I have grave doubts about the Eastern Orthodox concept of Theosis, defined as divinization, becoming God, the idea that it is possible to become perfect, to be without sin. It sounds too much like the Buddhist idea of enlightenment which I came to regard as a false idol.
When I first came to Christ and was baptized at Saint Patrick’s Anglican Church here in Murfreesboro, I asked this question of father Wesley, “How can I escape from the prison of my self?” His answer was, “You can’t.”
This was a revelation to me and freed me from my Zen Buddhism. The resulting Christian understanding that the struggle with the flesh, the world, and the Devil in this world is unending, is, paradoxically, a great comfort to me, not because it justifies complacency, but because it punctures the delusion that there is a resting place.