{"id":4984,"date":"2017-02-19T10:00:36","date_gmt":"2017-02-19T15:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=4984"},"modified":"2017-02-13T15:52:18","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T20:52:18","slug":"the-spirituality-of-the-christian-east-20170219","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=4984","title":{"rendered":"The Spirituality of the Christian East &#8212; 20170219"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2421\" src=\"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder-237x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"237\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder-237x300.jpg 237w, https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder.jpg 258w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 237px) 100vw, 237px\" \/><\/a>In the last issue I began sharing thoughts on the 29th Step on John\u2019s <em>Ladder <\/em>of spiritual growth. That step is DISPASSION.<\/p>\n<p>Dispassion could perhaps be considered synonymous with another important word in Eastern theology and spirituality: <em>deification <\/em>or <em>Theosis, <\/em>which means to attain the likeness of God, or, as countless Church Fathers have put it, \u201cto become god by grace,\u201d that we \u201cmay be partakers of the divine nature\u201d (2 Peter 1:4).<\/p>\n<p>Advanced spirituality can be complicated. One cannot delve into advanced spirituality without getting deep into advanced theology, and the subject of dispassion and <em>theosis <\/em>is a case in point. <em>Theosis <\/em>is so important to Eastern spirituality and theology. We must examine what it means to \u201cbecome god by grace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Eastern Church\u2019s doctrine of <em>theosis <\/em>is rooted in the Scriptures: \u201cI said, \u2018You <em>are <\/em>gods, and all of you <em>are <\/em>children of the Most High\u201d (Psalm 81:6). But what does it mean for human beings to be gods? There is only one God, and He is God because He is eternal and uncreated. All other things were created by God from nothing, which means that everything created is wholly contingent. So what does it mean for us who are \u201cbut dust and ashes\u201d (Genesis 18:27) to \u201cbecome\u201d God?<\/p>\n<p>It certainly does not mean that we evolve into the Deity &#8211; we cannot be what God is by nature (above being, eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-holy and all-loving) &#8211; nor does it involved absorption into the Divine Being and a loss of our own, unique personhood. Rather, it means to acquire the \u201clikeness of God,\u201d which man was given the potential of achieving (Genesis 1:26) through synergy (the cooperation of the human will with divine grace.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully my readers are getting a clearer idea of what <em>Theosis <\/em>is since I deal with it several times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the last issue I began sharing thoughts on the 29th Step on John\u2019s Ladder of spiritual growth. That step is DISPASSION. Dispassion could perhaps be considered synonymous with another important word in Eastern theology and spirituality: deification or Theosis, &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=4984\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[74],"class_list":["post-4984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-spirituality-of-the-christian-east","tag-theosis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4985,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984\/revisions\/4985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}