Partaking in Divine Nature Deification and Communion [Paperback]

With strong application and relevance to contemporary ecclesiological questions, this is an investigation of how understandings of theosis in the Christian Tradition have related to understandings of divine nature in terms of koinonia.Revd Dr Paul M. Collins, formerly Reader in Theology at the University of Chichester, Parish Priest on Holy Island, Northumberland, England.

Introductionto the thesis of the book and its contents
Deificationin pre-Christian traditions
including Greek and Indian traditions; assessment of the influence of these upon Christian understandings of incarnation and salvation.

Deification in Eastern Orthodox Tradition
including discussion of salvation in terms of recapitulation; understandings of 'the Cross'; an examination of the development oftheosisin patristic and medieval authors: e.g. Origen, Athanasius, the Cappadocian fathers, Ps-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, Symeon the Theologian, Gregory Palamas; and modern authors such as Bulgakov and Staniloae. This will also include and examination of how divine nature is understood in relation totheosis.

Deification in Western Traditions
including Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, the Caroline Divines and the Wesleys; as well as recent authors both Catholic and Protestant e.g. Karl Rahner, Catherine Mowry LaCugna, Lars Thunberg, Norman Russell; as well as an assessment of the place of 'deification' alongside other models and understandings of salvation in the West.

Deification and Relationality:imago trinitatis
discussion of divine nature understood in terms ofkoinoniai.e. in terms of a hermeneutic of relationality; discussion of this hermeneutic in the works of Zizioulas, Barth, Torrance, Gunton, Hardy, Schw?bel; discussion of Rahner's place in & contribution to this debate; discussion of dialectical understandings of difference and repetition (inc. Deleuze) and holsç