Would someone please enlighten me as to the meaning of the word ‘nature’ in this verse? And perhaps also ‘partake’?
I think there are some important concepts in the verse that I am missing due to my dismal lack of understanding the Greek.
‘Partaking’ - is this a matter of emulating, copying, or imitating our Father, as we are urged to do elsewhere? Or is the ‘partaking’ something deeper?
I appreciate any help you can give. 
The transliteration of the Greek character of the word for “nature” in 2 Peter 1:4 is “physis” and it means well… “nature”. It is the word from which the English word “physical” comes.
The Greek word translated as “partaking” means “sharing” or “holding in common”.
Thanks Paidion.
Dave, I’ll bet it would be interesting to also hear what [tag]akimel[/tag] has to say about this. At least, I’d be interested. 
Yep, I’d like to hear what he has to offer as well.
I’ve done a bit of work on the word ‘nature’ since the OP. My main source was from a book that has been languishing on my shelves for years - “Studies in Words” by CS Lewis. The first section is devoted to the word ‘phusis’ (which we transliterate to ‘nature’) - this word has a long and very colorful history; my main concern was with the dogma laid down by Chalcedon (A.D. 451) - the famous/infamous "one person/two ‘natures’’’ formulation.
My interest is mainly philosophical and linguistic at this time - not looking for the usual wordy, awkward and unsubstantiated possible way of ‘saving the appearances’ - that is, coming up with a somewhat plausible explanation of the possibly meaningless formulation, but rather inquiring as to whether there is any point, if in fact the formula is even meaningful in any way.
I’m not going to devote any more time to it on this forum, as I’m deeply involved with it elsewhere.
Hi all
Whilst I am sure that a study of the word translated ‘nature’ may be of great benefit, in this particular text, I see the meaning of the word translated ‘partakers of’ to be paramount. That Greek word is the word used to mean ‘have fellowship with’ elsewhere and that is what I take it to mean here. So however deep the word nature might be ( very essence, identity, being etc), surely, all this text is saying is that we might have fellowship with the Divine nature ie have fellowship with God Justas I might have fellowship with Tom, Dick, or Harry, with Tom’s essence/nature etc.
But maybe I’m missing something you’re seeing Dave. Words were never my strong point.
I can see where “divine physis” and participating in that could point to a real presence doctrine; but Pilgrim is right, the verb involved {koinônon} doesn’t mean we turn into the divine physis (whatever Peter meant by that or his translator more likely). It’s a cooperation verb. The same word is used as a noun occasionally to talk about friends working together on a project. (“Mate” in ‘English’ English slang I guess. 
)
I’m actually not looking for depth - my concern is with the Chalcedonian use of ‘nature’ - or in that case, two ‘natures’ - such a big thing was made at that time, about two natures, that I want to understand just what they were saying, if anything. What does it mean to have ‘a nature’? Is ‘nature’ something that is added to a substance? If you removed the ‘nature’ from something, would there be a remainder?
I could go on and on, and the discussion goes in a number of complex directions, but that’s just the way I obsess over things…
Perhaps of interest here is Norman Russell’s essay “‘Partakers of the Divine Nature’ in the Byzantine Tradition.”
As a Christian I am a partaker of God’s holiness. He imparts His own Beauty to me giving me His joy and happiness. I am a partaker of this infinite fountain of joy of which He is Himself. These streams and raindrops of holiness are His Divine light and love. I am swept up in His heavenly Beauty as I participate in His Trinitarian circle of love and joy.
Well, this is a first! 
— the first time I have disagreed with Jason on a Greek word.
There’s not much difference in the basic meaning of the two words “κοινωνια” and “κοινωνος” except the first means “a sharing” and the second means “a sharer”.
Here’s an example of the first, where the NASB correctly translates the word as “a sharing”:
It is not the case that in the communion we have fellowship with the blood and body of Christ as we would with a friend or with any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Rather we SHARE in the blood and body of Christ.
Here is an example of the second:
Do we have fellowship with our suffering and our comfort as we would with any Tom, Dick, or Harry? Or do we simply share the suffering and comfort of others? Do we not simply have suffering and comfort in common with them?
The same questions may be asked of 2 Peter 1:4.
Do we come to have fellowhip with the divine nature? Or do we come to SHARE in the divine nature—share it with each other—share it with God? Surely it’s the latter, and this does NOT in any way mean that we become God or part of a great big Trinity. It means that we are privileged as children of God to share divinity by grace, just as Jesus, the only true Son of God, shares divinity by His very nature. Thus Jesus, by means of His resurrection, has become the firstborn of many brethren (Rom 8:29).
Well, if you’re going to appeal to that verse, it’s the cup and the bread which X in the blood and body. And they aren’t in any position to personally cooperate with the blood and body, not being persons.
This one however I have to grant in your favor. Looking around moreso on the term usage, yep the mutual cooperation concept only applies when persons are both objects linked by the term.
Now though you’re contradicting yourself. You see clearly enough (and it’s part of your Christology) that we creatures don’t become what God essentially is, ontologically self-existent; thus you don’t regard the Son as being what God essentially is either, ontologically self-existent. But then you also see from other points that Christ “shares divinity” “by His very nature” in distinction from creatures who are not ontologically what essentially is, which is why you distinguish “sharing divinity” “by grace” with “by His very nature” instead.
If the Son is only the greatest creature (regardless of being the first creature or not, a creature is only a creature), then the Son is not of the essential nature of God. You ought to be saying that the Son, like the rest of us, only participates in the divine nature by grace, and denying participation by His very nature.
A trinitarian (strictly speaking also a binitarian) on the other hand can affirm the Son’s participation in the divine nature both by His very nature (as the self-existent God self-begotten) and by divine grace (God self-begotten being actively self-existent by the Person of God self-begetting), even without the Incarnation. (A modalist by comparison, though affirming full self-existent deity, wouldn’t be able to affirm the Son’s actual participation in anything, especially not by grace since that would involve multiple real persons, and they regard the Son to be only a modal operation of the only Person of God.)
The human nature of the two natures of Christ participates in the divine nature only by grace, and is thus not actually the divine nature (unlike the divine nature of Christ). But if at least binitarian theism is true (multiple persons of one God), then God’s essential divine nature also involves sharing God’s essential divine nature by grace (though at the level of God’s own self-existence this is sharing the divine nature with that which is essentially the divine nature by the divine nature of sharing the divine nature).
So if God shares the divine nature with that which is only a creature, God is not doing something altogether different from what God is always doing in God’s own self-existence, though it’s a different ‘direction’ of the action (so to speak) being directed at a person which is a creature instead of at a person which is God in His very nature.
(And I realize that’s complicated, Dave, but the data is complex to pull together in a coherent instead of a contradictive way.)
What is involved in God sharing the divine nature with a person who is only a creature (and so who can never be God self-existent upon which all reality depends for existence), is a whole other question. But since even God’s essential divine nature includes active cooperation between persons (those persons being the Persons of the one and only God which a creature can never be), a safe first inference is that the sharing involves personal cooperation between persons. Especially since the divine nature is itself intrinsically and essentially personal, not impersonal (unlike suffering or hope, which are not themselves persons, though only persons can consciously suffer and hope).
So we’re back to the term referring to personal cooperation at 2 Peter 1:4 after all. 
What more it means – and admittedly it must mean more, though it cannot mean the creature becomes divine in very nature, unlike the Father and the Son (and the Spirit 
) – involves “theosis” and theologians (trinitarian and otherwise) have been discussing that a long time. Presumably it’s related to the assumption of the human nature into cooperation with the divine nature in Christ, but trinitarians and non-trinitarians have somewhat different ideas about that.
As for Rom 8:29, it doesn’t talk about the Son becoming the firstborn by the resurrection there, but I know it does elsewhere (though I don’t recall exactly where at the moment) – and the point there is that the Son by the resurrection thus becomes the firstborn out from the dead ones so that He may become first in all things. Even on your theology, Paidion, the Son doesn’t only then first become “the firstborn”, so in that sense there is no difference between our Christologies (as though that verse, or Rom 8:29, or similar verses, count in favor of the Son starting to exist and so not being divine “in His very nature” after all). And on both our Christologies the salient point there (including for post-mortem salvation and for universal salvation) is that by the resurrection even the “dead ones” can and will accept the leadership role of Christ, represented by the term “firstborn”, even though Christ was fundamentally already “firstborn” (though by that we mean somewhat different things.)
That’s fine, Jason, it is not a subject that is not without its difficulties. To say the least. And, to use a double negative.
Complicated though it is, it’s almost mother’s milk compared to some Oneness theology I’ve been studying. Talk about your hair-splitting, pick-the-fly-poop-out-of-the-pepper logic-chopping, gads.
Anyway, thanks to all of you for taking on this difficult concept.
Jason, I trow that you are fully aware that I do not regard the Son as a created being, but as a begotten Being, and that He is the exact imprint of the Father’s essence (Heb 1:3), and that for this reason He may be called “God” but not “True God”. For Jesus Himself, as you know, addressed the Father as “the only True God.” (John 17:3)