Faith, Reason, and Theosis

Aristotle Papanikolaou (Edited By) Aristotle Papanikolaou is Professor of Theology, the Archbishop Demetrios Chair of Orthodox Theology and Culture, and the Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He is also Senior Fellow at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion. He is the author of Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine–Human Communion and The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy.George E. Demacopoulos (Edited By) George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies and Professor of Theology at Fordham University. He is the author of Colonizing Christianity: Greek and Latin Religious Identity in the Era of the Fourth Crusade and Gregory the Great: Ascetic, Pastor, and First Man of Rome.

• Introduction: Faith, Reason, and Theosis 1Aristotle Papanikolaou and George E. Demacopoulos PART I: THEOTIC EXISTENCEWaking the Gods: Theosis as Reason's Natural End 15David Bentley HartDoes Aquinas Have the Orthodox Concept of Theosis? 37Jean PorterDeification as Christification and Human Becoming 72Philip KariatlisTheosis as Kenosis: The Paradox of Holy Intimacy in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar 93Carolyn ChauMartin Luther on Faith and Union with God: Speculations on Theosis 112Kirsi StjernaDifferentiation as Disfigurement: A Womanist Polemic against the Co-optation of the Divine Essence 133Michele E. WatkinsPART II: THEOTIC KNOWINGRevelation, Reason, and Holiness: A Wesleyan Perspective 159William J. AbrahamThe Ambiguous Meanings of Theosis in Modern and Postmodern Discourse 176Andrew PrevotSpeculation and Theosis in Vladimir Lossky and Meister Eckhart 198Robert Glenn DavisKnowing through Unknowing: The Qualified Necessity of Human Reason in Dionysius 218Peter BouteneffKnowing in Theosis: A Byzantine Mystical Theological Approach 231Ashley PurpuraDeification in Evagrius Ponticus and the Transmission of the Kephalaia Gnostika in Syriac and Arabic 251Stephen J. DavisThe Embodied Logos: Reason, Knowledge, and Relation 267Rowan WilliamsAcknowledgments 293List of Contributors 295Index 301