Catechism - being made gods

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A protestent posting in another forum challenged catholics with this from the catechism:

460 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.”

How does one explain this about us becoming God?
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waym
 
2 Peter 1:4, which is quoted in the above paragraph. The language is poor without that understanding. We do not become gods in the sense that the Mormons teach but we participate in the divine nature of God and it is through this participation that we are considered gods.
 
Hey Benedict! We meet again on a forth forum!

Anyway, to answer the question, I will post a response that I had given to a Protestant asking the same question.

I am somewhat new to the study of this doctrine, but I think that I have a sufficient understanding to try to explain it. Needless to say, my understanding isn’t perfect (though that also is true for all Christian doctrine).

Now, am I going to give a highly technical explaination, and hinge my arguement on some distant theoretical concept? I certainly hope not, and I will try to be very concise. So concise in fact that I could explain deification in one word. Grace.

Grace is a participation in the life of God. Through Grace, we are able to receive God’s love and love Him in return.

Let’s take a second though to look at what we do NOT mean when we say deification.
  1. We do not mean that man becomes equal to God, nor possessing any of His attributes or perfections in their full degree. We do not become Truth Itself, nor omnipotent or omniscience.
  2. Neither do we mean that we become part of God as the Buddhists do, our essenses dispersing into some sort of big Ocean of “godness”.
Greg, I want to break down the selection that you bolded. btw, this is a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th Century.
(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).[81]
  1. (The only-begotten Son of God) I am sure that this part is fine with both you and Joe.
  2. (wanting to make us sharers in his divinity) This is repeating what was stated in 2 Peter 1 that I had quoted earlier that Christ wants to make us sharers in His divine nature. (I will also present more Scripture at the end of my post.)
2 Peter 1: (bold added)
3 As all things of his divine power which appertain to life and godliness are given us through the knowledge of him who hath called us by his own proper glory and virtue.
4 By whom he hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world.
  1. (assumed our nature) This is just basic Christology clearly defined at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 but firmly believed by the orthodox Faith from its beginning. I don’t think that this is a point of contention, so I will leave it.
  2. (so that he, made man, might make men gods). I am assuming that this is the what is causing the problem as point 2 was shown to be taken directly from Scripture. However, I don’t suppose that you really disagree with it, but that you have never been confronted with it before. I am not aware that Protestantism denies this article of the Faith. As for the phrase that men might be gods, thus is also taken directly from Scripture.
Psalm 81: (bold added)
1 A psalm for Asaph. God hath stood in the congregation of gods: and being in the midst of them he judgeth gods.
2 How long will you judge unjustly: and accept the persons of the wicked?
3 Judge for the needy and fatherless: do justice to the humble and the poor.
4 Rescue the poor; and deliver the needy out of the hand of the sinner.
5 They have not known nor understood: they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth shall be moved.
6 I have said: You are gods and all of you the sons of the most High.
7 But you like men shall die: and shall fall like one of the princes.
8 Arise, O God, judge thou the earth: for thou shalt inherit among all the nations.
 
(continued)

St. Irenaeus in the 2nd Century truly explains this doctrine better then I could ever hope to. He was also one of the footnotes cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church along with St. Athansius whom I quote below St. Irenaeus.

St. Irenaeus AGAINST HERESIES Book III Chapter 19:
  1. But again, those who assert that He was simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son, as He does Himself declare: “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” But, being ignorant of Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift, which is eternal life; and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace: “I said, Ye are all the sons of the Highest, and gods; but ye shall die like men.” He speaks undoubtedly these words to those who have not received the gift of adoption, but who despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, defraud human nature of promotion into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to the Word of God, who became flesh for them. For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that might receive the adoption of sons?
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St. Athanasius ON THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD:
  1. The Word Incarnate, as is the case with the Invisible God, is known to us by His works. By them we recognise His deifying mission. Let us be content to enumerate a few of them, leaving their dazzling plentitude to him who will behold. As, then, if a man should wish to see God, Who is invisible by nature and not seen at all, he may know and apprehend Him from His works: so let him who fails to see Christ with his understanding, at least apprehend Him by the works of His body, and test whether they be human works or God’s works. 2. And if they be human, let him scoff; but if they are not human, but of God, let him recognise it, and not laugh at what is no matter for scoffing; but rather let him marvel that by so ordinary a means things divine have been manifested to us, and that by death immortality has reached to all, and that by the Word becoming man, the universal Providence has been known, and its Giver and Artificer the very Word of God. 3. For He was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality. For while He Himself was in no way injured, being impossible and incorruptible and very Word and God, men who were suffering, and for whose sakes He endured all this, He maintained and preserved in His own impossibility.
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(continued)

I also have quite a few other Scriptural referrences to this that you may wish to have.

1 John 3:
1 Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth not us, because it knew not him.
2 Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God: and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is.
3 And every one that hath this hope in him sanctifieth himself, as he also is holy.

John 14:
19 Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more. But you see me: because I live, and you shall live.
20 In that day you shall know that I am in my Father: and you in me, and I in you.

Actually I have a ton of Scriptural quotes in referrence to this being one with God, a partaker in his Divinity, but in the interest of my energy, I think that I have sufficiently explained this point.
 
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