Beyond David Bentley Hart’s Monist Adventures: Rediscovering the Need for Tension and Divine Distinction
The ultimate division of all that exists is made by the line between ‘created’ and ‘uncreated,’ the one being regarded as a cause of what has come into being, the other as coming into being thereby. Now the created nature and the Divine essence being thus divided, and admitting no intermixture in respect of their distinguishing properties, we must by no means conceive both by means of similar terms, nor seek in the idea of their nature for the same distinguishing marks in things that are thus separated
~ Gregory of Nyssa1
In order to bring about the union of everything with God as its cause, the human person begins first of all with its own division, and then, ascending through the intermediate steps by order and rank, it reaches the end of its high ascent, which passes through all things in search of unity, to God, in whom there is no division ~ Maximus the Confessor2
Above stand two quotes from two of the greatest philosophical minds of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The first quote from Gregory of Nyssa marks him as the first to uncover the necessity of distinguishing between the nature of the uncreated and the created.3 This insight, developed during the composition of Against Eunomius—a defense of the Church and his brother Basil’s teachings—establishes a critical theological division: the diastema between the created and the uncreated. Gregory’s articulation of this ontological distinction by all means was an “inspired” and essential contribution to Christian theology.4
However, Maximus the Confessor, writing two centuries later, appears to take an opposing stance. Beginning with the premise that God is the cause of all things, Maximus assumes, through the Mystery of Christ, that every division—including male and female and even the chasm between the created and uncreated—was, in some way, bridgeable before the Fall.5 Yet, this does not negate the ontological division itself. Maximus understands the Logos as the one who was always going to become incarnate, expanding into the many logoi that carve out the distinctions within creation, providing each being with a divine will or existential scope by which he would in contracting lead back into union with himself.
This tension—between Gregory’s insistence on the distinction and Maximus’s vision of unity through Christ—is crucial to maintain in Eastern Orthodox theology. It reflects a dynamic that must be navigated, especially when examining modern theological interpretations that tend to oversimplify or collapse these distinctions. This tension is often overlooked in contemporary theological discourse, perhaps as much a product of our “social imaginary” as it is of any theological misstep. This trend finds a prominent voice in David Bentley Hart’s recent works, where he reinterprets Christian metaphysics through a monistic, openly Vedantic (Advaita) lens.
Hart’s major argument was framed as a response to the re-emergence of Manual / “Two-Tier” Thomism in contemporary Catholic theology. This trend, which maintains a sharp divide between the natural and the supernatural, Hart takes on in his recent book You Are God’s: On Nature and Supernature. While the terms "created" and "uncreated" do not carry the same meanings as "natural" and "supernatural" within our mechanistic worldview—where the supernatural implies divine intervention or miraculous phenomena—they both address an essential theological reality. The union of the uncreated with the created, particularly in the Incarnation, is no less profound than any supernatural event. This was the logic upheld at Nicaea and Chalcedon: God became man, assuming human nature, that humanity might be healed of all that was assumed and, henceforth, become God.6
The question, however, is how this process of healing and becoming God unfolds. Does it culminate in our being one with the Son as the Son is one with the Father, as Christ petitions in His High Priestly Prayer (John 17)? Or does it preserve our identities as distinct persons? Or, as the interplay between Gregory and Maximus suggests, is it both—a union that upholds distinction?
In this paper, I will critically examine David Bentley Hart’s argument exploring how his monistic vision challenges traditional theological boundaries. I will argue that, while Hart seeks to resolve certain inconsistencies within Western theology, his approach risks collapsing essential distinctions upheld by the Church Fathers, ultimately diminishing the relational and participatory dynamics central to theosis in Eastern Orthodox theology.
What is Nature (φύσις)? A Detailed Exploration
What is nature (φύσις)? More specifically, what renders the conditions of possibility for there to be natures or essences (οὐσία) of which we can meaningfully speak? This question, though fundamental, is rarely posed. Yet, any metaphysical system that seeks to account for the essence of beings or their nature must also explain the broader principles according to which one can differentiate one nature or essence from another. In other words, such a system must address the conditions of possibility that allow for the existence of distinct natures or essences. The conditions of possibility are, as Aristotle realized long ago, found in the motion all beings undertake between genesis and the actualization of their ends or potencies before corruption and death.
This dynamic and ever-changing world forms the backdrop against which Aristotle formulates his understanding of nature. Aristotle’s concept of hylomorphism—the theory that all substances are composed of both matter (hyle) and form (morphe)—offers a framework for understanding how the material and immaterial (formal) aspects of a substance interact to define its essence. According to early Aristotle, the distinction between different natures lies in how matter and form uniquely combine and interact within each substance, giving rise to its specific properties and behaviors.
According to later Aristotle, however, his analysis extends beyond the simple interaction of matter and form; it encompasses four causes or explanations (aitia) that together define the essence of any substance:
Material Cause: The underlying matter of which something is made.
Formal Cause: The specific form or essence that defines it.
Efficient Cause: The agent or process that brings it into being.
Final Cause: The purpose or end for which it exists.
Nature, therefore, is understood as the convergence of these causes—a nexus where matter and form meet with purpose and agency to create something that possesses a distinct identity and behavior.
Crucially, Aristotle’s understanding of nature suggests that every substance contains within it a potency—an inherent capacity or potential—that it seeks to actualize through change and movement. This progression from potentiality to actuality is guided by the formal cause and ultimately directed toward the final cause, which represents the fulfillment of the substance’s purpose or end. Thus, for Aristotle, the world is a dynamic interplay of potentialities being realized: beings naturally strive toward their ends, moving from genesis (birth) through the actualization of their inherent capacities, ultimately culminating in corruption and death.
However, Late Antique theologians like Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor began to see the limitations of this Aristotelian framework, favoring a more Neo-Platonic and complex approach. Scholasticism further evolved this view by superimposing onto Aristotle’s finite system the idea that God, as the efficient cause, directly brings all things into existence and guides them toward Himself as their ultimate final cause, fully realized in the beatific vision after death. For the Scholastics, and even Aquinas, the Prime Mover sufficed to explain all motion as the unfolding of the pure act within Eternity’s elongated “now,” encompassing all time and space.
Yet, Aristotle’s framework fails to account for the unique causality involved when the “uncreated” interacts with the created—an area deeply explored in Eastern Orthodox theology, particularly in the distinction between God’s essence and energies. This ontological division between the uncreated and the created introduces a new understanding of nature that transcends the closed system of potentiality and actualization. It opens up a space for grasping how divine grace and human nature interact in a participatory dynamic, moving beyond the constraints of Aristotelian causality toward a relational and transformative encounter with the divine.
Hart’s Critique of Two-Tier Thomism: Collapsing Nature and Supernature
It is within the philosophical context of Aristotelian and Scholastic thought that David Bentley Hart, in his work You Are Gods: On Nature and Supernature, constructs his argument against the resurgence of “Two-Tier Thomism.” This late-Scholastic framework maintains a clear distinction between nature and grace, asserting that nature is fundamentally separate from the divine unless graced by an external gift. Hart identifies this system as deeply problematic because it divides the divine-human relationship into two distinct planes, with grace appearing as an optional, ad-extra addition that could never come and nature would be left to a natural end outside God.
In the first essay of You Are God’s, “Waking the God’s: Theosis as Reasons’ Natural End,” Hart challenges this distinction, by employing an illustrative analogy that sets the stage for his broader argument. He begins with a thought experiment involving a rabbit and a turnip:
“So imagine, if you will, a turnip. Imagine it set before you on a table. But imagine also that, only a few moments ago, it was not a turnip, but a rabbit instead and that I have just now magically conjured the one thing out of the other… Have I actually transformed a rabbit into a turnip—is that logically possible—or have I instead merely annihilated the poor bunny and then recombined its material ingredients into something else altogether? Surely, it seems obvious, the answer must be the latter. It may well be that precisely the same molecules—even the same atoms—once found in the rabbit are now securely invested in the turnip; but there is nothing leporine remaining in the turnip, and neither was there any trace of rapinity (raptitude?) in the rabbit…(1-2).
Hart uses this analogy to argue that transformations between distinct natures are impossible at the level of their formal identities. Continuity exists only in the underlying substrate—prime matter—which lacks any form or identity of its own:
“Whatever continuity persists [with one formal identity transforming into another]… is only found in a common substrate, at the level of sheer material plasticity, and is ultimately reducible to that pure indeterminate potency traditionally called prime matter or ϋλε. This alone remains constant across all transformations precisely because it is in itself nothing as such, and so is always absolute: absolved, that is of all formal identity… At the level of actual forms and natures and determinate properties, however, nothing can ever truly become anything other than what it already is, at least potentially. A discrete substance can pass through various states proper to itself, achieve diverse stages of its own nature. But it can never become something truly extrinsic to itself without ceasing to be what it was (3)).”
Hart’s conclusion is that something can only actualize what it already possesses in potential. Therefore, if human beings have the potential to become divine, they must already be divine in essence. His reasoning follows Aristotelian logic: potentiality presupposes an intrinsic capacity, and the actualization of such potential merely unfolds what is already inherent. However, this perspective falters when applied beyond the natural order to the realm of divine grace.
In Christian theology, humanity is created, finite, and dependent on divine grace to actualize the potential for divinization. Even within Aristotelian metaphysics, the actualization of potential often requires an external agent, such as the prime mover, to draw beings toward their final ends. Hart recognizes this dependency on external causes, noting:
“What is natural for us is not necessarily, by that token, something that we are capable of achieving for ourselves. Indeed, insofar as we are finite and contingent beings, everything ‘natural’ about us—the very possession of any nature at all, in fact—is dependent upon some other source or power not only for its realization, but for its very existence (7).”
Hart extends this analogy to argue that the need for external assistance in fulfilling natural ends also applies to the supernatural:
“In a sense, almost every natural desire—even, say, for food or for sex—is dependent for its realization on something imparted to it from beyond itself. Even those possibilities most constitutive of us as the finite beings that we are can be fulfilled only in and through the grace of cooperating external causes. It was perfectly natural of me, for instance, as an adult human male, to become both a husband and a father. In a sense, the fullness of my humanity—at least, as the person I happen to be—required no less of me. But I was utterly incapable of achieving that natural end without the assistance of at least two other persons (8).”
Hart’s attempt to equate natural and supernatural assistance culminates in his assertion:
“There is no logical reason to claim that an end that can be achieved only by supernatural assistance is not, for that reason, a natural possibility. Indeed, if this were the case, the very concept of natural potential would be meaningless, since any finite reality’s very existence is always already a possibility that has been enacted by a wholly supernatural gift of being. A potency can be thoroughly natural in itself even if proportioned to an end that the ‘whole power of nature’ (as we know it, at least) cannot supply.”
While Hart’s reasoning appears coherent within an Aristotelian frame, his analogy collapses upon closer examination. By conflating natural and supernatural assistance, Hart overlooks a fundamental theological distinction: the difference between created and uncreated orders of causality. Creation itself, as the act of supernatural grace, constitutes a distinct horizon of possibility entirely separate from any natural process. The grace by which God creates the world is uncreated, freely given, and not bound by the constraints of nature.
Aristotle’s concept of prime matter allows for an unbroken system of causality so long as both prime matter and the prime mover are eternal. However, Christian theology asserts that nature is not eternal but created, bringing into being a different order of causality altogether. Prime matter and nature are passive, unable to bring themselves into existence or to create anything beyond their inherent limitations. By contrast, God’s uncreated causality initiates existence itself, breaking the analogy that Hart draws between natural and supernatural causality.
Hart’s failure lies in his inability to recognize that while external assistance is possible within the order of the created, the order of the uncreated operates according to a different logic. God’s causality, unlike that of any created agent, does not merely act upon a preexisting substrate (prime matter) but creates the substrate itself. This creative act forever distinguishes the uncreated from the created, preserving an ontological division that Hart’s analogy seeks to collapse.
Thus, divine grace is not simply an elevated form of natural assistance; it is an uncreated, transformative gift that introduces a new horizon of possibility beyond the reach of any natural cause. The relational and participatory nature of theosis, as articulated by the Church Fathers, depends on this crucial distinction. Without it, the dynamic interaction between human freedom and divine initiative is reduced to a deterministic unfolding of what already is, undermining the transformative power of the divine-human encounter.
In summary, Hart’s attempt to reconcile nature and supernature overlooks the unique nature of divine grace and its distinct causality, ultimately diminishing the richness of theosis as a relational journey into divine life. By preserving the ontological distinction between the created and the uncreated, Eastern Orthodox theology upholds the profound mystery of a God who acts not merely as a force within creation but as the Creator who lovingly sustains and transforms it.
Creation and Incarnation: Distinct Divine Causality
Hart’s vision of collapsing the boundaries between nature and supernature is challenged by a deeper theological understanding of creation ex nihilo and the Incarnation. These doctrines reveal a distinct mode of divine causality that transcends natural processes, highlighting the unique and relational engagement of God with creation. Unlike Hart’s monistic perspective, which suggests that nature’s fulfillment is merely an extension of its inherent potential, creation ex nihilo and the Incarnation emphasize that divine grace is an uncreated, transformative gift that operates beyond the natural order.
The doctrine of creation ex nihilo stands as a cornerstone of Christian theology, affirming the absolute distinction between the created and the Uncreated. As Gregory of Nyssa articulates, creation is brought into being not as an emanation of divine nature but as a distinct reality, sustained solely by the will of God. This ontological distinction upholds the integrity of both Creator and creation, allowing for a relationship defined not by necessity but by divine love and freedom. Creation ex nihilo establishes that the world is not an outflow of God’s essence but a unique act that exists through God's continuous sustaining presence.
This distinction finds its fullest expression in the Incarnation of the Logos. The Incarnation is not merely a bridging of two realities but a profound event that brings the created and the Uncreated into a harmonious relationship without confusion or seperation. As Pseudo-Dionysius describes, the Incarnation is an outpouring of divine love that transcends all categories of being, uniting what is beyond being with what is created.7 Maximus the Confessor further elaborates by emphasizing that the Incarnation introduces a new theandric mode of activity—a divine-human operation where God’s uncreated energies interact with natural processes, transcending them without violating their integrity.8
Maximus asserts that in the Incarnation, God, who is beyond being and even beyond Being itself, assumed human nature while remaining fully divine. This is not a mere transformation within the natural order but a profound act that unites the created and the Uncreated in a new mode of existence. The Incarnation reveals that God’s action in the world is not constrained by natural causality but operates according to a distinct divine causality—a unique order fundamentally different from the processes observed within creation.
The self-emptying, or kenosis, of Christ is particularly illustrative of this divine causality. Christ’s voluntary submission to natural human experiences—hunger, thirst, suffering, and death—highlights a profound paradox: the one who is the source of all existence willingly enters the limitations of created life. This submission does not diminish His divinity but rather reveals the depth of divine love and humility. Christ’s miraculous acts, such as walking on water, raising Lazarus from the dead, and His own resurrection, further manifest a divine will that operates beyond natural limits, revealing a causality that transcends the natural order without eradicating it.9
Maximus the Confessor teaches that the same divine causality evident in the Incarnation is also at work in theosis, the process of deification. Theosis is not achieved through human effort alone but through the uncreated energies of God that elevate human nature beyond its natural limitations. Maximus articulates that theosis involves a transformation of the human mode of existence (tropos) rather than an alteration of human essence (logos). This transformation occurs through human agent’s cooperation with divine grace—a synergy where human freedom engages with God’s uncreated energies.
Maximus underscores that divine grace is not merely a latent aspect of human nature waiting to be actualized; it is a gift that surpasses natural causality, elevating humanity into a mode of existence that participates in the divine Life in a manner beyond nature. He writes:
We accomplish things actively in so afar as our intelligence, whose natural task is to accomplish the virtues, is active within us, and in so far as there is also active within us our intellect, which is capable of receiving unconditionally all spiritual knowledge, of transcending the entire nature of created beings and all that is known, and of leaving all ages behind it. We experience things passively when, having completely transcended the inner essences of created beings, we come in a manner which is beyond conception to the Cause itself of created beings, and there suspend the activity of our powers, together with all that is by nature finite. Then we become something that is in no sense an achievement of our natural capacities, since nature does not possess the power to grasp what transcends nature. For created things are not by nature able to accomplish deification since they cannot grasp God. To bestow a consonant measure of deification on created beings is within the power of divine grace alone. Grace irradiates nature with a supernatural light and by the transcendence of its glory raises nature above it’s natural limits.”10
This understanding of grace as an uncreated, transformative “irradiating” energy is echoed in the writings of St. Isaac the Syrian, who distinguishes between “pure prayer,” achievable through human effort, and “spiritual prayer,” a state beyond human activity where the soul is lifted by the Holy Spirit beyond natural comprehension. St. Isaac describes this state:
In the life of the spirit… there is no longer any prayer. Every kind of prayer that exists consists on the level of the soul of beauteous thoughts which arise in a person…. On the level and in the life of the spirit, there are no thoughts, no stirrings… for human nature completely departs from these things and from all that belongs to itself. Instead, it remains in a certain ineffable and inexplicable silence, for the working of the Holy Spirit stirs in it, having been raised above the realm of the soul’s understanding.”11
These insights reveal that the transformative journey of theosis is not merely the unfolding of natural potential but an engagement with divine grace that operates beyond the confines of human effort and understanding. The Eastern Orthodox distinction between the created and the Uncreated preserves the mystery and depth of this transformative encounter, affirming that divine grace is not an inherent aspect of human nature, but requires our active co-operation with the Uncreated Energies until such a point where one is brought above one’s nature or essence into that which human beings have not the capacity to grasp—but only witness the active irradiation of their minds with a light that lies outside the entire power of nature to grasp: the manifestation of God as the Uncreated Light or luminous darkness of unkowing.
By emphasizing the distinct, uncreated nature of divine activity (and thus Divine causality), the Eastern Orthodox tradition upholds a dynamic, relational understanding of theosis. This perspective preserves the essential diastema, or separation, between the created and the Uncreated, allowing for a transformative encounter with God that honors both divine initiative and human freedom. Unlike Hart’s monistic vision, which risks reducing theosis to a deterministic unfolding, the Orthodox approach affirms the ongoing, active engagement with God’s uncreated energies as the true path to deification—whence one is passively raised by God to a mode-of-existence (tropos) beyond one’s natural capacity to actively engage or co-operate.
Preserving Relational Dynamics in Theosis
Hart’s framework, though coherent within an Aristotelian perspective, fails to account for the participatory and relational aspects of theosis as understood in Eastern Orthodox theology. By collapsing nature into supernature, Hart risks portraying grace as a mere extension of natural processes, undermining the distinct and transformative nature of divine action. The Eastern Orthodox tradition emphasizes the synergistic nature of theosis—a dynamic, ongoing relationship where human freedom cooperates with God’s uncreated energies. This process involves personal engagement, struggle, and mutual self-giving, elements that Hart’s deterministic view does not adequately capture.
To understand the relational dynamics of theosis, consider the practice of the Jesus Prayer in Eastern Orthodoxy. This simple yet profound prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” is more than a meditative repetition; it is a means of invoking and participating in the presence of Christ. The prayer is deeply relational, requiring not only attention (nepsis) but an active engagement of the heart. It exemplifies how the human person reaches out to God, inviting His presence into every aspect of life. Through this practice, the person’s will and desire are gradually aligned with God’s will, transforming the individual’s mode of existence (tropos) rather than altering the logoi —principle—of one’s nature. This synergy of divine grace and human effort highlights the relational aspect of theosis, where God’s uncreated energies are met with human openness and responsiveness.
Maximus the Confessor’s distinction between one’s logoi (the principle of one’s nature) and tropos (mode of existence) is crucial here, illustrating that theosis is not about altering nature’s essence but transforming its mode of existence through engagement with the divine.12 For example, the transformation of the Apostles, especially Peter, vividly captures this relational dynamic. Peter’s journey from denial to bold proclamation after Pentecost demonstrates a profound change in his mode of existence. It was not an automatic unfolding of his latent divinity but a result of a transformative encounter with the Holy Spirit—a dynamic interaction between divine initiative and human response. This transformation underscores that theosis involves a relational process where human freedom and divine action coexist and cooperate.
Another powerful example is found in the lives of the saints, who are often depicted as vessels of divine grace yet retain their unique personalities and struggles. Consider St. Mary of Egypt, whose radical conversion from a life of sin to one of intense asceticism and communion with God was not a mere actualization of a pre-existing divine nature but a profound, ongoing interaction with God’s grace. Her journey highlights the active, responsive nature of theosis: it required her repentance, her turning away from former ways, and her continual effort to live in communion with God. St. Mary’s transformation is not a monistic unfolding but a relational dance between her will and God’s uncreated energies—until, as we mentioned before, God willed to raise her above nature in theoria.
This synergy is further illustrated in the sacramental life of the Church, particularly in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is not just a symbolic act but a real participation in the Body and Blood of Christ, uniting the believer with God in a mysterious and transformative way. This union does not dissolve the believer’s individuality but rather elevates it, drawing the person into a deeper relationship with God while maintaining their distinct identity. Through the Eucharist, theosis is experienced as a communal, participatory act that involves the whole Church—each person contributing to the Body of Christ through their unique response to God’s grace.
Hart’s monistic view, by contrast, risks reducing these transformative encounters to mere natural developments. His framework suggests a deterministic path where grace is not distinctly relational but an inevitable outgrowth of nature’s potential. This overlooks the personal struggle, repentance, and active cooperation required in the journey of theosis. For instance, in Hart’s view, St. Mary of Egypt’s conversion might appear as an expected actualization of her inherent divinity, rather than the dramatic and personal turning toward God that involved intense spiritual battle and the decisive rejection of her former life.
A more traditional Eastern Orthodox understanding of theosis preserves the tension between human freedom and divine initiative, emphasizing that the journey toward God is not a predetermined unfolding but an active, participatory process. Grace is not an inevitable extension of nature but a transformative and uncreated gift that invites the believer into a relationship marked by love, struggle, and mutual self-giving. The lives of the saints, the sacramental practices, and the intimate prayers of the faithful all bear witness to this dynamic interaction, showcasing a vibrant alternative to Hart’s monistic synthesis.
In the next section, we will explore the transformative power of maintaining the distinction between the created and the Uncreated, emphasizing how this theological tension preserves the depth and mystery of the divine-human encounter and safeguards the participatory dynamics essential to theosis.
The Transformative Power of Distinction
The Eastern Orthodox understanding preserves the necessary diastema—the division—between the created and the Uncreated, allowing for a meaningful divine-human interaction marked by love, struggle, and transformation. Hart’s monistic vision, while appealing in its simplicity, risks erasing the rich, relational dynamics of theosis by treating grace as merely the actualization of natural potential. Maximus the Confessor’s vision offers a more compelling alternative, emphasizing theosis as an active, participatory journey where human beings are invited into a transformative union with God. This union respects both the distinctiveness of creation and the profound intimacy of a divine encounter, reflecting a balance between unity and distinction that culminates in identity with God in all but number, as Maximus describes, without existential distance in the age to come.
Like the meaning of the relationship between the Lover and his Beloved in Song of Songs, the concept of Theosis is best expressed in the metaphor of a husband and wife coming together to “know” one another. In a sense at this point it no longer becomes meaningful to either husband or wife, where the one begins and the other ends, but the meaning of the act would be lost if we leave out the self-giving and ecstatic movement of love that made them “one flesh.” This profound unity does not erase their individuality; rather, it enriches their distinct persons, continually going out of themselves in love. Their union thrives on this dynamic interplay—each transcending themselves in an ongoing act of giving and receiving, making their shared journey deeply transformative. This analogy reflects the essence of theosis: a union with God that does not dissolve the human person but invites them into a deeper, relational self-offering.
Admittedly Hart’s vision captures a profound truth—at least from the standpoint of Eternity’s elongated “now.” As Maximus teaches, the ultimate eschatological reality is one where all divisions are healed, including the most fundamental division between the created and the Uncreated. In this sense, Hart is correct: there is a final, profound unity where God and creation are united. However, his perspective falls short by not holding this eschatological vision in tension with the economic reality—the way God engages with the world and humanity within time and space.
In the divine economy, God’s actions preserve the boundaries between Creator and creation, inviting humanity into a relationship characterized by both union and distinction. It is a both/and reality: one that affirms the ultimate unity that awaits us while also respecting the current relational journey marked by the dynamic interplay of divine grace and human freedom. We are, in many ways, still in the womb of this world, experiencing the presence of the divine much like John the Baptist leapt in the womb at the approach of Christ.
And, yet, one day, we will emerge from this world and open our eyes to the blinding light of Christ, where all existential distance is fully eliminated as we enter the ever-expanding love of an ever-moving repose. But for now, our experience is marked by glimpses of this other world—one that extends beyond our immediate grasp yet is intimately woven into our reality. This tension, this both/and of the already and the not yet, defines our path of theosis: a continuous engagement with God’s uncreated energies that honors the profound mystery of divine-human interaction.
Theosis, therefore, is not a predetermined unfolding of a latent divinity but an active, transformative engagement with God’s uncreated energies—a journey that balances unity and distinction. It is a relational process that allows us to encounter God as both transcendent and intimately present, continually drawing us closer to the day when all separations dissolve and we are fully united with the divine. This ongoing participation in God’s life, marked by love, freedom, and the dynamic interplay of grace, preserves the relational richness that makes the journey of theosis truly transformative and a proper propaedeutic to the eschaton.
Contra Eunomium (hereafter CE) VIII (NPNF V, 208). Here is where Gregory of Nyssa begins to realize there is yet another key distinction to make beyond the sensible and intelligible or visible and invisible. This is a revolution in thinking for until this point their was not a proper ontological distinction to properly speak of creation ex nihilo as creation ex nihilo.
Maximus, Amb. 41 PG 91, 1305D. Trans. A. Louth, Maximus (1996), 157. Here Maximus is speaking of how Adam who stood, as all human beings do, on the border of the created and uncreated. Maximus is reflecting on Adam’s prelapsarian potential to take on all of God and thus created nature does in a since naturally have the capacity to unite the created and uncreated, and yet, we have this world, and it was only accomplished, the union of each division of being, in Christ. Was it ever not going to be? It’s hard to say, because Maximus is simply swayed in his thought by his apparent sensitivity to God’s love exposed through the Mystery (hypostatic union of divine and human natures without confusion) of Christ.
Mosshammer, A. A. (2018). "The Created and the Uncreated in Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra EunomiumI 270–295 (GNO I, 105–113)". In Gregory of Nyssa: Contra EunomiumI. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004377097_017
See: Maximus, Amb. 41 PG 91. He begins with Adam’s potential to take on the uncreated and unite each ontological division and speculates as to what prelapsarian humanity was like, but inevitably he shows it was Christ and in a sense always would be Christ who would unite the uncreated and created.
Inspired at least in that in the course of writing it he discovered a whole new layer or dimension of reality.
A combination of course of Gregory Nazianzius famous statement, What was not assumed was not healed, and Athanasius’ statement, “God became man that man might become God.”
“And, in truth, it must be said too that the very cause of the universe in the beautiful, good superabundance of his benign yearning for all is also carried outside of himself in the loving care he has for everything. He is, as it were, beguiled by goodness, by love, and by yearning and is enticed away from his transcendent dwelling place and comes to abide within all things, and he does so by virtue of his supernatural and ecstatic capacity to remain nevertheless, within himself (Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names)”
See: Maximus Maximus the Confessor, Amb. 5. Maximos Constas translation.
Ibid. See other key texts by Maximus the Confessor in Ambigua and On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture.
Chapter 76. “First Century on Various Texts.” Philokalia: the Complete Text, Volume Two. Transl: G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware. (181-182)
Alifeyev, Hilarion. The Spiritual World of St. Isaac the Confessor.
Maximus and the patristic tradition insist that θεωσις [theosis] is a real dedication of man’s hypostasis and actual existence (not an either symbolic or incomplete “elevation” of man to a very high state within createdness), the actualization of a human person through uncreated activities in every respect—without, however, an identification in substance and nature: man’s substance and nature remains created and human, but the human person is hypostasized (actualized) according to the mode of the uncreated (194). Mitralexis, Sotiris. Ever-Moving Repose: A Contemporary Reading of Maximus the Confessor’s Theory of Time.
Please do not take my comments as in any way mean-spirited, i mean them as constructive (and thorough) criticism. To be perfectly upfront about my thoughts, I both think that you misread and are unfair to Hart's monistic theology, and that your arguments (and overall rhetoric) evidence the same tired pattern all prior denouncements of monistic thought (in particular those directed at Bulgakov) in modern theology have; e.g., claiming "its determinist," "its impersonal," it collapses distinctions," etc, while never engaging each of these issues enough to define where ultimate metaphysical monism fails and your supposed middle way succeeds as anything other than a way to avoid logically necessary implications.
You claim that Hart equates and collapses uncreated and created causalities. He doesn't, he affirms their infinite distinction. You quote him saying as much, "‘whole power of nature’ (as we know it, at least) cannot supply.” If you quibble that he adds a hypothetical qualifier, you shouldn't because he operates on the assumption that the hypothetical is false (though he likely has in mind ante-nicene theology in which the Holy Spirit is not distinct from our spirits, in which case this is simply another part of our tradition). His arguments about an ultimate monism are explicitly drawn from the implications of creatio ex nihilo, namely that creatio ex nihilo is creatio ex deo as it is not creation from another substance or cause. Thus, when you say:
"By contrast, God’s uncreated causality initiates existence itself, breaking the analogy that Hart draws between natural and supernatural causality."
You are misreading. It is not the case that Hart fails to distinguish divine and created causality, rather, it is his proper understanding that viewed from the divine perspective all activity is simply God's activity (because God is all being and act and potency which become act). Following from this, Hart correctly argues that divine grace is natural to nature, is the creature's proper end of all its potentials, and therefore, operating on a proper ontology (which is that of Maximus' logoi, or Dionysius' predestinations, or Eriugena's exemplars, or Origen's eschatological creation) all creatures are ultimately God, are ultimately uncreated while also being created, and therefore theosis is not an external imposition or violation of nature.
This is not "simply a form of natural assistance," which is troublesome in any way, because qua finite the creature is not uncreated. Qua Being, which is God, the creature is uncreated. But this is simply eastern Orthodox theology and metaphysical common sense.
You invoke creatio ex nihilo again to try and distinguish Hart's theology from Orthodox theology (homogenized in whichever way you wish) by saying "Creation ex nihilo establishes that the world is not an outflow of God’s essence but a unique act that exists through God's continuous sustaining presence." This is wrong. Creation being an emanation of the divine essence as being, life, intellect (as explicitly in the Areopagite), is not separable from it being the free act of the divinity and vice versa. Divine freedom is simply to be fully actualized. When you deny this and try to use words like "unique act" the only conclusion I can come to is that you hold to a voluntarist account of creation, in which God chooses to create from possibilities he might not actualize, thus God becomes a mere being subject to potency himself. This should be articulated clearly, not held back as a possible interpretation.
This same predilection for using words that sound like they are meant to convey a metaphysical view but do not is evident again when you say, "The Incarnation is not merely a bridging of two realities but a profound event that brings the created and the Uncreated into a harmonious relationship without confusion or seperation." Being charitable, this is a completely apophatic statement conveying nothing. How does the incarnation bridge two alien natures (and alien they must be if an ultimate metaphysical monism is rejected)? Calling it a "profound event" doesn't say anything, we need to be cataphatic here, able to say what a proper metaphysical theology ultimately must admit (at root there is only God and God as the becoming-God).
Your Christological comments should have been informed by Hart's own recent Stanton lectures on Christology (available online and on his substack), as well as his article "Chimaeras, Masks and Portmanteaux." Drawing on Bulgakov, Hart points out and works through a glaring issue in Neochalcedonian Christology. If humanity and divinity are completely disparate and alien, there being some dualism at the root of their being, how can a divine hypostasis unite them, be them, and manifest fully through them? It cant. The question for Christology must rather be “How is it that a full subsistence of the divine nature and a full subsistence of the human nature can be one and the same subsistence, without contradiction?” And the only answer is that an ultimate dualism does not exist, the created is fit for the divine hypostasis because it is always the divinity as finite becoming infinite (godmanhood).
It should go without saying that I do not accept your characterization of Hart's views as antithetical to Orthodox spirituality, but in all that discussion two issues jumped out at me. Firstly, you appeal to Maximus' characterization of deification as one in which human nature is passive before divine infinite activity, and contrast this to Hart's views, but then you say that in this deification we "actively cooperate," synergy remains. If, as your whole argument has seemingly been, there is this gulf between created and divine nature such that to call divine infinite activity natural to creatures is illicit, how is the human qua human still active if human "nature" is passive in deification? He wouldnt be. It is only by understanding that which is passive in deification to be nature qua finite, that we can understand deification as retaining synergy because the divine activity in its fullness is proper to nature which hypostatizes it. This is what Palamas argues, the saints hypostatize the divine energies/activity, or in other words, the divine energies/activity/nature subsist naturally in and as the hypostasis. So... you dont have deification if you dont follow the path to Hart's conclusion.
Secondly, you continually accuse Hart of implicit determinism. A metaphysical monism is not inherently determinist, what matters is how the relationship of the One/Being to the many ones/beings is parsed out. That said, In the last chapter of You are Gods, Hart agrees with and draws on Bulgakov's ontology of freedom which is, in my estimation, the only such ontology that actually escapes determinism while retaining all the tenets of Christian classical theism. Please read this chapter and the cited sections from Bulgakov.
Finally, thank you for your time and for writing. I hope my criticisms come across without being muddled, and as constructive. I also hope that people would stop feeling the need to claim the neopatristic view of creation and anti-monism is "the Orthodox view," as this is being soundly put to rest by newer patristic scholarship (e.g., Jordan Wood's research explicating the patristic acceptance of creation's necessity), and unfairly others not only different ancient voices in our tradition, but rejects the Orthodoxy of new theological thought. God bless!
I enjoyed this. A couple of quick thoughts: Creation Ex Nihilo and the Incarnation attest to the fact that there is no nature independent of super nature - surely. Christ is the alpha and omega, the grounding of all that is, and, as far as I understand things, is never simply Divine but always (I’m not speaking of duration here) human and Divine (I’m quite sure Bulgakov makes such a move). Creation is the manifestation of this reality, no? The fall, however one wants to conceive of it, is the insistence that nature is not in fact super nature; this is not an affirmation of the truth but a privation of reality. Christ’s descent to the realm of the dead - death representing an insistence upon a closed understanding of nature - is the affirmation that God will ultimately not consent to have any of his creation locked into such an illusion. The vocation of the Christian is to live “supernaturally” which is to say live what is real, for the sake of the world around him/her. The Eucharist is the body of God, not because it has received grace ad extra, but because in the liturgical setting it is eschatological affirmed as what it truly is; the body of God. Bread incidentally is a microcosm of the entire cosmos - sunshine, vegetation, water, human action etc.