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| "Union with Christ" containing many essays by Mannermaa and other representatives of the Finnish School of Luther Studies |
" The theosis of a believer is initiated when God bestows on the believer God's essential properties; that is, what God gives of himself to humans is nothing separate from God himself.
God gives himself as the Word in the historical birth of Christ and in the spiritual birth of Christ in the faith of the believer.... [quoting Luther] 'Just as the word of God became flesh, so it is certainly also necessary that the flesh may become word... The Logos puts on our form and pattern, our image and likeness, so that it may clothe us with its image, pattern, and its likeness...'
... God is in relation to himself in the movement of the Word... In Christ the inner-trinitarian Word, which is the being of God, becomes incarnate. The presence of Christ's word and the word about Christ in faith are the presence of God himself.
This ontological basis has its epistemological side as well: the act of knowing and the object of knowledge are identical. God who illuminates and the illuminated heart, the present God and the God seen by us, are identical. God is both the object and subject, the actor and act, of faith.
...Christ himself, both in his person and his work, is the righteousness of man before God. Christ is both favor of God (forgiveness of sins, atonement, abolition of wrath) and gift (donum), God himself present. Faith means justification precisely on the basis of Christ's person being present in it as favor and gift. In ipsa fide Christus adest: in faith itself Christ is present, and so the whole of salvation.
... Faith means participation in the being and thus in the properties of God. And one of the properties of which the Christian in his faith partakes is love. Christ, who is present in faith as donum, brings love with him, because Christ is in his divine nature God, and God is love.
In love... believers give themselves freely to their neighbors and take upon themselves their neighbor's burden, misery, sins, poverty, and weakness as if these were their own burdens, their own misery, their own sin, poverty and weakness. Like Christ, then, Christians take upon themselves 'human nature', that is, the misery and burden of the neighbor... The Christian has become Christ to the neighbor: Christianus Christus proximi."
Tuomo Mannermaa, "Why is Luther so Fascinating?" in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther Braaten, Jenson eds. (Eerdman's: Grand Rapids, MI: 1998) 10-12, 13-19
Mannermaa's theology is rich material for reflection for countless reasons. He has endlessly encouraging, interesting, and sometimes contentious*, theological beliefs. But we could also richly observe his work in his ecclesiological, ecumenical and geopolitical context. That a Finnish theologian was working in close consideration of Eastern/Russian Orthodoxy in the 20th century, while Finland was a border state to the Soviet Union, had a considerable amount of its land seized by the Soviet Union following the Winter War and the Second World War, adds a really deep context to his words.
For what it's worth, there was a lot of really interesting, nuanced Protestant theology and church work being done on the borders and boundaries of the Iron Curtain - be it Mannermaa, or Jüngel, or Hamel. But it wasn't just theology at the border of communist dictatorships, these are distinctly Protestant theologies at the boundary of both orthodoxy and atheism. I think this makes Mannermaa and many others valuable partners for discerning how to do theology faithfully in "secular" environments.
But while his circumstances add a ton to Mannermaa, let's turn our focus to the content of his writing.
You ever find yourself becoming more like someone you love? I see it happen in myself from time to time with my wife - little things like how I say "well," or when I give someone a "look" that shows I'm judging them. On the same note, my wife occasionally makes bad jokes, which were almost entirely my realm before marriage. I'm not saying it's always a good trade. Similar things have happened in some of my closest friendships as well. But this doesn't happen through intentional affectation, so much as it happens through closeness and love. Apply that to Christ and the Church (which, incidentally is often described as Christ's Bride). This is a key to understanding Mannermaa - most known for his re-interpretation of Luther's works over and against the German traditions.
A lot of Lutheran theologians put their focus on justification, but for Mannermaa lasting hope is found in God's abiding presence as made apparent through the incarnation (God's becoming part of creation, or literally God's "meat-ification"). It's not like the declaration of justification doesn't matter, it is in fact the start of the whole thing for a believer. But the incarnation is a huge part of this.
The incarnation is certainly in part God's incarnation in Jesus Christ, but it also has a lot to do with Jesus Christ's indwelling in the life of the believer. Mannermaa wants you to know that Jesus Christ is really with you and for you. And even more than that - you are part of the life and being of God through Jesus. Just as God is really with Jesus and for Jesus, and God and Jesus are at one.
Mannermaa might be so bold as to say that God pursues God's self, God acts as God, through being Jesus Christ. Christ in turn acts and is God to us, and through him we share what God is. We take part in the being of God through being taken up in the being of God. And as the Word moves according to its own divine way, we find ourselves going to our neighbors in faith. This in turn is what it means to be free from the power of sin and death. This is what freedom means.
When we are free/freed, we have faith. In faith we turn with love to our neighbors and become Christ to them. This is not done in the absence or inattentiveness of Christ - as though he were unavailable. It is because Christ is really present, truly present, in us.** It is Christ's presence - within us, beyond us, and in the pursuit itself - that draws us to our community, our neighbors, etc., not his absence.
This gives us a really great framework not only for understanding sanctification/theosis, but also evangelism, stewardship, and the like. And those are just a few reasons that you should read Tuomo Mannermaa
* Warning, deep-cut Lutheran history and in-house disputes follow
While this blog is typically for a simple appreciation of theology - I find it difficult to talk much about Mannermaa and the entire Finnish school of Luther studies without appreciating its points of conflict with the wider Lutheran tradition. While Mannermaa's writings definitely bring up Luther's themes - many traditional Lutherans are fiercely opposed to him. The most frequent accusation is that Mannermaa's writings are a revisitation of the Osiandrian Controversy.
After Luther's death, Andreas Osiander argued a nuance of Luther's view that was unacceptable to most of his contemporary Lutherans. Lutherans argued that justification is something proclaimed to sinners in order to save them. God says "you're forgiven," (usually through God's people) and you are forgiven, as stubbornly, simply, and faithfully as that. Osiander appreciated this (and wouldn't necessarily disagree with it), but he added the nuance that salvation (and sanctification) happen through Christ's indwelling of the believer through faith (given sacramentally). He lifted up being made part of God's body through Christ. Osiander's opponents saw this "infusion" of grace as a prettier version of Roman teachings, and dangerously undermining the very comfort of the Gospel. In some extremes this may have been true, but it's hard for any reader of St. Paul and recipient of the sacraments to be unsympathetic. A functional middle-ish ground was lifted up in the Formula of Concord, and yet, language of indwelling has been viewed with suspicion in the Lutheran Church ever since. Mannermaa and the Finnish school are the most recent recipients of this important, but not schismatic, suspicion.
** Notice how this language of presence parallels the Lutheran understanding of Holy Communion, and meditate on that for a while. That's why Holy Communion and the Real Presence is so important for us - it has a lot to do with who we are and who God is.
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