Theōsis and Individual Identity in Eriugena: Beyond Human Nature

I mean to address, with the problem of individual identity, the elementary question of how human beings can be distinguished. For example, what makes Socrates different from Plato as a human being? Or distinguishes Naomi from Ruth? Or, in the words of Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, d. 1037/427), how ʿAmr differs from Zayd? When scholars focused on this problem in Eriugena, they concluded on the absence of a robust account of the individual by endorsing an accidental view of individual identity: that is the view that individuation solely depends on one or more accident(s) or accidental features – there is no substantial individual. Plato and Socrates, or Livia and Agrippina can solely be distinguished because each of their body occupied a distinct place, in a different time and epoch, or because their various respective corporeal characteristics – such as shape, size, hair, and so on – were distinguishable in their specific spatiotemporal expressions. This view, which I term *accidental reductionism*, constitutes the hegemonic interpretation of Eriugena in literature (see Pasquale Mazzarella, 1957; John Marenbon, 1981; Jorge E. Gracia, 1984, 1994; Peter King, 2000; Christophe Erismann, 2011, 2020, and others).

If this model were entirely correct, *theōsis* would necessarily entail the dissolution of the individual into a collective: how indeed can individual identity endure beyond death if it is contingent solely upon its bodily and spatiotemporal incarnation? For the individual in such a scenario, reaching the divine would be tantamount to being dissolved into a universal unity.

I contend that this stance contradicts Eriugena’s narrative on *theōsis* which rather invites us to enter a different paradigm on individual identity. After introducing the problem, the task of this paper will be to expound upon three key inputs from *theōsis* that shape a collective-evolutive model of individual identity.

Firstly, in Eriugena, being defined is similar to being assigned to a place. Human nature in its temporal condition suffers from being excluded from its genuine meaning which resides in God. The promise of a return to the divine implies a dual return. Through the general return (*reditus generalis*), each individual is to be reconciled with its collective definition. Eriugena pictures this as the return to the Garden of Eden from which the first humans were banned. Simultaneously, Eriugena articulates a specific return (*reditus specialis*) through *theōsis*, signifying that each human returns to a specific place – the “divine mansions” mentioned in the Gospel of John. Here, the ever-movingness impetus of humanity finally finds permanence and rest in the eternity all have been yearning for. But what does *resting in permanence* means for a being if not the finding of some substantial solidity? I interpret the description of how each human being acquires their individual mansion through *theōsis* as the individual being appropriating their individual substance – that is, literally, their principle of permanence. Through the metaphor of a divine temple, Eriugena portrays the unity in difference of an individual identity firmly embedded within the collective: the halls (*atriis*) of this enigmatic house gather the various mansions of each human being, creating a harmonious unity.

Secondly, Eriugena apprehends *theōsis* as a theophany, the deified person can simply be named a divine theophany. Further contradicting the *accidental reductionism*, these theophanies are as numerous as divine mansions, that is as numerous as human beings preserved and unified with God. Moreover, these theophanies reflect the infinity of meanings of the Scriptures, establishing an Eriugenian perspectivism. From the manifold perspective of their unique mansions, each deified human being enjoys a personal view and relationship with the divine reality. Ultimately, through these theophanies, humans are made God just as God became human, anchoring Eriugena’s *theōsis* within the Greek patristic discourse.

Thirdly, the underlying paradigm of this combination of harmoniousness and individual identity in *theōsis* is fundamentally trinitarian. As Trinity has compelled theologians, Eriugena prompts us to conceptualize something above the dichotomy between unity and multiplicity as God himself is an “*unum multiplex*” (*Periphyseon* III, 674c). In Eriugena, *theōsis* is a unity in difference in which the individual identity is preserved within a collective unity: “For how should that perish which is clearly seen to turn into something better?” (*Periphyseon* V, 876b).

*Theōsis* challenges the predominant interpretation of accidental reductionism by not only maintaining the individual after the destruction of accidents, but even reconciling every individual with its genuine eternal meaning, and then elevating it into God through deification. While there may be *cyclical collective-evolutive* patterns of individual identity, for instance in Hellenic cultural eras, Eriugena’s conception of the individual destiny is mostly linear, teleologized through *theōsis* conceived as the most sublime individual finality.