting place and the mysterious natural
synthesis between body and soul, between the whole man and grace. Stniloae concludes that because all the
essential activities of man are placed in his heart, the mind can contemplate the human subject in its essence
as subject, and through this total and concrete man, it can contemplate God, whose purpose is encounter.
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, p. 429. Palamas is following here Dionysius,On the Divine Names, IV, IX (PG
3, 705AB).
1027
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 304.
295

them.1028 Stniloae speaks about the graces of mysteries (or sacraments) as fundamental
operations performed by the Spirit in all people for their salvation, operations that are
imprinted in them as powers. The Holy Spirit uses these graces to unite man and Christ, a
union that is possible since at the beginning of all gifts there is one grace received through a
mystery [that is, sacrament]. As the result of mans collaboration with grace, different gifts
according to the natural capacities of man emerge, gifts that do not exclude mans
preparation or openness as a basis for a future collaboration between man and grace.1029
Not only does the Holy Spirit impart different gifts in the Church, but He is entirely present
in each of them as energizer and mediator. In this way, the Churchs members are united by
the common feeling that their gifts are part of the whole. The Spirit is present as the unifying
hypostasis in the Church as a whole and in each individual member.1030 In the gift there is
implied not only the operation of the Spirit but also an act of acceptance from man, a
predilection for that gift, and an effort to develop this predilection with the help of the Spirit.
This implies also that something proper to human nature is to be included in the gift. Thus the
divine uncreated operation associates itself with a human operation. For Stniloae this means
that the gift is not merely the energeia of the Spirit, but also the energema (that is, the effect
of the energeia) in human nature (Cf. 1Cor. 12-4-9). In the gift itself (as an effect) there is a
dynamism. Consequently, states Stniloae, the effect is the product of the divine operating
hypostasis and of the human jointly-operating hypostasis. However, Stniloae suggests that
something from the resultant effect remains from time to time even after the collaboration
of man and the operation of the Spirit will cease. In Stniloaes words, there remains
something as imprinted in human nature, or something as surpassing a state to which you will
never come back. His thought and language is obscure. In the end, concludes Stniloae, this
may explain the impossibility of mans returning to the state of original sin, after the fall, or
after ceasing the operation of the Holy Spirit and the collaboration.1031

1.1.3 The state of grace

1028
The Greek Fathers use as almost synonymous the words gifts (doreai), powers (dynameis), energies
(energeiai), and charisms (charismata) - in all cases, uncreated.
1029
For Stniloae, the grace that remains at the beginning of all gifts is the one given through the mystery of
baptism. In this case, the condition of their collaboration with the operation of the Spirit is assured by the
influence received in a Christian family ambience. Cf. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p.
305. Here Stniloae seems to be juxtaposing two things that exist on a very different level: (1) the divine grace
of the baptismal sacrament, and (2) the human/social influence of the family.
1030
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 323-324.
296

The context of creation and ecclesiology, with their motifs of uncreated energies and gifts,
inspires Stniloae to introduce the idea of a transformatory state of grace, in mans
collaboration with the Spirit. Man, states Stniloae, bears within his entire being the active
seal of grace, as Christs seal.1032 As a divine operation, grace also produces an ontological
spiritual condition that can be experienced, as long as the operation of the Spirit of Christ is
active in man. Therefore all the Spirits graces and gifts are also Christs, who deified our
nature and opened the way to hold them as part of our interiority, through the Holy Spirit. In
this way, the operations of the Spirit produce the image of Christ in us by the effect of divine
energies.

Through the Spirit, we enter into a dialogue with Christ, in which we receive the
power and the light of His knowledge, the progressive knowledge of the divine
infinity, established in His accessible humanity. We imitate and receive through the
Spirit those things proper to Christ, in a free dialogue and unceasing progress. We
become hypostases through whom the Hypostasis of the Spirit works and speaks, or
who are capable of speaking with Christ as adopted partners and of receiving
Christs things; or, in other words, the Spirit is interiorizing Himself in all human
subjects who receive Him, making them the partner-hypostases of Christ, in dialogue
with Him; making them a kind of unity of hypostases, because it is the same Spirit as
hypostasis who unites them in speech and work, in dialogue with Christ.1033

Stniloae defines this action as the kenosis of the Spirit where, as in the case of Christs
kenosis, similar principles are applied. Although the Spirit does not possess a human nature,
nothing can stop Him infusing Himself as hypostasis in our hypostases, hence becoming a
kind of hypostasis of our hypostases.1034 In our intimate dialogue with Christ, the Spirit
mediates this dialogue and elevates us to a special, intimate position. Stniloae explains the
relationship between the Spirit and the Christian as follows:

This intimacy between the Spirit and the believer stops the spiritual man from feeling
the Spirit as a You, though any time he says I, he is hearing the Spirit saying in
him, I. His I becomes the I of the Spirit; the I of the Spirit becomes his I in a
perfect union without confusion. There are two interpenetrated Is: the I of the
Spirit imprinted in the I of man in order to develop his I. The powers of the
Spirit, jointly with the powers of Christ, became the powers of man. The Spirit is not

1031
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 329-330.
1032
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 306.
1033
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 307-308.
1034
However, if this is true of the Spirit, why do we need to speak in terms of the divine energies? Is it not
enough to speak of the Holy Spirit as God within us?
297

known in man by the category of You, like Christ, but of I, in order to empower
the I of man, as an I that loves Christ.1035

Further, the Spirit of communion is also the I of the Church, where we found the principle
of interpenetration of all the members I.
Stniloae assures us that such an experience does not mean a deviation into
impersonalism.1036 This specification is important, because when the relation between God
and man is in view, we know that our representation before the Father by Christ is
mediatorial, while the presence of the Spirit in us grants us the privilege to be considered as
equal partners with God by grace. Thus grace as the operation of the Spirit is moving in the
Church, once the Spirit is moving in us as a common I. Stniloaes conclusion sounds
dogmatic: the operation of the Spirit is constitutive for the Church, therefore divine grace
does not manifest itself except in the Church.1037 However, strong ontological and
communitarian ideas are re-encountered in this state of grace. Stniloae will never give up
this approach, in spite of its language and conceptual insecurity.

1.2 Freedom and grace


Given this preliminary idea, in Stniloaes view, deification takes place only within a
pneumato-ecclesiological framework assured by the presence and work of grace. For
Stniloae this also implies the paradox of freedom, which is shown both in the action of the
Spirit in man and mans action in freedom. The significant contribution of Stniloae in
understanding the way of deification is in underlining the operation of the Spirit as an organic
activity in the process of salvation. In correlation with the Spirit, Christ develops the

1035
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 308-309. The operation of the Spirit at the
interior of every statement about the Spirit is not simply a Christian insight. Martin Buber, working out his
I-Thou relationship, said that the Spirit is notI, but between I and Thou. It is not like the blood that
circulates in you, but like the air which you breathe. Cf. M. Buber, I and Thou, p. 39. For an interesting
debate about the work of the Spirit in knowing God within human beings, when the objective becomes
nonobjective, see W. Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, p. 336, and his critique, in W.J. Hill, The Three-
Personed God (Washington,D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1982), p. 163.
1036
As Florovsky clarifies: The personal is not to be sacrificed and dissolved in the corporate, Christian
togetherness must not degenerate into impersonalism. The idea of the organism must be supplemented by
the idea of a symphony of personalities, in which the mystery of the Holy Trinity is reflected (cf. John 17: 21-
23) and this is the core of the conception of catholicity (sobornost). Cf. G. Florovsky, The Church: Her
Nature and Task, in Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View, pp. 57-72.
1037
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 310. Unfortunately, at this point, Stniloae ignores
the problem of the salvation of non-Christians and how the idea of grace as constitutive for the Church is
related to it. For an interesting comparison between East and West on this issue, see T.L. Tiessen, Irenaeus on
the Salvation of the Unevangelized, ATLA Monograph Series, No. 31 (Metuchen, N.J., & London: The
Scarecrow Press, 1993).
298

communication of His life by grace, because He is an open and fundamental hypostasis of


the entire humanity.1038 Consequently, Christ created a virtual communication with all
people by which His grace is orientated from Him towards all. Stniloae insists on mans
responsibility to respond efficaciously to the Creator even after the fall, although by his
quality as a dialogic being, man remains somehow in a feeble dialogue with the Word.1039
Astonishingly, Stniloae writes that there was a power planted by God in human beings, and
this power by which our being can resist sin and do good, even before receiving grace was
used in a better way by some people than by others.1040 Those natural powers having a
preference for good, which characterise human beings, are also actualised within the Church,
due to Christs humanity where He extends with His body, through the operation of the Spirit
that irradiates from Him. That does not entail, of course, the Protestant doctrine of
irresistible grace, because Scripture admits only a predestination conditioned by Gods
pre-knowledge.1041 The operation of the Spirit demands also a free collaboration between
believers and the Holy Spirit who is setting us free in God and for God. Consequently, for
Stniloae, this relationship between divine grace and human freedom defines grace as a
personal power that is manifested in love.
On this point, Stniloae was influenced by Nicholas Cabasilas and his accent on the dialogic
and Christological nature of the will. For Cabasilas, the relation between grace and nature is
not a question of impersonal realities and consequently of power, but a question of free
communion between the person of Christ and the human person, communion based on the
mysteries (sacraments) and the effort of human free-will. Christs entry into man, with all
salvific works actualised in Himself, is achieved in the holy mysteries.1042 The feelings granted
by Christ, explains Stniloae, are somehow existential in Him and become existential in us.
Moreover, they are not detached from Christ, but communicated to us as unchanging
pulsations of love, reflecting His dynamic mode of being. Christs pulsations of love are
actually divine graces present in every mystery, to penetrate and to enfold us. The response of

1038
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 312.
1039
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 313.
1040
Stniloae gives as examples the case of Cornelius and The Blessed Virgin! Bishop Kallistos Ware
suggested me that, to avoid the confusion, it would be clearer if Stniloae said that nature and grace are
correlative; that there is not a state of pure nature apart from grace.
1041
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 314.
1042
Nicholas Cabasilas, De Vita in Christo II (PG 150, 522, 721, 724, 725); In English, Life in Christ, tr. by
M. Lisney (London: James, 1995). See also P. Nellas, Deification in Christ, p. 138.
299

mans love to Christs love is started and sustained by His grace, engaging also the human
will.
Stniloae expands Cabasilas thoughts. The synthesis between the work of grace and the will
of man is better understood by employing again two concepts: potential and actual. Thus
since the whole movement towards God is potential, it is grace that turns potentiality in
actuality. Stniloae continues as follows:

However, this image urges us to admit that the change of the wills potential into
action is not only the exercise of grace, but also of the will. And it is this point that
we are unable to understand. It seems certain that the will, weakened by sin does not
have the power to turn its potential into action. The will receives this power from
grace, or from Christ. However, we do not believe that the utilisation of this power
of reactualizing its natural potential is exclusively the action of grace, because where
grace operates as the power of Christ there is also Christ Himself actualizing
communion with man, and in this communion both partners are active from the
beginning.1043

This intrinsic mystery between grace and the human will, between the actualised love of
Christ and the developed love of man, is displayed by Stniloae in the alternate acts of the will
as the wills acts and the acts of both the will and grace. Once the will receives grace in itself,
the human will does not remain alone, but becomes penetrated and shaped by grace.1044
To emphasise the relation between freedom and grace, Stniloae refers to the distinction
between the work of Christ, directed towards human nature, and the operation of the Spirit,
directed towards human persons. But it is inappropriate to assert with Lossky that, in the
Church, the work of Christ is to unite all believers, while the work of the Spirit is to underline
a specific distinction in every person.1045 Actually, specifies Stniloae, Christs work is co-
ordinated with the Spirits work in the Church. The Holy Spirit imprints inside the human
subjects the divine work of Christ and deeply impresses in everyone the image of Christ

1043
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, p. 433.
1044
This intimate dialectic is applied by Nicholas Cabasilas with respect to the Mother of God. See Cuvntare
la Naterea Nsctoarei de Dumnezeu, in P. Nellas, Prolegomena eis tin meletin Nikolaou tou Kavasila
(Athens, 1968), pp. 48, 62f. Cf. D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, pp. 434-437. In the cult of martyrs, for
example, Cabasilas sees the mystical union of the Church with Christ Himself, while in the cult of relics the
basic reason is the ontological one, which emphasises the real presence of the Holy Spirit in the sacred relics.
This union is both spiritual and physical since Christ deified the whole human nature by assuming flesh. See
Nicholas Cabasilas, De Vita in Christo V (PG 150, 636BCf), I (PG 150, 505BC, 508AB), and VI (PG 150,
560CD).
1045
Cf. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 325. For Lossky see Concerning the Third
Mark of the Church: Catholicity, in In the Image and Likeness of God, pp. 169-181. For a critique of Lossky,
see also D. Stniloae, Noiunea Dogmei, ST 9-10 (1964), pp. 534-571; G. Florovsky, Christ and His
300

without confusion or uniformity.1046 Stniloae points out again the theandric constitution of
the Church, yet without confusion:

But the unity between Christ and the Church does not mean... a transformation of
the Church into Christ. The humanity of believers, however deified it may be, is not
transformed into Christ the head. The head, although He has His human personal
temperament, is also God according to being. The enchurched humanity of believers
under no circumstances becomes a constitutive part of the head, as His personal
human temperament is, but remains the body of the head. It is not hypostatically
united with Him who is divine according to being; but through the energies which
flow out from Him, believers assimilate His uncreated energy, not His hypostasis or
being.1047

What Stniloae tries to ensure is that the process of deification in the Church implies the
assimilation of Christs uncreated energy but excludes ontological identification with Christ as
the head of the Church. Or, from a different angle, the operations of both hypostases inside
believers take into account the particularity of everyone, and so each of them precedes as
distinctive hypostases.

1.3 Summary
To sum up, Stniloaes doctrine of grace does not conceive of grace as detached from God.
In this sense, grace is not a created support, extrinsic to Christ, given to believers as the result
of Christs merit, but the uncreated divine energy, poured by the Holy Spirit upon them
through the resurrected and ascended humanity of Christ. Although from eternity the Logos
of God has the Spirit resting upon Him, it is only since the deification of Christs human
nature that the Spirit of God rests upon His humanity and upon all believers who are in
communion with Him. In this way, Christs human nature becomes transparent for the Spirit
and a perfect conveyor of the salvific, uncreated energy of Christ.
As uncreated energy, emerging from the divine being, divine grace is the work of the persons
of the Holy Trinity and a real evidence of their presence. However, specifies Stniloae, as
sanctifying energy, divine grace is the operation of the Holy Spirit because it affects our
spiritual life and becomes more inwardly intimate to us. As long as grace is unseparated from
the divine persons, and the divine person that is intimately involved in our life is the Holy

Church. Suggestions and Comments, in 1054-1954. L Eglise et les Eglises, vol. II (Chevetogne: Editions de
Chevetogne, 1955), pp. 163f.
1046
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 326. See also J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern
Christian Thought, p. 78.
301

Spirit, we may say that grace is also identified with the Holy Spirit; in fact, it is the presence
of the Spirit in us, in His external action after the accomplishment of Christs objective
salvation. To be in grace is identical with being in Christ or in the Spirit, for this grace
is received only in intimate relationship with Christ.1048
The Holy Spirit does not bestow on us something unique to Himself, but the common
divinity of the Trinity. This divinity must be understood in a Palamite sense, as the common
energy of being and not the divine being itself. Grace is therefore this common divinity of the
three hypostases, dispensed to us by the Holy Spirit. Yet, neither the Church in its entirety
nor the members of the Church has had perpetually from the beginning the richness of divinity
or grace. Rather, this richness becomes actual in direct connection with the Churchs and the
believers efforts.

2. Deification and the stages of justification

The prevailing doctrine in Orthodox tradition is that salvation is in the Church, man being
called to collaborate with the divine grace through faith and good works, as the subjective
conditions for personal salvation. Indeed, the Holy Spirit does not work in the Church
without the co-operation of the human factor.1049 To prevent a possible interpretation of the
Church as an interference between man and God, or as an instrument of justification,
Stniloae specifies that the Church is not an institution interposing itself between Christ and
human persons, but is Christs body.
According to Stniloae, in contrast with the Catholic and Protestant view on justification, the
Eastern Orthodox view accepts the idea of righteousness only in solidarity with other
soteriological ideas. Stniloae sees other alternatives as exclusivist. Stniloae is unfair when
he affirms that in Catholicism, as a consequence of justification, man receives the gift of
created grace, while in Protestantism any significant consequence is excluded.1050 This
approach, continues Stniloae, ignores the fact that the apostle Paul applied the doctrine of
justification only in his dispute with the Judaists. The idea of righteousness from God

1047
D. Stniloae, Autoritatea Bisericii, ST 16 (1964), p. 186.
1048
See also John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa I, 13 (PG 94, 856), and Gregory of Nyssa, Contra
Macedonium, 12 (PG 44, 1316).
1049
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 302-303.
1050
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 332. See also V. Lossky, Redemption and
Deification, in In the Image and Likeness of God, pp. 98-99, 103.
302

receives a new dimension when it is linked with the person of Christ (for example, Rom. 8:10-
11). From a theological point of view, Stniloaes conclusions are unexplainable:

Protestantism tried to emphasise the fact that the Christian is saved in dependence on
Christ as person, and not because of a certain law fulfilled by man, individually, by
his own efforts. But in considering mans salvation a right, as a consequence of
simple judicial declaration for Christs paying price on the cross, Protestantism has
weakened the permanent relation of man in the process of salvation with the eternal
living and loving Christ. Mans salvation was not conceived of as taking place
through a continuous relation with Christ, but through an exchanging act done for
the continuous sins of people. All salvation refers to that past act, which is valuable
in itself, and not to the Person of Christ in enduring communion with us.1051

It is difficult to explain Stniloaes perplexing synthesis of the Protestant and Catholic views
on salvation. His judgement is excessive and discriminatory. In order to emphasise the
enduring communion between Christ and the Christians in the process of salvation, in
contrast with a simple isolated act of justification that may lead to individualism, Stniloae
shows that he misunderstands the axiomatic point in Protestant and Catholic soteriology.
Actually, for example, one of the most important doctrines in Protestant practical theology is
the communion with Christ and the emphasis in its soteriology has always laid on the
continuous relation with Christ based on the divine act of justification.
For Stniloae, the idea of Gods righteousness, when applied to Christ, obtains an
ontological, transformatory sense in which the believers become righteousness embodiment.
Because Christ was made our righteousness, therefore we should talk about an interior not an
exterior righteousness.1052 Thus righteousness is a state opposed to the state of sinfulness.
Stniloae writes that the righteousness that we gained by grace is the mode of actualization
of grace in a life without sin, through which we are able to advance towards everlasting life,
through Jesus Christ, the sustainer and the source of righteousness in us.1053 In this way,
continues Stniloae, salvation is understood not in a static but in a dynamic gradual way, as
the new life that directly irradiates from Christs sanctified and resurrected body in
believers, and as an effect of personal communion of believers in Christ.

1051
There is a similar low view of salvation in Catholicism, where the Church has evaluated the merit of
Christ as an impersonal treasure of created grace gained by Him through the satisfaction offered to God on the
Cross. Cf. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 335-336.
1052
Cf. Nicholas Cabasilas, De Vita in Christo (PG 150, 588C, 589D, 612D-613A, 659C, 681A), and P.
Nellas, Deification in Christ, pp. 109ff, 223-225.
1053
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 337. Cf. Rom. 5:21.
303

Following the Fathers, Stniloae emphasises that the new life is implanted in man at the time
of baptism, as an extended life of Christ, through the Spirit and having in it virtually the
supreme steps that man will reach in everlasting life. The state of righteousness is seen then as
a progressive state, and it will culminate in a glorified state. Or, in other words, the state of
righteousness is the righteous state of man. This was revealed for the first time on Christs
face and is reflected gradually on believers faces. Those believers who are looking to Christ
and continue in communion with Him, become more and more marked by His glory and
therefore more righteous. Therefore being in Christ, the believer is privileged in sharing the
state of deification. To emphasise this point, Stniloae appeals to the idea of epektasis,
developed by Gregory of Nyssa,1054 and develops this by stating:

While God is always in absolute perfection, or in everlasting love because of His


unchangeable nature, our created nature, due to its changeability, can move itself
from good to evil, or from evil to good, or to intense evil, and also from good to
intense good. We cannot be immutable except in the sense that we are moving only
in goodness and towards higher levels of goodness. Accordingly we can share in this
immutability of movement by advancing in goodness and, in this sense, we can gain a
share in infinity. Actually, our nature is longing for a state like this and is genuinely
fulfilled in it.1055

This aspiration or tendency for a better communion with God reflects the mystery of our
relationship with God. However, such a process should be advanced only in the Church. It is
here, in the Churchs human communitarian agency, that Christ Himself lives His salvific
action again. In relationship with Christ we are not able to advance if we do not advance in
loving relationship with the community of believers, where Christ is present as in His body,
fortifying its unity. Stniloae argues the point as follows:

Through the complete or the entire deified humanity of Christ, being the humanity
supremely opened to all, we have access and the capacity for access to the humanity
of all, and vice versa, through the humanity of all, seen and loved in unity, we have
access to the humanity of Christ that is full of divinity, and where also it is contained.
The advancing in His humanity is infinite, since through it we advance in the infinite
divine light and love; and by advancing in these, our humanity also increases.1056

1054
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 342. Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, In Canticum
Canticorum (PG 44, 873D, 876B).
1055
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 343.
1056
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 346. Similar ideas of spiritual ascension in the life
of believer are found in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, John Climacus, Symeon
the New Theologian, or Nicholas Cabasilas. For J. Climacus in English, with an introduction by K. Ware, see
John Climacus: The Ladder of Divine Ascent, tr. by C. Luibheid and N. Russell, in The Classics of Western
Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1982).
304

That is, the more divine we become, the more human we grow.
In conclusion, for Stniloae, the one who actually deifies sinners is Christ Himself, through
the work of the Spirit and through the mysteries, in the Church. This grace is called the
sanctifying, or salvific grace, which is distinct from general grace. Part of objective
salvation, justification is one with regeneration, being preceded by a time of preparation when
divine calling and mans free response are predicted. Regeneration takes place through the
mystery of baptism and is the equivalent to a believers initiation in the Church. Stniloae
applies this thought in a practical way by associating it with the doctrine of salvation, in which
justification implies three stages. Justification, understood in this way, implies a negative
aspect, that is, forgiveness, and a positive aspect, that is, sanctification.

2.1 The stage of preparation


Mans gradual deification by grace starts with the stage of preparation. Stniloae follows in
this the hypothesis of Diadochus of Photike who makes a distinction between the preparative
operation of the divine grace in man, from outside into the soul, known as regeneration, and
the operation that starts at the same time with regeneration.1057 Before baptism, the soul of
man is moved by grace, or by the ambience that irradiates from the Church, only from
outside. Moreover, considering that the work of the Holy Spirit through the word of a certain
believer from the Church is effective, Stniloae believes that Christ could be conceived of as
dwelling in that soul. Consequently, mans preparation to enter into the Church, is done on
the Churchs side, and under the power of Christ which irradiates from it.1058
The time of preparation is an indispensable condition for salvation, yet an insufficient one.
Although it necessarily precedes justification, it is not the cause of justification. Stniloae
ensures that there is present both an external and an internal calling, as a result of which man
opens himself to receive the truths of revelation. It was shown how Stniloae put the accent
on the inward operation of grace, by which man receives the preparatory light, confidence in
the revealed truth and in the possibility of forgiveness in Christ. Mans reaction is expected to
be in his openness and concurrence to collaborate with divine grace.

2.2 The stage of regeneration

1057
Stniloae uses the work of Diadochus of Photike, Cuvnt Ascetic 76 (Filocalia I, p. 368).
1058
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 348-349.
305

The second stage in deification is mans regeneration, seen as a spiritual event and the result
of the mystery of baptism, being equated with his entrance into the mystical body of Christ.
However, there are two aspects of the same achievement. On the other hand, this means to
abolish inherited sin and all other sins caused by the weakness of the inherited sin; and, on the
other hand, it involves the beginning of the new life caused by Christs presence in mans
soul. Stniloae explains:

Now the Spirit of Christ introduces His operation in an intimate way to the human
subject, so that he feels the disposition towards union with Christ in love and good
deeds as his own, although this disposition comes from Christ.1059

Stniloae sees here the radical difference between Protestant and Orthodox theology. The
weak point in Protestant doctrine, he explains, is the emphasis put only on the external,
declarative forgiveness of man because of original sin. Stniloaes statement, again, may be
questioned in many ways, when he suggests that the impression given by such an approach is
that nothing essential or personal could happen inside the believer. On the other hand,
Orthodox theology understands salvation as an ongoing battle for a holy life, as part of the
process of deification in which baptism and eucharist are the Churchs efficacious instruments
in this spiritual struggle.1060
Stniloae develops the moment of regeneration in a very practical way.1061 Human nature still
has physical infirmities which inevitably affect the human soul. However, at baptism, explains
Stniloae, mans will was detached from the souls predilection to sin, because it died with
Christ. Thus Christ attached Himself to mans nature. At baptism, then, the will is the first
power of human nature that received the spiritual light and strength of the divine Logos.
This means that, in its personal intimacy, human nature was delivered from the irrational,
opposite and sub-personal power of sin, yet the weakness of irrational and superficial
practices remained in itself. This struggle is seen as the full personalization and
rationalisation of human nature. This is why mans delivery from inherited sin demands a
personal option, which continues in the process of sanctification. Stniloae insists that this is
a personal and not an individual process, in which Christs hypostasis is more and more
imprinted in the human person. Hence the human subject becomes accessible to other subjects

1059
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 349.
1060
D. Stniloae, Doctrina Luteran despre Justificare i Cuvnt i cteva Reflecii Ortodoxe, Ortodoxia 4
(1983), pp. 495-509.
1061
Some ideas are found also in Diadochus of Photike, Cuvnt Ascetic 78 (Filocalia I, p. 370).
306

1062
and subsists as a person, that is, as a whole communitary person. Stniloae concludes
that everything takes place in the Church and, accordingly, the whole action should be seen as
an action of personalization.
Of more immediate relevance here is the indisputable influence of Symeon the New
Theologian that occurs in Stniloaes theology.1063 It is important to know that, for Symeon,
there are two concepts describing ones relationship with God: love known in a personal
relationship with Christ as person, and the divine light that comes down from Christ onto a
human soul. Particularly, human nature is the reflection of divine light. Thus mans position in
reflecting the divine light is considered by Symeon a true restoration of his nature, or the
cleaning of his spiritual eyes and ears, through the simultaneous work of man and Christ.
Symeon, observes Stniloae, has introduced at this point the idea of the possibility of
perceiving the presence of grace in man, and then even affirming it as the believers self-
consciousness. Then Stniloae explains:

This signifies the involvement of grace in actualizing human nature. To perceive the
presence of Christ is so common to human nature that without it human nature does
not actually know itself. And without this self-knowledge it is improper to say that
human nature exists in its natural state. Man becomes self-conscious by perceiving
Christs presence, or perceives Christs presence by becoming self-conscious. Man
knows himself in God, because man realises himself in Him, and because man attains
the natural level where he may own self-consciousness.1064

Stniloae is aware of the paradox in which the true self-knowledge of man takes place in faith
and humility, in total dependence on God and in union with Christ as God-man. When we
speak about the mystical union of man with Christ mans self-consciousness about Christs
presence in front of him and above himself is precisely involved.1065
Symeon understands mans nature in dialectical terms. Whereas man sees his fragility and is
aware of the limitation of human nature, this enables him to see God and to participate in
Gods grace, for only by continuing in the limitation of his nature, is man able to advance in

1062
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 351-352.
1063
For Symeon the New Theologian in English, see B. Krivocheine, In the Light of Christ: St. Symeon the
New Theologian (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press, 1986); G.A. Maloney, The Mystic of Fire and Light: St.
Symeon the New Theologian (Denville, N.J.: Dimension Books, 1975); Symeon the New Theologian: The
Discourses, tr. by C.J. deCatanzaro, in The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press,
1980); P. McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian: The Theological and Practical Treatises and the Three
Theological Discourses (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1985); H.J.M. Turner, St. Symeon the
New Theologian and Spiritual Fatherhood (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990).
1064
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, p. 412.
307

God.1066 On the other hand, the cleansing of human nature is by the virtues, which are Gods
operations. In every virtue, affirms Stniloae, there is a part of His spiritual power
descending to our human need. Hence in a fluctuating and continuous movement, man and
God are working together in the process of deification. However, nothing debars divine
grace. Man is deified exclusively in relationship with Christ as person. Christ is the principle,
the means and the end. He is in all, writes Symeon. Again Stniloaes personalism, marked
by Symeons thinking, is seen when he defines the human person as breathing spiritually in
relationship with other persons. Symeon introduces, using different images and in the
context of personal relationships, the idea of divine light that is perceived by man in himself or
by himself. Everything irradiating from God is light, because God Himself is light, being
person or communion of persons.1067 Having the principle of communication as the basic rule
applied to personal relationships, Stniloae emphasises that Christ is present as hidden light
within the believers, and shines only in those who repent within themselves and who
actualize the relationship with Him.1068 We may therefore conclude that between Christ and
the believer a genuine symbiosis is accomplished.

2.3 The stage of progression


The act of baptism is the initiatory sacrament or mystery for a believer, also because Christ
abides in the hidden place of our being. However, although this is not a confident conscious
experience for the believer, the fact of progression in faith and good works, having Christs
assistance, operates as a decisive sign for personal salvation.1069 Beginning with baptism, then,
divine grace intimately indwells us, since previously it started the dialogue with us in the
altar of our being. In this interior temple, Stniloae discerns the location for an authentic
dialogue between man and God. Stniloae writes:

The place where He [Christ] resides as the High Priest is the deepest room, the most
mysterious and pure space of our heart, because only that part can become truly

1065
Symeon the New Theologian, Cuvnt despre nfricoata Zi a Domnului, tome II, pp. 290, 294. Cf. D.
Stniloae, Natur i Har, p. 413.
1066
See Symeon the New Theologian, Cuvntarea VI, Despre Neptimire, tome II, p. 136; Cuvntare
Teologic Prima, tome I, pp. 119, 123, 125; Cuvntarea II, ndemn la Pocin, tome I, p. 320. Cf. D.
Stniloae, Natur i Har, pp. 414-415.
1067
See Symeon the New Theologian, Cuvntarea III Teologic, tome I, p. 164. Cf. D. Stniloae, Natur i
Har, p. 419.
1068
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, p. 419.
1069
Cf. Mark the Ascetic, Despre Botez, in Rspunsuri ctre Talasie (Filocalia III, p. 174).
308

sensitive and opened to God. Only the virtual human depth may open itself to the
endless divine depth.1070

Stniloae articulates here Christs office as Priest or mediator between the abyss of our heart
and the divine abyss. The Mediator wants to open our hearts abyss to Gods abyss in virtue
of His ability to hold in Himself both of them. And Christ is able to do that, for the abyss of
His human heart is opened to the divine abyss in the abyss of our heart.1071 Thus the
believers openness to God is the result of Christs residing in him. The Christians response
in sacrifice, love, and service is the outcome of a mysterious encounter with Christ. Stniloae
defines this work as the actualization of our hidden virtualities in Christ, and our virtualities
upheld by Christ. Only because both man and Christ, are involved in the act of deification,
are the Christians able to know the pneumatized Christ, who is likewise present in their body
in order to pneumatize it, as part of the work of sanctification.
On the practical level, Stniloae sees in the mystery of holy unction the epiphany of Christ in
the baptiseds being, or the Spirits light shining upon him in order to actualise and to develop
Christs image in him.1072 In this process of sanctification, assisted by the operation of the
uncreated energies, and coming out from its ordinary virtuality, mans personal image
becomes greatly transparent and full of light. Moreover, the righteous should advance
towards the mystery of the eucharist as the climax of his communion with Christ. The
eucharist accomplishes the believers incorporation in Christ as a member of His body,
assures his spiritual growth, and gives the foretaste of eternal life in anticipation.1073 Therefore
the eucharist concludes the process of our justification, regeneration, and initial sanctification.
Finally, the state of justification, resulting from baptism and increased by unction and
eucharist, does not remain strictly interior and passive, but is manifested in the faith and good
works by which man is progressing in goodness. For Stniloae, this means that righteousness
varies from man to man, and can be developed according to mans efforts performed in faith
and helped by divine grace. The presence of grace within mans mysterious being is actually
the presence of Christ who abides in our intimacy, accessible to us, and willing for
dialogue.1074 Stniloae identifies Christ as the High Priest mediating between the abyss of our

1070
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 354. Cf. Mark the Ascetic, Despre Botez, pp.
281-282.
1071
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 354.
1072
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. III, p. 67.
1073
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. III, p. 82.
1074
According to Mark the Ascetic and Diadochus of Photike, through baptism, Christ is abiding in the depths
of our beings, though we do not necessarily have a conscious experience of this fact. See Mark the Ascetic,
309

hearts and the boundless divine abyss. This is possible because He is present in both of them,
continues them in Himself, and has made Himself a bridge between them.1075 The encounter
with God takes place inside us, in the synergy of love. But not in all those justified and
sanctified, does the divine grace receive the same openness, sensitivity, and collaboration with
it. As result, we have different stages of sanctification, or different stages of living Christs
life. Every believer acquires his degree of deification, and thus divine righteousness becomes
human righteousness. All believers advance in this righteousness, but not all to the same
degree. Not surprisingly, Orthodox theology believes in the possibility of someone losing his
salvation; in other words, no one can be sure about his salvation.

2.4 Summary
Stniloae defines grace as divine uncreated energy that is shared in the Church by Christ
Himself in the Spirit, through the holy mysteries, for salvation (righteousness and
sanctification) and spiritual maturation (deification). Grace is understood both as actualised
energy of the Spirit, and as energy imprinted in the believer, making him capable of
collaboration with the Spirit.1076 The Holy Spirit Himself, as hypostasis, is present in different
ways and degrees in human beings, attempting to bring them closer to Christ in order to be
deified.
Stniloae employs three stages in the process of commencing and growing spiritual life in
man: preparation, regeneration, and consummation. Thus in the act of preparation for
justification, the operation of grace is through external calling and internal enlightenment.
Though the interval of preparation is indispensable for salvation, the real and sufficient cause
of justification is the free operation of grace into the human being who, in turn, embraces the
divine offer. Moreover, in justification there is a negative aspect (forgiveness) and a positive
aspect (sanctification), both revealing a radical inner transformation. Divine grace operates
simultaneously in cleansing and sanctifying man.
With respect to the forgiveness of sins, Stniloae believes that this is real, so the righteous
one is in reality justified. Nevertheless, the total suppression of sin in the righteous is not
contradicted by the presence of concupiscence, which in the renewed believer does not have a
sinful quality, apart from the case when the will agrees to follow it. The principle of sin, that

Rspuns dat acelora care se ndoiesc despre Dumnezeiescul Botez (Filocalia I, p. 282), and Diadochus of
Photike, Cuvnt Ascetic 77 (Filocalia I, p. 369).
1075
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 354-355.
310

is the perversion of the will, is thus neutralised; the renewed will however is inclined towards
God, and the sinful impulse serves in this situation as means for moral energies to be
exercised in the process of deification.
On the other hand, the positive aspect of justification, understood by Stniloae as
sanctification, means the state of adoption by grace and the gracious communion with God.
This is not a strictly interior condition, but a manifestation in good works and spiritual
progress. It means therefore that the experience of justification is not the same in all those
who were made righteous, but varies from case to case, in accordance with human effort and
divine grace. There are different degrees of justification and sanctification, of morality and
spiritual progress, and correspondingly different degrees of glorification in eternity. It is for
this reason likewise that the state of righteousness could be lost.
As a result, the doctrine of justification, seen as the work of grace, receives in Orthodox
theology a different expression, the accent being put on mans communion in the risen body
of Christ, in the divine life, that is, deification by grace. The ontological state of righteousness
expresses the renewal and the sanctification of the righteous. This is why for Stniloae, and in
general for Orthodox theology, the most important question related to justification is not
inherited sin and its cleansing, or personal sins and their forgiveness, but the reality of the
human nature deformed by sin and its restoration. Mans participation in divine salvation, that
is the appropriation of divine righteousness, is neither by imitatio seen in an external moral
act, nor by a simple nominal assurance, but through real life in Christ, that is, through the
historical life in grace seen in a conscious participation in baptism, unction, and eucharist. In
regeneration through baptism, the Orthodox Church confesses an ontological restoration and
a full personalization of human nature under one name.1077

3. The role of faith and good works

1076
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 303.
1077
Being reconstituted ontologically, man is free indeed and receives his own name as a reminder of the
relationship between him and God. Man is called out of the indistinctive humanity, from general anonymity,
as a person with owned responsibilities, based on the eternal accountability before God... This new name gives
that deep personal form that is Christs image in him. Because any human person is fundamentally
inventive, and due to the fact of his renewal by Christs image imprinted in him, every Christian becomes
anxious to do new things for God and other human persons. Personal relationships are naturally consummated
in personal responsibilities. D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. III, pp. 50-54.
311

In Stniloae, therefore, divine grace is seen as the objective condition of mans justification in
Christ, while faith and good works become the subjective conditions of justification, however,
initiated, sustained, and accomplished by divine grace.1078 Stniloae interprets apostle Pauls
texts on justification-goods works (for example, Rom. 3:20, 28, 30; Gal. 2:16; Ephes. 2:8) in
an ontological and personal way. He asserts that the apostle Paul builds up faith in Christ as
the foundation of our salvation, yet not faith in the juridical importance for Christs death as
a counterbalance for our sins, but faith as a personal relationship with Christ, which is also
known as faith which equals the gradual union with Christ.1079 Good works save, but not
apart from union with Christ.
In the Orthodox heritage, however, there exists an organic relation between faith and works,
communion with Christ being manifested in both of them. Stniloae explains that communion
with Christ in good works is manifested as a development of the initial communion by faith,
while communion with Christ in faith, is seen in Christs presence in us and the irradiation of
His power in us, together with love for Him and from Him.

The tradition of the Church strongly affirms this irradiation while obviously
distinguishing it from the shining forth of the Spirit from Christ. The measure of
this irradiation of the Spirit in the saints is proportionate to their growth in Christ
and to the presence and effective activity of Christ within them.1080

Christianity, concludes Stniloae, signifies the great mystery of personal communion, not
understood by Western Christianity. It is the great mystery of the person growing from the
life of another person, and ultimately from the life of the Person of Christ full of divine
infinity.1081 Therefore we must accept the vital connection between faith and love, acting in
mans relationship both with other human beings and supremely with God. Stniloae states
that in activity, disparate individuals become a society, a symphony into an unceasing
progress.1082 Activity creates community and is sustained by community. Further, Christ is
proclaimed through these activities to unbelievers. This is the reason why the world is

1078
D. Stniloae, Condiiile Mntuirii, ST 5-6 (1951), p. 249.
1079
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 365. Stniloae denounces Protestantism for
eliminating all good works for salvation, including those works that result from the power of communion
with Christ, because of lack of trust in this communion. Again, Stniloaes analysis here is discriminatory.
1080
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 28.
1081
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 366.
1082
D. Stniloae, Condiiile Mntuirii, p. 250.
312

transfigured from inside, in man. Matter is not a conglomerate, but a river of energies that
receives in its inner part the force of the spirit.1083
We should talk then about the organic relation between works and persons. Faith is the basis
for all works. However, good works are not saving works in themselves since they are not
based on a real and genuine relationship of the believer in love with Christ. Stniloae writes:

Human persons grow only through love manifested in their own works, and love is
seen in the communion of the person who performs certain tasks, with the person for
whom he performs the works. Works are the manifestation of the direct loving
relationships between two persons. Mans salvation is actually accomplished only in
relationship with God as supreme person, because only from Gods love manifested
in works, to whom man opens himself through his faith and works, can man be truly
filled with enduring love, manifested in never-ending works.1084

We are facing again another paradox between love and works, in which both are seen as gift
and duty. At the same time, love is a gift, but we are not actually saved if, in relation to love,
we remain passive. Salvation implies an active response in good works. Any other alternative
to this interpretation makes human beings insensitive, running the risk of being prolonged
into an insensitivity to happiness in eternity.1085 Good works stream from love while our
human nature is advancing in the process of deification, together with Christ as man and like
Him.
This progress is in time, since we are not able to respond from the beginning in an unlimited
manner to the unlimited love of God, for we are created beings. Nevertheless, as images of
God, we aspire towards infinity and we are capable of it, not through an exclusive
actualization of what we have within us, but through the empowering of what we have within
us from Gods participation to the infinite. God also gradually shares His love towards us,
Christs descending as incarnate love being the model for our ascending to Him. A full
participation then involves a gradual participation, by which we receive simultaneously the
consciousness that without Gods full participation through His grace, our progress will move
within a limited frame, always closed in time, or subjected to death.1086 In this context we
must comprehend the necessity of good works for all Christians, as increasing responses to

1083
D. Stniloae, Condiiile Mntuirii, pp. 253-254.
1084
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 370. Cf. Gregory of Nazianzus, Sanctum
Baptismum (PG 36, 424).
1085
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 371.
1086
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 373.
313

Gods love. Moreover, mans response is imposed also by the communitarian life, where God
is waiting for us to express ourselves in love.1087

4. The creational composition of the holy mysteries

The powers of God experienced in the Church are manifested through the divine mysteries or
sacraments offered in faith. As windows for Christ to introduce abiding and immortal life, the
holy mysteries become the manifold demonstrations of His saving power and the means by
which He works in His Church. Through the mysteries, the divine life is infused into the
present age and mingled with it, without change or confusion. Moreover, in their
eschatological dimension, the holy mysteries prepare Christians for future life by giving them
a foretaste of things to come.
In Stniloaes view, there are three major mysteries: creation, Christ, and the Church.1088
That means, on the one hand, that the general meaning of the mysteries consists in the union
of God with His creature, and, on the other hand, that the most comprehensive mystery is the
union of creation with God. Starting with the very act of creation, the process of deification,
as applied to the whole cosmos, involves the confidence that there is no one part of reality
that is not comprised in this mystery.1089 Every component of this first major mystery, being
in connection with all other components and God, has a mysterious mark. Man, for instance,
has a special position, for he is the image and the principal agent of the great and dynamic
mystery of the union between the Logos with the whole creation. In the mystery of man all
his parts and functions are truly mysteries, because they participate in his mystery as a
whole. Hence mans spirit transfigures the matter through its instrumentality. This quality is
conceived by Stniloae in the context of deification, understood once more as mans
participation in God Himself.1090 The Man who became the means of Gods power over

1087
Stniloae concludes this section by asserting that Protestant dialectical theologies dispossess time of any
value, because they despise the role of good works and, consequently, the possibility of growing as a person
and to be equally valued by God (!). On the other hand, Eastern theology, by giving importance to personal
love and to the dimension of time, affirms that only here on earth is the everlasting Kingdom gained. D.
Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 377.
1088
The Orthodox Church uses the Greek word mysterion, instead of sacrament, to denote the divinely
instituted rites which manifest and communicate sanctifying divine grace. Bulgakov, for example, makes a
distinction between the Church as mystery, taino, and as sacrament, tainstvo. Stniloae prefers the first term
and its Romanian correspondent, tain. Cf. A. Nichols, Theology in the Russian Diaspora, p. 148.
1089
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. III, p. 9. Cf. Maximus, Ambigua (PG 91, 1084D).
1090
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. III, p 10. Again we see the influence of Maximus. Cf.
Maximus, Mystagogia (PG 91, 664-665).
314

matter and other people par excellence, is Christ. By gestures and matter, Christ extends the
power of God through every mystery. In this way, the mystery of Christ makes a much closer
union between the Creator and the creature, due to the fact that the Logos assumed human
nature and transformed it as a means of union between human subjects and creation, in view
of deification. Stniloae suggests then the third type of mystery, that is the Church, as
creation re-established and the actualization of the union between Christ and human
subjects. Because the notions of mystery and Church coincide, the universe became again a
Church, a comprehensive mystery, and in which every component is a church.1091 Therefore
the mystery of the Church is an extension of the mystery of Christ, and if there is a distinction
between them this is only in theory.
In a special sense, the holy mysteries are the invisible acts of Christ accomplished in the
Church through visible acts. Basically, these sensible actions, instituted by Christ, hold the
role of sharing divine grace and uniting Christ with the believers. As the result of Christs
incarnation and redemption the real basis for the mysteries was constituted, while His
resurrection and ascension gave the concrete possibility of union with Him through the holy
mysteries. Stniloae emphasises in this way the Christological basis of the mysteries, in which
the physical side (that is, Christs pneumatized and deified body) takes an outstanding
character. Consequently, Stniloae elucidates how a real reciprocity between the soul and the
body operates, for any gesture of the body has repercussions in the spiritual life and any
thought or feeling of the soul is impelling over the body.1092 Christ Himself works through
His deified body in the body of believers. Stniloae writes:

The Word of God took a body to embrace in Himself, in the mystery of Gods unity
with creation, not only the souls, but also the bodies. As the body of Christ is not
only an intuitive symbol of the divinity separated of Him, in like manner our body
could be united in a real way with the divinity of Christ by touching it to the body of
Christ. It is an analogous experience with the power of Christ poured from His body,
through His clothes, towards those who were ill and touched Him. But, because the
body of Christ became pneumatized and invisible by the ascension, remaining
however a clothed body, the touch of our body by His body is not a visible touch,
for the matter linked with our body is used.1093

What Stniloae wants to stress here, therefore, is the Christological realism of the mysteries.
In practice, in order to start the process of sanctification in the believer, Christ penetrates

1091
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. III, p. 13.
1092
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. III, pp. 15-17.
1093
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. III, p. 18.
315

with the energy of His purified body into our body, by using the substances of the mysteries
or the gestures of the priest.1094 This is possible in Stniloaes view, because the Logos of
God is present in all creatures and, therefore in the substances of the mysteries which are
sanctified through the special prayers of the Church. Accordingly, matter is sanctified and
then applied by the Holy Spirit in the mysteries. Matter is not merely a symbol separated by
grace, which works occasionally and interprets intuitively the invisible work of grace, but is
filled itself with divine power.1095 This view should be apprehended again as the ontological
relationship of matter with the divine Logos and human body of Christ, a well-known theme
used by Stniloae.
Moreover, the relation between Christ and His Church is understood by Stniloae in a
dialectical way. The Church is on the one hand full of Christ, because Christ is working
through it, and on the other hand is praying and serving Christ. Christ serves with His love
and grace, while believers are called to open themselves entirely and personally to Him. In
this sense, the forms and the degrees of relationship between Christ and believers in the holy
mysteries were established solely by Christ and not by the Church. The presence and the work
of Christ Himself in the mysteries are seen in the operation of grace as uncreated energy.
Thus Christ irradiates in every believer the power of that state by which He exalted His
humanity to its complete deification.1096 Hence there is a dialectic between Christ and the
Church that is the key to the logic of Stniloaes ecclesiology. In other words, a theological
symbiosis between Christology and ecclesiology is at work.
Following the Eastern tradition, Stniloae considers the holy mysteries primarily as the
effusion of deifying energies, sacred actions of mysteries, in which the Holy Spirit is actively
present. As such, baptism is the regeneration in the Spirit that transforms water into the
vehicle of divine energy. In the chrismal unction the Spirit is present in a more indirect way in
the holy oil. In the eucharist, by receiving communion, the believer receives the Lords
glorious body saturated with the vivifying energy of the Spirit and His pneumatized blood.
This pneumatology contends that the operative power in all rites flows from the hypostatic
intervention of the Holy Spirit, since He is the direct author of spiritual life, the source of

1094
Similarly, in Gregory of Nyssa, In Diem Epiphaniae (PG 46, 581, 584).
1095
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. III, p. 21. The effect of the power of the Holy Spirit on
the water is emphasized, for example, by Cyril of Alexandria who says: By the operation of the Spirit the
visible water is transformed into a sort of divine and ineffable power, and moreover sanctifies those on whom
it may come. Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentarius in Johannem 35 (PG 73, 245).
1096
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. III, p. 27.
316

grace and divine energies in the Church. Thus parallel to the ontological relation of the
faithful to Christ, there is a dynamic relation to the Holy Spirit. After changing the gifts, the
Spirit operates a change in the communicants themselves, transforming them with His
deifying energies and leading them to mystical union with Christ.
In conclusion, in Christ mankind realised and continues to realise its aspiration to transcend
until it attains absolute union with God. Three modes of transcending the humanum to
achieve union with God are necessary: the humanum to be united with the divine in the same
hypostasis of the Son of God, the Son of God to be united with the blessed Virgin, and
human beings to be united with the incarnate Son of God as distinct persons. The last mode
of transcendence is realised in stages, also called mysteries, which are not transcendence
from one stage to another stage on the created plane, but from the created to the uncreated
Absolute.1097 Stniloae affirms that in this sense such a gradual union is not mans work nor
mans fusion with Gods essence. Moreover, when Stniloae emphasises the intimate
relationship between man and God as the result of the mysteries, it discloses the quality of
man as a unique person having eternal value, a quality which is seen in the fact that in every
mystery received by man, he is identified and called by name. In this way whenever the
mystery is offered to man, he is recognised as a unique person in supreme communion with
the blessed persons of the Holy Trinity.
The material elements, signs and gestures used in each mystery, are living symbols that relate
to the realities of our human experiences, and are made vehicles of the Spirit. The external
signs of the mysteries convey real grace due to the very presence of the Holy Spirit in them,
in order to deify each person. The holy mysteries derive their transforming power from God
and not from men, for they are divinely ordered institutions. In a particular way, the mysteries
are based upon the words and actions of Christ. They are the perpetuation and the extension
of His saving ministry. In conclusion, Stniloae maintains that salvation is accomplished by
God in co-operation (synergy) with humanity, in which divine grace and human will are both
present and operative.

5. General conclusions

1097
D. Stniloae, Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu, p. 199.
317

In accordance with other modern Orthodox theologians, Stniloaes view is that the Church is
a manifestation of Christ, as His mystery, or His icon, rather than as a religious society or
institution.1098 As the mystical body of Christ, the Church is an organism and a living unity,
not on its pilgrimage but as already living internally the life of its Head in glory.1099 In
Stniloaes theology, then, the Church is regarded as the Church of the incarnation, or the
mystery of the incarnation prolonged down the centuries. The incarnation of the Logos
brought into the world the whole power of eternity, initiating the body of Christ, the Church,
into the full life of the Trinity.
Orthodox enthusiasm for the Churchs contemplation in its mystical essence thus is the result
of the view that the Church is an invisible mystery seen only by the eye of faith, being
experienced rather than demonstrated, carrying its own consciousness in the living memory of
tradition. In this grandiose Orthodox vision, it is claimed that the Church existed before all
centuries, in the mind of the Trinity, and that it was the goal and foundation of the
creation.1100 Not only was it suggested beforehand in the unity of the human race and in the
Old Covenant, but the Church knew the plenitude of existence with Christ at Pentecost.
Accordingly, the Church is primarily transcendent, yet also immanent in the world: the locus
of our deification.
Accordingly, there are some important themes resulting from the pneumato-ecclesiological
aspect of deification in Stniloae, themes which may complete the whole picture of what
theosis means.

5.1 Ontological continuity and pneumatological Christology


In order to emphasise in our methodological approach the reciprocal service between Christ
and His Spirit, as a specific contribution of Stniloae to the development of the concept of
theosis, we have to come back to his comprehension of the role of Christ and the Holy Spirit

1098
See S. Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, pp. 150f; T. Ware, The Orthodox Church, pp. 48-49; A.
Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodox (London: Harvill Press, 1963). However, too much of
the social or administrative functions of the Eastern Church have been undertaken by the state, in such cases
as Russia or Romania. For a fine inquiry, see Y. Congar, Divided Christendom. A Catholic Study of the
Problem of Reunion (London: Geoffrey Bles, The Centenary Press, 1939), pp. 198-220.
1099
Yannaras sums up: Christ is the head of the Church not because He was her founder, but because He
Himself constitutes her body. He forms her trinitarian mode of existence, that ethos of the Church which is to
be identified with true life. C. Yannaras, Freedom of Morality, tr. by E. Briere (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS Press,
1984), p. 51.
1100
See G. Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition, vol. I, p. 64.
318

in the history of mans deification.1101 This is determined by the fact that in Orthodox tradition
there are two general views: one view sustains a distinction between the economies of the
Son and of the Spirit,1102 while the other view puts emphasis on the Christological and
pneumatological dimensions of the one divine economy.1103 Hence the question is whether the
missions of the Son and the Spirit are sequential or simultaneous. It will be demonstrated that
one of Stniloaes most important theses is that Christ and the Holy Spirit act in reciprocity
and mutual service both in their intra-trinitarian life and their economies in history. Stniloae
is certainly following the tradition of Irenaeus when he considers the Word and the Spirit as
two hands of the Father, distinct and yet inseparable in theologia and in oikonomia, both
proceeding from the Father.1104
Stniloae argues that the cutting edge of Christian experience is the distinct hypostatic being
of each of the trinitarian persons and, accordingly, the preference of person over the nature.
Saying that, a significant result is located in the area of ecclesiology, where there is not simply
one hypostasis of the glorified Christ, but many human hypostases united in Christ and
diversified by the Holy Spirit. If Christ emptied Himself by becoming flesh through the union
of His hypostasis to a human nature, so, too, the Holy Spirit empties Himself by indwelling

1101
We will leave aside here the complex problem of the procession of the Holy Spirit, that is, the Filioque.
However, Orthodox criticism of the Western position, in dealing the consequences of the Filioque, is
sometimes overstated. See M. Fouyas, Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Anglicanism (Brookline, Mass.:
Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1984), pp. 204-209; V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology, pp. 156-173; N. Nissiotis,
The Main Ecclesiological Problem of the Second Vatican Council: And the Position of the Non-Roman
Churches Facing It, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 2 (1965), p. 48. For a different and corrective position
see J.D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, p. 127. For Stniloae, see The Procession of the Holy Spirit from
the Fathers and His Relation to the Son, as the Basis of our Deification and Adoption, in Spirit of God, Spirit
of Christ. Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy, Faith and Order Paper, No. 103 (London:
SPCK and Geneva: WCC, 1981), pp. 174-186.
1102
See, for example, the position of V. Lossky in The Mystical Theology.
1103
For the implications of the last view in ecclesiology, see J.D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, pp. 123-
142, and N. Nissiotis, Pneumatological Christology as a Presupposition of Ecclesiology, Oecumenica
(1967), pp. 235-252.
1104
The Son and the Spirit make the discovery of God in history possible. The two hands set in motion are
the order and plan for those who are saved, that is, believers advance by degrees... first by the Spirit they
mount to the Son, and then (they ascend) by the Son to the Father. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 5, 36, 2 (SC
153, 458, 460). The Orthodox theologians have often reproached Western tradition for neglecting to give
proper attention to the third person of the Holy Trinity, being characterised by an excessive Christocentricity.
Stniloae thinks that the preponderance of Christologism is caused by filioquism. He quotes N. Nissiotis:
... the spirit that governs the schema and the Vatican Council as a whole shows a lack of consistent teaching
about the Holy Spirit. In this way its right Christological basis becomes in the end christomonism which is
quite inflexible in the discussion of the particular controversial issues of ecclesiology. Thus the concepts of the
hierarchy and the People of God, as well as the royal priesthood, are thought out on a sociological and
juridical rather than a charismatic basis. N. Nissiotis, Is the Vatican Council Really Ecumenical? ER 16
(1964), p. 365. For Stniloae, see Theology and the Church, pp.11-15. See also M. Fouyas, Orthodoxy,
Roman Catholicism, and Anglicanism, pp. 204-209; D.G. Popescu, Ecleziologia Romano-Catolic dup
319

human hypostases through the imparting of uncreated grace. Hence Stniloae understands
Christology pneumatologically, because the economy of Christ cannot be understood apart
from that of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the Son and the Spirit have one economy with distinct
roles. The economy of the Spirit is neither subordinate nor parallel to the economy of the
Son, but its complement. In revealing Christ, the Spirit prepares human beings to receive the
Son, and then becomes a kind of medium for reciprocal communication between them. The
Spirit actualises the reality of the presence of the Son as the incarnate Logos of God in the
world. Further, He glorifies the Father and the Son by perfecting the work of the Trinity in
creation and redemption. In Orthodox pneumatology, then, humanity and creation are both in
the process of sanctification through the operation of the uncreated energies of the Spirit. In
fact, the eschatological goal of the whole creation and humanity, that is theosis, is to become
by grace that which God is by nature: to become a new creation. The coming of the Spirit
inaugurates the Church as the image of new humanity and the permanent epiklesis of the
Holy Spirit.1105 The Spirit has changed a community of sinners into a community of saints. It
is in this renewal process and in the ambience of koinonia, that the Holy Spirit maintains the
authenticity and the continuity of the Church through the gifts and the holy mysteries.
As a result, pneumatology is included both in the general theologia and oikonomia of the
Holy Trinity. That is, the presence and the work of the Holy Spirit are confined by the
framework of a trinitarian soteriology. In this context, Stniloae emphasises both the
economy of the Son and of the Spirit in the life of the Church, trying to avoid the
Christocentric tendency, which stresses more the historical, institutional aspect of the Church,
and the pneumatocentric tendency, which makes the history of the Church dependent on the
Holy Spirit. The mystery of the Church is fully understood if the two economies are kept
undiluted and inseparable within the same soteriological contingency. Moreover, there is an
organic unity between the Holy Spirit and the Church. Christ remains present in the Spirit

Documentele celui de-al doilea Conciliu de la Vatican i Ecourile Ei n Teologia Contemporan, Doctorate
dissertation (Bucureti, 1971), in Ortodoxia 3 (1972), pp. 325-457.
1105
N. Nissiotis, Called to Unity: The Significance of the Invocation of the Spirit for Church Unity, in
Lausanne 77, Faith and Order, Paper 82 (Geneva: WCC, 1977), p. 54. As the supreme moment in Orthodox
liturgy, the epiklesis expresses the Church as a sacramental reality in history. For similar emphasis on the role
of epiklesis, see: L. Vischer, The Epiclesis: Sign of Unity and Renewal, Studia Liturgica 6 (1969), pp. 30-
39; E. Clapsis, The Holy Spirit in the Church, ER 3 (1989), pp. 339-347.
320

within human history, together with His body, the Church, in and through which He actualises
the salvific work.1106
This approach could be questioned in some ways, and Stniloae noted that. We have seen
that in his thought the Church is conceived as a sign and an instrument of mankinds unity
with God. In parallel, we observe that in the incarnational approach the visible aspects receive
greater importance, while in the pneumatological the invisible aspects are more accentuated.
Based on the incarnational model, Stniloaes view held that since membership in the Church
does not abolish individual freedom, and members do indeed sin, its faults must detract from
the Church as the mystical body. The sinner excludes himself from the interior divine life of
the Church without destroying its theandric nature. First, the question is whether this solution
does not cast doubt on an individuals membership in the Church. Second, a strong
incarnational model based on inclusivist theories of mankind in Christ, can jeopardise the key
role of the Holy Spirit. This seems to be a serious charge, due to the fact that Stniloaes
strong incarnationalism applied to ecclesiology may dissolve the events of incarnation and
Pentecost in a historical process.
This is the reason why Stniloae struggles to integrate the incarnational and pneumatological
models. To avoid the extremes, Stniloae returns to the mystery of mans self-surrender to
God and Gods self-giving to man, aspects that are incomprehensible for our personal union
with God unless the Spirit moves us to faith. The ecclesial community presupposed not only
the incarnation of Christ, but also His resurrection and ascension, that is, the incarnate Lord
in His glorified state. Every mans predestination in view of the Sons incarnation is also
conditioned by His exaltation and by His sending of the Spirit. That is, all men are predestined
in and through Christ and they are also predestined to receive the Spirit. Although too
schematic, Stniloaes formula says that the incarnational dimension represents the historical
or objective redemptive value, while the pneumatological the vertical or subjective. But the
pneumatological value requires the incarnational, for they induce each other. The Church as
the mystical body existed before the individuals incorporation into Christ, but the Church as
incorporated explicit members, arises only when the Spirit transforms people. Even though
both aspects, the incarnational and the pneumatological, mutually condition each other, they
manifest themselves differently. The Church is a mystery of mankinds unity at the
incarnational and pneumatological levels because it unites within itself both implicit and

1106
It is at this point, however, that the disagreements between Eastern and Western theologians continue to
321

explicit members. In conclusion, Stniloae questions whether the nature of the Church is to be
referred exclusively to an incarnational or pneumatological model. For him, Christ and His
Spirit do not act independently of each other. Therefore Stniloae rightly decides that
Churchs unity flows from both the incarnational and pneumatological dimensions.
In summary, the presence of God in a concrete community implies a pneumatological
Christology, as a necessary premise for ecclesiology. Only then can we perceive the direct and
personal presence of Christ through the Spirit in the historical Church, and experience the
new communion of God with people purified in the blood of Christ through the grace of the
Spirit. The traditional Orthodox ecclesiology is unequivocal: Christ extends Himself in the
Church through the Spirit, and the Church experiences Christ through the same Spirit. The
Spirit works in and from the Church to deify human beings, the Church constituting the
existential space of the manifestation of the salvific power of Christ, through the Spirit.
Furthermore, for Stniloae, the Church cannot be a mere mechanical means to an end, an
institutional instrument to communicate only truths and beliefs. Rather, it is a community of
men who possess in common a special interior life in Christ through the Holy Spirit. The
Spirit builds up the body of Christ from within in such a manner that the incarnational
dimension of the Church is born and develops organically, internally and pneumatologically.
The Church is the union between God and men. The Church is a continuing Pentecost. So the
invisible Church of the Spirit becomes visible analogically to the Christological doctrine of
Chalcedon. Therefore the incarnational and pneumatological dimensions of the Church are
inseparable and the Church is considered the unique means of the reconciliation of mankind
with the Father.

5.2 Communion and theandrism


Considering the Church an extension of divine life in humanity, it becomes clear that in
Stniloaes theology the doctrine of the Church is closely related with the doctrine of the
Trinity. How we understand the trinitarian relationships determines our view on how God is
involved in the structure and ministry of the Church.1107 That is, for Stniloae the trinitarian

persist.
1107
Orthodox tradition warns that a lack of balanced trinitarianism will end in different forms of monism, two
extremes being recognised in the Western Christomonism, or Christocentrism, and pneumatocentrism or
pneumatomonism, as found in the charismatic movement. Surely a pneumatocentric approach to ecclesiology
is running the risk of becoming a charismatic sociology as seems to be the case in Khomiakov. D. Stniloae,
Relaiile Treimice, p. 505; Chipul lui Hristos n Biserica Rsritean, Ortodoxia 1 (1973), pp.5ff. See also
N. Nissiotis, Is the Vatican Council Really Ecumenical? ER, July (1964), p. 365.
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relationships do not constitute only the model, but also the source or the constitutive principle
of the Church. With a theandric constitution, that confers the quality of the medium of
salvation in the Spirit, the Church is endowed by Christ with the administration of the holy
mysteries. This theandrism implies experiencing Christ in the Spirit, in a trinitarian
transparency of its ecclesial structures. As a reaction to the excessive rationalisation of
imitatio Christi found in the Western tradition, Stniloae speaks about the life in Christ as a
communication of trinitarian life through the uncreated energies towards the members of the
mystical body of Christ, in the Spirit.1108 Consequently, our union with Christ in the Spirit,
and our transformation, take place in the body of Christ, as the place of encounter of God and
human persons brought together in the risen body of Christ.1109 In this way, the Orthodox
Church elevates its believers to the relational and personal plane with the Holy Trinity, while
the eternal plan of restoration and deification of humanity and creation is accomplished and
perfected in the Church.1110 The Church thus becomes the medium of participation of the
human persons to the deified body of Christ, which deifies them.
Stniloae is cautious enough when he says that the theandricity of the Church does not mean
that all members are morally perfect. Rather, theandricity facilitates their ascension towards
final deification. On the other hand, the Church receives from Christ divine life and all divine
gifts, and on the other hand, the same Church is perfecting (in the sense of completion)
Christ by incorporating Him within the life of believers. This is why, states Stniloae, the
personal relationship between Christ and believers, established by the Church in the Spirit, is
somehow superior to the normal relationship standing between two human persons, because
relationship with Christ is sustained and developed through the mystical presence of the same
Spirit in two persons, thus creating an unmediated and reciprocal assimilation. This
assimilation through the Church in Christ ends, of course, in human sanctification.

1108
D. Stniloae, Chipul lui Hristos n Biserica Rsritean, Ortodoxia 1 (1973), p. 6.
1109
The body of the Word in its own nature has been enriched with the Word who is united to it. It has
become holy, life-giving, full of the divine energy. And in Christ we too are transfigured. Cf. Cyril of
Alexandria, That Christ is One (PG 75, 1269), cited by O. Clment, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, p. 264.
In a like manner, P. Sherrard writes: The Church is therefore far more than simply a created reality, or a
historical or social entity. It is both uncreated and created, trans-historical and historical, simultaneously. See
so to speak from the side of God, it is uncreated divine life itself. Seen from the side of creation, it is a
mutiplicity of spiritualized created beings in the process of spiritualization: a multiplicity of beings with one
life because sharing in the single body of Christ. Cf. P. Sherrard, Church, Papacy, and Schism. A
Theological Enquiry (London: SPCK, 1978), p. 3.
1110
Therefore Stniloae affirms that our admittance in the personal relationship with Christ could not take
place except by entering in the field where the unifying and sanctifying energy of the Holy Spirit is present,
that is, in the Church. D. Stniloae, Transparena Bisericii n Viaa Sacramental, Ortodoxia 4 (1970), pp.
502-503.
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Stniloae applies this principle in a practical way. For him, if salvation involves merely an
exterior juridical purpose, the Church would not have a necessary role for deification.1111
Contrarily, the Church, in the Orthodox view, is the completion of Gods salvific work (the
fifth act, besides incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension) and the organ by which
salvation becomes active in every person.1112 Stniloae defines the Church as a heavenly
place, the receptacle of peoples communion, a laboratory and a theandric medium where
their salvation is performed. Saying that, Stniloae makes a clear distinction between the
potentiality and the actuality of membership in the Church. The Church and the actuality of
membership are fully understood only by the one who is present in the interior perspective of
the Church, and who lives in it. This is why Church membership is not an affiliation to a past
heritage, but to an actual, dynamic, and living theandric reality. It is a decision to grow up in
Christ, a determination for spiritual maturation, and a desire to attain deification.1113 This
spiritual abundance of God is poured out through the holy mysteries in the life of believers,
through the Spirit. Therefore the Church is the only medium whereby God saves, and life in
Christ is only accessible by personal sharing in a corporate reality.1114
It is in this context that Stniloae sees the essence of the Church as lying in its unity, not an
external or empirical, but an internal, organic unity. This is why the knowledge of God has
become possible in the Church as the unity of the life of grace. Revelation becomes an inner
revelation and is preserved in the Church. It is a unity because its very being consists in
reuniting separated and divided mankind. This unity of regenerated mankind in Christ

1111
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, pp. 195-196.
1112
The doctrine of the extra ecclesiam nulla salus involved here, received a precise definition with Irenaeus
who wrote: Where the Church is there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the
Church and all grace; and the Spirit is the truth. Those, therefore who do not participate in the Spirit neither
feed at their mothers breasts nor drink the bright fountain issuing from Christs body. Irenaeus, Adversus
Haereses 3.24 (PG 7, 966). In our times, Florovsky writes: The Church is Christs work on earth; it is the
image and abode of His blessed Presence in the world... In the Church our salvation is perfected; the
sanctification and transfiguration, the theosis of the human race is accomplished. G. Florovsky, Sobornost:
The Catholicity of the Church, p. 53.
1113
Stniloae writes: Every person is created for eternal life, because everyone is unique in his understanding
of the actual existence, in living it, in communicating himself through the love of eternal God towards other
persons, and receiving the communication of life from them. No one can be replaced by another. No one is
repeating himself. God did not create this richness of personal modes of existence, its understanding and
loving intercommunications, in order for it to be wasted, but for everyone to be enriched in relationship with
all modes of diverse understanding and loving intercommunication. And every person is called to grow up
endlessly by receiving the infinite knowledge and spiritual richness of God. D. Stniloae, Realitatea Tainic
a Bisericii, Ortodoxia 3 (1984), p. 417.
1114
In the same way, Bulgakov writes: The community of the life of grace is not given to a man individually,
in his singleness, but in communitarian fashion, in connection with the Church as a divinely ordered
organisation. S. Bulgakov, Die Lehre von der Kirche in orthodoxer Sicht, Internationale Kirchliche
Zeitschrift 47 (1957), pp. 168-200 (188), quoted by A. Nichols in Theology in the Russian Diaspora, p. 148.
324

enjoying the new life of the Spirit is precisely the sobornost or catholicity of the Church. The
unity of the Church, therefore, is reflected in the unity and common life of love of its
members. In this life there is no denial of personality, but the attainment of a whole
personality, which is complete and transfigured and receives the power to express the
charismatic life and consciousness of the whole Church.1115
The analogy of the body of Christ which Paul used as a summary of his faith and experience
is no accidental metaphor. Stniloae makes use of this metaphor to express the intimate union
of believers with Christ. This particular analogy reveals intensively the personal relationship of
each member to Christ as the head of the Church. When Stniloae speaks about the Church as
more than a simple social organisation, he understands that the Church is Christ Himself as
He lives and rules in His members, a living organism. Such a union that transcends the merely
human dimension is consummated primarily in the eucharist experience. And the ontological
place of personal love and unity is each local congregation, whose unity springs from and is
fulfilled in the eucharist.
To sum up, the mystery of salvation, that is, the ontological communion between God and
man, is realised in the personal possession and experience of the deified humanity of Christ in
the Holy Spirit. The Spirit restores not only the integrity of nature and the unity of human
person, but also the communion of persons after the trinitarian model. In this sense the Spirit
is the creator of communion, the one who sets persons face to face, in a dialogic state and
reciprocal mediation.1116 This model of communion becomes the key element for Orthodox
spirituality.
However, the Catholic theologian Avery Dulles, engaging a dialectical method to study five
models of the Church, came to the conclusion that the model of the body, although powerful

1115
Florovsky explains: The personal is not to be sacrificed and dissolved in the corporate; Christian
togetherness must not degenerate into impersonalism. The idea of the organism must be supplemented by
the idea of a symphony of personalities, in which the mystery of the Holy Trinity is reflected (cf. John 17, 21-
23) and this is the core of the conception of catholicity (sobornost). G. Florovsky, The Church: Her Nature
and Task, in Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View, pp. 57-72 (69). A similar idea is found in
E. Brunner, who writes that the Church is not an institution but a brotherhood and a pure communion of
persons. Cf. E. Brunner, The Misunderstanding of the Church (London: Lutherworth, 1952), p. 107.
However, unless one also stresses the divine element (the Church as Body of Christ), this sounds too human-
based, too sociological.
1116
D. Stniloae, La Centralit du Christ dans la Thologie, dans la Spiritualit et dans la Mission
Orthodoxe, Contacts 92 (1975), p. 454. In Zizioulas words: When the Holy Spirit blows, He does not create
good individual Christians, individual saints, but an event of communion, which transforms everything the
Spirit touches in to a relational being. The other becomes in this case an ontological part of ones identity.
The Spirit de-individualizes and personalizes beings wherever He operates. Cf. J.D. Zizioulas, Communion
and Otherness, SVTQ 38.4 (1994), p. 354.
325

when regarding the idea of communion, could lead to an unhealthy divinization of the
Church. Since the Spirit is conceived as the life principle of the Church, all the actions of
the Church would seem to be attributable to the Holy Spirit. This would obscure the personal
responsibility and freedom of the members, and would make the presence of sin and error in
the Church - even on the corporate and official level - unintelligible.1117 Further, the
identification of the mystical body with the visible dimensions of the Church may induce
problems for an understanding of extra-ecclesial salvation. By comparison, the institutional
model, says Dulles, which seems to deny salvation to anyone who is not a member of the
organisation, the communion model has the advantage of promoting an ecumenical and
catholic dimension, besides a potential reviviscence of spirituality as the result of
interrelationship within the Church. However, Dulles notices a few weaknesses: the model
might overshadow the relationship between the spiritual and visible dimensions of the Church,
exalt and divinize the Church beyond its due, and keep under pressure the relation between
friendship and mystical communion in the Church.1118

5.3 The dynamism of grace


Along with other modern Orthodox theologians, Stniloae regards deification as, first and
foremost, the result of the Holy Spirits activity in people.1119 Thus it is the Holy Spirit who
gives us His own nature, granting us the qualities which Eastern Christendom associates with
deification. This action of the Holy Spirit in granting deification to people is a function of
Gods grace as a divine energy.1120 Divine grace strengthens people to walk the road to
theosis, and this grace is transmitted and actualised in the mysteries, especially baptism,

1117
A. Dulles, Models of the Church (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1974), p. 51.
1118
This is why, Dulles prefers the sacramental model for the Church, which preserves the values of the
institutional and community elements, and has an event character. The Church becomes Church insofar as
the grace of Christ, operative within it, achieves historical tangibility through the actions of the Church, as
such. Cf. A. Dulles, Models of the Church, pp. 54-57, 64, 97ff. The same idea, that the Church as sacrament
might be the best definition, is found in his book, The Resilient Church: The Necessity and Limits of
Adaptation (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977), pp. 17ff.
1119
Lossky writes: The Son has become like us by the incarnation; we become like Him by deification, by
partaking of the divinity in the Holy Spirit. V. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, p. 109. Similarly,
Stavropoulos affirms that theosis is offered by Christ, but realised only with the Holy Spirit. C. Stavropoulos,
Partakers of Divine Nature, tr. by S. Harakas (Minneapolis, Minn.: Light and Life, 1976), p. 29. Only in the
Holy Spirit will reach the point of becoming gods, the likeness of God.
1120
Lossky writes: Grace is uncreated and by its nature divine. It is the energy or procession of the one
nature: the divinity in so far as it is ineffably distinct from the essence and communicates itself to created
beings, deifying them. V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology, p. 172.
326

repentance, and the eucharist.1121 Therefore prayer, fasting, and other works are not the
purpose of life, but they are the necessary means for the achievement of the purpose.1122 Of
course, this is not to say that virtuous works enable people to earn deification.1123 The
theological reason for the Orthodox position is found in human freedom and mans possibility
of union with God.1124 It emerges that, for the Orthodox, there is no dichotomy between
grace and works, for grace is not an expression of the undeserved nature of salvation, but is
an energy of God, which can be communicated to people and which deifies them.
What basically Stniloae advances is the idea that the aim of the Christian life is to acquire
the Holy Spirit in stages, an aim made possible after the Pentecost event when the Spirit
became active within Christians as an interior element of human nature. Thus avoiding
confusion, the Spirit becomes more intimate to us as believers than we are to ourselves. The
inner presence of the Spirit within Christians is not a static attribute but a dynamic potency
leading to final theosis. It is by the power of the Spirit that believers progress from
egocentrism to theocentrism, from will to freedom, from image to likeness, until they are
deified. In this way, the process of deification is substantially that of kenosis, just as the
incarnation and Pentecost are acts of kenosis of the Logos and the Spirit.1125 Stniloaes view
of grace stresses its ontological and personalistic aspect. Basically, this view is once again
related to Stniloaes epistemological principle. Stniloae describes the idea of grace as the
impartation to us not of an impersonal something from God, but of God Himself. Grace is not
seen as a divine mode of causation and some interiorizing of a divine power within us,
implanting the ability to perform Gods will.1126 For Stniloae grace is intensely personal in

1121
Although the Church is, by definition, the activity of the Holy Spirit among people, it is not the Church
itself that conveys grace. Meyendorff specifies that it is not the Church that, through the medium of its
institutions, bestows the Holy Spirit, but it is the Spirit that validates every aspect of Church life, including the
institutions. J. Meyendorff, Catholicity and the Church, p. 28. Similarly, Bulgakov stipulates that the mode
of conveyance is by mysteries administrated by a priest of the apostolic succession. S. Bulgakov, The Orthodox
Church, pp. 37ff. This stress on the holy mysteries as the means of deification is linked to the idea that,
mainly in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Church is primarily a sacramental or mysterious community.
1122
C. Stavropoulos, Partakers of Divine Nature, p. 33.
1123
Good works, writes Bulgakov, do not constitute merit - no one merits or can merit salvation by human
works. They represent mans personal participation in achieving salvation, beyond any reckoning or
compensation. S. Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, p. 107.
1124
Florovsky writes: God has freely willed a synergistic path of redemption in which man must spiritually
participate. G. Florovsky, The Byzantine Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers, in Collected Works, vol. X (Vaduz:
Buechervertriesbanstalt, 1987), p. 31.
1125
The role of the Spirit in salvation (and also in the internal life of God?) is kenotic; it is always directed
to the Other. Cf. J. Meyendorff, The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: SVS
Press, 1982), pp. 164-165.
1126
These ideas have influenced Roman Catholic as well as Calvinist theology (for example, the idea of
causation). Stniloae contrasts the Reformation view of grace that replaced a mysterious universe with the
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that it involves an encounter with God who draws us near to Him and acts upon us creating a
personal response to Him. Thus Stniloaes approach to the Christian faith is primarily
mystical not philosophical, bearing a personal distinctiveness, for above all it is a revelation of
divine persons.1127
To avoid the danger of this falling into another form of created grace, Stniloae applies the
idea that the self-communication of God to us in Christ is God Himself, and thus the Gift and
the Giver are one because what God communicates to us in His grace is Himself. Hence grace
is not detached from God or quantitative. Furthermore, when Stniloae applies the hypostatic
union to grace, this is to Christs divine and human natures, so that we participate in His
human nature and thus share in the very life and love of God Himself. Stniloae posits,
therefore, an ontological relation with Christ (for all people) in His human nature because He
is the incarnation of the Logos in whom all men cohere.
A positive commentary on Stniloaes view of grace is that the shape assumed by Stniloaes
theological discourse upon the relationship between nature and grace is more dynamic
because it is linked to trinitarian, Christological, and eschatological doctrines. For him, the
orders of world and grace are seen as interpenetrating one another, not simply juxtaposed.
Graced persons do not find salvation merely in a vertical escape from the world, but in
horizontal relationships in the world with their neighbours. The full richness of a graced
human person is understood only in a symbiotic relation with the human community and with
the physical world. It is this cosmic and dynamic dimension of grace that Stniloae
confidently initiated, by his attempt to integrate spirit and matter into a trinitarian,
Christological, and eschatological context.
However, although Stniloae promotes a theology of grace best described by the process of
deification which affects the whole being, including the transfiguration of the body,1128 we
believe that, from this point of view, the two sides of the grace antinomy - that is, the
sovereignty of God who justifies and sanctifies man, and the reality of regeneration - seem to

Covenant of Grace which took concrete form in the incarnation. See also the valuable analysis of the history
of ideas in T.F. Torrance, The Roman Doctrine of Grace from the Point of View of Reformed Theology, in
Theology in Reconstruction (London: SCM Press, 1965), pp. 172-174.
1127
Accordingly, says Stniloae, the starting point of theology then must be the personal experience of
believers, seen eventually as a dynamic process of their communion with God. This graduation is found not
only in monastic spirituality, but also in theological discourses of the Eastern Fathers.
1128
A practical approach connected with this subject entails surely the wider context of Christology and
pneumatology. The doctrine of the Logos incarnate, especially in Johannine writings, has created for the first
Christologists the emphasis on Christs human nature (Logos-flesh) and its deification, this tendency being
clearly detected in Eastern Orthodoxy
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be reconciled too easily by Stniloae. This is why we fundamentally disagree with the idea of
a real sharing in the divine life in virtue of emphasising the sinful condition of man and in the
way of approaching Christology.
Our first objection, therefore, is concerning the question of the sinful condition of man. This
leads us to the key issue in understanding the differences in the doctrine of grace, that is, the
relation between man and the supernatural, or rigorously, the contrast between natural and
supernatural, sin and grace. This division takes into account the Aristotelian and Platonist
anthropologies, the latter anthropology,as more dynamic and essentialist, being adopted by
Stniloae. This explains why Stniloae considers that, in his essence, man is seen as capable
from the very beginning, by his own efforts, of reaching the highest degree of spiritual life,
theosis. Stniloae is convinced that human nature must somehow be complemented by grace
as the free self-communication of God. Accordingly, the life offered by grace is supernatural,
because the divine being is ontologically superior to all human beings, and grace is freely
given.
The problem is not in the supernatural character of grace, but in its created or uncreated
property, and its relation with human natural powers.1129 Thus the Orthodox, Catholic, and
Protestant theological positions on justification and sanctification are generally identified with
doctrines of deification, created grace, and extrinsic grace respectively. At first sight, the
points of contact between these three interpretations appear to be few. The concept of
deification, for instance, which Orthodox theology speaks of, is habitually understood by
Western theologians, both Catholics and Protestants, as implying a dangerous apotheosis of
man, brought about by disregarding original sin.1130

1129
In the classic Roman Catholic theology, for example, God can be apprehended only mediately, indirectly,
and grace supplements nature by providing a power to achieve a cognitive level of activity transcending the
natural. Because grace can offer nature a means to transcend its limits, extrinsic, superadded powers become a
necessity. This standard position was challenged by modern authors like Maurice Blondel and Henri de
Lubac, who held that the human person has an unconditioned desire for the mode of existence offered by
grace, and grace supplies it with new powers. See S.J. Duffy, The Dynamics of Grace. Perspectives in
Theological Anthropology (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1993); J.-M.R. Tillard, Church of
Churches. The Ecclesiology of Communion, tr. by R.C. De Peaux (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press,
1992). On their side, Protestant theologians see graces function primarily as redemptive, restoring humanity
to its nature and destiny by liberating humanitys own powers and directing them to God.
1130
On the other hand, the Catholic theology of grace as an infused habitus, a created reality, is perceived by
Protestants as a thing at mans disposal. Finally, the Protestant theology of imputation and of grace, summed
up in statements like the simul justus et peccator, in which the wickedness of human nature is pivotal, seems
to over-simplify the doctrine of justification. However, in spite of some irreconcilable points as might appear,
there are significant similarities based particularly on the fact that all Christian confessions accept some
transformation in man, brought about by divine justification.
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Stniloaes belief that grace is an energy of God that can be communicated to people and
which leads to their deification contrasts with the biblical understanding that the word grace
refers to Gods granting salvation as a gift to those who do not deserve it. In Pauls writings,
for example, grace is used primarily to indicate the given-ness of salvation, the unmerited
nature of Gods act (this is the sense found in Rom. 5:2; Ephes. 1:5-6, 2:8-9; Titus 2:11). The
lack of emphasis in Stniloaes theology on this aspect of grace contributes to his deficiency
in stressing convincingly the nature of salvation as a free gift and, implicitly, the the
sovereignty of God in salvation. This in turn leads to a failure to distinguish between
justification as Gods free acceptance of unworthy sinners and sanctification as the process of
becoming righteous, a process which, indeed, involves human activity and effort.
Our second objection deals with the question of the Christological approach. While
Stniloaes methodology must be questioned, there is a problem, deriving from his
Christology, with underlying ontological relations. On the one hand, Stniloae reduces the
need to be united to Christ to ontological relations, which leads to a certain confusion
between grace and its outworking. The emphasis Stniloae puts on grace as being the
concrete person of Christ has a limiting effect on grace as an event. On the other hand, the
problem is with Stniloaes Christological grounds for the doctrine of deification (as life of
incarnate Logos really given to us), where sanctification is understood as an incarnation
continued in the Holy Spirit, the soul of the Church. By looking at grace in a Christological
setting marked by its human elements, Stniloae maintains in this way that salvation and
deification are not understood apart from Christs humanity transfigured. Thus the idea of
deification may lead us to make of human nature something which it is not.

5.4 Nature and grace


Stniloae states that human nature is in itself in motion, but it has never ceased to be the
same nature in essence or to be exhausted in any motion. Christs power helps human nature
to move according to the rational, divine will.1131 Basically, this statement raises again the
question of the relation between nature and grace, and Stniloae is heavily indebted to
Maximus for that. For Maximus, since the humanum is rooted in the cosmos, nothing from
creation is wasted in God, but everything is deified. How do we explain, then, that the whole
creation exists to be developed in harmony with God by movement?

1131
D. Stniloae, Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, vol. II, p. 356.
330

First, Stniloae observes in Maximus dialectical thinking that there is a congruence between
human nature and divine grace. Human nature is that voluntary nature which at every moment
wills something, or the nature which principally and normally is always willing itself. Of
course this nature never wills something against God, because God Himself has willed and is
willing nature (that is, for an ideal situation). The basis for such an agreement between human
nature and Gods will is found in the idea that human nature is not actually filled from the
beginning with all the content of its pre-existent rationality in God, but is called to realise this
content through its voluntary efforts.1132 The way to realise this elevation is by turning back
to God or, precisely, in God.
Second, Stniloae notices the immanent action of God upon human nature. Every creature,
including human nature, is a dynamic reality, for when it is moving according to itself, it is
moving towards its aim: theosis. We become aware of a double movement, seen as a natural
tendency and a divine attraction. Human nature has within itself the work of God, and only
when creatures are fully in God, will their movement cease.1133 The state of deification thus
is the result of divine grace, not of natural activity. Because the only rationality for human
natures existence is to become unceasingly like God, even after his death man will continue
to be deified, this time not by effort but by receiving the deifying work. Moreover, although
we know that God, as the infinite in act, has no definition, human nature should be
determined as the undefined in evolution.1134
Third, Stniloae affirms that grace restores nature, and unifies man to man and men to God.
Stniloae borrows from Maximus the theory which emphasises that human beings are able to
accomplish this movement both because they are sustained by God and because they are
endowed with two wills: the natural will and the gnomic will. Thus as long the gnomic will
moves the natural powers in agreement with nature and towards its aim, man participates in
God. Being their sustainer, God remains somehow in relationship with unbelievers. God is
working intensively to awaken the conscience of those who have not utterly renounced Him
in the use of their natural powers. Like Maximus, Stniloae speaks about the illumination of
the natural reason through the Spirit, who reveals the true state of reasons subject in its

1132
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, pp. 393-394.
1133
This seems not to be in harmony with the idea of epektasis mentioned earlier, nor with the idea of ever-
moving rest.
1134
By keeping its desire constantly directed towards the infinite God, human nature will be eternally
unmoved in Him. However, because its desire will never cease to comprehend God, for He is infinite, this
fixity is at the same time a movement. Human nature is raptured, captivated by the ecstatic contemplation
of an infinite love and infinite truth. Cf. D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, p. 397.
331

existence and deeds. Even this revelation is the result of the encounter between the Spirits
operation and mans effort. Stniloae identifies such divine manifestation with the potentiality
based in reason and moved by the Spirit. On the other hand, reason has in itself the power to
participate in the Spirit. In conclusion, Stniloae states that since the powers of human
nature and the movement of reason depend on the will, it is enough for the will to be inclined
to move them according to nature and nature to be in potential unity with itself, for the Spirit
to come and help nature in its movement.1135
Stniloae remarks that John of Damascus continues Maximus ideas, Johns preoccupation
being however to define more precisely human nature and its constituents by using a
psychological rather than an anthropological methodology. In comparison with Maximus who
understood that the good is natures conformity with its pre-existent reason in God, John of
Damascus replaced reason within the law of nature. Thus human nature is maintained in
conformity to itself and to Gods law through the decisions by which free choice actualises
the virtues. Consequently, says Stniloae, John of Damascus takes a step forward, from the
immanent formal conformity of the will with the interior law of nature, to a real connection of
nature with the transcendence, showing us that the work in conformity with nature is always
sustained by God.1136 Hence like Maximus, John of Damascus does not see human nature
existing and working alone. However, in contrast with Maximus who emphasised the key role
of love, John of Damascus understands virtue as the indication of freedom, of which self-
control is the sign, being also the sign of the real state of human nature.1137 Virtue is then the
product of grace, for freedom is to live in communion with God and other people. It is here in
the mystery of freedom that mans encounter with God is involved. By doing that, John of
Damascus opens a new perspective in understanding the relation between grace and nature,
that is, the encounter between human freedom and the freedom of the divine person.1138
In accordance with Maximus and John of Damascus, then, Stniloae sees a very important
theological insight in the dynamism of deification based on mans freedom, with the result that
mans freedom also signifies the possibility for man to move towards something in opposition
to God and the potentiality of not being able to develop his nature according to Gods image.

1135
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, p. 399. For Maximus view, see Quaestiones ad Thalassium 15 (PG 90,
297).
1136
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, p. 406.
1137
Cf. John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa, III, 14 (PG 94, 1045).
1138
Cf. John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa, I, 13 (PG 94, 852). A development of the question grace-
nature is seen in Johns doctrine of Mariology. See, for example, De Fide Orthodoxa IV, 14 (PG 96, 1060),
IV, 19 (PG 96, 1092), and III, 32 (PG 96, 985).
332

The result is somehow paradoxical: man authentically develops his nature created in the
image of God through the voluntary movement towards likeness with God, yet he never
comes out from this nature, though the movement is obviously in antithesis with human
nature. Therefore even in this case, man remains in his created nature due to its intentional
activity.1139 The paradoxical constitution of human nature, continues Stniloae, becomes
more complex when we notice the infinity of nature in correlation with the authority of grace.
Thus nature which is in motion towards those things in contradiction with God and itself, by
losing Gods grace or by coming out from the communion with Him, remains altogether
nature, but an afflicted nature. This is in contrast with nature in its truthful state, that is,
penetrated by grace.1140
For Stniloae the antagonism between God and creature, and the separation between nature
and grace, are inappropriate. Reflecting mainly the thoughts of Maximus and Symeon the
New Theologian on the doctrine of primordial state of man, Stniloaes view considers mans
soul, made in the image of God, as united through its nous with God. Thus mans soul was
destined to communicate with God through its mind, while the divine element was imprinted
in our nature by Gods love. Adam was expected to accomplish a supernatural-natural
destiny, by rooting himself in the spirit and then gradually spiritualizing all humanity.
Stniloaes position advances therefore the basic idea of interpenetration without confusion
between nature and supernature. In this case, an ontological relation between nature and
grace is completed. The two graces, that of the images rehabilitation and that of adoption,
are profoundly united. While the normal state of the primordial nature was determined by the
presence of grace, the fall of man meant losing that grace and consequently spiritual
deformation. Conversely, graces restitution denotes a rehabilitation of nature, including
freedom, by which man could reinstate his efforts of deification. In this way grace actually re-
establishes mans freedom in order to attain union with God.
Accordingly, Stniloaes theocentric view of human nature also involves divine grace
because grace is indissolubly linked with freedom. This is so because freedom is the operative
principle of the person, and the person is never understood apart from the desire to exceed
itself. Stniloae is right, then, to stress that man as person is not truly free except when he is
ontologically reconstituted by grace in relationship with God. And once man is reconstituted,
although grace is dwelling in him, the progress looks like human effort. Human effort is not

1139
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, p. 421.
333

only apparent but essential and always aided by divine grace. This is the mystery of person,
which is not a closed entity but like a pole from a bipolar relation: man was created to search
for God, and to reflect God.
Therefore in Stniloaes theology the moral element in the life of the Church is
determinative.1141 Grace is seen as the source of both Christian activity and freedom. With
regard to activity, for Stniloae, human acts are not predetermined by God but previewed,
and the Holy Spirit is substantially present in the centre of human being, the place of all
successive graces. In defining the activity of the Holy Spirit, Stniloae makes use of different
comparisons that are not simple metaphors, but analogies in a realistic sense. Stniloae writes,
for example, that the Holy Spirit is experienced as a kind of fluid spiritual atmosphere which
rises within us and raises us up towards God in an ever greater understanding and love.1142
Such analogies are appropriate in indicating how the work of the Spirit imbues our spiritual
nature as a vital influx, and asserts the inseparability between the work of grace and nature,
that is, the form received by nature united with grace. In this sense the form is inseparable
from the Spirits work, having a dynamic meaning in spiritual activity. Our nature then is
gradually transformed and deified under the activity of the Holy Spirit, being configured
according to the model of Christ.
Concerning freedom, for Stniloae, grace is a spiritual provision that liberates nature by
transforming it. The Spirits gracious power soaks into the human will and generates the
spiritual will as its incipient effect. Then grace invades the whole soul, and from it irradiate
the living gifts. The only condition asked for the human soul is not to be enclosed, but open,
willing to become penetrated by grace, which is the normal state of nature. However,
Stniloae mentions that grace creates the ambience in which nature gains its subsistence in
freedom. This dialectical relation between the human and the divine in man shows that one
important mystery of the theocentric anthropology is that grace constitutes our freedom. The
greater the presence of grace, the greater our freedom. Although nature and grace are
distinct, they compose a unity. Thus the supernatural is not an obstacle nor a counterpart for
nature, but a necessary ambience for it.

1140
D. Stniloae, Natur i Har, pp. 422-424.
1141
That the goal of moral and ethical life is theosis, or theanthropic life, is confirmed by other Orthodox
theologians. Cf. V. Guroian, Incarnate Love. Essays in Orthodox Ethics (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of
Notre Dame, 1989); W.B. Zion, Eros and Transformation. Sexuality and Marriage. An Eastern Orthodox
Perspective (Lanham, New York, London: University Press of America, 1992).
1142
D. Stniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 25.
334

Finally, for Stniloae, personalism is central; grace is not a thing that can be classified
and subdivided, but an inter-personal relationship. Stniloae suggests that if analogy is a
helpful and pertinent way to understand divine existence and the relation between man and
God, evidently the finest analogies are offered by the inherent life of a human person. Since
God and man are persons, the relation between nature and grace admits a similar loving and
trusting relation as the one between two people. Therefore Stniloaes doctrine of grace,
reasoned out as the personal work of the Holy Spirit, facilitates the way of understanding the
relation between nature and grace, by operating with this analogy. Hence, speaking in general
terms, in Eastern Orthodoxy it could be problematic to find a precise system of definitions for
the theology of grace, taking into account that to determine the relation between persons is
much more difficult than that between impersonal entities.

5.5 The question of justification and sanctification


Following these two views, among the many sets of problems that distinguish the Christian
Churches, the Protestant understanding of justification and the Orthodox understanding of
theosis have often been pointed out as being in especially sharp contradiction.1143 The

1143
In spite of the Reformations belief that human beings receive the gift of grace or justification solely by
faith, the concept of theosis has not been dropped. Thorough investigations into this topic have been carried
out, especially by recent Finnish research on Luther. See, for example, the following works in German: T.
Mannermaa, Der im Glauben gegenwrtige Christus. Rechtfertigung und Vergttung zum kumenischen
Dialog, Arbeiten zur Geschichte und Theologie des Luthertums, Hrsg. von Bengt Hgglund und Heinrich
Kraft, N.F. Band 8 (Hanover, 1989); S. Peura, Mehr als ein Mensch? Die Vergttlichung als Thema der
Theologie Martin Luthers von 1513 bis 1519 (Helsinki, 1990, and Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1994);
Die Vergttlichung des Menschen als Sein in Gott, Lutherjahrbuch 60 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in
Gttingen, 1993); L. Pinomaa, Sieg des Glaubens. Grundlinien der Theologie Luthers (Berlin, 1964); and the
collection edited by S. Peura and A. Raunio, on Luther und Theosis. Vergttlichung als Thema der
abendlndischen Theologie. Referate der Fachtagung der Luther-Akademie Ratzeburg in Helsinki 30.3-2.4
1989 (Helsinki & Erlangen: Zusammenarbeit mit der Luther-Akademie Ratzeburg, 1990). Cf. H.-D.
Dpmann, Rechtfertigung und Theosis, in Persoan i Comuniune (Sibiu, 1993), pp. 241-259 (249). To
underline the importance of theosis in Luther, Dpmann quotes from one of these publications a key sentence:
The term deificatio and its German equivalent [Vergttlichung] is found in Luthers texts even more often
than theologia crucis (cf. Luther und Theosis, p. 11). The opinion of the contrariness of the doctrines of
deification and justification in recent Protestant research is based, according to Mannermaa, mainly on two
theological-historical presuppositions: Firstly, the influence of Kant and Neo-Kantianism causing an
understanding of the relation to God as ethical relation; secondly, the influence of the actualism that
stamped the understanding of the kerygma in dialectic theology. As a further momentum he points to the
opinion held by the Ritschl-school according to which the physical relation to God based upon an ontic
union has to be separated from a personal-ethical one. In Patristic thought, however, the ethical and the
ontical are not distinguished in the modern way. Cf. T. Mannermaa, Der im Glauben gegenwrtige
Christus, p. 12. Dpmann shows that recent talks between both Protestant and Orthodox Churches have made
some progress in overcoming old misconceptions about each other in respect to justification and theosis.
Dpmann concludes: After all we may say that our Churches have proceeded remarkably on the way towards
mutual understanding. It was correct when in the introduction to the communiqu of the 5th theological talk
of representatives of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland and the Russian Orthodox Church in 1980
335

Orthodox Church holds that Western Christianity is stamped by Roman legalistic thinking,
which has been introduced even into the doctrine of salvation. This basic fault, essentially
rejected by the Orthodox Church, was not corrected by the Reformation. The two moments
of justification, forgiveness and sanctification, as the positive and negative aspects of the same
process, should not be separated. Justification means for Orthodox tradition a true internal
transformation characterised by sanctification through the active work of the Holy Spirit.
There is a progress of justification in which the grace of justification is neither irresistible nor
inadmissible.1144 This position, maintain Orthodox theologians, is obviously in contrast with
the Protestant view where justification does not produce a radical transformation regarding
the Christians condition, rather it elucidates his status before God per fidem et sola fide.
Stniloae is concerned to repeat the doctrine of justification in terms of the Eastern Orthodox
understanding. He does this primarily by again using grace seen in ontological terms, and the
incarnation as redemption or healing/destruction of sin. Justification is not wrought in some
external transactional way between Christ and humankind, for salvation should not be seen as
something external to Christ and human beings. Christ became flesh and thus established our
union with Him through His incarnational union with us. Moreover, the sanctification of our
human nature was provided by the very union established between our fallen nature and
Christs divine nature.

it was declared (without concealing still remaining differences): At previous talks it was established that the
central aspects of both Lutheran and Orthodox doctrines of salvation, i.e. justification and deification, have
their firm basis in the New Testament, and that there is great unanimity with regard to these two aspects. This
consensus rests on the doctrine of Christ the common basis for our Churches. Christ is the ground of our
justification and deification. Indeed, the recent Lutheran-Orthodox dialogues have brought forward new
possibilities for adjustment in the doctrinal arena. For example, the recent Common Statement sees a
conceivable link between the doctrine of faith in Lutheran tradition, seen as a divine work in us as well as
for us and that it changes us, and the Orthodox idea of participation in and penetration by the divine life,
that is, theosis. Cf. J. Meyendorff and R. Tobias (eds.), Salvation in Christ, pp. 31f, 82-83. See also: R. Aden,
Justification and Sanctification. A Conversation between Lutheranism and Orthodoxy, SVTQ 38.1 (1994),
pp. 87-109; M.G. Baylor, Action and Person. Conscience in Late Scholasticism and the Young Luther, in
Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought XX (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1977); B.R. Hoffman, Luther and the
Mystics. A Re-examination of Luthers Spiritual Experience and His Relationship to the Mystics
(Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1976); J. Meyendorff, Lutherans and Orthodox: Is Sacramental Unity in
Sight? Dialog 29 (1990), pp. 101-103; S. Peura, Christus Praesentissimus: The Issue of Luthers Thought
in the Lutheran Orthodox Dialogue, review essay of J. Meyendorff and R. Tobias (eds.), Salvation in Christ,
in Pro Ecclesia 2 (1993), pp. 364-371; W.G. Rusch, How the Eastern Fathers Understood what the Western
Church Meant by Justification, in H.G. Anderson, T.A. Murphy and J.A. Burgess (eds.), Justification by
Faith. Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VII (Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg, 1985), pp. 131-142; R.
Saarinen, The Presence of God in Luthers Theology, Lutheran Quarterly 8 (1994), pp. 3-13.
1144
See H. Andrutsos, Dogmatica, p. 259, and N. Chiescu, Sintez asupra Dogmei Soteriologice privit
Interconfesional, Ortodoxia 2 (1959), pp. 196-217.
336

A classical Protestant response to the Orthodox tradition would see grace and justification as
two integral aspects of the salvific work of Christ. Thus these two doctrines are directly
affected by any soteriological theory, since they depend on Christs work. The fundamental
fact of Christianity is that God forgives sinners, and the doctrine of justification by faith is a
theological analysis of this fact. It is this doctrine that allows us to speak of Gods grace, and
it is also this doctrine that explains the saving significance of Christs life, death and
resurrection by relating to Gods law. As a forensic or legal declaration, justification is used in
contrast with condemnation, and just as condemnation does not make one wicked, so
justification does not make one righteous. The Bible makes it plain that faith is the means by
which we receive or appropriate the salvation gained for us by Jesus Christ. Faith is the
radical commitment of the whole person to the living Christ, a commitment that entails
knowledge, trust, and obedience. Thus faith is a human act, but it is also the gift of God; a
human activity made possible by God.1145 Although righteousness is the ground of our
justification, the apostle Paul is adamant that this righteousness is not ours, attained by the
works of the law, but the righteousness of Christ.1146 Far from making human effort of no
consequence, our salvation confers upon us the responsibility of leading holy lives. This is no
addendum to our salvation, but its very essence, for salvation has reference not only to the
freedom from condemnation that we enjoy (justification), but freedom from the power and
dominion of sin in our lives (sanctification). Thanks to our union with Christ, we have been
given new natures, that is to say, new orientations. Therefore it would be a mistake to view
sanctification as an accessory to justification or merely as evidence of justifying faith.1147

1145
There are a few modern misconceptions of faith: on the one hand, faith tends to be defined as exclusively
in propositional terms, as a rational act. On the other hand, faith is understood to have no cognitive content.
There is a third misconception which is increasingly prevalent, namely, that salvation is possible by means of
a general faith or trust in existence (God?) and not explicitly in Christ (due to pressure of world religions,
tolerance, etc.). Some modern theologians believe that every person has this kind of faith.
1146
The tradition Roman Catholic view posits six causes of justification: the instrumental cause (baptism), the
formal cause (an infusion of grace), the occasional cause (faith, human cooperation), the meritorious cause
(righteousness), the efficient cause (grace), and the final cause (Gods glory). The above righteousness is
Christs righteousness which is infused into us as we cooperate with it. Justification is a process whereby
grace is infused. Baptism removes original sin and thereafter the Christian advances from grace to grace. This
view tends to confuse justification and sanctification. A corollary of this position is that grace can be lost.
Since Vatican II, however, there has been a new approach to the question of justification. Hans Kng tried in
his book on justification to reconcile the Council of Trent with Reformation theology. Kng wants to argue
that both Protestantism and Catholicism see objective and subjective aspects of the idea of justification, only in
Protestantism a different word - sanctification- is used for the subjective aspect.
1147
Calvin insisted that: You cannot receive this [justification] without receiving sanctification at the same
time... We may distinguish them, but Christ contains both inseparably in Himself. Do you wish then to obtain
righteousness in Christ? You must first possess Christ: but you cannot possess Him without being made a
partner of His sanctification, seeing that He cannot be torn in pieces. J. Calvin, Institutes 3.16.1.
337

Sanctification is an integral aspect of Christs work of salvation, and because justification


does not change or transform our inner being, only our status, sanctification is thus its
complement. In other terms, justification is imputed righteousness, while sanctification is
imparted righteousness. We must not only be righteous in Gods sight, we must be holy in our
lives. Logically, however, sanctification is based upon justification and not vice versa. The
two doctrines must not be separated: sanctification without justification ends in moralism,
while justification without sanctification leads to lifelessness.1148
Stniloaes view, therefore, is an indication of how the ontological categories operate to the
exclusion of other categories. For Stniloae, the imputation of Christs righteousness would
be merely a judicial transaction, unless justification supports essentially a relation or real
union with Christ. Stniloaes strong ontological orientation leads him to assert the Orthodox
understanding of sanctification as having taken place in Christ, over against the classic
Protestant understanding where the ordo salutis allocated justification and sanctification to
different stages in the process of salvation. As a result justification was fulfilled from Gods
side and mans side objectively and subjectively in Christ. Christ has sanctified Himself so that
we may be sanctified in Him.
This framework, the strong ontologism that includes the idea of solidarity, leads to some
confusion, as can be seen in the two concepts of sanctification of human nature and subjective
justification. The main problem Stniloae tries to avoid is seeing justification as occurring first
as a judicial act and then followed by sanctification and union. He is therefore placing union
with Christ first, a solution that challenges the exact relationship in this incarnational union
and the preponderance of an ontological rather than a relational concept of union with Christ.
We believe that such a strong ontological view of union with Christ tends to obscure the
nature of justification (as making a person really righteous) and of sanctification. This
tendency can be seen in Stniloae as a direct result of his strong concept of solidarity and

1148
Therefore Protestant theology affirms that sanctification is a work of God in which believers participate
and not a work of self-reformation (1Thess. 5:23; Phil. 1:6). Sanctification is thus the continuing work of God
in the life of the believer, making the believer holy. However, this does not mean that we are simply passive.
Rather, the believer is constantly exhorted to work and grow (Phil. 2:12-13), for the goal of sanctification is to
attain the moral status of God or Christ Himself. Our moral condition must be brought into conformity with
our new legal status as sons of God (Rom. 8:29). Good works are the natural outcome of the new life, for if we
are born of the Spirit, we will bring forth fruit of the Spirit. Thanks to common grace and the image of God
which remains in man, even non-believers good works may meet with Gods approval. However, they do not
proceed from the right motive (to obey God) nor are oriented towards the right goal (to glorify God). Good
works are necessary not for justification, but as a consequence of our union with Christ.
338

deification.1149 Strictly speaking, the idea of corporate solidarity may obscure the
eschatological aspects of justification and sanctification.1150
We believe that Stniloaes problem is, primarily, his view on the nature of sin. One of the
predominant conceptions of the nature of sin in Scripture is that it involves a personal
alienation from God. Thus sin is neither moralistic (deviation from external norms) nor
monistic (equated with human finitude) in the Bible. The essence of sin lies not in individual
acts of transgression nor in unfavourable enviromental conditions, but rather in the depths of
mans being. Sin involves personal, concrete acts of wrongdoing, acts that violate the created
order (including the moral order). This speaks about mans ontic state and provides us with
the existential perspective on sin. But sin is also a state to which man is subject. Man
experiences an inclination towards evil, towards rebellion against God and His created order.
This is the situational perspective on sin which refers to mans ontological state. However,
there is also a perspective on sin that considers sin a violation of a legal standard for which
man is held accountable: this is guilt, not as a legal fiction or a psychological illusion, but
something real and tangible. This aspect of sin as a violation of Gods standards is secondary
in Stniloaes approach, with clear effects on his view on the doctrine of redemption and
justification. We believe that an authentic and holistic understanding of deification must deal
with the objective reality of guilt, and not merely with the subjective experience of guilt
feelings. Consciousness of sin means consciousness of ones guilt before God. This is why
guilt is primarily a relation to God and only secondarily a relation to conscience.

1149
This tendency is found also in Augustine who holds that a justified sinner is really righteous, participating
in the divine life. Cf. A.F. McGrath, Justification: Barth, Trent, and Kng, SJTh 34 (1981), p. 519, and G.
Bonner, Augustines Conception of Deification, JTS 37 (1986), p. 384. For an Orhtodox view on Augustine,
see M. Azkoul, The Influence of Augustine of Hippo on the Orthodox Church (Lampeter: Edwin Mellen
Press, 1991).
1150
See R.B. Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption. A Study in Pauls Soteriology (Phillipsburg, N.J.:
Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987), pp. 138-139.
339

CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSIONS

1. Summary

In the first part of this study we examined the epistemological basis of deification, reflected by
two pairs of concepts: apophatic-cataphatic and essence-energies. Claiming a particular way
of knowing God, Stniloaes mystical theology promotes the idea of personal experience and
transformation, of movement and progress towards a full union with God. According to
Stniloae, theology is an instrument for deification, primarily related to contemplation rather
than conceptualisation, but never ignoring its close relation to philosophy. This guarantees in
Stniloaes theological system the connection between reason and revelation, grace and
nature, humanity and divinity, and equips it with a more balanced methodology. Thus
Stniloaes apophatic-cataphatic synthesis as a theological method has an existential
perspective and an integrative character. According to Stniloae, apophaticism implies
knowledge that comes through experience with a personal quality. The elaboration of the
threefold apophaticism (incipient, intermediate, and total) is one of the most relevant
contributions to understanding Christian mystical theology. Stniloae develops the incipient
stage of apophaticism by speaking about the apophaticism of negative knowledge - with its
intuitive element that confirms the unknowability of the supreme personal Absolute - and
about the apophaticism of positive knowledge - with its affirmations which we give to God as
uncreated energies coming to us. The superior stages of intermediate and total apophaticism
in the mystical knowledge of God are announced in the practice of pure prayer and the vision
of divine light, stages that confirm the existence of new relational structures with a
transformatory character. The possibility of deification through mystical union, seen in the
idea of growth in the knowledge of God, assisted by the idea of the vision of divine light, is,
on the one hand, what distinguishes Stniloaes view (in contrast to that of Lossky), and, on
the other hand, what maintains Stniloaes attachment to the Greek Fathers.
The transformatory character of mystical theology, mirrored in Stniloaes original
apophatic-cataphatic synthesis, is completed by the dynamism of the divine uncreated
energies. The mysterious essence-energies distinction in the nature of God provides us with
the leitmotif of this study - the triad essence-hypostases-energies being ratified as the
interpretative and harmonising key for the dogmatic aspects of deification (anthropology,
Christology and pneumato-ecclesiology). As means of Gods self-disclosure and reflecting
340

trinitarian life, the uncreated energies become, by creation, intimate to humans and
authenticates their filial sensitivity. Although characterised by a dynamic personalism - as
manifestations of a free, personal, and yet inapprehensible God, and as means of human
ascent with the possibility to participate in Gods being - the uncreated energies divulge their
antinomic status. Deification-as-participation presupposes, then, the experience of the
personal and voluntary irradiations of Gods operations and something from His being.
However, it was shown that Stniloaes concept of deification, with its stress on the energetic
communion between man and God (even though, to some extent, it resists the charge of
impersonalism and unnecessary innovation) is open to the accusation of ambiguity and
instability in his Palamite language, which suggests a God incompletely revealed and a divine
economy with a diluted role.
Given the epistemological basis in understanding deification, the dogmatic part of this study
starts with the anthropological aspect of deification. Based on the idea of intersubjectivity
(elaborated at three levels: man-God, man-man, and man-world), Stniloaes anthropology
gives priority to the doctrine of creation ex nihilo as the framework for further debates on
theosis. As a free and triune act, creation is destined for deification and has a personal
character. Correlating the internal dynamism of creation with the need for transcendence as
organic in humans, Stniloae maintains the ontological-dialogic model for the relationship of
human creatures with their Creator. Influenced by Maximus combination of cosmology and
Christology, Stniloae associates the concept of theosis with kinesis and engages the twofold
movement of Gods loving attraction and mans free response - a movement conceivable in
the graceful interval of time, space and power. The personal and dynamic relationship
between God and man is re-encountered in the altruistic relationship between world and man,
seen by Stniloae as two partners placed in a reciprocal, deifying dialogue. The world is a gift
and sacrament, while man is a microcosm and mediator. Against all tendencies that try to
separate man and nature, Stniloae understands that the rationalities of the things and words,
having their model in the divine Logos, give meaning to this world, furnish human beings a
contemplative spirit, and admit an ontological unity between humanity and nature. Combining
existentialist and personalist ideas, Stniloae is very much concerned to consolidate the role
of the human body and of the spiritual senses in the process of deification. This introduces, in
an original way, the theme of the image of God in man, a theme that gathers together the
principal characteristics (ontological, personalist, communitarian, dynamic, and imperishable)
of Stniloaes concept of deification. The personalist and ontological structure of the image
341

assumes mans aspiration for communion with the divine persons, while its dynamic structure
(derived from the distinction image-likeness) reminds us again about the progressive feature
of deification. In viewing the image with an imperishable character, Stniloae does not want
to ignore the alteration of the image, but only to stress its potentiality to continue the
dialogue with God. The concept of deification, therefore, claims personal relationships as a
matrix of communion according to the trinitarian model. More precisely, the image of God in
man has a participatory and directional meaning. Deification, as such, cannot be taken
literally, but must always uphold the principle of separation between creature and Creator.
With the Christological aspect of deification we arrived at the core of this study. All latent
possibilities for deification are actualised in the person and work of Christ. Christology,
therefore, summarises the previous ideas on deification and gives them a full meaning.
Because the fundamental law of spiritual existence is the law of communion, mans call into
existence coincides with his movement towards communion, that is, towards eternal dialogue
with God. The Logos is not only the unity of all and the centre of creation, but also the only
way to restore mans communion with God, following his fall. Working within a
Chalcedonian framework, Stniloae believes that the incarnation of the Logos presupposes
the centrality of the doctrine of the hypostatic union, with its basic patristic idea of the Logos
assuming human nature, thus deifying and hypostatising humanity. The personalisation of
human nature means its complete actualisation and, consequently, the potentiality for the
maximal union of God and man in Christ according to the hypostasis. More precisely, for
Stniloae, the centre of all his hermeneutics and theological inquiry is found in the hypostatic
union, in which perichoretic and theandric works are involved. This hypostatisation or
personalisation of human nature in Christ is further explained by the doctrine of the
communication of the properties and the energies of the divine and human natures in the
interiority of the same Person. In the act of kenosis, the natures interpenetration means not
only reciprocity in the energies communication, but also the maximal elevation of human
nature. Stniloaes thoughts faithfully reflect the patristic Christology represented by
Leontius doctrine of enhypostasia (or impersonalisation, en-personalisation), Maximus
doctrine of perichoresis or mutual permeation, and Cyrils personal/existential Christology.
The physical view of deification adopted by Stniloae assures human beings of a deification
by participation in the deified body of Christ. Deification is therefore possible due to the real
interval between man and God in which man can move intentionally to communion with God.
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Continuing the idea of deification-as-participation in a soteriological context, Stniloaes


methodology takes into account the premises of the close link between incarnation and
redemption, of the strong ontology applied to redemption, and of the vicarious humanity of
Christ. All these confer to Stniloaes soteriology a very solid personalist flavour and assure
its directional efficacy in restoring relationships. By engaging communitary and
cosmological dimensions, mans salvation reveals the fact that it is part of the divine plan,
which identifies its goal as deification. Correlating the threefold offices of Christ (prophet,
priest, and king) with the three directions of one salvific work (towards God, Christs
assumed human nature, and man), Stniloae emphasises again the dynamism of truth, the
ontology of redemption, and the transformatory power of resurrection - three signs of the
completion of the objective side of deification. Certainly, in Stniloae, the incarnation,
crucifixion and resurrection form one indissoluble whole, but this does not mean that they are
equally weighted. Likewise it is the resurrection which tends to gain in importance for the
overcoming of corruptibility and the promise of incorruptibility. Accordingly, Stniloaes
apparent incarnational view of the redemption gives priority to the restitution of mans
corrupted nature, rather than the forgiveness of his guilt. This approach enables Stniloae to
consider the saving work of Christ as established ontologically in His divine being. Primarily,
redemption becomes an inward healing. Christs humanity is considered to be a place of
contact, a creative centre of salvation in space and time, while mans deification is understood
more as a process of re-humanisation. The assumption of the humanity into the enhypostasia
of the Logos is understood as impersonalisation, and the effect takes a universal form. Thus a
too strong ontologism - supported by the audacious ideas of internal atonement,
interpenetration, and solidarity - causes an inappropriate shift from Calvary to Bethlehem,
from the moral to the metaphysical problem of humanity. Not surprisingly, Stniloaes
conception of redemption diminishes in importance the biblical aspects of substitution and
satisfaction and, also, his view on hamartology. Despite that, the doctrines of incarnation and
redemption remains inseparable in Stniloaes theology.
The dynamic, ontological and personalist dimensions of deification - unveiled by
anthropology and Christology - are elaborated within the communitarian spirit experienced in
the Church. More precisely, the pneumato-ecclesiological aspect of deification indicates that
the eternal plan of deification is accomplished and perfected in the Church through the
operations of the Holy Spirit. The terminology granted to the concept of deification takes a
more dynamically fluid meaning. Stniloae defines the Church as the locus of salvation,
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the dialogue of God with the faithful, the icon of the Trinity, the hypostatic presence of
God in the world, the theandric medium, the extension of Christ into humanity, the
spiritual milieu for communion, the permanent epiklesis of the Holy Spirit, the laboratory
of resurrection,- all these phrases revealing the essential role of the Church in
comprehending the communitarian character of deification. As the work of the Trinity, the
Church of God is both the dynamic prolongation of the Sons incarnation and the laboratory
for the Spirit. In elaborating this pneumatological Christology, Stniloae asserts that Christ
brings redemption into human hearts through the Spirit, who is also the point of entry into the
Church. Thus the Church is the meeting place between the natural and the supernatural. The
process of mans deification, therefore, can continue due to the theandric constitution of the
Church and the power of sacrifice received from Christ in the Spirit. Always in an ever-
moving immobility, the Church is the place of pneumatization, of holiness and perfection, of
divine energies shining forth from Christ and holy mysteries, of solidarity and continuity. Only
this unity between the economic and the ontological ecclesiology provides an ideal
communitarian constituent in the ambience of koinonia and ensures the continuity of
deification.
The deifying energy of the Spirit in the Church is identified with divine grace. The operation
of the Spirit brings Christs uncreated energy into human souls, makes them transparent to
God, gives consciousness of sonship, imparts spiritual gifts, and empowers for deification.
These ontological and communitarian ideas nourish Stniloaes view on the organic operation
of the Spirit as constitutive for the Church, opening the possibility for believers to attain a
state of grace and obtain salvation in the body of Christ (evidently excluding ontological
identification with Christ). While divine grace - both the actualised energy of the Spirit, and
energy imprinted in the believer - turns mans potential movement towards God into actuality,
that does not neutralise the co-operation of the human factor. Divine righteousness has an
ontological, transformatory sense that enables Stniloae to define salvation as a new life
directly irradiating from Christs body implanted in man at baptism. Mans gradual deification
by grace (as the objective condition of justification) implies: the necessary but insufficient
stage of preparation; the stage of regeneration, with its strong Christological and personalist
notions; and the stage of progression, dominated by mystical, sacramental and psychological
explanations. Thus deification in its objective condition is identified with sanctification and
implies ontological restoration and a full personalisation of human nature. Mans faith and
good works (as the subjective conditions of justification) complete the image of deification as
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the product of synergy or symphony between human and divine. As sensitive actions, the
holy mysteries not only contain a Christological realism (that is, perpetuation and extension of
Christs salvific ministry), but operate as well as transformatory powers of the Spirit,
accomplishing the concluding stages of mans deification.

2. Final assessment

In the absence of any sustained thematic treatment in Stniloae himself, this presentation
shows the appearance of the whole when scattered fragments of his concept of deification are
gathered together. In order to give significance to Stniloaes distinctive theology of
deification, we may summarise that, by operating in a speculative and apophatic framework,
his concept of theosis pertains first of all to the field of mystical theology, and secondly to the
field of dogmatics. That is, we should first understand deification as mans potential
experience of participation in the life of the Trinity through the help of the divine uncreated
energies, and then express this experience in dogmatic form. The whole structure of this study
was therefore decided by this perception. In other words, Stniloae maintains that human
existence is necessarily oriented towards God. Theosis is not simply an alternative, because
human nature is not self-sufficient. Stniloaes teaching about deification implies a particular
conception about the deified man and the deifying God, reflecting a particular interpretation,
dynamic, of both theology and anthropology, that may give expression to the reality of mans
communion with God. The precise model of the accomplishment of mans deification is
offered by Christology, and the place of this accomplishment is disclosed by ecclesiology.
For Stniloae, to treat the question of the meaning of human existence is ultimately to face
the question of participation in God. Thus Stniloae considers that ancient philosophy was
characterised by the fact that it lacked any idea of deification or of human aspiration to
participate in God, sharply contrasting with Christianity. This is why, following the Fathers,
Stniloae finds the Neoplatonic idea of striving for the infinite Good helpful for expressing the
Christians yearning for God. By claiming a biblical and patristic sense, Stniloaes concept of
deification as participation by grace is obviously hostile to self-divinisation or self-
humanisation. Moreover, his view refuses any pantheistic monism (by postulating an
irreducible creational dualism between created and uncreated) and any radical ontological
dualism between created and uncreated. According to Stniloae, mans deification entails
345

grace not nature, participation not essential identity - for participation in the uncreated does
not annul the teaching about the axiomatic createdness of human existence.
Further, by rejecting the Scholastic schema of two parallel orders of nature and supernature,
Stniloae asserts the relationship between nature and grace and the possibility of participation
in God as a fundamental insight in his theology. God created humanitys history in order to
bring it to deification by His own power and will. Hence Stniloaes terminology and
interpretation as related to deification specially include the idea of mans participation in
Gods attributes: infinity, simplicity, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience, holiness,
righteousness, goodness and love. To be possible, such a participation assumes the idea of
interval and communion between God and man as instruments of spiritual growth.
According to Stniloae, deification is a process, having its initial roots in the purpose of
creation, in the person and work of Christ, perfected in the Holy Spirits economy,
appropriated individually in baptism, and continued in future life. Thus, besides its
participatory character, Stniloaes view on the process of deification includes dynamic,
reciprocal, and personalist elements in the relationship between Creator and creation. In this
process there is both a movement of procession, from above, and a movement of ascent, from
below, or a trans-descent and trans-ascent. This means that we need both a vertical
transcendence of the Absolute and a horizontal transcendence of other human persons. In
particular, the whole theological method used by Stniloae is centred on the Christological
axiom, that the normal ontological state of man is based on his unity with God as this was
accomplished in the divine-human nucleus of Christ. Thus mans deification is analogous to
the deification of Christs human nature which became the principle upon which our
analogous deification is based. Admitting man's abnormal condition that required a unique
solution, Stniloae thinks that the necessity of incarnation is motivated not as much by the
satisfaction of divine justice, as by the lifting of fallen man and his participation in the life of
the Trinity. Stniloae maintains both the transformation of the flesh by the Logos, as mirrored
by the believers transformation by Christ, and the deliberate and willed nature of the union of
the human and the divine in Christ, as reflected in the moral struggle that man needs to
experience before he can attain perfection. It means, therefore, that deification implies both
participation and imitation, a realistic and an ethical model.
The great advantage of Stniloaes position is that it allows us to speak coherently about
God as transcendent, yet intimately involved with us, and about man as a personal being
destined to share in the life of supreme personal existence while remaining a creature. It does
346

so in conformity with scriptural revelation, Christian experience and tradition by showing how
creation and especially human beings are distinct but not separate from God. Stniloaes
apophatic method and the use of the distinction between essence and energies in God, suggest
the existence of a real bridge between man and God and, at the same time, avoid the
appearance (common to other approaches) of a split in God, whether within God Himself,
or between the economic and immanent realms, or between the human and divine natures of
Christ.
The theological approach of Stniloae, however, is part of a general theological vision which
has been criticised as involving in different ways a denial or neglect of some particular
doctrines of Christian tradition. There is a sense of excessive spiritualisation in Stniloaes
tendency, in his mystical theological approach, to spend rather more time in dialogue with
tradition than with contemporaries, so that modern concerns become secondary. There is a
regrettable lack of more serious engagement with contemporary issues, leading to deserved
criticism. However, it does seem to us that with regard to the specific issue of deification,
Stniloaes theology is not in principle vulnerable to such criticism. This is because he has
found a way to establish that deification is real and that God is involved in it, without
reducing God to creation and without making Gods involvement any less real by preserving
His transcendence. Stniloae has gone, for example, beyond a more traditional interpretation
of the Chalcedonian two-natures teaching, by employing perichoretic, theandric, and
enhypostatic ideas, not only as modalities of the inner-trinitarian or Christological life but as
factors pertinent to the process of mans deification as well.
Stniloaes position is, however, more vulnerable to criticism because of its imprecision,
although here again careful distinctions need to be made. We have noted his predominantly
ontological approach to understanding the mysterious relationship between man and God in
the process of deification, and the difficulties of such a realistic model of deification.
However, although Stniloaes theology of deification is scripturally inspired, that does not
mean that his understanding is always the only or necessarily the correct interpretation of
Scripture; his patrician tendency leads him to ignore opposing views or to dismiss them (for
example, the Protestant view on justification). In this context, while we considered that some
of his critique of the Western position was justified, a more sustained treatment of the debate
between modern thinkers and those of a more traditional school would bring his own position
into sharper focus. It would also illustrate that despite radical differences, Stniloae would
seem to have many affinities with the Western approach. It should also be said that in
347

proceeding in this way, Stniloaes target is not individual thinkers as such but rather systems
of thought, and in particular the starting-points of such systems (for example, the judicial
framework of Western soteriology). In this respect, our own attempt to initiate a discussion
between Stniloaes position and other contemporary approaches (such as Rahner, Barth)
may be understood as a small contribution to this required verification procedure.
In the absence of a further examination of Stniloaes concept of deification, it is nonetheless
possible to offer an appraisal of the present status of Stniloaes position. In a very difficult
area, with the need to keep a delicate balance in the inter-relationships between the witness of
Scripture, tradition, Christian experience, the inherent logic and dynamic of philosophical
systems and his own presuppositions and biases, Stniloae has provided us with a way of
speaking about mans destiny which resonates with the ethical and realistic models of
deification. Stniloaes theology of deification, therefore, is in conformity with the notion of
doctrinal development. It is a theology which does not contradict the traditional position of
the Orthodox Church, but, in response to new concerns and in accordance with the teaching
of the Fathers, goes beyond a fundamentalist reiteration of this tradition to a position that is
consistent with it but is also a real advance (for example, apophaticism, personalism).
This systematic presentation of the concept of deification fails to convey Stniloaes own
theological style. This is a style which, in its circular repetition and in its rigorous combination
of spirituality and theological thought, has a complex but unified form. Still, with all its
limitations and omissions this systematic account of Stniloaes theology of deification does
trace the outlines of his position in a way which indicates its strengths and weaknesses. By
adopting the more dynamic and realistic model, on the one hand, the positive point in
Stniloaes approach is seen in moving away from the limited, rigid notion of deification so
congenial to the Western tradition. Nonetheless he has done so without recourse to the
opposite extreme of deification by nature, which would make the ontological separation
between the Creator and His creatures disappear. On the other hand, most of the weaknesses
in Stniloaes position are detected in his overly strong ontological language and conception.
With regard to the more general significance of Stniloaes theology, of which his theology
of deification is a particular and characteristic instance, the impression persists, despite
disagreement with individual points, that this is an approach to be reckoned with, one which
offers a strong challenge. The challenge is directed in part at an excessive rationalism in
modern theology and at all forms of theological fundamentalism. It is clear that Stniloaes
distinctive theology, besides being itself an exciting catalyst in the process of theological
348

development, in Orthodox theology in general and in Romanian Orthodox theology in


particular, is also very well placed to offer a normative contribution to the dialogue within
contemporary theology, around his original ideas in the sphere of epistemology,
anthropology, Christology, pneumatology, or ecclesiology. The particular concept of
deification as found in Stniloae, then, unfolds new perspectives in theology and specifically
in mystical theology.
349

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AATA - Anuarul Academiei Teologice Andreiane (Sibiu, 1923-1947).


BOR - Biserica Ortodox Romn (Bucureti, 1874-).
CSEL - Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna, 1866-).
DOP - Dumbarton Oaks Papers (Cambridge, Mass., 1941-).
ECQ - The Eastern Churches Quarterly (Ramsgate, 1936-1964).
ECR - Eastern Churches Review (London, 1966-1978).
EIBMBOR - Editura Institutului Biblic i de Misiune a Bisericii Ortodoxe Romne
(Bucureti).
ER - The Ecumenical Review (Geneva).
Filocalia - Filocalia Sfintelor Nevoine ale Desavririi sau Culegere din Scrierile Sfinilor
Prini care Arat cum se poate Omul Curi, Lumina i Desvri, tr. by D. Stniloae, vols.
I-IV (Sibiu, 1946-1948), vols. V-XII (Bucureti, 1976-1991).
GB - Glasul Bisericii (Bucureti, 1941-).
GCS - Die griechischen christlichen Schiftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (Berlin:
Akademie-Verlag, 1897-).
GOTR - Greek Orthodox Theological Review (Brookline, Mass., 1954-).
Jaeger - Gregorii Nysseni Opera. Auxilio aliorum virorum doctorum edenda curavit, ed. by
W. Jaeger (Berlin and Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1921-).
JETS - Journal of The Evangelical Theological Society (Wheaton, Ill., 1969-).
JTS - Journal of Theological Studies (Oxford, 1899-1949; NS 1950-).
MA - Mitropolia Ardealului (Sibiu, 1956-1990).
MMS - Mitropolia Moldovei i Sucevei (Iai, 1924-1990).
MO - Mitropolia Olteniei (Craiova, 1948-).
NPNF - A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Church, ed. by P. Schaff
and H. Wace (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974-).
PG - Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca, 162 vols. (Paris: J.P. Migne, 1857-
1966).
PL - Patrologia Cursus Completus: Series Latina, 221 vols. (Paris: J.P. Migne, 1844-1864).
PSB - Prini i Scriitori Bisericeti, vols. 1-80 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1978-)
RT - Revista Teologic (Sibiu, 1907-1947, 1991-).
SC - Sources Chrtiennes (Paris: Cerf, 1940-).
SJTh - Scottish Journal of Theology (Edinburgh, 1948-).
SP - Studia Patristica (Berlin, 1957-).
ST - Studii Teologice (Bucureti, 1949-).
SVS Press - Saint Vladimirs Seminary Press (Crestwood, New York).
SVTQ - Saint Vladimirs Theological Quarterly (Crestwood, New York).
350

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. SOURCES

Athanasius, Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione; ed. and tr. by R. Thomson, in Oxford
Early Christian Texts (Oxford, 1971).

Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. by E.R. Hardy (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,
1954).

Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna, 1866-).

Dictionnaire de Thologie Catholique, ed. by A. Vacant, E. Mangenot, and E. Amman


(Paris, 1903-1950).

Dictionnaire de Spiritualit, ed. by M. Viller (Paris, 1932-).

Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms. Drawn Principally from Protestant
Scholastic Theology, by R. Muller (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House,
1988).

Die griechischen christlichen Schiftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (Berlin: Akademie-
Verlag, 1897-).

The Early Christian Fathers. A Selection from the Writings of the Fathers from St. Clement
of Rome to St. Athanasius, ed. by H. Bettenson (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1989).

Encyclopedia of Theology. The Concise Sacramentum Mundi, ed. by K. Rahner (Tunbridge


Wells: Burns and Oates, 1993).

Filocalia Sfintelor Nevoine ale Desavririi sau Culegere din Scrierile Sfinilor Prini care
Arat cum se poate Omul Curi, Lumina i Desvri, tr. by D. Stniloae, vols. I-
IV (Sibiu, 1946-1948), vols. V-XII (Bucureti, 1976-1991).

Gregorii Nysseni Opera, ed. by W. Jaeger (Berlin and Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1921-).

Gregory Palamas. The Triads, tr. by N. Gendle and ed. by J. Meyendorff, in The Classics of
Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1983).

The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, tr. by R.E. Sinkewicz (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 1988).

Contra Akindynum, in L.C. Contos, The Concept of Theosis in Saint Gregory Palamas with
Critical Text of the Contra Akindynum, vol. II., Doctorate dissertation (Los
Angeles, 1963).
351

John Climacus. The Ladder of Divine Ascent, tr. by C. Luibheid and N. Russell, in The
Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1982).

Maximus the Confessor. Selected Writings, tr. by G.C. Berthold, in The Classics of Western
Christianity (New York: Paulist Press, 1985).

Nicholas Cabasilas. Life in Christ, tr. by M. Lisney (London: James, 1995).

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd edition, ed. and rev. by F.L. Cross and
E.A. Livingstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca, 162 vols. (Paris: J.P. Migne, Ateliers
Catholiques, 1857-1866).

Patrologia Cursus Completus: Series Latina, 221 vols. (Paris: J.P. Migne, Ateliers
Catholiques, 1844-1864).

Prini i Scriitori Bisericeti, vols. 1-80 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1978-)

The Philokalia. The Complete Text Compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St.
Makarios of Corinth, vol. II; tr. from the Greek and ed. by G.E.H. Palmer, P.
Sherrard, and K. Ware (London, Boston: Faber and Faber, 1984).

Plotinus: Enneads, tr. by S. MacKenna and rev. by B.S. Page (London, 1969).

Pseudo-Dionysius. The Complete Works, tr. by C. Luibheid, in The Christian Western


Spirituality, (New York: Paulist Press, 1987).

A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Church, ed. by P. Schaff and H.
Wace (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974-).

Sources Chrtiennes (Paris: Cerf, 1940-).

Symeon the New Theologian. The Discourses, tr. by C.J. deCatanzaro, in The Classics of
Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1980).

The Theological and Practical Treatises and the Three Theological Discourses, tr. by P.
McGuckin (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1985).
352

II. LIST OF STNILOAES WORKS

This bibliography contains only the most important works of Stniloae, in chronological order
of original publication, and quoted in our study. A fairly complete bibliography of Stniloaes
works (including translations) up to 1994, written by G.F. Anghelescu and revised by I.I. Ic
jr., appears in Persoan i Comuniune. Prinos de Cinstire Printelui Profesor Academician
Dumitru Stniloae la mplinirea Vrstei de 90 de ani (Sibiu: Arhiepiscopia Ortodox Sibiu,
1993), pp. 16-67.

1. Books

Viaa i Activitatea Patriarhului Dosofteiu al Ierusalimului i Legturile lui cu rile


Romneti, Doctorate dissertation (Cernui, 1929); reprinted in Candela 40 (1929),
pp. 208-276.

Catolicismul de dup Rzboi (Sibiu: Editura Arhidiecezan, 1933).

Viaa i nvtura Sfntului Grigorie Palama (Sibiu, 1938); 2nd edition (Bucureti: Scripta,
1993).

Ortodoxie i Romnism (Sibiu: Editura Arhidiecezan, 1939).

Poziia D-lui Lucian Blaga fa de Cretinism i Ortodoxie (Sibiu: Editura Arhidiecezan,


1942); 2nd edition (Bucureti, 1993).

Iisus Hristos sau Restaurarea Omului (Sibiu: Editura Arhidiecezan, 1942); 2nd edition
(Craiova: Omniscop, 1993).

Teologia Dogmatic i Simbolic pentru Institutele Teologice, 2 vols. (Bucureti, 1958);


with N. Chiescu, I. Todoran, and I. Petreu.

The Victory of the Cross (Oxford: The Fairacres Publication 16, 1971).

Teologia Dogmatic Ortodox, 3 vols. (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1978); In German,


Orthodoxe Dogmatik , 2 vols., mit einem Gleitwort von Jrgen Moltmann, aus dem
Rumnischen bersetzt von Hermann Pitters, kumenische Theologie, hg. von
Jngel, W. Kasper, H. Kng, J. Moltmann, Bd. 12, 15 (Zrich, Einsiedeln, Kln:
Benzinger Verlag, Gtersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1985, 1990); In English,
first part of vol. I, The Experience of God, tr. and ed. by I. Ioni and R. Barringer,
with a foreword by Bishop Kallistos Ware (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox
Press, 1994).

Theology and the Church, tr. by R. Barringer, with a foreword by J. Meyendorff (Crestwood,
N.Y.: SVS Press, 1980).
353

Spiritualitatea Ortodox, in Teologia Moral Ortodox, vol. III (Bucureti: EIBMBOR,


1981); 2nd edition (Bucureti, 1992); reprinted also as Ascez i Mistic Cretin
sau Teologia Vieii Spirituale (Cluj: Cartea Crii de tiin, 1993).

Spiritualitate i Comuniune n Liturghia Ortodox (Craiova: Editura Mitropoliei Olteniei,


1986).

Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu (Craiova: Mitropolia Olteniei, 1987).

Studii de Teologie Dogmatic Ortodox (Craiova: Mitropolia Olteniei, 1991).

Chipul Evanghelic al lui Iisus Hristos (Sibiu: Editura Centrului Mitropolitan, 1991).

Reflexii despre Spiritualitatea Poporului Romn (Craiova: Scrisul Romnesc, 1992).

Iisus Hristos, Lumina Lumii i ndumnezeirea Omului (Bucureti: Anastasia, 1993).

2. Translations

Andrutsos, H., Dogmatica Bisericii Ortodoxe Rsritene, tr. from the Greek by D. Stniloae
(Sibiu, 1930).

Gregory Palamas, Dou Tratate ale Sf. Grigorie Palama (Triada I,2,3), in AATA 9 (1932-
1933), pp. 5-70, reprinted in Viaa i nvtura Sfntului Grigorie Palama,
including Apologia mai Extins, pp. LIX-XCI, i Antericul V Contra lui
Achindin, pp. XCII-CLX.

Vyscheslavzev, B., nsemntatea Inimii n Religie, tr. by D. Stniloae from French, RT 1- 2


(1934), pp. 31-40.

Filocalia Sfintelor Nevoine ale Desavririi sau Culegere din Scrierile Sfinilor Prini care
Arat cum se poate Omul Curi, Lumina i Desvri, vols. I-IV (Sibiu, 1946-
1948), vols. V-XII (Bucureti, 1976-1991).

Maximus, Mystagogia: Cosmosul i Sufletul, Chipuri ale Bisericii, RT 4-5 (1944), pp. 166-
181, and 6-8 (1944), pp. 339-356.

______, Scrieri I: Ambigua, PSB 80 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1983).

______, Scrieri II: Scrieri i Epistole Hristologice i Duhovniceti, PSB 82 (Bucureti:


EIBMBOR, 1990).

Gregory of Nyssa, Scrieri I: Tlcuire la Cntarea Cntarilor, Despre Fericiri, Despre


Rugciunea Domneasc, Despre Rnduiala cea dup Dumnezeu i Nevoina
Adevrat, PSB 29 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1982).
354

Athanasius, Scrieri I: Cuvnt mpotriva Elinilor, Cuvnt despre ntruparea Cuvntului, Trei
Cuvinte mpotriva Arienilor, PSB 15 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1987).

______, Scrieri II: Epistole, Viaa Cuviosului Printelui nostru Antonie, PSB 16 (Bucureti:
EIBMBOR, 1988).

Cyril of Alexandria, Scrieri I: nchinare n Slujire i Adevr, PSB 38 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR,


1991).

______, Scrieri II: Glafirele, PSB 39 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1992).

______, Scrieri III: Despre Sfnta Treime, PSB 40 (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1994).

Symeon the New Theologian, Imnele Iubirii Dumnezeieti, in Studii de Teologie Dogmatic
Ortodox (Craiova: Mitropolia Olteniei, 1991), pp. 322-705.

Dionysius, Opere Complete (Bucureti: Paideia, 1996).

Gregory of Nazianzus, Cele 5 Cuvntri Teologice (Bucureti: Anastasia, 1993).

3. Articles in newspapers and journals

Metafizica lui Lucian Blaga, RT 11-12 (1934), pp. 393-401.

Credin i Logic, RT 12 (1939), pp. 477-480.

Opera Teologic a lui Nichifor Crainic, Gndirea 4 (1940), pp. 264-276.

Iisus Hristos ca Profet, RT 11-12 (1941), pp. 469-485.

nvtura despre Maica Domnului la Ortodoci i Catolici, Ortodoxia 4 (1950), pp. 559-
609.

Condiiile Mntuirii, ST 5-6 (1951), pp. 245-256.

Maica Domnului ca Mijlocitoare, Ortodoxia 3-4 (1952), pp. 79-129.

Starea Sufletelor dup Judecata Particular n nvtura Ortodox i Catolic, Ortodoxia 4


(1953), pp. 545-614.

Dumnezeiasca Euharistie n cele Trei Confesiuni, Ortodoxia 1 (1953), pp. 46-115.

Motivele i Urmrile Dogmatice ale Schismei, Ortodoxia 3 (1954), pp. 218-259.

Faptele Bune n nvtura Ortodox i Catolic, Ortodoxia 4 (1954), pp. 507-533.

Mrturisirea Pcatelor i Pocina n Trecutul Bisericii, BOR 3-4 (1955), pp. 218-250.
355

Judecata Particular dup Moarte, Ortodoxia 4 (1955), pp. 532-559.

Sintez Eclesiologic, ST 5-6 (1955), pp. 262-284.

Fiina Tainelor n cele Trei Confesiuni, Ortodoxia 1 (1956), pp. 3-28.

Numrul Tainelor, Raporturile dintre Ele i Problema Tainelor n Afara Bisericii, Ortodoxia
2 (1956), pp. 191-214.

Starea Primordial a Omului n cele Trei Confesiuni, Ortodoxia 3 (1956), pp. 323-357.

Doctrina Protestant despre Pcatul Ereditar Judecat din Punct de Vedere Ortodox,
Ortodoxia 2 (1957), pp. 195-215.

Doctrina Ortodox i Catolic despre Pcatul Strmoesc, Ortodoxia 1 (1957), pp. 3-40.

Iconomia n Biserica Ortodox, Ortodoxia 2 (1963), pp. 152-186.

Relaiile Treimice i Viaa Bisericii, Ortodoxia 4 (1964), pp. 503-525; In English,


Trinitarian Relations and the Life of the Church, in Theology and the Church, pp.
11-44.

Noiunea Dogmei, ST 9-10 (1964), pp. 534-571.

Autoritatea Bisericii, ST 3-4 (1964), pp. 183-215.

Biserica Universal i Soborniceasc, Ortodoxia 2 (1966), pp. 167-198.

Sfntul Duh i Sobornicitatea Bisericii, Ortodoxia 1 (1967), pp. 32-48; In English, The
Holy Spirit and the Sobornicity of the Church, in Theology and the Church, pp. 45-
71.

Criteriile Prezenei Sfntului Duh, ST 3-4 (1967), pp. 103-127.

Revelaia prin Acte, Cuvinte i Imagini, Ortodoxia 3 (1968), pp. 347-377; In English,
Revelation through Acts, Words and Images, in Theology and the Church, pp.
109- 154.

Revelaia ca Dar i Fgduin, Ortodoxia 2 (1969), pp. 179-196; In English, Revelation


as Gift and Promise, in Theology and the Church, pp. 155-180.

Iconomia Dumnezeiasc, Temei al Iconomiei Bisericeti, Ortodoxia 1 (1969), pp. 3-24.

The World as Gift and Sacrament of God's Love, Sobornost 9 (1969), pp. 662-673.

Sfnta Treime, Structura Supremei Iubiri, ST 5-6 (1970), pp. 333-355; In English, The
Holy Trinity: Structure of Supreme Love, in Theology and the Church, pp. 73-108.
356

Tranparena Bisericii n Viaa Sacramental, Ortodoxia 4 (1970), pp. 501-516.

Temeiurile Teologice ale Ierarhiei i ale Sinodalitii Ei, ST 3-4 (1970), pp. 165-178.

Dumnezeu este Iubire, Ortodoxia 3 (1971), pp. 366-402.

Teologia Dogmatic n Biserica Ortodox Romn, n Trecut i Azi, Ortodoxia 3 (1971),


pp. 309-363; with N. Chiescu, I. Todoran, I. Ic, and I. Bria.

Sobornicitate Deschis, Ortodoxia 2 (1971), pp. 165-180.

nvtura Ortodox despre Mntuire i Concluziile ce Rezult din Ea pentru Slujirea


Cretin n Lume, Ortodoxia 2 (1972), pp. 195-212; In English, The Orthodox
Doctrine of Salvation and Its Implications for Christian Diakonia in the World, in
Theology and the Church, pp. 181-212.

Studii Catolice despre Filioque, ST 7-8 (1973), pp. 471-505.

Chipul lui Dumnezeu i Responsabilitatea lui n Lume, Ortodoxia 3 (1973), pp. 347- 362.

Opinii n Legtur cu Viitorul Sfnt i Mare Sinod Ortodox, Ortodoxia 3 (1973), pp. 425-
440.

La Thologie Dogmatique dans lEglise Orthodoxe Roumaine des Origines Nos Jours, in
De la Thologie Orthodoxe Roumaine des Origines Nos Jours (Bucarest:
EIBMBOR, 1974), pp. 211-284.

Dumnezeu este Lumin, Ortodoxia 1 (1974), pp. 70-96.

Jesus Christ, Incarnate Logos of God, Source of Freedom and Unity,ER 26 (1974), pp.
403-412.

Natur i Har n Teologia Bizantin, Ortodoxia 3 (1974), pp. 392-439.

Sfntul Duh n Revelaie i Biseric, Ortodoxia 2 (1974), pp. 216-249.

The Holy Spirit in the Theology and Life of the Orthodox Church, Sobornost 7.1 (1975),
pp. 4-21.

La Centralit du Christ dans la Thologie, dans la Spiritualit et dans la Mission Orthodoxe,


Contacts 92 (1975), pp. 447-457.

Dinamica Creaiei n Biseric, Ortodoxia 3-4 (1977), pp. 281-291; In French, La


Dynamique du Monde dans l'Eglise, in Procs verbaux du II-e Congrs de
Theologie Orthodoxe (Atena, 1976), pp. 346-360.

Liturghia Comunitii i Jertfa Interioar n Viziunea Filocalic, Ortodoxia 1-2 (1978), pp.
389-399.
357

Purcederea Duhului Sfnt de la Tatl i Relaia Lui cu Fiul, ca Temei al ndumnezeirii i


nfierii Noastre, Ortodoxia 3-4 (1979), pp. 583-592.

Fiina i Ipostasurile Sfintei Treimi, dup Sf. Vasile cel Mare, Ortodoxia 1 (1979), pp. 53-
75.

Iisus Hristos, Arhiereu n Veac, Ortodoxia 2 (1979), pp. 217-231.

nvtura despre Sfnta Treime n Scrierea Sfntului Vasile, Contra lui Eunomie, in the
Romanian monograph Sfntul Vasile cel Mare. nchinare la 1600 de ani de la
Svrirea Sa (Bucureti: EIBMBOR, 1980), pp. 51-69.

The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Fathers and His Relation to the Son, as the Basis
of our Deification and Adoption, in Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ. Ecumenical
Reflections on the Filioque Controversy, Faith and Order Paper, No. 103 (London:
SPCK and Geneva: WCC, 1981), pp. 174-186.

The Faces of Our Fellow Human Beings, International Review of Missions 71 (1982), pp.
29-35.

Jertfa lui Hristos i Spiritualitatea noastr prin mprtirea ei din Sfnta Liturghie,
Ortodoxia 1 (1983), pp. 104-118.

Doctrina Luteran despre Justificare i Cuvnt i cteva Reflecii Ortodoxe, Ortodoxia 4


(1983), pp. 495-509.

Realitatea Tainic a Bisericii, Ortodoxia 3 (1984), pp. 415-420.

Sfnta Treime: Creatoarea, Mntuitoarea i inta Venic? a Tuturor Credincioilor,


Ortodoxia 2 (1986), pp. 14-42.

Image, Likeness, and Deification in Human Person, Communio 13 (1986), pp. 64-83.

Fiul i Cuvntul lui Dumnezeu Cel ntrupat i nviat ca Om: Reunificatorul Creaiei n El
pentru Veci, MO 4 (1987), pp. 7-24.

Sfnta Treime i Creaia Lumii din Iubire n Timp, MO 2 (1987), pp. 41-70, and MO 3
(1987), pp. 28-47.

Hristologia Sfntului Maxim Mrturisitorul, Ortodoxia 3 (1988), pp. 67-72; In French, Le


Christologie de S. Maxime le Confesseur, Contacts 40 (1988), pp. 112-120.
358

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