CCC 460- man actually become God?

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Omyo12

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I was reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church and in reading CCC 460 I came to some confusion
CCC 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.”
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What does this mean??

Also is this related to
John 1:12-13
But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, 13 who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.
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God is Holiness, Justice, and Love and Mercy Itself. By being holy, just, loving and merciful, by imitating the Lord, we become like God. We become, in a sense, gods. Not actual gods but gods in the sense that we share in the Nature of God. All creatures desire perfection, all living things desire God, desire to become like Him, and the way to share in God’s Nature is to share in His Attributes: Holiness, Justice, and Love and Mercy. For it is God who says how we are to imitate Him, since He created us and He makes us like Himself.
 
In Orthodox Christianity, this is referred to as “divinization” – the process by which we become godly or Christlike. We don’t actually become God, but, as we grow in holiness, we become more and more like God, in whose image and likeness we were created.
 
Men do not become gods, not even angels.

However God is the ultimate good, therefore any good we do brings us closer to God, evil brings us away from God.
 
This is a metaphysical idea, one that atheists abhore, denying metaphysics in the first place.

As vaguely as I understand metaphysics, which is what is the entire question here, that is the gift described here, that we will become God-like, as much as that is possible, being the creatures that we are.

Mormons have no problem with this, and actually believe that they will become gods in their own right after death. (If I’m not misinformed on this.)

I suspect that the idea is that we become an ideal spouse of God, like Eve was a “suitable” partner for Adam, drawn into existence from his own flesh.
 
2 Peter 1:4 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.

How much of that divine nature do we need to partake of?

Doesn’t that actually connect with this passage?

John 19:33 The Jews answered him: For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, maketh thyself God. 34 Jesus answered them: Is it not written in your law: I said you are gods? 35 If he called them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken, and the scripture cannot be broken;
 
Jesus was calling them gods because they stood there in God’s place judging over life and death matters.
I find paragraph 460 particularly odd, it is very mormonistic or Joyce Meyer like…

460 The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”:78 "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."79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."80 "**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 **
 
Eucharisted said:
God is Holiness, Justice, and Love and Mercy Itself. By being holy, just, loving and merciful, by imitating the Lord, we become like God. We become, in a sense, gods. Not actual gods but gods in the sense that we share in the Nature of God. All creatures desire perfection, all living things desire God, desire to become like Him, and the way to share in God’s Nature is to share in His Attributes: Holiness, Justice, and Love and Mercy. For it is God who says how we are to imitate Him, since He created us and He makes us like Himself.
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This is a good explanation, it’s worth noting that it is on this we should base how we treat one an other. Always bare in mind, that whatever you do to your brothers and sisters here on earth you do to God, if that makes any sense to the OP. Literally physically to God? No, not quite since God the Father has never been incarnate, and the Son sits in Glory at his right hand while the Holy Spirit is well, spirit all mysteriously one. But in the same sense discussed in the quotation above, whatever we do for eachother here on earth, we do for God. Both good and bad alike. For a biblical example, see Matthew 25, starting vs 31 to the end of the chapter.
 
This is called the Theosis, its an ancient doctrine drawn partly from 2 Peter 1:4. This doctrine is NOTHING like the Mormon doctrine that believes man becomes a god. Theosis is about sanctification
 
myfavoritmartin said:
Jesus was calling them gods because they stood there in God’s place judging over life and death matters.
I find paragraph 460 particularly odd, it is very mormonistic or Joyce Meyer like…
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That would be the other way round. Joyce Meyer is our contemporary, and the mormons go back less than 200 years.

The staggering dogma of theosis is as old as the creed (for instance John Damascene and Athanasius taught it with particular clarity). It is the realization, that what God is by Nature, man becomes by Grace (Athanasius).

God being pure love, wants to give us as much as he can. God being omnipotent is capable of giving us everything. He wants us to share fully in the Divine Life and Love of the Trinity.

What the Mormons or Joyce Meyer may have said since then, is but an imitation or distortion of one of the most beautiful pearls of orthodox Christian teaching.
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Church_Militant said:
2 Peter 1:4 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.

How much of that divine nature do we need to partake of?
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By being partakers of the divine nature it seems to me at least that Peter is/was saying when we are born-again we are given everything necessary for life and godliness…Not that we become divine by any means. I mean is that not part of the riches of our salvation?
 
so the main thing i noticed in paragraph 460 is that gods, is a little g. not a big G. the same is true when Jesus uses the term in John 10:34 -

“Jesus answered them: Is it not written in your law: I said you are gods? [35] If he called them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken, and the scripture cannot be broken; [36] Do you say of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?”

obviously if the Catholic church taught that we can become Gods, that there would be massive amounts of teaching on this issue. because you know, becoming a god would be the single most important thing wouldn’t it?

clearly this is an expression meant to associate partaking of Christs divinity with becoming like Jesus which is what just about every church teaches to do. But I am a new catholic. i haven’t even done the RCIA yet. but i have studied the bible for a long time as both a protestant and catholic. :dts:
 
It’s not just through St. Peter’s teaching, but also from Jesus. Remember what He ask Saul, “why do you persecute Me?”. We are the Body of Christ.

Think about that for a minute and ponder the ancient Church teaching.
 
God can not do the impossible, only the possible, God is Pure Act, in man there is Potency and Act. God is Omnipotence, Omniscience,Subsistence, Infinite, and infallible. God is Existence
Man is created, finite, fallible, dependent, whose existence depends on God.

God does “endow” man out of His love, and benevolence with the graces that come from the Holy Spirit, sanctifying , and perfecting man in all the virtues. Through the Holy Spirit given by Christ he becomes an adopted son of God. By transformation man becomes LIKE God, another Christ. He never becomes God Man shares in God’s divinity, just as the Church shares in God’s infallibility “by endowment” graces freely given. God can not create God,that is impossible the very concepts of creation, and God are opposed. If we interpret scripture to mean otherwise we are in error.
 
Eucharisted said:
God is Holiness, Justice, and Love and Mercy Itself. By being holy, just, loving and merciful, by imitating the Lord, we become like God. We become, in a sense, gods. Not actual gods but gods in the sense that we share in the Nature of God. All creatures desire perfection, all living things desire God, desire to become like Him, and the way to share in God’s Nature is to share in His Attributes: Holiness, Justice, and Love and Mercy. For it is God who says how we are to imitate Him, since He created us and He makes us like Himself.
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Actually I think this is largely incorrect. The basis of divinization/theosis is baptism, not imitation. Imitation is part of it, but without baptism there is no theosis. It is by God’s grace that we become partakers of the divine nature. It is by supernaturally infused virtues, not natural virtues. All men desire God, but only Christians are divinized.
 
I was reading something in c.s.lewis today and he points out that there is no plural of God – not a grammatical rule, but a theological one. We know, elsewhere, that there is only one God, as the first commandment implies.

Lewis said this while writing about a different subject.
 
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