Theosis, Theosis

Theosis is the third of three stages; the first two being purification and illumination. By means of purification a person comes to illumination (called theoria) and then sainthood. Sainthood is the participation of the person in the life of God. According to this doctrine, the holy life of God, given in Jesus Christ to the believer through the Holy Spirit, is expressed through the three stages of theosis, beginning in the struggles of this life, which increases in the experience of the believer through the knowledge of God, and is later consummated in the resurrection of the believer, when the power of sin and death, having been fully overcome by the atonement of Jesus, will lose hold over the believer forever. "Theology and Mysticism in the Tradition of the Eastern Church" from The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, pgs 8-9, 39,126, 133, 154, 196 This conception of salvation is historical and foundational for Christian understanding in both the East and the West.

This may be a case of rhetoric obscuring fact. Under different terminology the western spiritual traditions, which also reach to the origins of Christianity (in the East), share the objective of sharing in the life of God. Some Catholic writers consider it lamentable that the term theosis is not used more extensively in western theology.

But there is also a slight difference in the idea of theosis itself. In the West there is a tendency to see it as the highest level of union (in the purgation, illumination and union model for deification).

In the West there has been much debate about the merits of the Mass of Paul VI, and some traditionalist Catholics claim that the Tridentine Mass is particularly conducive to the sort of prayer life that leads one along the path of theosis . This issue is moving toward resolution with the recent re-introduction of the ancient medieval liturgy into general currency in the Catholic West through Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.

Source: Wikipedia > Theosis