Likeness to God

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" Likeness to God as Far as Possible " : Deification Doctrine in

Iamblichus and Three Eastern Christian Fathers

 

Edward Moore, S.T.L., Ph.D.

St. Elias School of Orthodox Theology

 

 

Deification of the soul is a concept shared by the Hellenic pagan

philosophical tradition and Orthodox Christianity. In the ancient

Greek language, the concept is denoted by two separate terms. For the

pagan Neoplatonists, such as Iamblichus, the deification of the human

being was described as henôsis, or unity with God. For Christian

theologians of the Greek tradition, the term was theôsis, meaning a

divine mode of existence. The difference resides in the ontological

and metaphysical presuppositions informing these two philosophical

and theological approaches.

 

Iamblichus considered deification (henôsis) as involving a creative

partnership with God, realized through theurgic rituals that raise

the soul up to the level of divine demiurgic power. In other words,

the deified soul, for Iamblichus, is the soul that has come to

experience the glorious satisfaction of maintaining the cosmic order -

in other words, in sharing in the activity of the One. For the

Orthodox Christian tradition, on the other hand, deification

(theôsis) implies a state of being that was described, by the most

gifted Church Fathers, as an endless, mystical yearning for divine

fulfillment. Both Origen of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa argued

that God is beyond the experience of humanity, who are destined to

eternally strive - albeit unsuccessfully - for a complete experience

of divinity. The most one can hope to attain is a fleeting sense of

His infinite vastness. Later in the Christian tradition, however,

Maximus the Confessor described theôsis as the replacement of the

human ego by the divine presence. In both cases, the attribution of

theôsis to these states is paradoxical. If I am eternally incapable

of attaining Godhood, how can I ever claim to be deified? Conversely,

if God overwhelms my existential center of being with His absolute

presence, then do I not effectively cease to exist as a person?

 

In this paper, I will examine the manner in which the Christian

tradition fluctuated between the two extremes of eternal separation

from God, and the absolute, person-negating presence of God in the

soul. It is in the pagan Neoplatonic tradition, as exemplified by

Iamblichus, I will argue, that a personalistic, existentially viable

theory of the eskhaton is to be found. By this I mean a theory in

which the person, the soul, is intimately bound up with the inner

working - or eternally realized history - of the cosmos, in so far as

the soul co-operates with God in the maintenance of the cosmic order.

This is precisely the goal of Iamblichean theurgy: to raise the soul

to the level of perfect demiurgic co-operation with the highest

divinity. Yet even Iamblichus' theory requires qualification - if it

is to remain existentially viable - as I hope to make clear in the

conclusion of this paper.

 

I.

 

In the Neoplatonic tradition - both pagan and Christian - the concept

of deification was generally traced back to, and lent support by, the

following passage from Plato's Theaetetus: " a man should make all

haste to escape from earth to heaven; and escape means becoming as

like God as possible [homoiôsis theô kata to dunaton] " (176b.1-2).[7]

Until the time of Eudorus of Alexandria (fl. ca. 50-25 B.C.) the

qualification " as far as possible " was understood as referring to the

corruptibility of the body, which was thought to prevent a complete

assimilation to the divine. Eudorus, however, interpreted this

statement as referring to the perfection of a human being's

intellectual capacity. Indeed, as Plato himself states, in the very

next line, the man who desires assimilation to the divine must

possess " understanding [phronêsis] " (176b.2-3, tr. Levett, Burnyeat).

 

This led to an increasingly sharp distinction between soul and body,

which again found support in the writings of Plato, who had posited a

tripartite soul. The body came to be understood as a prison for the

rational part of the soul, the intellect (nous), and salvation,

consequently, was conceived in terms of the intellect's breaking away

from its somatic fetters. This notion was given sophisticated mytho-

poetical expression in Gnosticism. " Salvation belongs only to the

soul, " writes Basilides, " the body is by nature corruptible. " However,

this idea found its strongest philosophical proponent in Plotinus,

who argued that the descent of the soul into the body is required for

the maintenance of the cosmic order, but the highest part of the

soul - the rational part - remains always above the realm of matter

and change, at home with universal Mind.

 

In both Christianity and the post-Plotinian Neoplatonism of

Iamblichus and his successors, the idea that the highest part of the

tripartite soul remains ever above the material realm was largely

discarded in favor of the view that the soul is, in toto, completely

a part of the cosmos, and that salvation must involve a 'holistic'

approach to transcendence. The methods employed by Christians and

Iamblichean theurgists were quite similar. Both involved the use of

material substances - for the Christians it was wine, bread, water,

ointments, incense; for the theurgists it was stones, gems, herbs,

etc. And both involved the belief that God's power somehow imbues

these material substances with salvific power, when utilized in the

proper ritual context.

 

Yet here is where the similarities end. For Iamblichus believed in an

all-pervasive deity whose power extended to the nether reaches of the

cosmos, eternally and unalterably. Christians, on the other hand,

believe that God descended to the depths of Hades only once, at a

specific point in history, i.e., the Christ Event (the Incarnation,

death, and Resurrection of the Lord). This difference is due to a

profound dissimilarity between their respective views regarding

cosmology and, most of all, temporality.

 

As a pagan, Iamblichus believed in the eternity of the cosmos.

However, he did not, like the Stoics, believe that the cosmos repeats

itself identically over the course of vast aeonic cycles. Rather, he

believed that the cosmos is the eternal revelation of the divinity in

a graded system of emanations, in which the various entities

occupying the different levels of reality come to grasp divinity in a

manner suitable to their nature. Indeed, as he explains, even the

lowest forms of inanimate life, like stones, are 'pierced' by the

divine power. Recognizing a hierarchy of causal principles in the

cosmos, Iamblichus remarks that, regardless of the point at which a

principle takes effect, " it does not cease its operation before

extending to the lowest level; for even if is stronger, nevertheless

the fact of its greater separation can create a balancing factor,

rendering it weaker ... the influence of the higher principles is

more piercing [drimuteran], more keenly felt. "

 

What Iamblichus is saying here is that God must expend more energy in

order to maintain the lower part of His creation than is necessary to

maintain the higher part. This is in stark contrast to Plotinus, who

maintained that the emanation of reality from the One gradually

dissipates in ever cruder forms of 'contemplation' (theôria), not all

of which have a destiny of integration with a higher principle. The

notion that the power of God is more concentrated at lower levels of

reality gave support to Iamblichus' doctrine, which called for the

use of stones and herbs in theurgical ritual, the purpose of which

was to raise the human power closer to the divine. As Iamblichus is

careful to explain: " [theurgy] does not draw down the impassive and

pure Gods to that which is passive and impure; but, on the contrary,

it renders us, who have become passive through generation, pure and

immutable. "

 

This is precisely the opposite of Christian doctrine, which maintains

that God became human in response to human sinfulness. In the

Orthodox Christian Liturgy, the priest asks the congregation to

forgive him his sins. This acknowledges the fact that even the

Liturgy (leitourgia) is presided over by one who is immersed in sin.

Such an admission is not part of Iamblichus' ritual program, for he

was very conscious of the intellectually curative power of not only

the stones and herbs, but of the ritual itself, which did involve

prayer and an authentically intellectual communion with the deity. He

writes as follows:

Extended practice of prayer nurtures our intellect, enlarges very

greatly our soul's receptivity to the gods, reveals to men the life

of the gods and accustoms their eyes to the brightness of divine

light, and gradually brings to perfection the capacity of our

faculties for contact with the gods, until it leads us up to the

highest level of consciousness of which we are capable; also, it

elevates gently the dispositions of our minds [ta tês dianoias êthê]

and communicates to us those of the gods, stimulates persuasion and

communion and indissoluble friendship [peithô de kai koinônian kai

philian adialuton egeirei], augments divine love, kindles the divine

element in the soul and scours away all contrary tendencies within

it, casts out from the etherial and luminous vehicle surrounding the

soul everything that tends to generation, brings to perfection good

hope and faith concerning the light; and, in a word, it renders those

who employ prayers, if we may so express it, the familiar consorts of

the gods.

 

The purpose of Iamblichean theurgy, then, is not to supplicate the

gods and ask them to pardon one's sinfulness, but rather to purify

the soul so that it may consort with the gods, on an equal footing.

The theurgist, unlike the Christian priest, does not debase himself

before his God; instead, he raises himself up to communion with the

divinity. As G. Shaw explains:

By means of appropriate rites the theurgist directed the powers of

his particular soul (mikros kosmos) into alignment with the powers of

the World Soul ... which gave him direct participation in

the 'whole.' He became a theios aner, universal and divine yet

particular and mortal...

 

The deification of the human soul is realized by the mortal human

being, according to Iamblichus. In the absence of an eschatological

schema, we find a theory of deification that does not involve

history, but only the independent, willful activity of the free human

intellect.

 

For Iamblichus does not, like the Christian Fathers, posit universal

history as the soteriological locus of human self-fulfillment;

rather, he sees the timelessness of theurgic ritual as the locus of

human self-expression leading to a union (henôsis) with the gods.

.... the theurgic soul becomes perfectly established in the energies

and demiurgic intellections of [divine] powers. Then, also, it

inserts the soul in the whole demiurgic God.

 

The final result is " a union with the Gods, who are the givers of

every good [tôn agathôn dotêras theous henôsin]. " This is

accomplished both temporally and atemporally, and introduces no

distinction between present and future, but simply offers the soul a

way of participating in the creative (demiurgic) activity of the

godhead while still inhabiting the fleshly body. Existentially

speaking, this overcoming of temporality by the temporal soul should

be regarded as a great boon to the authentic life. However,

Iamblichus' thought is not free from the determinism so

characteristic of late pagan thinking, for he sees the cosmos as

bound by itself to itself, with no possibility of transcendence. This

includes the eternal inclusion of souls in the ever-repeating cosmic

process. The final soteric reward of souls is described by Iamblichus

as follows: " this reward includes a return to this realm and an

authority over things in it. ... According to the ancients (palaioi),

souls 'are freed from generation and together with the gods

administer (sundioikousi) the universe.' "

 

This 'administration,' for Iamblichus, is understood as the re-

entrance of the soul into the cosmic cycle. This means that the soul

somehow remembers its previous incarnations, and seeks to overcome

the negative influences of those now-defunct self-expressions. Since

the soul is " freed from generation, " it now becomes as eternal and

unchangeable as the cosmos itself. The attractiveness of Iamblichus'

theory resides in its sense of intimate partnership of God and the

soul, as both participate in the demiurgic maintenance of the cosmos.

However, from an Existential-Personalist viewpoint, the maintenance

of an unchanging order offers no room for personal creativity and

growth, only an endless 'perfect' state of harmony of self with

cosmos. Yet what commends Iamblichus' thought to us from an

Existentialist-Personalist perspective, is the fact that even though

the theurgical soul becomes locked into a permanent state of

participation with the demiurge, with a view to the eternal

maintenance of the cosmos, this soul experiences a very direct

transference of natures within an already realized history - i.e.,

within the closed perfection of the cosmos, as conceived by

Iamblichus and his pagan Neoplatonist colleagues. For Iamblichus, the

soul of the theurgist becomes a true " partner " (koinônos) with God,

not merely passive partakers of the divine nature.

 

Whereas Origen and Gregory were only able to conceive of an eskhaton

in which human striving must remain forever unfulfilled, and Maximus

was only able to conceive of an eskhaton in which the human person

loses its existential center, Iamblichus found a place for human

creative striving in history - albeit a history already ordered by

the divine mind, of which the soteriological soul now participates on

equal terms, through theurgic ritual. This is why, I believe, the

system of Iamblichus should be given careful consideration in

relation to later developments in Christian eschatology, notably in

the works of Berdyaev. While Iamblichus' idea of salvation is rather

more dynamic than that of later Christian theologians like Maximus

the Confessor, it nevertheless ends in the same general state - that

of the replacement of human initiative by an eternally positive,

divine, order. " The most perfect ... has as its mark ineffable

unification, which establishes all authority in the gods and provides

that our souls rest completely in them " (De Mysteriis 5.26).

 

However, when one looks more closely at the respective soul-centered

eschatologies of Iamblichus and the three Christian Fathers discussed

here, I believe one will find that, in spite of a shared historical

determinism, a very subtle but profound difference appears - between

determinism in history (Iamblichus) and determinism by history (the

Christian Fathers). We will now proceed to a discussion of this

distinction.

 

II.

 

Iamblichus' notion of the soul's salvation is not, at first glance,

all that different from the conceptions of later Christian thought,

particularly Maximus the Confessor. Iamblichus conceived of the

eskhaton as the perfect unification of soul and cosmos, in which the

soul finds rest, and the authority of the divinity is maintained in

and for eternity. Maximus, similarly, understood the eskhaton as the

replacement of the human ego - the existential center of the soul,

the self - with the absolute and absolutizing presence of God. So why

should Iamblichus' conception be given primacy from an Existentialist-

Personalistic philosophical perspective?

 

The answer resides in the relationship of the soul to history, i.e.,

to the manner in which the human being responds to the inevitable and

inescapable historical circumstances in which it finds itself.

History is at once the locus of my self-realization as a person, and

the limiting factor in my creative expression of my personhood. As

the Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev has explained:

History treats me very roughly, and it shows not the slightest

concern for my well-being. That is one aspect of it. But history is

also my history. I have indeed had a share in its happening. If man

holds the cosmos within him, there is all the more reason for saying

that he includes history within him. In the spiritual depth of me -

in transcendental man - the contradiction is removed. The history of

Israel, Egypt, Persia, Babylon, Greece, and Rome, of the Middle Ages

and the Renaissance occurred with my participation, it is my history

and for that reason only can it be intelligible to me. It is my path,

my quest and my lure. Its falls and its uplifting are mine. If for me

this were mere objectification in which everything is received from

without only, then I should be able to understand nothing of it.

 

The understanding of history is paramount, for it is also the

understanding of our universal personhood. In the philosophical

theology of Origen of Alexandria, the historical becoming of the soul

is said to continue even after salvation, as the intellect gradually

becomes more accustomed to the perception of divine things. In Origen

we find a dynamism in the eskhaton. Deification occurs, but it is not

perfect assimilation of the soul to the Godhead; rather, it is a

continual motion toward divinity. We find a similar idea in Gregory

of Nyssa's concept of diastêma, in which the soul is said to strive

eternally for God, who remains forever aloof.

 

However, when considered in this way, how can history ever be, as

Berdyaev declares, my history? My striving for God, for deification,

becomes merely a function of a cosmos that must always exceed me -

or, in the case of Maximus, of a deity of which my existence is a

mere function. What distinguishes Iamblichus' view from that of these

three Church Fathers is the presence of an atemporal ontology, which

tempers his brand of historical determinism (determination in history

as opposed to determination by history).

 

Historical determinism for Origen and Gregory means that history is

an inescapable, ongoing process of motion toward god. Both Origen and

Gregory adhered to a peculiarly Christian brand of apokatastasis

doctrine (first developed by Origen), which implied innumerable

incarnations of the soul in the cosmos, until that soul at last was

purged of its sinfulness and re-united with God. Maximus, while

adhering to such a doctrine early in his career, abandoned it in

favor of a belief in ascetic purging of the soul leading to an

emptying of the self, in preparation for the complete replacement of

the ego by the divine presence. For Origen and Gregory, the soul's

salvation was assured; it may take countless ages to perfect, but it

will occur ... eventually. Maximus was not so optimistic, but he

nevertheless believed that the goal of history was the perfection -

deification - of the entire cosmos, including all of nature (not just

human souls). Both of these Christian positions are attractive

enough, to be sure; but what they are lacking is the sense of

intimate, human-divine participation that one finds in the theory of

Iamblichus. According to Origen and Gregory, endless striving - never

satiated - for the divine presence is the definition of salvation;

for Maximus, the ego relinquishes its unique position in history in

favor of a dissolution into the Godhead. Iamblichus, however,

understands salvation rather differently.

 

Iamblichus sees the theurgical act as universal, as 'holding sway'

for all eternity, within the divine order of the cosmos. The

autonomous act of the soul participating in theurgical ritual is in

no way determined or guided by historical circumstance - it is a

supreme act of self-expression. However, it is an act that results,

paradoxically, in the loss of the ability to express oneself; - for

ultimately, it is the divinity that maintains the cosmos, not the

human soul, for all that the soul may do to participate in the cosmic

maintenance. However, once the soul achieves such participation, the

disconnect between self-expression and divine existence is overcome,

and the soul realizes itself as a divine being (theios anêr) - a

product equally of history and personal striving. Here we arrive at

the most important aspect of Iamblichean theurgy: the soul, although

determined by the already appointed course of cosmic history, becomes

what it is through a ritual activity that unites the soul with the

gods; and, in so doing, the soul changes its ontological status from

that of mere mortal to immortal, to divinity. History is not

overcome, but fulfilled ... eternally.

 

III.

 

In order to understand the main difference between Iamblichus and the

above-mentioned Church Fathers, the following distinction will likely

be helpful. For Iamblichus, the final goal of theurgy is the

overcoming of the particular mode of existence of a soul immersed in

the lowest sphere of divine emanation: the material cosmos. Once the

soul ascends upward through the planetary spheres, and sheds the

various accretions acquired through physical birth and immersion in

the sub-lunar realm, the lure of its old life is abolished, and a new

cosmic life is made possible - the soul becomes a divine being

(theios anêr). History - i.e., the unique temporal life of the

person - is overcome in favor of a unification of the particular (the

human soul) with the universal (God). For Origen and Gregory, on the

other hand, history involves the gradual revelation of God to His

creation - it does not involve any sort of instantaneous union

through theurgical ritual. In this case, the activity of the human

soul is relegated to that of student, with God as pedagogue.

According to Origen, God teaches the soul about its proper mode of

existence over the course of numerous ages, a concept necessarily

involving a doctrine of transmigration of souls. According to

Gregory, God is revealed through the manifestation of his activities

(energeiai) in the cosmos. The eschatological visions of Origen and

his most gifted pupil, Gregory, are quite similar.

 

For Origen, the eskhaton involves an eternal education of the finite

soul in divine things. For Gregory, the eskhaton involves an eternal

striving of the finite soul for the infinite divine essence. History,

in both cases, is not fulfilled (at the personal level), as it is in

Iamblichus, but rather infinitely extended beyond the purview of the

finite human being. But when history is extended in this manner, it

ceases to belong to the human beings who both respond to it and craft

it in unique ways, creating the life of the world that fosters all

intellectual and religious pursuits. The eskhaton must be located

outside of history, and for this, an atemporal ontology is necessary.

It is just such an onotlogy, I believe, that we may find in

Iamblichus, if we look closely enough. As Berdyaev writes:

History is in truth the path to another world. It is in this sense

that its content is religious. But the perfect state is impossible

within history itself; it can only be realized outside its framework.

 

Iamblichus shows us a way of moving beyond the framework of history,

understood as the locus of limitation of the encosmic human soul. Yet

he ends up establishing the locus of the atemporal human soul

precisely within the very context from which it supposedly eradicated

itself through the theurgic ritual of divine ascent. There is no

realization of the perfected human soul outside of history, only the

enshrinement of human striving in the unchangeable, eternal, and

divine cosmos - but this itself is an overcoming of history, and

therefore of the determinism that is always connected in some form or

other with history.

 

This mild criticism of Iamblichus does not, however, detract from the

supreme importance he places on the soul's participation in the

Godhead - a participation more direct, more mutual, and more

individually creative than what is found in Christian liturgical and

mystical writings.[31]

 

All of theurgy has a two-fold character. One is that it is a rite

conducted by men which preserves our natural order in the universe;

the other is that it is empowered by divine symbols [theia

sunthêmata], is raised up through them to be joined on high with the

Gods, and is led harmoniously round to their order. This latter

aspect can rightly be called 'taking the shape of the Gods' [theôn

katamathômen].[32]

 

Unlike Christian eschatology, the telos of Iamblichean theurgy is not

the establishment of a new mode of existence outside this cosmos, but

a perfection of human-divine existence within the cosmos. While this

eliminates the historical dimension of human existence - i.e.,

striving for an indeterminate future - it does preserve the creative

aspect of our intellectual union with a higher, divine principle.

 

Conclusion

 

We must ask whether the preservation of human creativity in

Iamblichus' conception of an encosmic partnership with the Demiurge,

resulting in a complete conformation of human beings with divinity,

is preferable to the Origenist-inspired Christian conception of an

eternal striving (beyond the cosmos) for an intellectual grasp of the

divine mysteries - one in which the unique character of the human

soul remains intact, while never truly becoming united with divinity.

The implication of Iamblichean henôsis and Christian theôsis were

brought together in the thought of Maximus the Confessor, who simply

enshrined human striving in a 'deified' state in which the human

nature ceased to function, giving way wholly to the divine. It is the

task of an Existential-Personalist eschatology to unite these two

differing theoretical approaches to the soul and its final destiny in

relation to God.

 

For Iamblichus, the final result of the soul's quest for deification

was quite clear, as he explains in a fragment of his Letter to

Macedonius (On Fate), where he writes:

It is the life that is lived in accordance with intellect and that

cleaves to the gods that we must train ourselves to live; for this is

the only life which admits of the untrammeled authority of the soul,

frees us from the bonds of necessity, and allows us to live a life no

longer mortal, but one that is divine and filled by the will of the

gods with divine benefits.

 

It is difficult to conceive of an eschatological state more favorable

to the life of the intellect than what is described here by

Iamblichus. The final question, however, is whether the lack of

striving and the loss of an existential, situationist freedom (such

as that described by Sartre, for example)[34] is a fair price to pay

for such a state of noetic bliss. Is " likeness to God as far as

possible " a pre-determined outcome of a life properly lived? Or is it

the effervescent self-expression of a creative being demanding not

the assurance of divine staticity, but rather the glorious

affirmation of a will that is neither human nor divine - but

supremely transcendent?