Quasi Deificari: Deification In The Theology Of John Calvin

By A. J. Ollerton

[Andrew J. Ollerton is Associate Director and Lecturer at the Centre for Missional Leadership in Watford, near London, and is beginning Ph.D. research in Historical Theology.]

I. Introduction

Recent discussions regarding deification in Calvin’s theology have sounded rather like a Punch and Judy show: “Oh yes there is . . . Oh no there isn’t!” Mosser and Billings have adamantly affirmed deification in Calvin’s theology, whereas Slater and Garcia deny any presence of the motif.[1] The tug-of-war reached a fruitless impasse of yes/no responses as both sides quoted Calvin to bolster their positions. Lee’s recent article signals a fresh attempt to navigate a different route, through the distinction of divine essence and divine kind.[2]

The present article argues that Calvin has a differentiated approach to deification such that yes/no responses lie within Calvin’s corpus of writings itself. In his commentary on 2 Pet 1:4 Calvin concludes that the scriptural phrase “partakers of the divine nature” refers to a kind of deification (quasi deificari).[3] This phrase shows Calvin’s willingness to affirm the motif of deification (through explicit use of theosis terminology) whilst also using the qualifying term (quasi) to guard against certain versions of deification. If it can be shown that Calvin himself both receives and rejects different versions of deification in a differentiated manner, the Punch and Judy show can give way to a more fruitful discussion of the nature of true deification according to Calvin. This could not only reconcile some divisions in Calvin scholarship but also contribute to bridging the gulf between East and West.

II. Quasi deificari And The Patristic Background

For we must consider from whence it is that God raises us up to such a height of honour. We know how abject is the condition of our nature; that God, then, should make himself ours, so that all his things should in a manner become our things, the greatness of his grace cannot be sufficiently conceived by our minds. . . . Let us then mark that the end of the gospel is, to render us eventually conformable to God, and, if we may so speak, to deify us [quasi deificari].[4]

Calvin’s direct reference to deification aligns him with a trajectory reaching back to the patristic writers who frequently used the language of theosis or deification (from Justin Martyr through to Maximus the Confessor). Indeed, deification was explicitly taught and assumed in all three of the main patristic trajectories—the Alexandrian trajectory which emphasized the role of the incarnation and sacraments in deification (Irenaeus, Athanasius, Cyril), the Cappadocian trajectory which had a more intellectual, moral, and aesthetic approach to deification (Clement, Gregory Nazianzus, Maximus), and the Latin trajectory (Tertullian, Augustine).[5] During the patristic era, the notion of deification was so established that no definition was deemed necessary until Dionysius the Areopagite in the sixth century. Deification was such a solid assumption that it could be used as a battering ram to knock down other doctrines. As Russell argues: “Deification is primarily a weapon in Athanasius’ dogmatic armoury against Arianism.”[6] In Orationes contra Arianos Athanasius used deification to expose the Arian contradiction—the Son cannot make gods out of humanity unless he is God Himself; only deity can deify humanity.[7] As Christology was debated, both sides assumed deification.

It is primarily the Alexandrian trajectory that finds an echo in Calvin’s approach to deification. Irenaeus was the first to explicitly state the tantum-quantum or exchange formula; the Son of God “became what we are in order to make us what he is himself.”[8] Athanasius stood on Irenaeus’s shoulders and saw further. He emphasized the flesh of the incarnate Christ as the definition and dynamic of deification. Only if human nature has been deified in Christ can we be deified through our union with Christ: “For that is why the union was of this kind, that he might unite what is naturally man to what is naturally of the Godhead, and his salvation and deification be made sure.”[9] Cyril was the first to see the sacraments as the primary means of deification—baptism initiates the unio mystico between the believer and Christ, and the Eucharist feeds the believer’s soul with nothing less than Christ himself. Thus the Eucharist “restores man wholly to incorruption” as it is endowed with the qualities of the Logos and “is filled with his energy, through which all things are given life and maintained in being.”[10]

The patristic influence on Calvin is well documented.[11] As Calvin says himself: “We receive what was determined by the ancient councils, and we hate all sects and heresies which were rejected by the holy doctors from the time of St. Hilary and Athanasius until St. Ambrose and Cyril.”[12] Therefore any attempt to assess the place of deification in Calvin’s theology must begin with this patristic plumb line. Consequently, the absence of this patristic background in many studies means a failure to see deification in the foreground of Calvin’s theology. Lee’s recent article largely omits the patristic background and as a result summarizes Calvin’s comments by saying: “We will experience a kind of deification, but not deification itself.”[13] However, consistent with the patristic writers, Calvin never questions whether we will experience deification but what kind of deification it will be. Indeed, in his commentary on 2 Pet 1:4 Calvin sees deification as both the goal of the gospel and the greatest possible blessing.

In line with the patristic trajectory, Calvin also highlights the apophatic nature of deification, such that it “cannot be sufficiently conceived by our minds.”[14] Calvin often turns to the patristic and mediaeval language of mystery when approaching the motif of deification. This signals both an awareness of approaching an unfathomable subject and a concern not to move beyond biblical revelation into speculation. In Book 3 of the Institutes, having commented further on 2 Pet 1:4, he then pulls back from any attempt to inquire further into the depths of this promise:

But when we have made great progress in thus meditating, let us understand that if the conceptions of our minds be contrasted with the sublimity of the mystery, we are still halting at the entrance. . . . We feel how much we are stimulated by an excessive desire of knowing more than is given us to know, and hence frivolous and noxious questions are ever anon springing forth.[15]

A crucial point arises from Calvin’s caution; when a subject tends towards being more apophatic in nature, Calvin will say less about it.[16] This inversely proportional relationship between mystery and commentary should not be (mis)interpreted to mean that Calvin has a small place in his theology for the deification motif. Percentages and proportions are not a fair test of the significance of deification in Calvin’s writings.[17] The patristic writers may have approached deification directly as a topic for discussion. However, Calvin approaches deification obliquely and glances at it from other loci of inquiry. Therefore, “halting at the entrance” of that which Calvin deems the goal of the gospel is not a reluctance to enter but a caution not to do so presumptuously or prematurely.

III. Falsa apotheosis—Versions Of Deification Calvin Rejects

Calvin’s commentary on 2 Pet 1:4 illustrates his differentiated approach. On the very same page he both receives and rejects deification. No sooner has Calvin affirmed quasi deificari than he opposes a different version of deification:

But the word nature is not here essence but quality. The Manicheans formerly dreamt that we are a part of God, and that, after having run the race of life we shall at length revert to our original. There are also at this day fanatics who imagine that we thus pass over into the nature of God, so that his swallows up our nature. . . . But such a delirium as this never entered the minds of the holy Apostles.[18]

Here Calvin rejects the Manichees’ attempts to posit deification as a form of trans-substantiation whereby humanity is mixed into the divine substance “so that his swallows up our nature.” Calvin also clashes with Servetus on a similar issue and concludes it is a “delusion to imagine deity in believers.”[19] In both instances, Calvin is objecting to the unqualified and unmediated notion of deity in humanity such that deity can be considered a deposit that humans possess. Elsewhere Calvin also rejects what he terms falsa apotheosis, meaning pagan notions of deification that attribute the title and status of gods to outstanding military heroes and kings.[20] Calvin’s objections to falsa apotheosis are gathered up and brought into focus through his debate with Osiander.

Calvin introduces Osiander’s error by connecting it with that of the Manichees; “he had formed some idea akin to the Manichees, desiring to transfuse the divine essence into men.”[21] Though the debate will narrow down to the issue of essential righteousness compared to imputed righteousness in the arena of justification, Calvin starts with the broader issue of the impartation of divine substance.[22] This relates directly to the deification motif. Most of the literature bypasses this broader context and only begins the debate at the narrow point of imputed versus essential righteousness. Consequently, the differences between Calvin and Osiander can be exaggerated and the more nuanced objections of Calvin missed. Indeed, “Calvin does not start writing against Osiander, until he is accused of being Osiandrian in his theology by his Lutheran opponents.”[23] Calvin’s broader objections to Osiander can be summarized as follows.

1. Unmediated Deification

Osiander posits a direct reception of divine essence (righteousness), which bypasses the incarnation and the work accomplished by Christ in the flesh. Thus, the integrity of both divinity and humanity is lost and the Creator/creature distinction is dissolved. Calvin therefore states, “We deny the essence of Christ is confounded with ours.”[24] To refute this direct infusion of divine righteousness Calvin repeatedly uses the language of mediator. He claims Osiander teaches that “we are not justified by the mere grace of the Mediator.”[25] By contrast, Calvin affirms his own position on mediated righteousness: “We infer, therefore, that righteousness was manifested to us in his flesh. . . . [Paul] places the fountain of righteousness entirely in the incarnation of Christ.”[26]

The vital distinction here is not regarding the real reception of divinity in humanity (deification) but the modus of that reception (mediated or unmediated). Our reception of the divine nature is enabled only through the incarnate flesh of the Mediator. Therefore, all that Osiander wishes to affirm about the reception of the divine nature, Calvin can affirm but not in the same way. Osiander posits an unmediated infusion; Calvin posits a mediated incarnation.

We only make a distinction as to the manner in which the righteousness of God comes to us, and is enjoyed by us,—a matter as to which Osiander shamefully erred. We deny not that that which was openly exhibited to us in Christ flowed from the secret grace and power of God; nor do we dispute that the righteousness which Christ confers upon us is the righteousness of God, and proceeds from him. What we constantly maintain is, that our righteousness and life are in the death and resurrection of Christ.[27] (emphasis added)

This explains why Calvin and Osiander have been considered by some to be polar opposites and by others to be kindred spirits (the Lutheran critique). It is also the reason why this debate with Osiander has been wrongly used to argue against deification in Calvin. Garcia makes this error when he argues that deification can only be posited in Calvin’s theology “if one overlooks all Calvin has to say in criticism of Osiander’s essentialist, divinizing conception.”[28] This confuses different issues. Calvin does vehemently reject Osiander’s notion of unmediated substance infusion, but that does not mean he has rejected a quasi deificari when mediated by the incarnate flesh of Christ. Again the need for a differentiated doctrine of deification is highlighted.

2. Disconnected Deification

Osiander’s failure to attribute righteousness to the flesh of the Mediator also causes him to neglect the work of the Spirit. The result is that instead of deification being derived from personal union with Christ, Osiander focuses on the transference of divine essence. For Osiander our union with Christ is through substance exchange, whereas for Calvin it is through the agency of the Spirit:

He, indeed, heaps together many passages of scripture showing that Christ is one with us, and we likewise one with him, a point which needs no proof; but he entangles himself by not attending to the bond of this unity. The explanation of all difficulties is easy to us, who hold that we are united to Christ by the secret agency of his Spirit.[29]

Calvin’s response to Osiander’s substance language is to affirm the role of the Spirit as the bond of the unio mystico relationship between Christ and the believer: “Therefore, to that union of the head and members, the residence of Christ in our hearts, in fine, the mystical union, we assign the highest rank, Christ when he becomes ours making us partners with him in the gifts with which he was endued.”[30]

3. Over-Realized Deification

Finally, Calvin accuses Osiander of “hurrying us into the clouds” by an over-realized eschatology.[31] Osiander teaches the reception of perfect righteousness and the partaking of the divine nature at the point of regeneration. Calvin argues against this by highlighting a vital distinction: “The gift of justification is not separated from regeneration, though the two things are distinct.”[32] Imputed righteousness is perfect now. However, the process which began at regeneration continues “through the whole course of life, gradually and sometimes slowly.”[33] Thus, according to their state of sanctification, any believer would be condemned before the judgment-seat in this life but according to justification “they appear in the heavens as if clothed with the purity of Christ.”[34]

Calvin’s twofold distinction between justification and sanctification gives an eschatological structure—at the point of regeneration, justification is perfected whereas sanctification is partial. The result is that the believer can experience peace with God now in the heavenly realm, whilst still remaining a pilgrim in the earthly realm en route to deified perfection. Osiander’s infusion of a “portion of righteousness” has no distinction of imputed and imparted.[35] Instead it collapses them both into the immediate, leaving his theology devoid of an eschatological framework. The result is that “salvation is shaken.”[36]

Therefore, Calvin criticizes Osiander for abusing Scriptures “used in reference to the heavenly life,” because he then “wrests [them] to our present state. . . as if we now were what the gospel promises we shall be at the final advent of Christ.”[37] The two texts that Calvin cites (2 Pet 1:4; 1 John 3:3) are “standard patristic proof-texts for deification.”[38] Thus Calvin overtly draws the deification motif into this debate with Osiander on the grounds that he fails to give a future tense to the realization of these promises. Again, Calvin’s objection is not that Osiander is going too far in asserting the union of humanity and divinity but rather that he envisages that union in the wrong way and at the wrong time.

IV. The Threefold Nature Of Deification According To Calvin

Unsurprisingly, the quasi deificari that Calvin affirms is symmetrical to Osiander’s falsa apotheosis, which he rejects. In the same three areas that he opposes Osiander’s version of deification, Calvin also formulates a positive version of deification that is in line with the Alexandrian trajectory from the patristic era.

1. Mediation Through The Hypostatic Union

For Calvin, deification is the closest possible connection between God and man such that through the unio mystico there is “a sacred marriage, by which we become bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and so one with him.”[39] However, Calvin turns his back on any attempt to bring about this union apart from the incarnate flesh of the Son of God. Instead, Calvin sees the flesh of Christ as the only bridge over the otherwise infinite chasm between God and man. The hypostatic union is the interface that joins humanity and divinity, Creator and creature, Deus facit and homo fit. Consequently, the person of Jesus Christ is deification and as such becomes the only appropriate definition and dynamic of deification. As Mosser states regarding Calvin, “Christ unites believers to God because in his person God and humanity are already united.”[40]

Firstly, Christ is the definition of deification as the two natures are joined in full union—indivisibly and inseparably. This union preserves the distinctive properties of each nature—inconfusedly and unchangeably. With Chalcedonian precision Calvin states; “He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.”[41] Thus, the incarnation unites God and man in perfect union whilst safeguarding the Creator/creature distinction. For Calvin, this is the only definition of deification because Christ himself is the definition. This aligns Calvin with the patristic definition of deification: “Calvin’s doctrine of theosis, like its classical antecedents, is built around the hypostatic union. Theosis is only possible because human nature has been deified in the theandric person of the Mediator. As men and women are united to Christ, his divinity deifies them.”[42]

Secondly, Christ is the dynamic of deification, as his deified flesh becomes the source of vivifying life. In one of his tracts Calvin describes the flesh of Christ as a fountain:

The flesh of Christ gives life, not only because he once obtained salvation by it, but because now, while we are made one with Christ by a sacred union, the same flesh breathes life into us. . . . For from the hidden fountain of the Godhead life was miraculously infused into the body of Christ that it might flow from thence to us.[43]

Commenting on John 6:51-59, Calvin describes the internal dynamic that enables the flesh of Christ to be a fountain of divine life:

As this secret power to bestow life, of which he has spoken, might be referred to his Divine essence, he now comes down to the second step, and shows that this life is placed in his flesh, that it may be drawn out of it. . . . But an objection is brought, that the flesh of Christ cannot give life, because it was liable to death, and because even now it is not immortal in itself; and next, that it does not at all belong to the nature of flesh to quicken souls. I reply, though this power comes from another source than from the flesh . . . for as the eternal Word of God is the fountain of life, (John 1:4,) so his flesh, as a channel, conveys to us that life which dwells intrinsically, as we say, in his Divinity. And in this sense it is called life-giving, because it conveys to us that life which it borrows for us from another quarter.[44] (emphasis added)

Calvin himself raises the very objection Slater makes: “Calvin’s position is that believers share in what is Christ’s according to his human nature.”[45] This is the exact reasoning that Calvin refutes—the human nature alone cannot “quicken souls,” thus the power must “come from another source than from the flesh.” Slater’s blinkered reading of Calvin cannot accommodate his patristic interpretation of these verses from John. For Slater, the incarnation is only the redemptive platform from which Christ can expiate sins. However, for Calvin the incarnate flesh is also a fountain that vivifies and deifies as the divine life of God is “drawn out” of the human flesh.

In this same section of commentary on John 6:51-58 Calvin concludes that Jesus teaches “three degrees of life”:

The first rank is the living Father, who is the source but remote and hidden. Next follows the Son, who is exhibited to us as an open fountain, and by whom life flows to us. The third is the life which we draw from him. We now perceive what is stated to amount to this, that God the Father, in whom life dwells, is at a great distance from us, and that Christ, placed between us, is the second cause of life, in order that what would otherwise be concealed in God may proceed from him to us.[46]

Contra Slater and every denial of deification, Calvin clearly argues that divine life does enter human life—third degree life receives first degree life. However, contra Osiander and all who present unmediated forms of deification, first degree life can only flow to third degree life through the incarnate fountain of second degree life: “So the flesh of Christ is like a rich and inexhaustible fountain, which transfuses into us the life flowing forth from the Godhead into itself.”[47]

When deification receives its definition and dynamic from the incarnation, the dangers of falsa apotheosis are avoided. Mediated deification renounces both competition between God and man (pagan deification) and the conflation of God and man (the Manichees and Osiander). Instead, the incarnation preserves the eternal distinction between Creator and creature whilst uniting them in full communion.

Calvin’s doctrine of the incarnation enables him to hold in tension the depravity of humanity by nature and the deification of that same humanity by grace. The result is Calvin’s sublime ability to argue both for and against humanity on the same page. The influence of Bernard is noteworthy at this point. Calvin quotes him at length as an example of how to hold the seeming contradiction of humanity in tension:

By the blessing of God, sometimes meditating on the soul, methinks, I find in it as it were two contraries. When I look at it as it is in itself and of itself, the truest thing I can say of it is, that it has been reduced to nothing. . . . What then? Man doubtless has been made subject to vanity—man here been reduced to nothing—man is nothing. And yet how is he whom God exalts utterly nothing? How is he nothing to whom a divine heart has been given?[48] (emphasis added)

The nothingness, even “obliteration” of humanity apart from God is rigorously affirmed by Calvin (contra Pighius).[49] However, he also affirms humanity as destined for deifying union with God. What reconciles these polarized realities is the role of the Mediator. The fact that Christ had to “make himself nothing” even to the point of death on a cross, affirms the utter sinfulness of humanity. However, that God “put on our flesh” and brought us union with him affirms the exalted nature of humanity.[50]

Calvin’s doctrine of the incarnation enables him to stand firmly in the Augustinian tradition emphasizing the sinfulness of humanity whilst also affirming, with more Eastern emphasis, deification for that same humanity. It is vital to recover Calvin’s unification of these themes. Otherwise, the split between East and West gives the impression that these two emphases are incompatible, resulting in Western theology’s suppression of the creation-deification trajectory. Calvin offers a bridge between East and West because of the breadth of his doctrine of the incarnation.[51] For Calvin, the incarnation is both a platform for the redemptive recovery of post-Lapsarian humanity and a progression for humanity beyond the pre-Lapsarian state as the hypostatic union inaugurates the deification of humanity in Christ.[52]

The incarnation as the definition and dynamic of deification enables Calvin to make frequent use of the patristic exchange formula. Calvin shies away from the boldest exchange formula, that God became man that men might become gods. For Calvin God did not become man in that bald, unqualified sense. Rather, through the incarnation the Son of God became Son of man. Consequently, sons of men do not become gods but rather sons of God. This gives a careful symmetry to the incarnation such that the descent of the Son into our nature (kenosis) is reversed by our ascent into his nature (theosis):

This is the wondrous exchange made by his boundless goodness. Having become with us the Son of Man, he has made us with himself sons of God. By his own descent to the earth he has prepared our ascent to heaven.[53] 

Who could do this unless the Son of God should also become the Son of man, and so receive what is ours as to transfer to us what is his, making that which is his by nature to become ours by grace?[54]

2. Adoption Through The Spirit-Union

For Calvin, it is adoption through the Spirit-union that binds us to Christ, without which the incarnation is of no benefit. To convey the extent of this union Calvin echoes Cyril of Alexandria in using the phrase unio mystico and also develops the “sacred marriage” metaphor.[55] As Billings notes, Calvin’s otherwise cautious language takes on a “quite daring” approach as he comes to speak of our unio mystico and the participatio substantia which it entails.[56]

Adoption by the Spirit enables the second movement of the exchange formula and connects the incarnation of the Son of God with the deification of sons of men as sons of God:

Relying on this, earnest we trust that we are the sons of God, because the natural Son of God assumed to himself a body of our body, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bones, that he might be one with us; he declined not to take what was peculiar to us, that he might in his turn extend to us what was peculiarly his own.[57]

For Calvin, the Son-ship of Christ is the gift of salvation and the goal of deification. Calvin makes only two distinctions between our son-ship and Christ’s in order to preserve both the Creator/creature distinction and the grace-gratitude nexus. The distinctions are that of origins (eternal vs. adopted) and rights (nature vs. grace). Otherwise, Calvin will press for symmetry between Christ’s Son-ship and ours, because “being reconciled by the righteousness of Christ, God becomes, instead of a judge, an indulgent father” (emphasis added).[58] In his Hebrews commentary Calvin depicts the solidarity of son-ship between Christ and believers such that “[Christ] presents himself and us together to God the Father: for they form but one body who obey God under the same rule of faith.”[59]

Adoption escorts believers beyond the otherwise impassable boundary of the Creator-creature divide. The I-Thou of otherness and remoteness becomes the “Abba, Father” of union and participation. Whilst remaining a creature, through adoption the believer is escorted into the inner life of the triune God. This Trinitarian invitation is derived from the ad intra love that the Father has for the Son but is directed ad extra to those adopted sons that they may be loved as he is. “It is an invaluable privilege of faith, that we know that Christ was loved by the Father on our account, that we might be made partakers of the same love, and might enjoy it for ever” (emphasis added).[60]

The adoption motif safeguards deification from being misconstrued as the acquisition of certain attributes or gifts. If deification is divorced from union with God himself to becoming god-like ourselves, then the serpent returns with his subtle but sinful temptation: “You could be like God.”[61] Calvin’s differentiated approach only allows deification that makes union with God himself the goal. Accordingly, the divine nature we partake of is adoption into the Son-ship of Christ and the derived relationship with the Father. Deification is to be incorporated in the eternal and inestimable love that the Father has for the Son.

In his comments on the biblical metaphor of sacred marriage, Calvin goes further than personal union to argue for a substantial union. The substantial nature of this union is a controversial affirmation of an ontological exchange. Thus Calvin’s version of deification is realist, even if the substance is spiritually qualified. The unio mystico involves a paticipatio substantia—indeed that is what makes it mystical.

In the Institutes Calvin applies a two-way and symmetrical use of the phrase in Eph 5:32, “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” The first application of this phrase is rooted in the incarnation: “The natural Son of God assumed to himself a body of our body, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bones, that he might be one with us.”[62] However, Calvin then dares to reverse the application: “To this is to be referred that sacred marriage, by which we become bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and so one with him (Eph 5:30), for it is by the Spirit alone that he unites us to himself.”[63]

Again, commenting on the phrase “flesh of his flesh,” Calvin asserts, “This is no exaggeration, but the simple truth.”[64] Calvin interprets this simple truth as Christ being a partaker of our nature (incarnation) and we being partakers of his nature (deification):

As Eve was formed out of the substance of her husband, and thus was a part of himself; so, if we are the true members of Christ, we share his substance, and by this intercourse unite into one body. . . . All depends on this, that the wife was formed of the flesh and bones of her husband. Such is the union between us and Christ, who in some sort makes us partakers of his substance.[65]

Calvin is at pains to show that his use of substance language goes beyond the “human nature” of Christ to a reception of divine life by a participatio substantia.[66] To do so, he applies a very literal interpretation of the Genesis quotation, what he refers to as “the simple truth.” Just as Eve was made from the substance of Adam, if we are Christ’s we must “share his substance.” Calvin seems to take this further than the text itself demands. Indeed, in his commentary on Rom 6:5 he confesses that he has pushed the boundaries of the engrafting metaphor in order to posit the exchange of substance. Calvin argues that the metaphor is inadequate because it does not express fully the reception not just of life (sap) but of actual nature: “Not only we derive the vigor and nourishment of life from Christ, but we also pass from our own to his nature.”[67] Calvin is willing to transgress his own rule of the sensus literalis in order to affirm that the life flowing from Christ does not merely sustain the believer but transforms him into the divine nature of Christ.[68]

The notion of participatio substantia is the reason Calvin uses the phrase unio mystico. In so doing, he is connecting union with Christ with the deification motif. Though they are not identical, they are closely related and it “is further evidence in favour of the thesis that Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ is substantially the same as the patristic notion of theosis.”[69] However, instead of trying to explain the inner dynamic of deification, Calvin draws on the language of apophatic mystery to signal his arrival at the boundary of human understanding: “For my own part, I am overwhelmed by the depth of this mystery, and am not ashamed to join Paul in acknowledging at once my ignorance and my admiration. . . . Let us therefore labour more to feel Christ living in us, than to discover the nature of that intercourse.”[70]

3. Glorification Through Eschatological-Union

For Calvin, “complete union” only occurs when mortal flesh is transferred into the immediate presence of God and there transfigured to be like him. The consummation of deification is through the beatific vision, and the beatific vision is God himself. The nature of this unhindered vision and full communion with God means Calvin’s general principle of brevity is tightly applied. However, a few comments seem to transgress his own boundaries and leave an enigma within Calvin’s eschatology. Calvin affirms the recovery of humanity in Christ and then seems to suggest the relinquishing of humanity by Christ. Commenting on 1 Cor 15:27-28 he implies that instead of resigning the kingdom, Christ will “transfer it in a manner from his humanity to his glorious divinity.”[71]

The implication is that Christ’s humanity only mediates the Father’s divinity this side of the eschaton. Christ will then relinquish his humanity and the result will be a fuller revelation of the Godhead: “Christ’s humanity will then no longer be interposed to keep us back from a closer view of God.”[72] In the Institutes he puts it emphatically: “God will then cease to be the head of Christ, and Christ’s own Godhead will then shine forth of itself, whereas it is now in a manner veiled.”[73]

Little attention has been given to these mysterious comments. Letham refers to the Nestorian problem in Calvin’s commentary on 1 Cor 15:27-28. However, he does not refer to the comments in the Institutes, which are even more emphatic. The conclusion that Calvin “momentarily lost his grasp of the union of the two natures” (emphasis added) seems rather generous.[74] Calvin’s comments leave us with awkward questions—is Christ’s humanity and role as mediator only temporary or eternal? What does that mean for our humanity, which is contingent upon his? Calvin leaves the enigma hanging in the air, awaiting the eschaton to unravel it.

In summary, for Calvin there are three vital unions that form any true understanding of deification: mediation by the hypostatic union, adoption through the mystical union, and completion by the eschatological union.

V. The Eucharist—The Means Of Deification

It is no coincidence that Calvin’s most explicit use of the deification exchange formula is found within his discussion of the sacraments.[75] In explaining the sacraments, Calvin further develops and clarifies his understanding of the deifying nature of the incarnation and presents the sacraments as the means by which the Spirit mediates the vivifying flesh of Christ to the believer. Therefore, the sacraments must not be treated as an isolated doctrine in Calvin’s theology. Rather, they are the logical outworking of his whole soteriology. If we have rightly understood Calvin’s differentiated notion of deification, there should be no surprises regarding his theology of the sacraments.

However, as McClean argues, “Calvin’s claims about the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper have been a puzzle and provocation to many of his theological heirs.”[76] Many in the Reformed tradition side with Zwingli as if Calvin were always radical and inconsistent on the sacraments. However, the idea that Calvin’s view of the sacraments is an awkward surprise is a serious warning that indicates a failure to grasp the core of his theology.

If for Calvin, the incarnation of Christ is the nature of deification, then the sacred supper is the primary means of participation in this deification. Thus Calvin follows the same progression from Athanasius to Cyril. Athanasius posited the incarnation as a fountain of vivifying life; Cyril presented the sacraments as the primary means by which we drink from that fountain.[77]

Consequently, Calvin’s theology of the Eucharist necessitates a direct and substantial reception of the flesh of Christ if it is truly to be the means of deification. For Calvin, the flesh of Christ is the center of all soteriology. It is the body of Christ through which atonement is made, it is the body of Christ into which we are ingrafted by baptism, and it is the body of Christ from which we receive deifying life in the sacred supper. Therefore, to deny that “true communication of Jesus Christ is offered to us in the Supper is to render this holy sacrament frivolous and useless.”[78] The bread and wine must be more than symbolic or spiritually realized; they must convey the actual vivifying flesh of Christ:

Moreover, if the reason for communicating with Jesus Christ is to have part and portion in all the graces which he purchased for us by his death, the thing requisite must be not only to be partakers of his Spirit, but also to participate in his humanity. . . . It follows that in order to have our life in Christ our souls must feed on his body and blood as their proper food.[79]

Reformed theology has struggled with Calvin’s view of the sacraments because it fails to see Calvin’s orientation of the incarnation towards deification. However, his approach to the incarnation is entirely consistent with the patristic trajectory stretching back to Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Cyril. Calvin occupies the middle ground between what he perceives to be errors either side of him. The Zwinglians at best posit a communion with Christ at a mental level (calling to mind) and spiritual level (the presence of Christ mediated by the Spirit) through the bread and wine. However, this allows no real connection between the bread given by Christ (signa) and that which it signifies, the actual body of Christ (res). Instead, Calvin argues that “the bread is called the body, since it not only represents but also presents it to us” (emphasis added).[80] On the other side, Calvin opposed the Lutheran notion of the ubiquity of Christ’s body in, with, and under the bread. For Calvin, any local presence of Christ in the elements requires a change of geography and geometry that violates the humanity of Christ.

Instead, Calvin argues that the flesh of Christ is present at the Supper, but the issue is the modus of that presence. Whereas Luther posited an unqualified substantial relationship between the bread (signa) and body (res), Calvin sees a qualified spiritual relationship. This enables a real but non-local presence of the body of Christ at the table. The agent that unites what is otherwise separated by both distance (heaven to earth) and essence (bread to body) is the bond of the Spirit: “That sacred communion of flesh and blood by which Christ transfuses his life into us, just as if it penetrated our bones and marrow, he testifies and seals in the Supper, and that not by presenting a vain or empty sign, but by there exerting an efficacy of the Spirit.”[81]

The role of the Spirit in the sacrament removes the need for the body of Christ to be in the element. The Spirit bond detaches the signa from the res without ever divorcing them. As believers eat the signa the Spirit conveys the res to them such that they feed on Christ not in the bread but in the Spirit. The bread can remain only a sign; it is the Spirit’s role to perform the sacrament. This safeguards the bread from being the unmediated presence of Christ’s flesh, such that Christ and his benefits are laid bare on the table.

Therefore, Calvin posits a spiritually qualified substance, which is conveyed in the sacrament. This is less about the physical molecules of Christ’s flesh and more about the divine life that animates and glorifies those molecules—Christ himself. The physical flesh is not endowed with magical properties but with Christ and all his saving benefits. It is the spiritual substance of Christ, which the believer alone can receive through the Spirit and by faith. Calvin summarizes the matter clearly in his letter to Westphal:

The whole reality of the sacred supper consists in this—Christ by engrafting us into his body, not only makes us partakers of his body and blood, but infuses into us the life whose fullness resides in himself: for his flesh is not eaten for any other end than to give us life.[82]

Calvin has a differentiated theology of the sacrament that reflects the broader motif of deification. Echoing the Osiander debate, Calvin opposes the Lutheran notion that the believer receives the unmediated and unqualified substance of Christ in the bread itself. However, he still affirms the spiritually substantive nature of Christ’s presence in the Supper. Calvin uses the language of substance, but only when qualified within his own theological framework. The substance Calvin refers to is not the Scholastic and Aristotelian idea of a union of form and matter. It is a spiritually qualified substance that is nothing less than Christ himself.[83]

It is the theological rather than philosophical nature of our substantial union with Christ (in deification generally and the sacrament in particular) that enables Calvin without any embarrassment to confess that the whole matter remains a mystery: “Now, should any one ask me as to the mode, I will not be ashamed to confess that it is too high a mystery either for my mind to comprehend or my words to express; and to speak more plainly, I rather feel than understand it.”[84]

Finally, the Supper, by enabling real and substantial participation with Christ, prefigures our full and final communion with Him. To convey the eschatological orientation of the Supper, Calvin employs the language of ascension:

But if we are carried to heaven with our eyes and minds, that we may there behold Christ in the glory of his kingdom, as the symbols invite us to him in his integrity, so, under the symbol of bread, we must feed on his body, and, under the symbol of wine, drink separately of his blood, and thereby have the full enjoyment of him.[85]

Calvin employs a rare allegorical interpretation of Gen 28:10-22 to illustrate this sacramental ascension. Having identified Jacob’s ladder as Christ—who unites heaven and earth, God and man—Calvin interprets the Eucharist as the gateway: “In this sense . . . the sacraments may be called the gate of heaven, because they admit us into the presence of God. . . . Those helps to faith only, (as I have before taught,) by which God raises us to himself, can be called the gates of heaven.”[86]

The elements enable a Eucharistic ascent of the soul for spiritual communion with Christ in heaven that prefigures the full communion to come. Christ descends by his Spirit into the bread and wine to convey through them that which they symbolize—his body and blood. As believers receive this by faith, they in turn ascend to Christ in their hearts to commune with him.

The descent of Christ to the believer (kenosis) and the ascent of the believer to Christ (theosis) is a sacramental summary of all that is meant by deification. Equally, the eschatological goal of deification is pre-figured and experienced in the sacrament. The “sacred supper” is therefore both esoteric—an experience of being fed by Christ—and eschatological—a foretaste of the full deification that awaits the believer. The sacred supper is the means by which Calvin’s exhortation can be partially realized in this life: “Let us therefore labour more to feel Christ living in us, than to discover the nature of that intercourse.”[87]

The parallels between the nature of deification and the sacraments are striking—both derive their definition and dynamic from the incarnation, both are made efficacious by the mystical agency of the Spirit, and both have an eschatological orientation.

VI. Conclusion

Calvin’s use of the phrase quasi deificari carefully conveys his differentiated approach to deification. It positively aligns Calvin with the patristic trajectory and makes the incarnation the definition, the Spirit the dynamic, and eschatological communion the destiny of deification. It also distances Calvin from false versions of deification that are unmediated, disconnected, and over-realized.

The Reformed tradition has struggled to preserve Calvin’s notion of quasi deificari. As Habets says, “For much of Western theology the concept of theōsis creates unease and often hostile rejection.”[88] I would suggest this reaction is a result of both fear and pride. The fear is of embracing what has been falsely labelled “Eastern.” The antidote to this must be to trace deification back beyond the East-West divide to the patristic era and the Scriptures themselves. As John Calvin holds Scripture in one hand and the patristic writings in the other, he formulates a notion of quasi deificari that is thoroughly consistent with both. Calvin should be commended for this breadth of vision and theological openness that makes him truly a “breath of fresh air.”[89]

The issue of pride is more subtle. Torrance alludes to the “danger of vertigo” when considering the dizzying heights of deification.[90] The emphasis on sin within the Reformed tradition can lead to an uneasy feeling when contemplating exaltation with Christ in partaking of his Son-ship and divine nature. However, Calvin exposes this for what it is—pride disguised as (false) humility. Calvin acknowledges “how abject is the condition of our nature.”[91] However, the depth of our nature when contrasted with the “height of honour” to which we are raised in Christ, only serves to display the “greatness of [God’s] grace.”[92] It is pride that limits what can be received according to our nature. It is faith that receives what is ours only according to God’s grace, namely, quasi deificari. So with hushed tones and apophatic awe, “Let us mark that the end of the gospel is, to render us eventually conformable to God, and, if we may so speak, to deify us [quasi deificari].”[93]

Notes

1. J. Todd Billings, “United to God through Christ: Assessing Calvin on the Question of Deification,” HTR 98 (2005): 315-34, 334; Carl Mosser, “The Greatest Possible Blessing: Calvin and Deification,” SJT 55 (2002): 36-57; Jonathan Slater, “Salvation as Participation in the Humanity of the Mediator in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion: A Reply to Carl Mosser,” SJT 58 (2005): 39-58; Mark A. Garcia, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin’s Theology (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008), 257.
2. Yang-Ho Lee, “Calvin on Deification: A Reply to Carl Mosser and Jonathan Slater,” SJT 63 (2010): 272-84.
3. John Calvin, Commentary on the Catholic Epistles (vol. 22 of Calvin’s Commentaries; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1848; repr. in 22 vols., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 371.
4. Calvin, Catholic Epistles, 371.
5. I use the headings “Alexandrian” and “Cappadocian” broadly and loosely even though all the church fathers mentioned do not fit neatly into each category historically. For an excellent summary of the development of deification across these trajectories, see Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
6. Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 167.
7. Athanasius, Orations against the Arians 1.38-39 (NPNF2 4:327).
8. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5, Preface (ANF 1:526).
9. Athanasius, Orations against the Arians 2.70 (NPNF2 4:386).
10. Cyril of Alexandria, commentary on John 6:35 (cited in Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 202).
11. See Anthony N. S. Lane, Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999); T. H. L. Parker, Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995).
12. Calvin, Opera quae supersunt omnia (ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss; 59 vols.; Brunswick: Schwetschke, 1863-1900), 9:739-42; Calvin, Opera selecta (ed. P. Barth and W. Niesel; Munich: Kaiser, 1926-1936), 2:312; cited and trans. in Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology and Worship (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2004), 266.
13. Lee, “Calvin on Deification,” 279.
14. Calvin, Catholic Epistles, 371.
15. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. and trans. Henry Beveridge; 2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), 2:273-74 (3.25.10).
16. In other words, his general principle of brevity is heightened in the presence of apophatic mystery.
17. Previous articles have tried to assess deification in Calvin with the measuring rod of proportions, sections, and chapters. The inevitable conclusion is that the motif is “avoided . . . or not known about” by Calvin at all (Frederick W. Norris, “Deification: Consensual and Cogent,” SJT 49 [1996]: 420). Wenger also falls into this trap as he reduces the significance of the motif of “union with Christ” on the grounds that “there is [not] a single chapter devoted to it in the entire Institutes (Thomas Wenger, “The New Perspective on Calvin: Responding to Recent Calvin Interpretations,” JETS 50 [2007]: 311-28, 327). For this reason I refer to deification as a motif rather than a doctrine.
18. Calvin, Catholic Epistles, 371.
19. Calvin, Inst., 4.16.31.15, cited in Mosser, “Greatest Possible Blessing,” 52.
20. Calvin, Inst., 1:337 (2.8.26).
21. Ibid., 2:40 (3.11.5).
22. Ibid., 2:47-56 (3.11.11-19).
23. Billings, “United to God,” 325.
24. Calvin, Inst., 2:40-41 (3.11.8).
25. Ibid., 2:41 (3.11.5).
26. Ibid., 2:44-45 (3.11.9).
27. Ibid., 2:50 (3.11.12).
28. Garcia, Life in Christ, 257-58.
29. Calvin, Inst., 2:40 (3.11.5).
30. Ibid., 2:46 (3.11.10).
31. Ibid., 2:47 (3.11.11).
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., 2:47-48 (3.11.11).
34. Ibid., 2:48 (3.11.11).
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid., 2:46 (3.11.10).
38. Mosser, “Greatest Possible Blessing,” 49.
39. Calvin, Inst., 1:465 (3.1.3).
40. Mosser, “Greatest Possible Blessing,” 46.
41. Calvin, Inst., 1:415 (2.14.1).
42. Myk Habets, “Reforming Theōsis,” in Theōsis: Deification in Christian Theology (ed. Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov; Princeton Theological Monograph Series; Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2006), 149.
43. John Calvin, Tracts and Letters, vol. 2 (ed. and trans. Henry Beveridge; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2009), 238.
44. John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel According to John, vol. 1 (vol. 17 of Calvin’s Commentaries), 261-70.
45. Slater, “Salvation as Participation,” 39.
46. Calvin, Gospel of John, 1:261-69. This commentary is a revealing description of how Calvin envisages divine life entering human life. However, the distinction he makes between the humanity of the incarnate Christ (second degree life) and our humanity (third degree life) is not meant to imply a major ontological difference. These categories are used only to convey the mediation of life.
47. Calvin, Inst., 2:563 (4.17.9).
48. Bernard of Clairvaux, Fifth Sermon on the Dedication of a Church, cited in Calvin, Inst., 1:491 (3.2.25). Bernard continues in the same section to encourage confidence as humanity before God: “Let us breathe again, brethren. Although we are nothing in our hearts, perhaps something of us may lurk in the heart of God. O Father of mercies! O Father of the miserable! how plantest thou thy heart in us?”
49. John Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice Against Pighius (ed. A. N. S. Lane; trans. G. Davies; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 212. Calvin uses the term “obliteration” to describe the complete mortification of the old nature when we experience regeneration through a new nature in Christ.
50. John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews (vol. 22 of Calvin’s Commentaries), 64.
51. This breadth is again thoroughly consistent with the Alexandrian trajectory of patristic theology.
52. This has been termed “elevation-line” theology such that redemption takes humanity above the original starting point of creation, instead of simply “restitution-line” theology that is traditionally held by Western theologians.
53. Calvin, Inst., 2:558 (4.17.2).
54. Ibid., 1:401 (2.12.2).
55. Ibid., 1:465 (3.1.3).
56. Billings, “United to God,” 332.
57. Calvin, Inst., 1:401 (2.12.2).
58. Ibid., 2:37 (3.11.1).
59. Calvin, Hebrews, 69-70.
60. John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel According to John, vol. 2 (vol. 18 of Calvin’s Commentaries), 189.
61. Gen 3:5.
62. Calvin, Inst., 1:401 (2.12.2).
63. Ibid., 1:465 (3.1.3).
64. John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians (vol. 21 of Calvin’s Commentaries), 323.
65. Ibid.
66. However, he qualifies this by reference to the “power of the Spirit” so as not to imply any physical transference.
67. John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (vol. 19 of Calvin’s Commentaries), 223.
68. Calvin even acknowledges that he has gone beyond the meaning Paul attributed to the text: “The Apostle, however, meant to express nothing else but the efficacy of the death of Christ” (Calvin, Romans, 223).
69. Mosser, “Greatest Possible Blessing,” 50.
70. Calvin, Galatians and Ephesians, 325.
71. John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, vol. 2 (vol. 20 of Calvin’s Commentaries), 29-34.
72. Calvin, Corinthians, 2:33.
73. Calvin, Inst., 1:418 (2.14.3).
74. Letham, The Holy Trinity, 255-56.
75. See, e.g., Calvin, Inst., 2:558 (4.17.3).
76. John McClean, “Calvin on the Supper: Puzzling and Provocative,” in Engaging with Calvin: Aspects of the Reformer’s Legacy for Today (ed. Mark D. Thompson; Nottingham: Apollos, 2009), 204.
77. See Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 191-202.
78. Calvin, Tracts, 2:170.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid., 2:172.
81. Calvin, Inst., 2:563 (4.17.10).
82. Calvin, Tracts, 2:377.
83. This avoids Luther’s problematic notion of the manducatio impiorum. If the bread is the body in an unqualified substantial way, then unbelieving men and even mice (as Aquinas speculated) can eat the flesh of Christ.
84. Calvin, Inst., 2:587 (4.17.32).
85. Ibid., 2:570-71 (4.17.18).
86. John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis (vol. 1 of Calvin’s Commentaries), 118.
87. Calvin, Galatians and Ephesians, 325.
88. Habets, “Reforming Theōsis,” 166.
89. Letham, The Holy Trinity, 268.
90. Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time and the Resurrection (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 136-39.
91. Calvin, Catholic Epistles, 371.
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid.