Healing Our Trauma and Becoming Human:
Gregory of Nyssa’s Process of Progression, Presence and Participation
Susan Carson
May 29, 2024
for
Dr. Bradley Jersak
Independent Extended Study
St. Stephens University
Spring 2024
We are becoming who we already are--whole, healed, our truest selves. This journey is framed by Gregory of Nyssa, the fourth century Cappadocian theologian, as deification or theosis, a progressive journey of becoming fully human. Contemporary trauma therapist Gabor Matѐ frames this becoming as a process of “healing”—"a word that, at its root, means ‘returning to wholeness.’”[1] What do these journeys of transformation have in common, and how might Gregory’s theology inform an approach to the healing of trauma?
In this paper, I will explore Gregory of Nyssa’s theology of deification or theosis, the progressive, participative journey through which we are becoming more fully human. I will demonstrate that Gregory articulates how we become human through encounter with kenotic love, healing our alienation from God, ourselves and others. To do that, I will focus primarily on Gregory’s writings, theologians and commentators, and related scriptures, and make connections with a modern understanding of the healing of trauma articulated by Gabor Matѐ and others. I’ll focus particularly on Gregory’s On the Human Image of God as well as his Homilies on the Song of Songs, and propose Gregory’s theology informs an approach to contemplative healing that addresses the fragmenting effects of trauma and transforms our false selves into the cruciform image of Christ.
Saint Gregory of Nyssa was born about the year 335[2] into an exceptional, multi-generational Christian household. Three siblings (including Gregory) would become bishops and six (including Gregory) would become saints, including sister Saint Macrina and brother Saint Basil, Bishop of Caesarea.[3] Together with family friend Gregory of Nazianzen, this group of Cappadocian theologians forged, through their lived experience, Trinitarian theology that would form the bedrock of Christian orthodoxy.
The Cappadocians would do perhaps the most significant work of the Patristics in developing a theology of deification, ultimately named theosis[4] by Gregory of Nazianzen. Carla Sunburg writes,
In Cappadocian thought, the goal of the Christian life was theosis: to become like God or union with God. This concept of theosis signaled a return to the telos of humanity, a humanity that was made in the image and likeness of God. People are saved through their participation in theosis, culminating in their growth in holiness, love, and Christ-likeness.[5]
The concept of deification as a Christian idea was articulated in the second century by Irenaeus when he wrote, “The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”[6] For Irenaeus, according to Roger Olson, “God’s purpose in redemption is to reverse the sin, corruption and death introduced into humanity by Adam and lift humanity up to life and immortality. The incarnation accomplished this as a possibility by fusing humanity with divinity.”[7]
Over 100 years later, Athanasius would defend the full divinity of Christ asserting that “the Son of God became human so that we might become God.”[8] For Athanasius, as for Irenaeus, Origen and other early Christian theologians, “the human problem was death because of sin, and the solution was deification by means of humanity and divinity being joined in the incarnation.”[9] Hence, the salvation and healing of humanity is embedded in the Patristic understanding of the Incarnation.[10] “It is the union of human nature with divinity that deifies,” writes Jules Gross, “a union established by the incarnation and sealed by the resurrection.”[11]
Gregory of Nazianzen would argue for the full humanity of Christ insisting that “What has not been assumed has not been healed.”[12] Gregory of Nyssa, who would prefer to talk of participation and perpetual progress rather than use the word theosis,[13] would say that the Word became incarnate “so that by becoming as we are, he might make us as he is.”[14] This making is our becoming, our return to wholeness, and nothing less than the healing of the whole body of Christ.
Together, the Cappadocians would give us a Trinitarian, embodied and participatory theology of theosis. Among them, Gregory of Nyssa would do perhaps the most significant work in developing a theology both solidly scriptural, mystical, and philosophical. Gregory brought to his theological work his own bent toward mysticism as well as his study of the Platonic concept of divinization and Neo-Platonic contemplation.[15] Olson writes, “Gregory soaked in their message about the absolute unity, spirituality and transcendence of God and sought to combine the best of it with his Christian reflections on the Trinity and attributes of God.”[16] Hans Urs von Balthasar describes Gregory’s unique contribution in this way:
Less brilliant and prolific than his great master Origen, less cultivated than his friend Gregory Nazianzen, less practical than his brother Basil, he nonetheless outstrips them all in the profundity of this thought, for he knew better than anyone how to transpose ideas inwardly from the spiritual heritage of ancient Greece into a Christian mode. And he accomplished this in that fundamentally Hellenistic spirit that allows him to translate religious experience seamlessly into its conceptual expression, that spirit for which the crystalline clarity of thought is lit from within and becomes a mystical life.[17]
“After Saint Athanasius,” writes Gross, “Saint Gregory of Nyssa is the witness par excellence of the Greek doctrine of divinization.”[18]
In his treatise On the Human Image of God, Gregory begins in Genesis 1 with Creation to reveal what it is to be and become fully human. In his commentary on this work, John Behr writes,
Gregory has presented us with a wholly positive picture of the human being as the image of God, the culmination of, and reason for, creation, whose body is adapted in its very structure for the exercise (through weakness) of kingly sovereignty, fashioned in such a way as to enable this animal to become rational, sharing in the intellect and reason that adorns the divine nature itself, and so to be the living image, decked out in virtue.[19]
Quoting Gregory, Behr explains that God created the human being from his goodness for his goodness, “according to the image” of God, so that there is in the human being “a form of very beauty, all virtue and wisdom,” and especially the “self-determining deliberation” without which there would be no virtue.[20]
For Gregory, it is through “the free exercise of virtue that the human being manifests their existence as the image of God.”[21] Yet with Adam’s offense, human desire is no longer always or primarily for the good. Desires are divided and so evil enters the world. In Gregory’s words,
And in this way the genesis of evil occurs, arising through the withdrawal of the good. Everything is good that is related to the First Good; but that which comes to be outside its relation and likeness to this, is certainly devoid of the Good….our material part holds together, and is upheld, when it is administered by nature; but, on the other hand, it is dissolved and falls apart when it is separated from that which upholds and sustains it, and is severed from its connection to the good.[22]
With sin, writes Vladimir Lossky, “human nature became divided; split up, broken into many individuals. Man now has a double character; as an individual nature, he is a part of a whole, one of the elements which make up the universe; but as a person, he is in no sense a part: he contains all in himself.”[23]
The fall of humanity is not one of nature but instead a severing from connection to the Good, an alienation from God and the imago Dei within. And so the human introduced in Genesis 1, inherently created with choice and change, “is not simply made, but has a task of becoming set before him.”[24] This becoming, for Gregory, requires a journey of ascent, renewing the connection to the Good and progressively restoring the human in the fullness of the image of God. On 2 Corinthians 3:18, Nyssen writes
The Logos shows that it would be a disadvantage for us not to be able to make a change for the better, as a kind of wing of flight to greater things. Therefore, let no one be grieved if he sees in his nature a penchant for change. Changing in everything for the better, let him exchange “glory for glory,” becoming greater through daily increase, ever perfecting himself and never arriving too quickly at the limit of perfection. For this is truly perfection: never to stop growing toward what is better and never placing any limit on perfection.[25]
For Behr this progressive growth explains “those things about the human being that seem to be opposed, that is, the scriptural affirmation that God created the human in his image and likeness, and what we presently and empirically see.”[26] Gregory is giving us an evolutionary and ongoing creation that explains the gap between the current way of our being and the created truth of our being. Casey writes
While many of the earlier Greek Fathers had spoken of participating in God through the grace of the divine Spirit, Gregory of Nyssa, by identifying goodness as one of the essential perfections of God, demolishes the distinction between morality and ontology as a false one. According to Gregory, participation in sanctity was, in fact, participation in true being. The path of the ascetic is the path of theosis. Theosis then is not a posthumous transcending of human nature but a work in progress to increase our capacity to share in the divine life, to give and receive gratuitously and graciously…there is only one path and that is growth in love.[27]
This growth in love and Gregory’s conception of knowing, writes Khaled Anatolios, is one of limitless progress, “a journey of stretching receptivity and thankful wonder.”[28] This stretching forward, expressed in the concept of epektasis, is the continual movement “toward an ever deeper contemplation of and participation in the divine life. For Gregory, the dominant note of Christian life is that of ceaseless desire, exertion, and upward progress.”[29]
We journey, like the Cappadocians, through a knowing that is mystical and experiential, as love works in us by grace to remove the false and reveal the true. In Gregory’s words, “it is necessary ‘to put off the old human being’ and ‘put on the one being renewed in accordance with the image of God.’”[30] Gregory’s De Vita Macrinae paints his sister Macrina as a living example of a human being in the image of God. From Jessica Williams,
St. Nyssen’s On the Soul and the Resurrection details a thorough critique of the nature of the soul in which St. Macrina’s voice gives clarity. Turning to scripture, she explains that ‘we should consider nothing peculiar to the soul which is not also proper to the divine nature.’ Macrina insists that everything that is not the image and likeness of God in us is not who we truly are. Therefore, every unhealthy attachment, impurity and imperfection we find in ourselves is considered to be the false self. The true self is the pure likeness of God.[31]
In Gregory’s words, “our wretchedness often causes the divine gift to be unknown, spreading the passions of the flesh, like some ugly mask, over the beauty of the image.”[32] The mask, the false self, is progressively removed and the original image, the true self, is revealed through participation in the divine life through the sacramental presence of God with and in us. Gregory invites us to participate in goodness through the asceticism of a life of virtue, contemplation, and sacrament. Hans Boersma writes, “The purpose of all matter…is to lead us into God’s heavenly presence, to bring about communion with God, participation in the divine life.”[33] He continues,
We do not want merely a nominal relationship; we desire a participatory relationship. In fact, a sacramental ontology maintains that the former is possible only because of the latter: a genuinely covenantal bond is possible only because the covenanting partners are not separate or fragmented individuals. The real connection that God has graciously posited between himself and the created order forms the underlying ontological basis that makes it possible for a covenant relationship to flourish.[34]
Our participation becomes the remedy for our alienation, the healing for the disease of our souls. For Gregory, we are participating in a covenantal relationship of love to be experienced, and Christ is a bridegroom to be encountered. He develops the centrality of this covenantal relationship through his sermons on the Song of Songs, an allegory of sacramental intimacy and real presence.[35] “For Nyssen,” writes Sunberg, “the metaphorical or allegorical reading of Song of Songs defines his understanding of the final stages of deification.” She continues, “Love for the bridegroom becomes the central feature for one pursuing theosis, and the Cappadocians, and specifically Nyssen, see the placement of the Song of Songs as crucial to understanding the spiritual life as one of ascent, and the final unity with Christ.”[36]
From Gregory’s Second Homily on the Song of Songs:
You alone have been made the image of the reality that transcends all understanding, the likeness of imperishable beauty, the imprint of true divinity, the recipient of beatitude, the seal of true light. When you turn to him you become that which he is himself…And although he is so great and holds all creation in the palm of his hand, you are able to hold him, he dwells in you and moves within you without constraint, for he has said, “I will live and move among them.”[37]
The presence and image of God are within the bride. As she is progressively purified, she sees him mirrored within, and she becomes like him. This is her deification. The purified soul, writes Russell, “becomes a mirror of divine perfection. Through the contemplation of a reality accessible only to the mind, the soul is drawn more and more deeply into the experience of the presence of God.”[38] The soul has a “glassy essence” that “cannot help but assume the aspect of that towards which it is turned,” writes David Bentley Hart.[39] He continues,
Human nature, says Gregory, is a mirror that takes on any appearance, bears the impression of any form, and is moulded solely by the determination of the free will. In its most proper nature, the human mind is in fact that uniquely privileged surface in which the beauty of the divine archetype is reflected and thereby mediates to the entirety of material creation, which is “a mirror of the mirror”….Now when our nature draws near to Christ, it becomes beautiful with the reflection of his beauty.[40]
The relationship between being like God in purity and virtue and knowing God (or “seeing” God) is close for Gregory. In his commentary on Gregory’s sermons on the Song of Songs, Richard Norris points out
The two seem to be correlative. He can talk the language of Matt 5:8, according to which virtue (purity of heart) is a condition of seeing God (and therefore of actualizing the divine image): “knowledge,” he says, “of the Good that transcends every intellect comes to us through the virtues.” He can also, however, as we have just seen, talk the language of 1 John 3:2, according to which the vision of God is a condition of bearing the likeness, for people become like what they look at. The good that human nature seeks can thus be defined in two ways that come to the same thing: virtue makes the vision of God possible, and the vision of God makes virtue possible. Progress in respect of either virtue or knowledge thus entails progress in the other.[41]
The mirror of the soul, this reflection of Christ, already exists within the bride and is unveiled as she takes possession of what is already hers. Von Balthasar describes it this way:
The bride, in her mystical ascent, was moving “ever more toward that which is within,” and it is there that we find the proper dimension of the spirit: a return to self…In this sense, the spiritual movement will tend in the first place by a successive elimination of all that we “have,” to constitute what we “are”: “Our surest refuge is not to fail to recognize ourselves, not to believe that we are seeing ourselves when we are seeing something that only surrounds us, our body, our faculties, the idea that others have of us. For anything unstable is not us. We have already seen that the soul is purified in this way, as she lays aside garment after garment. Thus the ideal will appear as that supreme instant wherein the soul, having been disencumbered of all her ”corporeal [veils], presents herself naked and pure in spirit to the vision of God in a divine vigil.” This vision would therefore constitute only the soul’s taking possession of her own spiritual purity, a reflection of that deepest depth of herself where the scintilla animee (spark of the soul) burns.[42]
The bride’s becoming is a return to her true self; and this becoming requires a “perpetual death of being” as “true life must slowly extricate itself from this ‘dead life’ ‘as from a shell.’”[43] With the kiss of love, the answer to her prayer, her mouth makes contact with the fountain that flows from the Bridegroom, and the “words of eternal life gush forth” filling her. With his kiss comes a wound. Again from von Balthasar,
Only since this mystery of contact is accomplished on the foundations of the Incarnation, and therefore of kenosis, of the death of Christ as well as the soul, the mouth of the Beloved is none other than the wound of his heart: “I want to run to you, O Fountain-head, and to drink deep drafts of the divine flood that You pour out on those who are thirsty. It is from your side, whose vein the lance opened wide like a mouth, that this water rushes out transforming him who drinks into a fountain” …The “window” by which the soul is able to make her escape and touch God is the wound of crucified love: “I am wounded by love…The bride, by loving in her turn him who had loved her first, makes show of the arrow of love that found its way right to the center of her heart. This is another way of saying she participates in his very divinity. For love, as it is said, is God.[44]
The word kenosis comes from the Greek word κενόω used by Paul in Philippians 2:7.[45] In this great hymn, Paul uses this word to describe Christ’s self-emptying, self-giving, all-forgiving love and radical servanthood revealed in the Incarnation and Passion of Christ.[46] The bride’s encounter with love is a kenotic encounter with the Trinity, an encounter of the heart, and it is discovered within as in a mirror. “The description of the union is extraordinary indeed, as the bride is taken into the dynamism of the Trinity,” writes Sarah Coakley.[47] Hart adds, “it is by being refashioned after and in the Trinitarian ordering of self-outpouring light that we are made like God.”[48] In the bride’s experience of this union, she can say, “I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine.”[49] In Gregory’s words,
Again, God is love, and the source of love; for this the great John declares, that love is of God, and God is love. The Fashioner of our nature has made this to be our character, also; for, he says, by this shall all know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. Therefore, if this be absent, the whole stamp of the image is transformed.[50]
Kenosis is the very nature, the very image of the love of God, and Gregory writes to show us “the most perfect and blessed way of salvation here—I mean the way of love.”[51]. The unifying, deifying power and presence is kenotic love. “Kenosis is theosis,” writes Michael Gorman. “To be like Christ crucified is to be both most godly and most human. Christification is divinization and divinization is humanization.”[52] The bride, in her union with love, is becoming this same love, and so becoming fully human. Russell adds,
From Irenaeus in the second century to Maximus in the seventh many of the Fathers see theosis as summarizing the very purpose of the Incarnation—the loving self-emptying of God (kenosis) evoking a fervent human response (theosis), the divinization of the human person mirroring the humanization of the divine Word…What we empty ourselves of, however, are the distorted aspects of our fallen human nature so that we can attain to the true fullness of humanity of Christ. As Father Dumitru Staniloae has put it, “The glory to which man is called is that he should grow more godlike by growing ever more human.”[53]
This journey of becoming who we already are, of removing the false to reveal the true through loving, kenotic connection that restores, is the journey of healing the soul. Strikingly, much of Gregory’s process of deification intersects with the work of leading, contemporary trauma specialists, including Dr.Gabor Matѐ . Specifically, Matѐ and Gregory both assume an interior wholeness that is the essence of who we really are[54], and both see this wholeness as divided. “Trauma,” writes Matѐ, in its Greek origin, means “wound.” He continues, “It is our woundedness, or how we cope with it, that dictates much of our behavior, shapes our social habits, and informs our way of thinking about the world.”[55] This wound is something that happens inside us that “fragments the self” and becomes a “barrier to growth.” He continues,
Trauma is an inner injury, a lasting rupture or split within the self due to difficult or hurtful events… a psychic injury, lodged in our nervous system, mind and body, lasting long past the originating incident(s), triggerable at any moment….a raw wound or scar, unresolved trauma is a constriction of the self….It constrains our inborn capacities and generates an enduring distortion of our view of the world and other people…keeps us stuck in the past, robbing us of the present moment’s riches, limiting who we can be….it blights a person’s sense of worth, poisons relationships and undermines appreciation for life itself.[56]
Trauma, the effects of evil in the world, divides us within. Matѐ, Bessel van der Kolk and Peter Levine, much like Gregory, all speak of this fragmenting as loss of connection. Trauma, writes van der Kolk, is “a fracturing of the self and of one’s relationship to the world. That fracturing is the essence of trauma.” He quotes Levine: “Trauma ‘is about a loss of connection—to ourselves, our families, and the world around us.”[57]. Gregory would add another loss of connection, our alienation from God.
Trauma, writes Matѐ, “forges our view of reality: we come to believe in the world we see through its cracked lens.”[58] This new reality is shadowed by shame[59] and “imposes a worldview tinged with pain, fear and suspicion: a lens that both distorts and determines our view of how things are.”[60]
Trauma shapes and informs this false self, often hidden from ourselves and from the world. Healing, recovering the true self, says Matѐ, is “a natural movement toward wholeness…It is a direction, not a destination; a line on a map, not a dot.”[61] When we heal, he writes, “we are engaged in recovering our lost parts of self, not trying to change or ‘better’ them.”[62] He continues, “True healing simply means opening ourselves to the truth of our lives, past and present, as plainly and objectively as we can.”[63] Matѐ, like Gregory, points to a process of recovery of the true self; and both point to the experience of co-suffering love, contemplation, and mirroring as essential in this recovery.
In this journey of becoming ourselves, Matѐ emphasizes compassion—self compassion and interpersonal compassion--is critical to this opening and becoming. Compassion comes from the Latin word meaning “to suffer with.”[64] Compassion characterized by co-suffering empathy and acceptance is critical in opening the way to reconnection. Interior contemplation--healthy solitude, stillness, listening—allows “space for the voice to emerge” so we can “observe ourselves with compassionate curiosity instead of judgment”[65].
We heal only in relationship because our suffering must be seen and held with co-suffering love. Van der Kolk points to the importance of mirroring in healing: “trauma almost invariably involves not being seen, not being mirrored, and not being taken into account. Treatment needs to reactivate the capacity to safely mirror and be mirrored by others.”[66] He continues,
Traumatized human beings recover in the context of relationships….The role of those relationships is to provide physical and emotional safety, including safety from feeling shamed, admonished, or judged, and to bolster the courage to tolerate, face, and process the reality of what has happened.[67]
Gregory and Matѐ agree. Contemplation, safe connection, mirroring, and kenosis are all essential in our healing. Theosis and the healing of trauma are very much connected. Kenneth Bakken writes, “healing is theosis, the work of the Holy Spirit in and through us, so that we might become transformed into the image and likeness of God. Healing brings about the death of the false self.”[68] He continues,
Our true being as a person, as opposed to our false self as an individual, only comes into existence when we are in living communion with God…We must recognize our essential communion (koinonia): there is not true self except the one that comes into being by the act of love and self-emptying. It is only by loving the other that “myself” actually emerges.[69]
At Roots&Branches[70] our values in the practice of contemplative healing, the prayerful healing of the soul (also known as inner healing), have evolved at this intersection. Over the twelve years we’ve operated as a non-profit, we’ve met with hundreds of clients seeking healing of trauma, learning and unlearning how best to pray with them. Initially grounded in a theology of the depravity of the human soul, we operated in much more transactional, formulaic, leader-driven ways. We led people through prayers and processes with an eye on immediate results. With time, a focus on contemplative prayer and listening, and a growing trust in the goodness of the human soul, we’ve moved toward a more client-driven approach. We seek to create safe, Spirit-saturated space for listening to God and self, without judgments, assumptions or formulaic approaches. Our aim is to honor each individual journey, allowing healing and the true self to emerge over time.
Again and again, we witness the power of kenotic space and presence. Trusting the imago Dei in each person and trusting Spirit in them, we open space to connect with and respond to God present with them in their suffering. Facilitating a living experience of co-suffering love, we see hearts and lives restored.
This is the work of inner healing, spiritual direction, pastoral care and healing community—creating safe, brave space for our healing and becoming. Ultimately, this journey of becoming becomes a way of living, a way of being that reintegrates the lost, hidden, fragmented parts of ourselves that isolate us from God, ourselves and others. In Matѐ ’s words, this quest for wholeness
Is not reducible to any one or two (or three, or twenty, or fifty) practices, modalities, or approaches. Far from a one-and-done proposition, returning to ourselves is a road we choose, with all the twists and turns and seeming cul-de-sacs that come with following—or indeed, forging—an uncertain path. In my experience we are never as close as we hope, and never as far as we fear.[71]
This process known as theosis, writes Andrew Louth, “has to do with human destiny, a destiny that finds its fulfillment in a face-to-face encounter with God.”[72] Held within the framework of theosis, contemplative healing is most essentially a healing in community, in communion with Trinity and other humans who reflect the image of God. There is no individual healing because we need to see our suffering mirrored in another and in Christ as co-suffering love. This is the compassion that heals us, the passion of Christ, fully God, fully human, holding us, not judging, not shaming, but gently opening the wound to heal and reveal our true selves, our full humanity.
Matѐ writes that “trauma exists in the collective sphere.”[73] Gregory would say the same of evil. And so our healing must be personal as well as communal. “Our culture,” writes van der Kolk, “teaches us to focus on personal uniqueness, but at a deeper level we barely exist as individual organisms. Our brains are built to help us function as members of a tribe.”[74] This tribe is the body of Christ. Behr writes
For Gregory, the human being made by God is not Adam, but “by divine foreknowledge and power all humanity is included in the first formation” (De hom. 16:16) of one body. As such “the image is not in part of our nature,” but rather “extends equally to the whole genus.” (De hom. 16:16-17). “The whole nature, then, extending from the first to the last is a kind of single image of He Who Is.” Jesus Christ is the prototype, the image of God from which the human is made (De hom. 16.7) and which includes “’the entire plentitude of humanity’ foreseen by God from or in the beginning….Or, as von Balthasar more elegantly put it: ‘The total Christ is none other than the total humanity.’”[75]
Together, we all hold wholeness, God’s goodness, within us; and our individual journeys toward wholeness lead us to something greater. Through safe, compassionate community, through connection in and through Christ, we become one as the body of Christ. This is the making new of creation. “Rather than thinking of the Incarnation of Christ as an event restricted to a long-gone past and a far-removed land,” writes Behr, “we should instead think of it as a possibility that is to be lived as an ever-contemporary reality, here and now in those who respond to him.”[76]
As we are healed by love, we are becoming love, the One who is Love. The act of creation in the garden moves toward its fulfillment, the making new of all things. Ilia Delio writes,
Christianity is a religion of evolution because it is marked by self-emptying love (Phil 2:6) that gathers together and creates anew (Jn 10:30). The life of Jesus Christ anticipates a new creation whereby the love of God, love of self, and love of neighbor are gathered into a new unity, a new love, and a new future. In Jesus, evolution “appears” in person; this is what evolution is about.[77]
We are invited, writes Father Richard Rohr, into “full participation with God, a flow, a relationship, a waterwheel of always outpouring love.”[78] And God’s intention is the expression of this love to the world. In loving communion, writes James Torrance, we hear “God’s call to us, in our day, to participate through the Spirit in Christ’s communion with the Father and his mission from the Father to the world—to create in our day a new humanity of persons who find true fulfillment in other-centered communion and service in the kingdom of God.”[79]
Elizabeth Johnson paints a beautiful picture of this way of life for us:
Wherever the human heart is healed, justice gains a foothold, peace holds sway, an ecological habitat is protected, wherever liberation, hope and healing break through, wherever an act of simple kindness is done, a cup of cool water given, a book offered to a child thirsty for learning, there the human and earth community already reflect, in fragments, the visage of the trinitarian God. Borne by “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,” we become committed to a fruitful future inclusive of all peoples, tribes, and nations, all creatures of the earth. The reign of God gains another foothold in history.[80]
Evil, the result of our misdirected passions, is the trauma that wounds us. This trauma, both personal and collective, has made our souls and planet sick. As divided people, we live fragmented lives in a fragmented world. Yet God is always inviting by Spirit and grace, moving to re-unite our divided parts with his goodness and ours, because they are the same. Progressively healed in the mirror of co-suffering love, our healing journey becomes one of seeing, of encounter, of experiencing this love in increasing degrees, ascending as the bride toward union through the wound that is love. Through the death of all that is false, toward the life that is true, incarnation and resurrection meet in our humanity as we together become the body of Christ. Experiencing safe, compassionate, contemplative community, our world heals and thrives. And together, we become who we already are. And so with Gregory, we pray
Now may we all ascend to that divine grace in which God at the first created the human being, saying, Let us make the human being in accordance with our image and likeness; to whom be glory and might unto ages of ages. Amen.[81]
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[1] Gabor Matѐ and Daniel Matѐ, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture (London, England: Vermillion, 2022), 11.
[2] Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Song of Songs, trans. Casimir McCambley (Brookline, Massachusetts: Hellenic College Press, 1987), 6.
[3] Carla D. Sunberg, The Cappadocian Mothers: Deification Exemplified in the Writings of Basil, Bregory and Gregory (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2017), 24.
[4] Norman Russell, Fellow Workers with God: Orthodox Thinking on Theosis (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Press, 2009), 22.
[5] Sunberg, The Cappadocian Mothers: Deification Exemplified in the Writings of Basil, Bregory and Gregory, 15 Sunburg cites Finlan and Kharlamov who define theosis as the transformation of believers into the likeness of God.
[6] Irenaeus, “Against Heresies (Book V, Preface),” New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, accessed April 15, 2024, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103500.htm.
[7] Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1999), 77.
[8] Athanasius, “On the Incarnation,” New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, accessed April 15, 2024, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2802.htm.
[9] Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform, 169.
[10] Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov, eds., Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2006), 4.
[11] Jules Gross, The Divinization of the Christian According to the Greek Fathers, trans. Paul A. Onica (Anaheim, California: A & C Press, 2002), 188.
[12] Gregory Nazianzen, “Letters (Division I),” New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, April 15, 2024, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3103a.htm.
[13] Michael J. Christensen and Jeffrey A. Wittung, eds., Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 104.
[14] Russell, Fellow Workers with God: Orthodox Thinking on Theosis, 39 Citing Nyssa’s Refutations II.
[15] Sunberg, The Cappadocian Mothers: Deification Exemplified in the Writings of Basil, Bregory and Gregory, 34–35.
[16] Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform, 179.
[17] Hand Urs von Balthasar, Presence and Thought: Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa, trans. Mark Sebanc, Kindle (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), loc. 121.
[18] Gross, The Divinization of the Christian According to the Greek Fathers, 176.
[19] John Behr, Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2023), 101.
[20] Behr, 105 Citing 16: 10-11.
[21] Behr, 96.
[22] Behr, 199, 12.11.
[23] Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Cambridge and London: James Clarke & Co., 1968), 123.
[24] Behr, Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God, 96.
[25] Olivier Clement, The Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts from the Patristic Era with Commentary, 2nd ed. (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press of the Focolare, 1993), 79.
[26] Behr, Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God, 93.
[27] Damien Casey, “Theosis as the Unity of Life and Death,” Scrinium 11, no. 1 (2015): 49–58.
[28] Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving Nicea: The Development of Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 165.
[29] Anatolios, 235.
[30] Behr, Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God, 327, 30.33.
[31] Jessica Williams, “Kenotic Love and the Soul’s Transformation: A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Theology and Culture St. Stephen’s University” (St. Stephens, Canada, St. Stephens University, 2021), 5.
[32] Behr, Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God, 241, 18.6.
[33] Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2011), 9.
[34] Boersma, 25.
[35] Boersma, 187.
[36] Sunberg, The Cappadocian Mothers: Deification Exemplified in the Writings of Basil, Bregory and Gregory, 134.
[37] Nyssa, Commentary on the Song of Songs, 70.
[38] Russell, Fellow Workers with God: Orthodox Thinking on Theosis, 117.
[39] David Bentley Hart, “The Mirror of the Infinite: Gregory of Nyssa on the Vestigia Trinitatis,” Modern Theology 18, no. 4 (October 2002): 549.
[40] Hart, 550.
[41] Richard A. Norris, Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Song of Songs, ed. Brian E. Daley and John T. Fitzgerald (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), xxix, https://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/pubs/061613P.front.pdf.
[42] von Balthasar, Presence and Thought: Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa, loc. 1521.
[43] von Balthasar, loc. 1020.
[44] von Balthasar, loc. 2095.
[45] “Philippians 2:7 MGNT,” Blue Letter Bible, accessed May 29, 2024, https://www.blueletterbible.org/mgnt/phl/2/7/t_conc_1105007.
[46] Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel (Pasadena, CA: Plain Truth Ministries, 2015), 99.
[47] Sarah Coakley, ed., Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 89.
[48] Hart, “The Mirror of the Infinite: Gregory of Nyssa on the Vestigia Trinitatis,” 553.
[49] “Song of Solomon 6:3 RSV,” Blue Letter Bible, accessed May 28, 2024, https://www.blueletterbible.org/rsv/sng/6/3/p0/t_bibles_677003.
[50] Behr, Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God, 165, 5.2.
[51] Nyssa, Commentary on the Song of Songs, 43, J.16.
[52] Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), 37.
[53] Russell, Fellow Workers with God: Orthodox Thinking on Theosis, 40.
[54] Matѐ and Matѐ, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture, 11.
[55] Matѐ and Matѐ, 16.
[56] Matѐ and Matѐ, 20–21.
[57] Besser Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014), 80.
[58] Matѐ and Matѐ, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture, 24.
[59] Matѐ and Matѐ, 30.
[60] Matѐ and Matѐ, 32.
[61] Matѐ and Matѐ, 361.
[62] Matѐ and Matѐ, 362.
[63] Matѐ and Matѐ, 363.
[64] Matѐ and Matѐ, 383.
[65] Matѐ and Matѐ, 477.
[66] Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, 59.
[67] Van Der Kolk, 81.
[68] Kenneth L. Bakken, The Journey into God: Healing and Christian Faith (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000), 24.
[69] Bakken, 84.
[70] “Roots&Branches,” accessed May 29, 2024, https://www.rootsandbranchesnetwork.com/ The mission of Roots&Branches is creating safe space for transformational encounters that restore the soul through listening prayer and spiritual practices. We seek to offer noise-free, shame-free, formula-free, Christ-centric space.
[71] Matѐ and Matѐ, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture, 43.
[72] Russell, Fellow Workers with God: Orthodox Thinking on Theosis, 19–20.
[73] Matѐ and Matѐ, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture, 36.
[74] Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, 80.
[75] Behr, Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God, 108.
[76] John Behr, Becoming Human: Meditations on Christian Anthropology in Word and Image (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Press, 2013), 104.
[77] Ilia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2013), 109.
[78] Richard Rohr, “Fathers of the Eastern Church: Trinity,” Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, May 12, 2015, https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Richard-Rohr-s-Meditation--Trinity.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=KCZeS6xSyCk.
[79] James B. Torrance, Worship, Comunity and the Triune God of Grace (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1996), 41.
[80] Elizabeth Johnson, “A Trinitarian Way of Life,” Center for Action and Contemplation, January 14, 2022, https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-trinitarian-way-of-life-2022-01-14/.
[81] Behr, Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God, 329, 30.34.