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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 November 2017
Soteriological participation in God, variously termed theosis, divinisation or deification commands widespread interest across the spectrum of Christian theology. A key difficulty is how to maintain the creator–creature distinction, while bridging it to gain intimacy. Jonathan Edwards provides a Reformed perspective on this conversation, by way of his distinction between the incommunicable divine essence and the communicable divine fullness. This article clarifies this distinction by evaluating its coherence and exploring whether it divorces God's immanent and economic life. It argues that distinguishing two forms of participation – methexis verses koinonia – clarifies coherence and shows that it does not divide God's being from act.
1 For an overview of this interest, see Gavrilyuk, Paul, ‘The Retrieval of Deification: How a Once-Despised Archaism Became an Ecumenical Desideratum’, Modern Theology 25/4 (2009), pp. 647–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Christensen, Michael J. and Wittung, Jeffery (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007)Google Scholar. Russell, Norman, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: OUP, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Many Edwards scholars claim a doctrine of theosis in Edwards. I broadly agree, but prefer to use Edwards’ own category of special grace because it grounds him more firmly in his own Western tradition. For Edwards-theosis scholarship, see Strobel, Kyle, ‘Jonathan Edwards and the Polemics of Theosis’, Harvard Theological Review 105/3 (2012), p. 260 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Strobel, , ‘Jonathan Edwards's Reformed Doctrine of Theosis ’, Harvard Theological Review 109/3 (2016), pp. 371–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also McClymond, Michael J. and McDermott, Gerald R., ‘The Theme of Divinization’, in The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Oxford: OUP, 2012)Google Scholar; Crisp, Oliver D., Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation (Oxford: OUP, 2012), pp. 172–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 ‘It is not a communication of God's essence, but it is a communication of that which the Scripture calls God's fullness . . .’ Jonathan Edwards, ‘Sermon 498. 1 John 4:12’, in Jonathan Edwards Collection: General Collection (New Haven: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, 1738). L.4r.
4 Edwards, Jonathan, Religious Affections , ed. Smith, John E., Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 203 (emphasis added)Google Scholar. When citing the Yale edition of Edwards’ Works, I will give the full citation, and then abbreviate to ‘WJE’ with volume and page numbers.
5 Michael McClymond observes similarities between Jonathan Edwards and Gregory Palamas. McClymond, Michael J., ‘Salvation as Divinization: Jonathan Edwards, Gregory Palamas and the Theological Uses of Platonism’, in Crisp, Oliver D. and Helm, Paul (eds), Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), p. 145 Google Scholar. Kyle Strobel also, while noting important differences, argues that Edwards’ essence–nature distinction functions similarly to Vladimir Lossky's account of the essence–energies distinction. See Strobel, ‘Jonathan Edwards and the Polemics of Theosis’, p. 278; and Strobel, , Jonathan Edwards's Theology: A Reinterpretation, T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2013), p. 203 Google Scholar. Strobel is particularly helpful in pointing out that God's understanding and will (which map to the Son and Spirit respectively) are ‘communicable natures’ given in grace. While Strobel is right that Edwards speaks in the essence–nature categories, I believe that when he is focused on the Creator–creature distinction, his preferred distinction is essence–fullness. See WJE 2: 202–3, where Edwards uses nature language until he juxtaposes grace to the divine essence. When this occurs, he describes the communicable gift with the term fullness. However, Strobel's and my accounts are complementary. Strobel's ‘communicable natures’ is a helpful way of describing the inner functionality of what I am calling the divine fullness. In this article I am focused on the Creator–creature distinction, and so focus narrowly on the category of ‘fullness’.
6 McClymond, ‘Salvation as Divinization’; Strobel, ‘Jonathan Edwards and the Polemics of Theosis’, pp. 277–8.
7 Habets, Myk, ‘“Reformed Theosis?” A Response to Gannon Murphy’, Theology Today 65/4 (2009), pp. 493–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. McCormack, Bruce L., ‘Participation in God, Yes, Deification, No: Two Modern Protestant Responses to an Ancient Question’, in Johannes Fischer, Hans-Peter Großhans and Ingolf U. Dalferth (eds.), Denkwürdiges Geheimnis: Beiträge zur Gotteslehre: Festschrift für Eberhard Jüngel zum 70. Geburtstag (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), pp. 373–4Google Scholar.
8 McCormack, Bruce L., ‘Union with Christ in Calvin's Theology: Grounds for a Divinization Theory?’, in Hall, David W. (ed.), Tributes to John Calvin: A Celebration of his Quincentenary (Philipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Co., 2010), pp. 505–6Google Scholar.
9 Habets, ‘Reformed Theosis?’, p. 494.
10 Cf. McCormack, ‘Participation in God, Yes, Deification, No:’, pp. 373–4; and Habets, ‘Reformed Theosis?' Cf. Murphy, Gannon, ‘Reformed Theosis?’, Theology Today, 65/2 (2008), pp. 489–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Although some Reformed theologians embrace the essence–energies distinction; see, for instance, Murphy, ‘Reformed Theosis?’.
12 McCormack believes the theosis conversation often lacks sufficient clarity, especially when theologians posit a participation in uncreated energies and not in uncreated essence. He sees the distinction as incoherent, at least so long as both are regarded as uncreated. See McCormack, ‘Union with Christ in Calvin's Theology’, pp. 505–6.
13 As Habets argues occurs in Palamite essence–energies distinction. See Habets, ““Reformed Theosis?”’, pp. 493–4.
14 Hastings, W. Ross has identified these three ‘unions’ as central to Edwards's vision in his book, Jonathan Edwards and the Life of God: Toward an Evangelical Theology of Participation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), p. 2 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 I take methexis to be participation orientated around some sort of shared being, whereas koinonia is a participation orientated around some sort of shared relationship. See Hastings, Jonathan Edwards and the Life of God, pp. 39–40, 56–8, 102, 441–2, 444. See also Torrance, T. F., Theology in Reconstruction (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1965), pp. 184–6Google Scholar.
16 When speaking of created realities, Edwards often distinguishes between properties that are fundamental to a thing's ontology verses characteristics ‘that do neither belong to their nature and essence, nor the result of those things that are: and these things are called supernatural or divine’. Edwards, ‘Sermon 498’, L. 6V. I have argued elsewhere that created ontology is grounded in methexis in God for being, whereas divine grace is grounded in a koinonia in divine fullness. This is how Edwards distinguishes created nature from divine grace, and is the background for such distinctions as common/special grace: Edwards, Jonathan, Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith , ed. Lee, Sang Hyun, Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 21 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), pp. 153–97, nature/moral imago dei (WJE 2: 256)Google Scholar; and natural/supernatural principles: Edwards, Jonathan, Original Sin , ed. Holbrook, Clyde A., Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 3 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), p. 381 Google Scholar. See also Salladin, James, ‘Nature and Grace: Two Participations in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 18/3 (2016), pp. 290–303 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My present argument distinguishing the divine essence from the divine fullness follows a similar pattern, but with particular reference to the uncreated divine nature and its relation to communicable grace.
17 This is no longer a controversial statement, although there is great debate regarding how to analyse his doctrine. For key studies, see Pauw, Amy Plantinga, The Supreme Harmony of All: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2002)Google Scholar; Studebaker, Steven and Caldwell, Robert W., The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards: Text, Context, and Application (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012)Google Scholar; Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, pp. 117–37; and Crisp, Oliver D., Jonathan Edwards among the Theologians (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2015), pp. 36–59 Google Scholar; and the account that highlights Edwards’ most unique contribution is Strobel, Jonathan Edwards's Theology.
18 For a recent study of Edwards’ idealism, and the theological problems and resources it offers, especially within christology, see Crisp, Oliver D., ‘Jonathan Edwards, Idealism, and Christology’, in Farris, Joshua R. and Hamilton, S. Mark (eds), Idealism and Christian Theology (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), pp. 145–75Google Scholar.
19 It is instructive to note that when the Father reflects on the divine essence, his mental image is a person, not a set of abstract attributes. This would appear to confirm Strobel's more personal account of the divine essence. ‘It is more immediately relevant to talk of God as ‘whom’ rather than ‘what’. Strobel, Jonathan Edwards's Theology, p. 46.
20 See Edwards, Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith, pp. 113–44.
21 WJE 21: 148. See also Edwards, Jonathan, Sermons and Discourses, 1734–1738 , ed. Lesser, M. X., Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 19 (New Haven: Yale, 2001), pp. 571–2Google Scholar. For the relationship between personhood and essence, see Strobel, Jonathan Edwards's Theology, pp. 40–71.
22 Edwards, Jonathan, ‘Sermon 321. Hebrews 1:3’, in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Sermon Series II (New Haven: Jonathan Edwards Center, 1734)Google Scholar. L. 3v. Edwards also speaks of the divine persons partaking in the divine essence in his ‘Sermon 498’, L. 4r.
23 See the Reformed majority view on the aseity of the Son in Ellis, Brannon, Calvin, Classical Trinitarianism, and the Aseity of the Son (Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online, 2012), pp. 152–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 ‘. . . though the Son has life in himself because he is possessed of the divine essence, that has life in itself and in an independence, yet the Father has given him to have life in himself’. WJE 21: 147–8.
25 See Hunsinger, George’s characterisation of koinonia as ‘unity-in-distinction’ in George Hunsinger, ‘Baptism and the Soteriology of Forgiveness’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 2/3 (2000), pp. 248–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, pp. 184-5. Torrance uses koinonia to describe the Christian participation in the incarnate Son, and thereby in the Trinity. Julie Canlis contrasts Christian koinonia (relational participation based on the Trinity) with Platonic accounts of participation marked by shared substantiality in Canlis, Julie, Calvin's Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), pp. 1–24, esp. 9, 13 and 18Google Scholar. Within Edwards studies, see Hastings, Jonathan Edwards and the Life of God, pp. 39–40, 56–8, 102, 441–2, 444. Seng-Kong Tan uses the term koinonia for relational participation in his Fullness Received and Returned: Trinity and Participation in Jonathan Edwards (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), p. 118. See also Smith's characterisation of Radical Orthodoxy's approach to methexis in Smith, James K.A., Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-Secular Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), pp. 98–9Google Scholar. For an account of theosis based on methexis, see Haynes, Daniel, ‘The Metaphysics of Christian Ethics: Radical Orthodoxy and Theosis’, Heythrop Journal 52 (2011), pp. 659–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 ‘[The Spirit] proceeds from the Son immediately by himself by beholding the Father in himself.’ WJE 21: 143.
27 WJE 21: 121.
28 On the question of interdependence within the Trinity, see WJE 21: 146–7. See also Miscellanies 1062 in Edwards, Jonathan, The ‘Miscellanies,’ 833–1152 , ed. Pauw, Amy Plantinga, Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 20 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 430 Google Scholar.
29 WJE 21: 147. Edwards clarifies immediately that the divine essence is undivided as to its being, but that this does not exclude the idea of personal relations.
30 This is partially true because Edwards came to view the divine essence in personal terms. See Strobel, Jonathan Edwards's Theology, pp. 40–51.
31 See Holmes’ fifth point in his summary of classical trinitarian doctrine. Holmes, Stephen R., The Holy Trinity: Understanding God's Life (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2012), p. 200 Google Scholar.
32 Which is one reason why Edwards cannot speak of the Spirit without the Son being in view, both ad intra and ad extra.
33 ‘I believe Edwards maintains divine-essence language in talking about God's “stuff”, his quiddity.’ Strobel, Jonathan Edwards's Theology, p. 238.
34 ‘. . . the fullness of God consists in the holiness and happiness of the Deity . . . the fullness of God consists in the Holy Spirit’. WJE 21: 187–8. It should be pointed out that Edwards sometimes describes the divine fullness as God's understanding and will, which maps in Edwards’ thought to the Son and the Spirit (see Edwards, Jonathan, Ethical Writings , ed. Ramsey, Paul, Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 8 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 528)Google Scholar. There is no contradiction here, but simply an abbreviation and elaboration. The divine fullness, given in grace, is the Holy Spirit (God's will or love), who bonds the saint to Christ (God's understanding). Thus, whenever Edwards speaks of the divine fullness, he has specific reference to the Spirit, with implied reference to the Son. Strobel refers to this dual aspect as God's ‘communicable natures’ (Strobel, ‘Jonathan Edwards's Reformed Doctrine of Theosis’).
35 Hunsinger characterises koinonia as ‘unity-in-distinction’. Hunsinger, George, ‘Baptism and the Soteriology of Forgiveness’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 2/3 (Nov. 2000), p. 248 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Tan, Fullness Received and Returned, p. 118. This is strengthened by the fact that Edwards explicitly invokes the New Testament koinonia tradition, citing 2 Cor. 13:14, in developing this idea. See WJE 21: 187–8.
37 Caldwell, III, Robert W., Communion in the Spirit: The Holy Spirit as the Bond of Union in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards, Studies in Evangelical History and Thought (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2006), p. 85, n. 35Google Scholar.
38 Miscellanies 487. Edwards, Jonathan, The Miscellanies , ed. Schafer, Thomas A., Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 13 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 528–9Google Scholar.
39 WJE 13: 529–30.
40 WJE 21: 188.
41 WJE 13: 529.
42 Thus preserving the characteristically Reformed finitum non capax infiniti as well as the extra Calvinisticum. See Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. McNeill, John T., vol. 2 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), pp. 1393, 1403Google Scholar. See also Caldwell, Communion in the Spirit, pp. 94–5; and Tan, Fullness Received and Returned, p. 196.
43 Taking ‘human nature’ to be a concrete instance of a kind essence. See Morris, Thomas V., The Logic of God Incarnate (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 40 Google Scholar; and Crisp, Oliver D., Divinity and Humanity: Incarnation Reconsidered (Cambridge: CUP, 2007), p. 10, n. 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
44 This is in contrast to many in the Reformed tradition. See Caldwell, Communion in the Spirit, pp. 86–7.
45 Miscellanies 487. See WJE 13: 528.
46 Miscellanies 487. WJE 13: 529.
47 This continuity between christological fullness and the fullness given in grace is apparent in Edwards’ sermons. See Jonathan Edwards, ‘Sermon 180. John 1:16’, in Sermons, Series II, 1729–1731, WJE Online, vol. 45 (New Haven: Jonathan Edwards Center, Yale University, undated). This also explains why Edwards can echo (whether consciously or not) the classical ‘exchange formula’ so often associated with deification tradition: ‘[Christ] became in all things like unto us that his disciples should in many things become like unto him . . .’ Edwards, Jonathan, Sermons and Discourses, 1730–1733, ed. Valeri, Mark, Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 17 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 290 Google Scholar.
48 Miscellanies 741. Edwards, Jonathan, The ‘Miscellanies’, Entry Nos. 501–832 , ed. Chamberlain, Ava, Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 18 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 368 Google Scholar.
49 Miscellanies 487. WJE 13: 529.
50 Miscellanies 487. WJE 13: 528. See also Miscellanies 764b, WJE 18: 411.
51 WJE 19: 593.
52 Yet the mystical union in grace does synchronise the faculties of the saint with the Trinity, though the saints remain distinct subjects. WJE 13: 495. See also Edwards, Jonathan, Ethical Writings , ed. Ramsey, Paul, Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 8 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 441 Google Scholar.
53 WJE 19: 593.
54 WJE 19: 594.
55 Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, pp. 185–6.
56 Strobel points out that this relational focus is distinctively Reformed. See Strobel, ‘Jonathan Edwards's Reformed Doctrine of Theosis’, pp. 397–8.
57 See for instance WJE 2: 203. See also Edwards’ “Unpublished Letter on Assurance and Participation in the Divine Nature”, in WJE 8: 638–9.
58 On eternal increase and progress in divine participation, see WJE 8: 431–2, 533–6.
59 Or at least God's immanent and economic modalities differ in some respect. See Habets, ‘“Reformed Theosis?” A Response’, p. 494. See also McCormack, ‘Participation in God, Yes, Deification, No’, pp. 373-4.
60 I am setting aside the question of whether or not Habets has adequately represented the Eastern view.
61 Strobel, Jonathan Edwards's Theology, p. 70.
62 ‘Hence our communion with God the Father and God the Son consists in our partaking of the Holy Ghost, which is their Spirit: for to have communion or fellowship with another, is to partake with them of their good in their fullness, in union and society with them.’ WJE 21: 188.
63 WJE 21: 190.
64 For instance, see WJE 13: 495. See also Miscellanies 1082. WJE 20: 466.
65 WJE 21: 121.
66 A complementary argument to the one above grows out of Kyle Strobel's work on the communicable natures in the Trinity. God's tri-personhood is achieved through a perichoretic sharing among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all share the same understanding (the Son) and the same will (the Spirit) perichoretically. Thus, the natures of understanding and will are sharable (communicable) within the Trinity. Strobel points out that a similar sharing happens within the economy when these natures are shared with the saint. In this case, the divine essence is not communicated to the saint by virtue of the finitude and christological mediation that is involved. Finitude and christological mediation serve to strain out the divine essence. Thus, God communicates his understanding and will without communicating his essence. See Strobel, ‘Jonathan Edwards's Reformed Doctrine of Theosis’.
