IN AN often quoted sentence of his work “on the incarnation”, Athanasius of Alexandria wrote that “God became man so that man might become god” — or, in the more precise translation in this book, “he was inhominated that we might be deified.” This short statement sets before us the promise of the gospel that in Christ we are reborn through the Spirit and can come to share in the life of God. And this can be described as theosis, or deification.

Here we are guided through on an always challenging and often bewildering survey of what this might mean. To begin with, we are shown the various ways in which the idea of religion has been understood and how, within these, theosis is one distinct strand of religious experience. Then we explore how the theme of theosis is developed in the teaching of the church Fathers of the East as they reflect on how the divine and human come together in Christ. The process is expressed especially in the writing of Dionysius the Areopagite and comes to a clear final summary in Gregory Palamas.

Then we go on to the Western medieval mystical tradition, which took shape as a result of the translation of Dionysius into Latin and showed itself in the preaching of Meister Eckhart and others. Then there is a sidetrack into various esoteric speculations, including Gnosticism, the Kabbalah, and Theosophy. Then we are back in the mainstream of the tradition that locates theosis clearly in a doctrinal and ecclesiological framework by Russian theologians, including Sergei Bulgakov and Vladimir Lossky, first in Russia itself and then, after the Communist revolution, in the West.

As a result of this expression of Eastern teaching on theosis in a Western context, and then of ecumenical meeting, thinking on theosis has extended to all parts of the Church. It developed in the Orthodox East and diverged from the systems of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas in the West, but has now become an important part of shared contemporary Christian experience.

As the lives and writings of these and other Christian thinkers are described, the richness and depth of the theosis becomes clearer. There are regular helpful and clear summaries of how the theme of theosis enables the believer to enter into the experience of sharing in the life of God and of being transformed by the action of the Spirit. A final sentence summarises theosis as “a transfiguration at first personal, then ecclesial, and ultimately universal, a resacralisation of our created world in order to save it”.

It is a book that needs to be read and re-read — and for me it was one of those rare occasions when I finished the final page and then immediately turned back to page one and began to read it again. Not only does it introduce us to the thinking of a wide range of theologians from different parts of the Church and through different periods of history up to the present day, but it also points us to ways of rethinking and renewing our own experience of the life of faith.

The Revd Dr John Binns is Visiting Professor at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge.

Theosis and Religion: Participation in divine life in the Eastern and Western traditions
Norman Russell
Cambridge University Press £22.99
(978-1-108-40633-8)
Church Times Bookshop £20.69