Divinization (Christian)

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In Christian theology, divinization (deification, making divine, or theosis) is the transforming effect of divine grace,[1] the spirit of God, or the atonement of Christ. It literally means to become more divine, more like God, or take upon a divine nature.

Eastern Christianity[edit]

Eastern Orthodox theology[edit]

Icon of The Ladder of Divine Ascent (the steps toward theosis as described by St. John Climacus) showing monks ascending (and falling from) the ladder to Jesus, Saint Catherine's Monastery.
See also: Glorification
The teaching of deification or theosis in Eastern Orthodoxy refers to the attainment of likeness of God, union with God or reconciliation with God. Deification has three stages in its process of transformation: katharsis, theoria, theosis. Theosis as such is the goal, it is the purpose of life, and it is considered achievable only through a synergy (or cooperation) between humans' activities and God's uncreated energies (or operations).[2][3] Theosis is an important concept in Orthodox theology deriving from the fact that Orthodox theology is of an explicitly mystical character. Theology in the Eastern Orthodox church is what is derived from saints or mystics of the tradition, and Eastern Orthodox consider that "no one who does not follow the path of union with God can be a theologian."[4] In Eastern Orthodoxy, theology is not treated as an academic pursuit, but it is based on revelation (see gnosiology), meaning that Orthodox theology and its theologians are validated by ascetic pursuits, rather than academic degrees (i.e. scholasticism).
According to the Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, as quoted by Millet and Reynolds:
Deification (Greek theosis) is for Orthodoxy the goal of every Christian. Man, according to the Bible, is 'made in the image and likeness of God.' ... It is possible for man to become like God, to become deified, to become god by grace. This doctrine is based on many passages of both OT and NT (e.g. Ps. 82 (81).6; II Peter 1.4), and it is essentially the teaching both of St Paul, though he tends to use the language of filial adoption (cf. Rom. 8.9—17; Gal. 4.5—7), and the Fourth Gospel (cf. 17.21—23).
The language of II Peter is taken up by St Irenaeus, in his famous phrase, 'if the Word has been made man, it is so that men may be made gods' (Adv. Haer V, Pref.), and becomes the standard in Greek theology. In the fourth century, St. Athanasius repeats Irenaeus almost word for word, and in the fifth century St Cyril of Alexandria says that we shall become sons 'by participation' (Greek methexis). Deification is the central idea in the spirituality of St. Maximus the Confessor, for whom the doctrine is the corollary of the Incarnation: 'Deification, briefly, is the encompassing and fulfillment of all times and ages,' ... and St. Symeon the New Theologian at the end of the tenth century writes, 'He who is God by nature converses with those whom he has made gods by grace, as a friend converses with his friends, face to face.' ...[5]

Vision of God[edit]

According to Hierotheos Vlachos, divinization, also called theosis, "is the participation in the Uncreated grace of God" and "is identified and connected with the theoria (vision) of the Uncreated Light". "Theoria is the vision of the glory of God. Theoria is identified with the vision of the uncreated Light, the uncreated energy of God, with the union of man with God, with man's theosis. This vision, by which faith is attained, is what saves: "Faith comes by hearing the Word and by experiencing theoria (the vision of God). We accept faith at first by hearing in order to be healed, and then we attain to faith by theoria, which saves man." It is also one of the means by which Christians came to know the Trinity: "The disciples of Christ acquired the knowledge of the Triune God in theoria (vision of God) and by revelation."[6]

As a patristic and historical teaching[edit]

For many Church Fathers, theosis goes beyond simply restoring people to their state before the Fall of Adam and Eve, teaching that because Christ united the human and divine natures in Jesus' person, it is now possible for someone to experience closer fellowship with God than Adam and Eve initially experienced in the Garden of Eden, and that people can become more like God than Adam and Eve were at that time. Some Orthodox theologians go so far as to say that Jesus would have become incarnate for this reason alone, even if Adam and Eve had never sinned.[7]

Ascetic practice[edit]

The journey toward theosis includes many forms of praxis. The most obvious form being Monasticism and Clergy. Of the Monastic tradition the practice of hesychasm is most important as a way to establish a direct relationship with God. Living in the community of the church and partaking regularly of the sacraments, and especially the Eucharist, is taken for granted. Also important is cultivating "prayer of the heart", and prayer that never ceases, as Paul exhorts the Thessalonians (1 and 2). This unceasing prayer of the heart is a dominant theme in the writings of the Fathers, especially in those collected in the Philokalia. It is considered that no one can reach theosis without an impeccable Christian living, crowned by faithful, warm, and, ultimately, silent (hesychast), continuous Prayer of the Heart. The "doer" in deification is the Holy Spirit, with whom the human being joins his will to receive this transforming grace by praxis and prayer, and as Saint Gregory Palamas teaches, the Christian mystics are deified as they become filled with the Light of Tabor of the Holy Spirit in the degree that they make themselves open to it by asceticism (divinization being not a one-sided act of God, but a loving cooperation between God and the advanced Christian, which Palamas considers a synergy).[8] This synergy or co-operation between God and Man does not lead to mankind being absorbed into the God as was taught in earlier pagan forms of deification like Henosis. Rather it expresses unity, in the complementary nature between the created and the creator. Acquisition of the Holy Spirit is key as the acquisition of the spirit leads to self-realization.

Western Christianity[edit]

Roman Catholic theology[edit]

The importance of divinization (theosis) in Roman Catholic teaching is evident from what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says of it:
The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature": "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."[Primary 1]
Arguably the most prolific of the medieval scholastic theologians, St. Thomas Aquinas, wrote:
Now the gift of grace surpasses every capability of created nature, since it is nothing short of a partaking of the Divine Nature, which exceeds every other nature. And thus it is impossible that any creature should cause grace. For it is as necessary that God alone should deify, bestowing a partaking of the Divine Nature by a participated likeness, as it is impossible that anything save fire should enkindle.[Primary 2]
He also wrote of God's "special love, whereby He draws the rational creature above the condition of its nature to a participation of the Divine good".[Primary 3] and he ultimately roots the purpose of the Incarnation in theosis.[Primary 4]
Of a more modern Roman Catholic theologian it has been said: "The theological vision of Karl Rahner, the German Jesuit whose thought has been so influential in the Roman Catholic Church and beyond over the last fifty years, has at its very core the symbol of theopoiesis. The process of divinization is the center of gravity around which move Rahner's understanding of creation, anthropology, Christology, ecclesiology, liturgy, and eschatology. The importance of this process for Rahner is such that we are justified in describing his overall theological project to be largely a matter of giving a coherent and contemporary account of divinization."[9]
The Roman Rite liturgy expresses the doctrine of divinization or theosis in the prayer said by the deacon or priest when preparing the Eucharistic chalice: "Per huius aquae et vini mysterium eius efficiamur divinitatis consortes, qui humanitatis nostrae fieri dignatus est particeps" ("By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.")[10][11][12]
The Catholic Church teaches that God gives to some souls, even in the present life, a very special grace by which they can be mystically united to God even while yet alive: this is true mystical contemplation.[13] This is seen as the culmination of the three states, or stages, of perfection through which the soul passes: the purgative way (that of cleansing or purification, the Greek term for which is κάθαρσις, katharsis), the illuminative way (so called because in it the mind becomes more and more enlightened as to spiritual things and the practice of virtue, corresponding to what in Greek is called Θεωρία, theoria), and the unitive way (that of union with God by love and the actual experience and exercise of that love, a union that is called θέωσις, theosis).[14]
The writings attributed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite were highly influential in the West, and their theses and arguments were adopted by Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure.[15] According to these writings, mystical knowledge must be distinguished from the rational knowledge by which we know God, not in his nature, but through the wonderful order of the universe, which is a participation of the divine ideas. Through the more perfect knowledge of God that is mystical knowledge, a knowledge beyond the attainments of reason even enlightened by faith, the soul contemplates directly the mysteries of divine light. In the present life this contemplation is possible only to a few privileged souls, through a very special grace of God: it is the θέωσις (theosis), μυστικὴ ἕνωσις (mystical union).[13] Meister Eckhart too taught a deification of man and an assimilation of the creature into the Creator through contemplation.[13]
Deification, to which, in spite of its presence in the liturgical prayers of the West, Western theologians have given less attention than Eastern, is nevertheless prominent in the writing of Western mystics.[1]
St. Catherine of Siena had God say: "They are like the burning coal that no one can put out once it is completely consumed in the furnace, because it has itself been turned into fire. So it is with these souls cast into the furnace of my charity, who keep nothing at all, not a bit of their own will, outside of me but are completely set afire in me. There is no one who can seize them or drag them out of my grace. They have been made one with me and I with them."[Primary 5]
St. John of the Cross, OCD wrote: "In thus allowing God to work in it, the soul ... is at once illumined and transformed in God, and God communicates to it His supernatural Being, in such wise that it appears to be God Himself, and has all that God Himself has. And this union comes to pass when God grants the soul this supernatural favour, that all the things of God and the soul are one in participant transformation; and the soul seems to be God rather than a soul, and is indeed God by participation; although it is true that its natural being, though thus transformed, is as distinct from the Being of God as it was before."[Primary 6]

Anglican theology[edit]

Out of the English Reformation, an understanding of salvation in terms closely comparable to the Orthodox doctrine of theosis was recognized in the Anglican tradition, for example in the writings of Lancelot Andrewes, who described salvation in terms vividly reminiscent of the early fathers:
Whereby, as before He of ours, so now we of His are made partakers. He clothed with our flesh, and we invested with His Spirit. The great promise of the Old Testament accomplished, that He should partake our human nature; and the great and precious promise of the New, that we should be “consortes divinae naturae”, “partake his divine nature,” both are this day accomplished.[Primary 7]
C.S. Lewis, speaking on his personal belief in the subject of literal deification, stated as follows:
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.[16]
In a more complete statement on his beliefs in literal deification, C.S. Lewis stated in his book, "Mere Christianity" as follows:
The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were "gods" and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.[17]

Protestant theology[edit]

Theosis is not emphasized in Protestant theology except among Quakers who believed that they experienced celestial inhabitation and Methodists/Wesleyans, whose religious tradition has always placed strong emphasis on entire sanctification, and whose doctrine of sanctification has many similarities with the Catholic/Eastern Orthodox concept of theosis or divinization.
Early during the Reformation, thought was given to the doctrine of union with Christ (unio cum Christo) as the precursor to the entire process of salvation and sanctification. This was especially so in the thought of John Calvin.[18]
Henry Scougal's work The Life of God in the Soul of Man is sometimes cited as important in keeping alive among Protestants the ideas central to the doctrine. In the introductory passages of his book, Scougal describes "religion" in terms that evoke the doctrine of theosis:
... a resemblance of the divine perfections, the image of the Almighty shining in the soul of man: ... a real participation of his nature, it is a beam of the eternal light, a drop of that infinite ocean of goodness; and they who are endued with it, may be said to have 'God dwelling in their souls', and 'Christ formed within them'." [19]
Based on their spiritual experiences and tested against the testimony of scripture, George Fox and early Quakers believed that celestial inhabitation was a normal experience within the early church where individuals and communities were led by the living presence of Christ dwelling within them. George Fox wrote:
"The scriptures saith God will dwell in men, and walk in men … Doth not the Apostle say, the saints were partakers of the divine nature? And that God dwells in the saints, and Christ is in them, except they be reprobates? And do not the saints come to eat the flesh of Christ? And if they eat his flesh, is it not within them?"[20]
Theosis as a doctrine developed in a distinctive direction among Methodists,[21] and elsewhere in the pietist movement which reawakened Protestant interest in the asceticism of the early Catholic Church, and some of the mystical traditions of the West. Distinctively, in Wesleyan Protestantism theosis sometimes implies the doctrine of entire sanctification which teaches, in summary, that it is the Christian's goal, in principle possible to achieve, to live without any (voluntary) sin (Christian perfection). In 1311 the Roman Catholic Council of Vienne declared this notion, "that man in this present life can acquire so great and such a degree of perfection that he will be rendered inwardly sinless, and that he will not be able to advance farther in grace" (Denziger §471), to be a heresy. Thus this particular Protestant (primarily Methodist) understanding of theosis is substantially different from that of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican Churches. This doctrine of Christian perfection was sharply criticized by many in the Church of England during the ministry of John Wesley and continues to be controversial among Protestants and Anglicans to this day.[Primary 8]
More recently, the Finnish school of Lutheran thought has drawn close associations between theosis and justification. Primarily spearheaded by Tuomo Mannermaa, this line of theological development grew out of talks between the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Russian Orthodox Church between 1970 and 1986.[22] Mannermaa argues in his book, Christ Present in Faith, that the real exchange between Christ and sinful humanity, a theme prevalent in Luther's writing, is synonymous with Eastern views of theosis. It is in this real exchange which Mannermaa says "the union between Christ and the believer makes the latter a ‘completely divine [person] [sic]."[23] While this departure from traditional Lutheran thought is sometimes hailed as "the threshold of a third Luther Renaissance,"[24] other Lutheran scholars disagree and argue that the idea of theosis violates Luther's theology of the cross principles by ignoring the real distinction that is axiomatic for not only Luther, but for orthodox Christianity as a whole. One of the most prominent scholars is Robert Kolb, who primarily roots this critique in Luther's use of marriage metaphors concerning the Christian's relationship with God. Kolb writes "This view ignores the nature of the ‘union’ of bride and bridegroom that Luther employed so far."[25]
Evangelical scholarship has yielded yet another view of theosis. Patristic scholar Donald Fairbairn has argued that theosis in the Greek Fathers is not an ontological exchange between the Son and the Christian. In general Fairbairn argues that the change that occurs in theosis is "something more than mere status but less than the possession of God's very substance."[26] In his book, Life in the Trinity, he argues that through our relationship with the Son we are brought into the same kind of relationship with the Father (and Spirit) that the Son has. He supports this argument by identifying a distinction between the Son's warm-fellowship with the Father, and his ontological union with the Father. He argues that the Greek Fathers, primarily Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria were clear that we never share ontological union with God, but only this intimate fellowship.
Like Athanasius, but with much more precision, Cyril distinguishes two kinds of unity between the Father and the Son. The first is a unity of substance, and the Father and the Son do not share this kind of unity with us in any way whatsoever. The second, though, is a unity of love or fellowship that the father and the Son have enjoyed from all eternity precisely because of their unity of substance.[27]

Christian universalist theology[edit]

There has been a modern revival of the concept of theosis (often called "manifest sonship" or "Christedness") among Christians who hold to the doctrine of universal reconciliation or apocatastasis, especially those with a background in the charismatic Latter Rain Movement or even the New Age and New Thought movements.[28] The statement of faith of the Christian Universalist Association includes theosis in one of its points.[29][30]
A minority of charismatic Christian universalists believe that the "return of Christ" is a corporate body of perfected human beings who are the "Manifested Sons of God" instead of a literal return of the person of Jesus, and that these Sons will reign on the earth and transform all other human beings from sin to perfection during an age that is coming soon (a particularly "universalistic" approach to millennialism). Some liberal Christian universalists with New Age leanings share a similar eschatology.

Western views on hesychasm[edit]

The practice of ascetic prayer called hesychasm in the Eastern Orthodox Church is centered on the enlightenment or deification, theosis of man.[31]
While Constantinople experienced a succession of councils alternately approving and condemning doctrine concerning hesychasm, the Western Church held no council in which to make a pronouncement on the issue, and the word "hesychasm" does not appear in the Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum (Handbook of Creeds and Definitions), the collection of Roman Catholic teachings originally compiled by Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger.
Despite the fact that the hesychast doctrine of Gregory Palamas has never been officially condemned by the Catholic Church, Western theologians tended to reject it, often equating it with quietism. This identification may have been motivated in part by the fact that "quietism" is the literal translation of "hesychasm". However, according to Kallistos Ware, "To translate 'hesychasm' as 'quietism', while perhaps etymologically defensible, is historically and theologically misleading." Ware asserts that "the distinctive tenets of the seventeenth century Western Quietists are not characteristic of Greek hesychasm."[32] Elsewhere too, Ware argues that it is important not to translate "hesychasm" as "quietism".[33][34]
For long, Palamism won almost no following in the West,.[35] and the distrustful attitude of Barlaam in its regard prevailed among Western theologians, surviving into the early 20th century, as shown in Adrian Fortescue's article on hesychasm in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia.[35][36] In the same period, Siméon Vailhé described some aspects of the teaching of Palamas as "monstrous errors", "heresies" and "a resurrection of polytheism", and called the hesychast method for arriving at perfect contemplation "no more than a crude form of auto-suggestion"[37]
The 20th century saw a remarkable change in the attitude of Roman Catholic theologians to Palamas, a "rehabilitation" of him that has led to increasing parts of the Western Church considering him a saint, even if uncanonized.[38] John Meyendorff describes the 20th-century rehabilitation of Palamas in the Western Church as a "remarkable event in the history of scholarship."[39] Andreas Andreopoulos cites the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia article by Fortescue as an example of how Barlaam's distrustful and hostile attitude regarding hesychasm survived until recently in the West, adding that now "the Western world has started to rediscover what amounts to a lost tradition. Hesychasm, which was never anything close to a scholar's pursuit, is now studied by Western theologians who are astounded by the profound thought and spirituality of late Byzantium."[40]
Some Western scholars maintain that there is no conflict between Palamas's teaching and Roman Catholic thought,[41] and some have incorporated the essence-energies distinction into their own thinking.[42] For example, G. Philips asserts that the essence-energies distinction as presented by Palamas is "a typical example of a perfectly admissible theological pluralism" that is compatible with the Roman Catholic magisterium.[43]
Jeffrey D. Finch claims that "the future of East-West rapprochement appears to be overcoming the modern polemics of neo-scholasticism and neo-Palamism".[44]
Pope John Paul II repeatedly emphasized his respect for Eastern theology as an enrichment for the whole Church, declaring that, even after the painful division between the Christian East and the See of Rome, that theology has opened up profound thought-provoking perspectives of interest to the entire Church. He spoke in particular of the hesychast controversy. The term "hesychasm", he said, refers to a practice of prayer marked by deep tranquillity of the spirit intent on contemplating God unceasingly by invoking the name of Jesus. While from a Catholic viewpoint there have been tensions concerning some developments of the practice, the Pope said, there is no denying the goodness of the intention that inspired its defence, which was to stress that man is offered the concrete possibility of uniting himself in his inner heart with God in that profound union of grace known as theosis, divinization.[45][46]
Among the treasures of "the venerable and ancient tradition of the Eastern Churches" with which he said Catholics should be familiar, so as to be nourished by it, he mentioned in particular "the teaching of the Cappadocian Fathers on divinization (which) passed into the tradition of all the Eastern Churches and is part of their common heritage. This can be summarized in the thought already expressed by Saint Irenaeus at the end of the second century: God passed into man so that man might pass over to God. This theology of divinization remains one of the achievements particularly dear to Eastern Christian thought."[Primary 9]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints[edit]

The Latter Day Saint movement (LDS) teaches the doctrine of exaltation, by which is meant a literal divinization. According to LDS scholars, there are similarities between the Mormon belief of eternal progression and the beliefs found in the patristic writings of the first, second, and third centuries A.D.[5] There exist many references to a more literal belief in deification in the writings of the Church Fathers of Early Christianity which some LDS and non-LDS scholars claim most closely resemble the beliefs of Mormonism than the beliefs of any other modern faith group derived from the Christian tradition.[47]
According to the movement's founder, Joseph Smith, through obedience to Christ and the gradual acquisition of knowledge, the faithful may eventually become gods in the afterlife. Although they achieve this status, they continue to worship and be subject to the Father in the name of Christ.
In contrast with mainstream Christianity, Mormons do not characterize the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in terms of an immaterial, formless substance or essence that sets godhood apart as a separate genus from humanity. They believe this classification of divinity was originated by post-apostolic theologians, whose speculations on God were influenced by Greek metaphysical philosophers[48] such as the Neoplatonists, who described their notions of deity in similar terms of a divine substance/essence (ousia). Latter Day Saints believe that through modern day revelation, God restored the doctrine that all humans are spiritually begotten (Hebrews 12:9, Acts 17:28-29) sons and daughters of Heavenly Father,[49] and thus are all part of the same heavenly family. Because humans are literally God's children, they can also be heirs of His glory, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ (Romans 8:16-17).[50] Mormons believe that the "glory of God is intelligence, in other words, light and truth" (D&C 93:36), therefore the process of inheriting His glory is a process of learning. As a crucial step in this process, all of God's spirit children had the choice to come to earth in order to receive a body and continue their development. Mormons believe that the fallen state of humanity (mortality) was not the result of an unplanned cancellation of God's plan for an eternal earthly paradise, rather it was a crucial step that provides the opportunity to learn and grow in the face of opposition (2 Nephi 2:11, 25). Thus the purpose of earth life is to gain knowledge and experience—which includes overcoming trials and mistakes through the atonement of Jesus Christ, and using the lessons learned to become stronger and wiser, more like their Heavenly Father (D&C 98:3). Those who endure to the end (Matt 24:13, Mark 13:13) while in mortality, as well as those who accept the gospel after death (see baptism for the dead), will be able to dwell in the presence of God, where they can continue to grow in light and truth, which "light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day" (D&C 50:24). Mormons believe that the Father and the Son both possess glorified, immortal bodies (D&C 130:22), and that thanks to Christ's resurrection, humans will also resurrect and inherit this same type of body (Phil 3:21).

Patristic writings[edit]

There were many varied references to divinization in the writings of the Church Fathers, including the following:
  • Irenaeus (c. 130-200)
    • "[T]he Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself."[Primary 10]
    • "'For we cast blame upon [God], because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him invidiousness or grudgingness he declares, "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are sons of the Most High." "[Primary 11]
    • "For it was necessary, at first, that nature should be exhibited; then, after that, that what was mortal should be conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and the corruptible by incorruptibility, and that man should be made after the image and likeness of God."[Primary 11]
  • Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215)
    • "[T]he Word of God became man, that thou mayest learn from man how man may become God."[Primary 12]
    • "For if one knows himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like God"[Primary 13]
    • "[H]is is beauty, the true beauty, for it is God; and that man becomes God, since God so wills. Heraclitus, then, rightly said, “Men are gods, and gods are men.” For the Word Himself is the manifest mystery: God in man, and man God"[Primary 13]
    • "[H]e who listens to the Lord, and follows the prophecy given by Him, will be formed perfectly in the likeness of the teacher—made a god going about in flesh."[Primary 14]
    • "And to be incorruptible is to participate in divinity..."[Primary 15]
  • Justin Martyr (c. 100-165)
    • "[Men] were made like God, free from suffering and death, provided that they kept His commandments, and were deemed deserving of the name of His sons, and yet they, becoming like Adam and Eve, work out death for themselves; let the interpretation of the Psalm be held just as you wish, yet thereby it is demonstrated that all men are deemed worthy of becoming “gods,” and of having power to become sons of the Highest."[Primary 16]
  • Theophilus of Antioch (c. 120-190)
    • "For if He had made him immortal from the beginning, He would have made him God. Again, if He had made him mortal, God would seem to be the cause of his death. Neither, then, immortal nor yet mortal did He make him, but, as we have said above, capable of both; so that if he should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God..."[Primary 17]
  • Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170-235)
    • "And you shall be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ, no longer enslaved by lusts or passions, and never again wasted by disease. For you have become God: for whatever sufferings you underwent while being a man, these He gave to you, because you were of mortal mould, but whatever it is consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon you, because you have been deified, and begotten unto immortality."[Primary 18]
    • "If, therefore, man has become immortal, he will also be God. And if he is made God by water and the Holy Spirit after the regeneration of the laver he is found to be also joint-heir with Christ after the resurrection from the dead."[Primary 19]
  • Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296-373)
    • "Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us"[Primary 20]
    • "for as the Lord, putting on the body, became man, so we men are deified by the Word as being taken to Him through His flesh."[Primary 21]
    • "For He was made man that we might be made God."[Primary 22]
  • Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395)
    • "For just as He in Himself assimilated His own human nature to the power of the Godhead, being a part of the common nature, but not being subject to the inclination to sin which is in that nature (for it says: "He did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth), so, also, will He lead each person to union with the Godhead if they do nothing unworthy of union with the Divine."[Primary 23]
  • Augustine of Hippo (c. 354-430)
    • "'For He hath given them power to become the sons of God.'[John 1:12] If we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods."[Primary 24]
  • Maximus the Confessor
    • "Nothing in theosis is the product of human nature, for nature cannot comprehend God. It is only the mercy of God that has the capacity to endow theosis unto the existing... In theosis, man (the image of God) becomes likened to God, he rejoices in all the plenitude that does not belong to him by nature, because the grace of the Spirit triumphs within him, and because God acts in him."[51]
  • Cyril of Alexandria says that humankind "are called 'temples of God' and indeed 'gods', and so we are."[citation needed]
  • Gregory of Nazianzus implores humankind to "become gods for (God's) sake, since (God) became man for our sake."[citation needed]. Likewise, he argues that the mediator "pleads even now as Man for my salvation; for He continues to wear the Body which He assumed, until He make me God by the power of His Incarnation." [52]
  • Basil of Caesarea stated that "becoming a god is the highest goal of all" [53]

Biblical citations[edit]

Primary source citations[edit]

  1. Jump up ^ Catholic Church (1995), "Article 460", Catechism of the Catholic Church, New York: Doubleday, ISBN 0385479670, retrieved 2012-11-06 
  2. Jump up ^ St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, "Summa Theologiae, First Part of the Second Part, Question 112, Article 1, Response", http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FS_Q112_A1.html, retrieved 2012-11-06  Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. Jump up ^ St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, "Summa Theologiae, First Part of the Second Part, Question 110, Article 1, Response", http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FS_Q110_A1.html, retrieved 2012-11-06  Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. Jump up ^ St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, "Summa Theologiae, Third Part, Question 1, Article 2", http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.TP_Q1_A2.html, retrieved 2012-11-06  Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. Jump up ^ Catherine of Siena (1980), The Dialogue, Suzanne Noffke, trans., New York: Paulist Press, p. 147, ISBN 0809122332 
  6. Jump up ^ St. John of the Cross, OCD, "The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book 2, Chapter 5, Section 7", http://www.ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/ascent.v.v.html, retrieved 2012-11-06  Missing or empty |title= (help)
  7. Jump up ^ Lancelot, Andrewes (1843), Ninety-Six Sermons, Oxford: J H Parker, p. 109, OCLC 907983 
  8. Jump up ^ Wesley, John, Plain Account of Christian Perfection, retrieved 2012-11-06 
  9. Jump up ^ John Paul II, ORIENTALE LUMEN [Eastern Light] (in Latin), retrieved 2012-11-06 
  10. Jump up ^ Irenaeus, "Book 5, Preface", Against Heresies, retrieved 2012-11-06 
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b Irenaeus, "Book 4, Chapter XXXVIII", Against Heresies, retrieved 2012-11-06 
  12. Jump up ^ Clement of Alexandria, "Chapter I", Exhortation to the Heathen, retrieved 2012-11-06 
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b Clement of Alexandria, "Book III, Chapter I", The Instructor, retrieved 2012-11-06 
  14. Jump up ^ Clement of Alexandria, "Book VII, Chapter XVI", The Stromata, or Miscellanies, retrieved 2012-11-06 
  15. Jump up ^ Clement of Alexandria, "Book V, Chapter X", The Stromata, or Miscellanies, retrieved 2013-09-30 
  16. Jump up ^ Justin Martyr, "Chapter CXXIV", Dialogue with Trypho, retrieved 2012-11-06 
  17. Jump up ^ Theophilus of Antioch, "Book II, Chapter 27", To Autolycus, retrieved 2013-09-30 
  18. Jump up ^ Hippolytus of Rome, "Book X, Chapter 30", Refutation of all Heresies, retrieved 2013-09-30 
  19. Jump up ^ Hippolytus of Rome, The Discourse on the Holy Theophany, retrieved 2014-01-08 
  20. Jump up ^ Athanasius, "Discourse I, Paragraph 39", Against the Arians, retrieved 2012-11-06 
  21. Jump up ^ Athanasius, "Discourse III, Paragraph 34", Against the Arians, retrieved 2012-11-06 
  22. Jump up ^ Athanasius, "Section 54", On the Incarnation, retrieved 2012-11-06 
  23. Jump up ^ Gregory of Nyssa, On Christian Perfection, p. 116, retrieved 2013-09-30 
  24. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, "Psalm 50", Exposition on the Book of Psalms, retrieved 2012-11-06 

Secondary source citations[edit]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Cross & Livingston 1997
  2. Jump up ^ George 2006
  3. Jump up ^ Bartos 1999
  4. Jump up ^ Lossky 2002, p. 39
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Millet, Robert L.; Reynolds, Noel B. (1998), "Do Latter-day Saints believe that men and women can become gods?", Latter-day Christianity: 10 Basic Issues, Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, ISBN 0934893322, OCLC 39732987 
  6. Jump up ^ Vlachos 1994
  7. Jump up ^ Lossky 2002
  8. Jump up ^ Maloney 2003
  9. Jump up ^ Christensen & Wittung 2007, p. 259
  10. Jump up ^ Johnston 1990, p. 69
  11. Jump up ^ Espín & Nickoloff 2007, p. 614
  12. Jump up ^ Plater 1992, p. 52
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b c Sauvage 1913, p. 663
  14. Jump up ^ Devine 1913, p. 254
  15. Jump up ^ Stiglmayr 1913, p. 13
  16. Jump up ^ C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), 18.
  17. Jump up ^ Lewis, Mere Christianity, 174—75.
  18. Jump up ^ Tan 2003
  19. Jump up ^ Scougal 1868, p. 13
  20. Jump up ^ George Fox – Great Mystery of the Great Whore in the Works of George Fox, volume 3, pp.181-82
  21. Jump up ^ The Wild Things of God 2012
  22. Jump up ^ Marquart 2000, p. 183
  23. Jump up ^ Mannermaa 2005, p. 43
  24. Jump up ^ Marquart 2000, p. 183, quoting Dr. Ulrich Asendorf
  25. Jump up ^ Kolb 2009, p. 128
  26. Jump up ^ Fairbairn 2003, pp. 100–101
  27. Jump up ^ Fairbairn 2009, p. 36
  28. Jump up ^ Stetson
  29. Jump up ^ The Christian Universalist Association 2012a
  30. Jump up ^ The Christian Universalist Association 2012b
  31. Jump up ^ Chrysostomos 2001, p. 206
  32. Jump up ^ Wakefield, Gordon S. (1983). The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22170-6. , p. 190
  33. Jump up ^ Ware, Kallistos (2000). The inner kingdom. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. p. 102. ISBN 978-0-88141-209-3. 
  34. Jump up ^ Cutsinger, James S. (2002). Paths to the heart: Sufism and the Christian East. World Wisdom, Inc. p. 261. ISBN 978-0-941532-43-3. 
  35. ^ Jump up to: a b Fortescue 1913, p. 301
  36. Jump up ^ Andreopoulos 2005, p. 215
  37. Jump up ^ Vailhé 1909
  38. Jump up ^ John Meyendorff (editor),Gregory Palamas - The Triads, p. xi
  39. Jump up ^ Saint Gregory Palamas (1983). Gregory Palamas. Paulist Press. p. xi. ISBN 978-0-8091-2447-3. 
  40. Jump up ^ Andreas Andreopoulos,Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography (St Vladimir's Seminary Press 2005, ISBN 0-88141-295-3), pp. 215-216
  41. Jump up ^ "Several Western scholars contend that the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas himself is compatible with Roman Catholic thought on the matter" (Michael J. Christensen, Jeffery A. Wittung (editors), Partakers of the Divine Nature (Associated University Presses 2007 ISBN 0-8386-4111-3), p. 243).
  42. Jump up ^ Kallistos Ware in Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (Oxford University Press 2000 ISBN 0-19-860024-0), p. 186
  43. Jump up ^ Michael J. Christensen, Jeffery A. Wittung (editors), Partakers of the Divine Nature (Associated University Presses 2007 ISBN 0-8386-4111-3), p. 243
  44. Jump up ^ Michael J. Christensen, Jeffery A. Wittung (editors), Partakers of the Divine Nature (Associated University Presses 2007 ISBN 0-8386-4111-3), p. 244
  45. Jump up ^ Pope John Paul II and the East Pope John Paul II. "Eastern Theology Has Enriched the Whole Church" (11 August 1996). English translation
  46. Jump up ^ Original text (in Italian)
  47. Jump up ^ Jacobs, Jonathan D. "An Eastern Orthodox Conception of Theosis and Human Nature". 
  48. Jump up ^ http://www.lds.org/liahona/2005/02/what-happened-to-christs-church
  49. Jump up ^ http://www.lds.org/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-2-our-heavenly-family?lang=eng
  50. Jump up ^ "Gospel Topics", LDS.org (LDS Church)  |chapter= ignored (help)
  51. Jump up ^ OCA - St. Maximus the Confessor. Retrieved: 2 October 2013.
  52. Jump up ^ Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations 30.14 (NPNF2 7:315)
  53. Jump up ^ Basil of Caesarea On the Spirit 9.23 (NPNF2 8:16)

References[edit]

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  • Bartos, Emil (1999), Deification in Eastern Orthodox theology : an evaluation and critique of the theology of Dumitru Stăniloae, Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster Press, ISBN 0853649561 
  • Christensen, Michael; Wittung, Jeffery, eds. (2007), Partakers of the Divine Nature, Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, ISBN 0838641113 
  • The Christian Universalist Association (2012a), "Does the CUA have a Statement of Faith?", About Us / Frequently Asked Questions, retrieved 2012-11-06 
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  • Ludlow, Daniel, ed. (1992), "Godhood", Encyclopedia of Mormonism : The history, scripture, doctrine and procedure of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Volume 3, New York: Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-02-904040-9 
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  • Tan, Seng-Kong (October 2003), "Calvin's Doctrine of Our Union with Christ", Quodlibet Journal, 4 5, ISSN 1526-6575, retrieved 2012-11-06 
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  • Vlachos, Hierotheos (1994), The Difference Between Orthodox Spirituality and Other Traditions, Orthodox Christian Information Center, retrieved 2012-11-06 
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