Trinity, Deification, and Atonement

Abstract

Chapter 7 proposes a manner of conceiving of God’s deifying love, whereby God shares His intra-trinitarian life of love with men and women through the life and death of Christ. The proposal, which builds upon the Eastern Orthodox distinction between God’s essence and energies, includes partial accounts of both the Atonement and deification, along with an explanation of how these two doctrines fit together. The offered account of God’s deifying love is also shown to fit nicely with the understanding of love’s union exposited and defended in Chapter 2, thereby highlighting a connection between the defended model of God’s love and a classical way of thinking about Christian salvation.