The Fathers of the ‘Christological centuries’,
though they formulated a dogma of Christ the God-Man, never lost sight of the
question concerning our union with God. The usual arguments they bring
up against unorthodoxy doctrines refer particularly to the fullness of our
union, our deification, which becomes impossible if one separates the two
natures of Christ, as Nestorius did, or if one only ascribes to Him one divine
nature, like the Monophysites, or if one curtails one part of human nature,
like Apollinarius, or if one only sees in Him a single divine will and
operation, like the Monothelites. ‘What is not assumed cannot be deified’—this is
the argument to which the Fathers continually return. What is deified in Christ
is His human nature assumed in its fullness by the divine person. What must be
deified in us is our entire nature, belonging to our person which must enter
into union with God, and become a person created in two natures: a human nature
which is deified, and a nature or, rather, divine energy, that deifies. The work
accomplished by Christ is related to our nature, it is no longer separated from
Christ by our fault. It is a new nature, a restored creature that appears in
the world; it is a new body, pure from all taint of sin, free from all external
necessity, separated from our iniquity and from every alien will by the
precious Blood of Christ. IT is the pure and incorruptible realm of the Church where
one attains union with God; it is also our nature in so far as it is incorporated
in the Church, and is part of the Body of Christ, in which we were made an
integral part through Baptism. (Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the
Eastern Church [Crestwood, N. Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976], 154-55)
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