Theosis is a consummate expression of transcendence in the mystical, Gnostic, Platonic, and Esoteric traditions from antiquity to the present. As such, borders, limits, and edges characterize it, and the overcoming of these. It challenges the delimitations of knowledge, cosmos, and contemplation and strains at the very boundaries of experience. Theosis challenges epistemological limitations, bending and breaking ways of knowing, and complicates the boundaries between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, as expressed in the statement of Athanasius that ‘the Son of God became man, that we might become god’. This joint panel encourages submissions exploring the boundaries that characterize theosis, where they are, whether they exist, what they may be, how they function, and how they constrain, restrict, enable, and inspire.
The term theosis (θέωσις) refers to the concept of divinization or deification, and it can be traced both in the Neoplatonic and Judaic/Christian tradition. In particular, the term theosis is also usually associated to the journey of contemplation taken in order to reach the union with God.
Aim of this speech is to show the central role of theosis in the contemplative path, and how Philo of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite not only evidenced in their treatises the centrality of this transformative path, but also used the figure of Moses to “symbolise” the ideal archetype to reach deification.
The Neoplatonic-Christian notion of theosis, the deification of humankind, has been understood to sever humans from nature. However, this reduces the diversity of interpretations to a caricature. I argue that theosis is a concept that opens a space of interrelational possibility. Engaging with François Laruelle, I examine an inversion of theosis that turns human consciousness toward radical immanentism. I argue Laruelle’s work paradoxically produces its own transcendental position and obscures paths for cultivating empathetic relationships with nature. However, the Neoplatonic tradition does offer resources. I then address a version of apophaticism in the works of Paracelsus and Jacob Böhme, wherein the language of theosis in conversation with the esoteric notion of the “feminine” aspect of Divinity, Sophia, gives rise to a unique speculative realist position with an earthly orientation. I maintain that this discourse challenges both the vertically transcendental orientation of classic apophaticism and the flattening immanentism of postmodern appropriations.
I will discuss two approaches in describing the ways of surpassing bounds of human knowledge in theosis by gaining spiritual perception, both having a great impact on the Christian East. One was formulated by Plotinus and later by Maximus the Confessor or Gregory Palamas, having as a major concern theorizing the outlines of spiritual perception. The other one gained its expression starting from practice, from the very experience in questing/acquiring spiritual perception, the most influential author being Isaac of Nineveh. Both accounts had an exceptional role in terming supra-intellectual knowledge, the deified perception.
In this study, *the problem of individual* identity encapsulates the series of inquiries stemming from the basic question: what distinguishes one human being from another? I propose to reconsider how the Carolingian thinker John Scotus Eriugena (d. ca. 877) answers this question by framing his thought under a *collective-evolutive* model of individual identity, based on the recognizance of *theōsis* as the cornerstone of Eriugena’s anthropology. Within this *collective-evolutive* paradigm individual identity is not something given immutably, singularly bestowed at birth. Instead, human beings do not invariably possess individual identity but must long for it (evolutive), and they eventually attain it through the primary reality of human nature (collective). *Theōsis* challenges the Aristotelian understanding of individual identity, transcending dichotomies and hierarchies involving substance and accidents, primary and secondary substances, individual and universal.