Reformed Theosis?

Abstract

Theologians in the classical Reformed tradition have not always recognized the elements in their own theologies that bear striking similarity to the doctrine of theosis principally advocated in Greek patristic and Byzantine theology and carried onward by historic and contemporary Eastern Orthodox thought. After a brief review of the classical Reformed doctrine of Christus in nobis (“Christ in us”), I propose a reconsideration and reformulation of the viability of theosis within classical Reformed theology, positing not only its fidelity to the biblical soteriology that Reformed theology seeks to guard but its suitability within Reformed theological and ecclesiastical contexts. It is indeed possible to conceive of a “Reformed theosis” provided it enjoins a certain substructural transmutation from that of its Eastern theological forebears.