Theosis in God but Not as God: A Trinitarian Map of Panentheistic Participation

To dive into the deep pool of how we participate in God through Christ requires wading out of the shallow, legalistic courtrooms of modern Western nominalism. When we do this, we enter into an intoxicating, transfiguring universe of sacramental participation. For centuries, the modern religious imagination has been flattened by an ontology of fragmentation: A worldview that presumes human beings are completely autonomous individuals marooned in a mechanical material order, waiting for a distant, monarchical deity to issue legal declarations (or drop occasional pieces of propositional information) across the cosmic divide. In this framework, salvation is reduced to a transactional shift in status: The celestial ledger is balanced, a sentence is commuted, and the creature remains structurally unchanged.

The ancient consensus of the historic Church offers a beautifully inverted vision. Salvation is not a legal transaction. Instead it is theosis: The progressive, ontological deification of the human person. As the Apostle Peter boldly declared, we are created to become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). We are made to be thoroughly enmeshed in the Divine life, caught up in the eternal perichoresis of the Trinity: The dynamic, self-giving dance of Love shared between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Yet, this breathtaking claim immediately confronts us with a profound metaphysical conundrum: If the human person is genuinely drawn into the inner life of the Godhead, how do we preserve the absolute boundary between the Creator and the creature? How can we truly participate in God through Christ without collapsing into a form of raw pantheism in which we are God, or without assuming that we become distinct, autonomous "Christs" who are co-equal to the Father, Son, and Spirit?

To chart a path through this mystery, we must construct a tentative conceptual map of genuine participation. The goal of this essay is to demonstrate that theosis is a reality wherein the human person is fully divinized in God without ever becoming God as God. By synthesizing the Eastern Orthodox distinction between the divine essence and energies with the phenomenological insights of C.S. Lewis and the dual-aspect personal idealism of Anglican philosopher Keith Ward, we can articulate a robust, inclusive Christian panentheism. This map will safeguard both the absolute, unapproachable transcendence of the Divine Source and the total, transfiguring immanence of the Divine Spirit working within and among us.

Three Centuries of Masculinity in Crisis

Recently I watched this delightful video on the history of masculinity in English speaking lands by London historian and tour guide J Draper. In it Draper shows how masculinity has been in crisis ever since the term "masculinity" was coined in the mid-1700's. Now, the concept of "male" and "female", and diverse ideas about the archetypes that surround them, have been around in various languages in various societies as long as humans have gathered in socieities. So, the idea of certain traits associated with males and females and third gender categories were not suddenly invented in the 18th century. But what was crystallized around this time was a uniquely aristocratic Anglophonic aesthetic that was dubbed "masculinity" by which males were judged as "manly" (or not). And that aesthetic has been in crisis and constantly renegotiated ever since!

Taking Pride in the Families God knits together

As is often the case during Pride month, the hornet's nest of culture war rhetoric is stirred up once again, as our major media outlets stoke us into unending debate over whether LGBTQ+ love is the same kind of love found in heterosexual relationships, and whether LGBTQ+ families should be accepted as families in the fullest sense. I have dealt many times with the Scriptural questions surrounding these issues, and for a half a century the Episcopal Church has proclaimed LGBTQ+ persons to be fully beloved and fully accepted siblings in God's vast Family. 

In 1976, the Episcopal General Convention declared that “homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church” (1976-A069), and that they “are entitled to equal protection of the laws with all other citizens” (1976-A071). In 2012 we created liturgical resources for the celebration of same-sex marriage. Or as we like to call it: Marriage. No qualifiers. Yet, as the same debates and cliches get brought up over and over and over again over the nature of sexuality and marriage and family, it can often seem like we are missing the point in both striking and subtle ways. With all the fear and hate and mockery and dehumanization that is evident in the persecutors and even in the persecuted, perhaps we have lost our Way in following Jesus. Perhaps there is a different Way to frame the reasons why we embrace all persons and families in God's vast Family.

Conserving the Progress of Pentecost

We live in a deeply divided world that has severed two ideas from each other that actually require one another to be complete: conservatism and progressivism. Modern cultural and political discourse treats these two concepts as mortal enemies engaged in a zero-sum war. The conservative is caricatured as a defensive gatekeeper of a stagnant past, while the progressive is mocked as a rootless wanderer chasing every passing cultural whim. This binary is a tragic illusion. In the natural world, a tree cannot grow healthy new branches (progress) unless its roots remain firmly anchored in the deep soil (conservation). To disconnect them is to doom the tree to either stunted growth or immediate collapse.

The Feast of Pentecost is a cosmic declaration that the Community of Christ— the Ekklesia, the Church— is called to be both fundamentally conservative and essentially progressive. As with all realities in Christ: Pentecost is subversive, undermining our cultural certainties. It is radical, because it disconnects us from the dead roots of a decaying culture and reconnects us with our root— Latin "radix"— who is Christ alone, from whom all life and nourishment flows (see John 15). Pentecost deconstructs our modern political boxes by demonstrating that true preservation and true progress are two sides of the same divine coin.

From Revelation to Reason to Research: How Theology births Philosophy to birth Science

For ages theology was seen as the "Queen" of the sciences, holding monarchical power over all "lesser" disciplines, from the humanities to law to "natural philosophy" (which in time evolved into the natural sciences, and then grew to include the social sciences). For some exclusivist religions, science is even viewed as an intruder into the realm of theology, to be vigorously disputed and defeated by theological truth. In response, a common secular myth arose that science is both triumphant over, and antithetical to, religion and theology. This comforting story replaces the earlier secular myth which put philosophy in the victor's position over theology. 

Indeed, in our contemporary discourse there are even scientific voices saying that science has replaced not only theology, but also the philosophy that birthed it. Scientists from Stephen Hawking to Neil deGrasse Tyson to Lawrence Krauss to Sam Harris have all said that philosophy is dying (or dead), and we only need science to pursue our evolution as a species. As comforting as these mythologies of secular triumph may be, we may also wonder if they are not throwing the metaphysical baby out with the cultural bathwater. Is it possible that each of these disciplines— theology, philosophy, and science— all have interdependent origins which implicate each in the other, and as a result they need each other to help us live our fullest lives? Perhaps there are healthier alternatives to the winner-takes-all myths of a collapsing modernity. 

The Book of Job and the Risk of God

As we think about what it means to live faithfully in a world that is full of risk and chaos, suffering and death, there is no better literary companion than the ancient book of Job. This is one of the most ancient, and still most poignant, explorations of the problem of pain across all of spiritual literature. In the story of Job, the namesake character is tested by evil and undergoes intense suffering, losing his family, his health, and his hope in chapters 1-2. Afterward, he is comforted and interrogated by four "friends" in chapters 3-37. Essentially they say:

• Eliphaz argues that suffering is always a consequence of sin, implying that Job must have done something to deserve his misfortunes. He urges Job to repent and seek God's forgiveness.

• Bildad takes a harsher stance than Eliphaz, emphasizing God's justice and the inevitability of punishment for the wicked. He sees Job's suffering as proof of his guilt and urges him to confess his sins.

• Zophar is the most dogmatic and uncompromising of the three. He insists that Job's suffering is just and that he should accept it as a lesson from God. He offers no comfort or sympathy, only condemnation.

• Elihu, a younger man, joins the conversation later. He criticizes both Job and his friends, arguing that they have misunderstood God's ways. He emphasizes God's sovereignty and wisdom, suggesting that Job's suffering may have a hidden purpose that he cannot comprehend.

Finally, in chapters 38-42 God Himself speaks to Job out of a whirlwind, challenging him to consider the vastness and complexity of creation. God does not directly answer Job's questions but reminds him of his limited perspective and the unfathomable nature of divine justice. There are several different interpretations of this Divine discussion, but here we will focus on one interpretation that mitigates risk and distances God from risk, and another which implicates God in risk and implies that God risks in creation and redemption.

There is absolutely no evidence* for Christ's resurrection

*Empirical evidence, that is.

To engage with the claim of the resurrection is to enter into a unique kind of intellectual and spiritual "hall of mirrors." For many thoughtful postmoderns— those of us raised on a steady diet of the scientific method, historical-critical analysis, and the healthy skepticism of the Enlightenment— the resurrection often feels like the ultimate "hard stop." It is the moment where the gears of reason seem to grind against the supernatural, and we are told we must choose between our brains and our bibles.

But what if the resurrection is not an invitation to stop thinking, but a challenge to think more deeply about the nature of evidence, history, and the way we know anything at all?

Romans 9-11: An Argument Leading to Inclusion of All

One of the reasons I adore work as a school chaplain is because of the quality and commitment of the colleagues I work with. Recently, a colleague of mine who teaches English asked me to give him some insight into the importance of Romans 9:25: "I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved." He asked because it is the epigraph to a novel they are teaching: Toni Morrison's "Beloved". 

His very astute question led me to write an essay I have meant to write for a long time. This essay has Romans 9.25 at the heart of how Paul uses rhetoric in the book of Romans to lead the reader to an expansive vision of God's all-embracing Love for humanity, revealed in Jesus Christ. If I had to sum it up, here is my one-sentence summary:

Romans 9.25 is part of Paul's assurance that all humans are God's children and recipients of God's Love, despite all the rhetoric of exclusion that is raised against them.

But this summary is rather easy to write, but hard to square with some of the evidence found in the next of Romans. So to understand how Romans 9.25 functions as part of the overall argument, we need to dig in:

Not the Droids you are looking for: Beyond A.I. hype

For all you who are worried about the current iterations of AI taking over everything or destroying everything: These are not the Droids you are looking for. I use AI for many routine tasks in school and pastoral ministry, from scanning papers for cheating and AI use, to research assistant tasks, to news aggregation, to coding, to image and audio generation. I use several platforms of AI, both paid and free versions. And while the surface level "wow" factor has become much more impressive over the last 5 years, the error correction has stayed the same, or become worse over the same time.

This is because AI's are "algorithmically lazy" and will generate responses it thinks are "good enough" to fool the average user most of the time, instead of spending the compute power to error correct and be accurate. AI relies on you being lazy and uninformed so it can spew results that are lazy and uninformed, all in an effort to reduce power and energy use, to boost profits and reduce losses for its bosses.

Dear Nathan: An Open Letter to non-Pentecostals from a Pentecostal

Every now and then, I run into a pastor from the Pentecostal denomination "The Assemblies of God" (AG), and they are often surprised that I know a great deal about their religious tradition. In fact, I once was "Pentecostal adjacent" in my theology and spiritual orientation. Indeed, I still believe it is normal for the Holy Spirit to do amazing things in the lives of those who are open to Her presence and power working through them (including healing, casting out evil, inspiring mystical experience, and speaking through them in known and unknown languages). Even though I am fairly progressive, inclusive, and academic by nature, I think that a robust faith in the Trinity revealed in Jesus entails a robust experience of the Divine Spirit.

The reason why I know so much about the AG is that in the mid-1990's a pentecostal college professor was my friend and a member of my extended family. His name was Dr. Steve Badger, and he passed away in 2021. At the time I knew him, I was a budding theology student who had just learned Greek, as well as a social worker, and a volunteer youth minister. It was Dr. Badger, and several of his friends at AGTS (Assemblies of God Theological Seminary), who first introduced me to systematic theology and bought me my first theology books. Steve represented a beautiful fusion of the intellectual and experiential pursuit of Christ, and he became an integral part of my circuitous path to the Episcopal priesthood and school chaplaincy. 

Panentheism: Why matter Matters

In our modern age, we are often haunted by a "disenchanted" world: A cosmos where matter is viewed as mere mechanical "stuff" and God is reimagined as a distant watchmaker who has long since retreated from his creation. This theological poverty, which often drifts into a "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism," leaves many feeling spiritually homeless in a universe that seems indifferent to our existence. However, the ancient Christian worldview offers a far more vibrant and "thick" description of reality. By returning to the conviction that the Infinite Creator is not just "out there" but "in here," upholding every atom by the power of the Spirit, we find ourselves standing on holy ground. As the Apostle Paul reminded the philosophers of Athens, God is the one in whom "we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

The thoughts presented here are an invitation to move beyond the shallow waters of modern nominalism and dive into the deep pool of Panentheism, Theosis, and Sacraments. We will explore how the ancient Church understood salvation not as a legal transaction in a heavenly courtroom, but as a transfiguring union with God: A process where we become, as the Apostle Peter wrote, "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). We will see how the physical world, far from being a distraction from the spiritual life, is actually the primary laboratory of God's presence, where humble elements like bread, wine, and water become the conduits of Divine energy. Drawing on the insights of thinkers like St. Athanasius, who famously argued that "God became human so that humans might become divine", we find that matter is not a prison for the soul but a "theophany", a visible showing of God’s invisible glory.

As we navigate the crucial distinction between a God who is separate from creation and a God who is distinct within it, we begin to see that the physical universe is the perfect vessel for Divine self-expression. Matter matters because it is the medium through which the infinite Creator relates to the finite creature, a truth that reaches its breathtaking climax in the person of Jesus Christ. For the curious mind seeking a faith that is both intellectually rigorous and deeply embodied, it becomes evident that panentheism is a logical corollary which naturally flows from the Trinity and Incarnation.

Christarchy forms Christlike Communities

In the words of the musical prophet Bob Dylan, we all "gotta serve somebody". It is not a question of whether we will serve, but who or what we serve. Some think they can live a naive form of "anarchy" in which they are ruled by nothing and no one. But even if we think we live an "autarchy" (where we are ruled by self alone), we will find we are really ruled by our own compulsions and cravings, fears and hatreds. In contrast to all the idols and addictions, rulers and forces of this world— power, pleasure, praise, pride, popularity, and possessions— we seek to follow Christ alone. Thus, Christarchy is our commitment to serve Christ as the Source, Ruler, and Goal of every dimension of life. 

Over the last two decades I have developed a Prayermap as my primary way to implement Christarchy and practice Christ in my everyday life and community. The ultimate purpose of Christarchy is to form Christlike Communities of persons who embody Christ. As C.S. Lewis has said about our common life in Christ's Body: "The Church exists for nothing else but to draw [people] into Christ, to make them little christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose." This final goal of becoming "little christs" can be summed up in the ten points of C.H.R.I.S.T.L.I.K.E.:

• CHRISTOCENTRIC: We immerse ourselves in the Story of Jesus so we can interpret Scripture and History with a Christward trajectory.

• HEALING: We follow Christ in healing God's children, our communities, and all creation, so we all become healthy, fruitful, and creative.

• RECONCILING: We restore right relationships with God, each other, and ourselves through forgiveness, community building, and character formation.

• INCARNATIONAL: We unite humanity and God in a panentheistic vision of creation by embodying Christ as members of his social body. 

• SACRAMENTAL: We focus Christ's Light, to magnify his Love, and experience his Life, here and now, in ritual and action.

• TRINITARIAN: We model our communities on the God of Love who is unity and diversity in Godself as Father, Son, and Spirit.

• LIBERATING: We protest unjust powers and overcome systemic evils that oppress God's children and destroy God's creation.

• INSPIRED: We overflow with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in spiritual practice, mystical experience, and gifts for ministry.

• KATHOLIC: We pursue Christ's mission to share all of God's grace with all people, in all of creation, until God is all in all in apokatastasis.

• EMBRACING: We include all that is good and true and beautiful in Christ from all arts and sciences, cultures and religions.

Each of these concepts is deep and rich, inviting us into the Divine Life of Jesus Christ. Each concept could be— and has been— explored in their own essays and chapters and books written across Christian history. However, to orient ourselves to each of these concepts, we will provide a brief introduction and Scriptural basis to explore the meaning of these concepts below, so we can see how "Christarchy forms Christlike Communities". The perceptive reader will note that five of these concepts are mainly about our worldview and theology: Christocentric, Incarnational, Trinitarian, Katholic, and Embracing. The other five concepts are primarily about how we practice: Healing, Reconciling, Sacramental, Liberating, and Inspired. Together these outline a "faith and practice" which is effective in helping us embody Christ. So let's dive in:

Does God's Love serve Power, or Power serve Love?

Many of us who believe in God would list a similar set of attributes of what make God an Ultimate Reality worthy of the title "God". We may say God is eternal, non-material, all powerful, all knowing, and all good. God stands apart from all other beings as the Source of Being itself, the Creator of all things that are not Godself. All good and true. But is it possible for two people to hold all these views in common, and yet have diametrically opposed views of how God acts, and why God treats us the way God does? 

Yes. How we order and prioritize God's attributes can result in a radically different vision of God. We don't tend to talk about this much, and we assume that all Christians or all Theists worship the same God. But could it be the case that, actually, we worship totally different images of the same God? Nothing brings out this divide better than the question: Does God's Love serve Power, or Power serve Love?

My Life as a Toilet

There is nothing as useful

As a toilet:

When the body demands it

There is no higher priority

In the whole world.

An ever-present porcelain priest,

It receives everyone’s urine,

Everyone’s excrement,

Everyone’s vomit;

And dutifully absolves them all.

It sends them away

As far as the East is from the West.

There is nothing as despised

As a toilet:

When the need has passed

We ignore it.

Hidden away

Down the hall

In the dark;

We do not talk about it.

It reminds us of things

Unmentionable yet intimate

So we pretend it does not exist.

For we can never quite admit

That we are bound to it

(And that we cannot live without it).

On the White Throne of Judgment

We make our confession

Into the silent chasm.

Weil said it well:

"All sins are attempts to fill voids."

But when we void into the void,

The toilet reminds us with a rush

Of cold, baptismal water:

All is forgiven;

All is swept clean;

All is made new.

It is the silent guest

At Weddings and Funerals,

Baptisms and Bar Mitzvahs,

Christmas and Easter.

Can you imagine any truly meaningful event

Without a toilet?

Yet would you ever admit you need it

To make meaning?

Great Cathedrals may house the Spirit,

But a ceramic bowl houses the Incarnation

In all its messy, earthly truth.

The toilet is

Schrödinger's fixture

A quantum superposition:

Always looked at but never seen;

Nearer to us than our undergarments,

Yet pushed out of sight, out of mind.

Couches are beloved;

Beds are yearned for;

Tables summon forth creative genius;

While showers drench us in peace.

But the lowly toilet 

Is the kenosis of furniture;

It empties itself

So that we may be full again.

A monk waiting in the silence of its tiled cell,

A humble witness to our mortality,

Listening for the mechanical "amen"

Of the final flush.

 

ATONEMENT: How Christ makes us at-one with God

This is a sample chapter from my Systematic Theology project "Theology for Thriving". 📎MORE TO THE STORY notes are not part of the main text of the book, but additional resources, charts, or other materials from Biblical Theology class resources.

Colossians 1.15-20 [15] Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; [16] for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. [17] He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. [19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, [20] and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

---

🗝️ Key Concept: Atonement

We have now mapped the great drama of the Incarnation: the breathtaking story of how God entered our world, becoming one of us to heal us from the inside out. This leads us to the central question of salvation: How exactly does this work? How does the life, death, and resurrection of a first-century Jewish peasant from Nazareth heal the deep alienation between God and humanity? The theological term for this great work of healing is Atonement.

The word itself is a beautiful roadmap. It’s a term coined by the English Bible translator William Tyndale, who needed a word to describe the work of reconciliation. He simply smashed three words together: at-one-ment. The work of Christ is to make God and humanity “at one.” It is the ultimate act of reconciliation, bridging the chasm of sin that separates us from our Source. 

Atonement is our salvation, our healing from the sickness of Sin. It is our liberation from the powers of death and evil that hold us captive. Ultimately, it is the path to theosis: Our journey into full participation in the divine life. Jesus is the living bridge between God and humanity, and atonement is the process of walking across that bridge into a healed and whole relationship with God, ourselves, and all of creation.

Different theologies try to focus on just one aspect of Jesus Christ as what made "at-one-ment" possible. Some focus on his life as a moral example, and say that he made atonement primarily by showing us a new way to live. Others focus on his death and say he made atonement primarily by dying on the cross for our sins. Still others focus on his resurrection and say atonement is mainly about his victory over the grave. There is truth in all of these images and perspectives. Rather than adopting an "either/or" view of atonement, we will do what we have been doing across most of this book and adopt a "both-and" approach. Atonement is NOT found "either his life or his death", but rather found in "both his life and his death".

GRACE: The unmerited gift of Love to make us lovable

This is a sample chapter from my Systematic Theology project "Theology for Thriving". 📎MORE TO THE STORY notes are not part of the main text of the book, but additional resources, charts, or other materials from Biblical Theology class resources.

Ephesians 2.1-10 [1] You were dead through the trespasses and sins [2] in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. [3] All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. [4] But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us [5] even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— [6] and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, [7] so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [8] For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— [9] not the result of works, so that no one may boast. [10] For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

🗝️ Key Concept: Grace

We have now mapped the great drama of God’s rescue mission: A world infected with Sin, and a loving God who enters into our suffering through the Incarnation to bring about our At-one-ment. This brings us to the final piece of the Soteriology puzzle: How is this healing actually applied to our lives? The answer is a single, beautiful, and often misunderstood word: Grace.

Grace is the free, undeserved, and often unsought gift of God’s own life and love. It’s the power that makes salvation a reality for us. A common acronym for it is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. While this rightly points out that grace is a gift that flows from Christ, the word “expense” can be problematic if it suggests a transaction with an angry God. A better way to frame it, more in line with the God we’ve come to know, might be God Reconciles As Christ Embodied, or even God's Restoring And Creative Energy.

Implied here is that Grace works in two interconnected ways. First, grace is a declaration: God speaks a new reality into being for us. Through grace, God declares us forgiven, adopted as children, and justified— made right— in His sight. Second, grace is an energy: it is the active work of the Holy Spirit within us, transforming us from the inside out to become the very people God has declared us to be.

Some have argued that for grace to be truly gracious, it must be limited, offered only to a select few. But this is to map God’s reality with a human-sized pencil. An infinitely abundant God is an infinitely gracious God. Grace does not need to be stingy to be special. Thus, grace is for all people, because all people are beloved. We could even use another acronym to express this: God's Grace is for every Gender, Religion, Ability, Culture, and Economic status.