SALVATION AS COMMUNION: Partakers of the Divine Nature

Theology Today, Oct 2004 by Heim, S Mark

1 For an insightful exploration of the implications of this fact, sec Miraslov Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Ecrdmans, 1998).

2 It is relevant that the officiai requirements for canonization in the Roman Catholic Church include authentication of a minimum number of miracles performed by the saint or through appeal to the saint. Characteristically, these are miracles of healing, pointing to the fact that even the most contemplative or solitary of saints must be seen to demonstrate the transfer of spiritual benefits to others. It must be shown that others can participate in the effects of the saint's relation with God. Sanctity must be in some manner communicable.

S. Mark Heim is Samuel Abbot Professor of Christian Theology at Andover Newton Theological School and the author of The Depth of the Riehen: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends (2001). He is a minister in the American Baptist Churches in the USA and represents that denomination on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches.