CCC 460 sounds like an LDS belief

[TOmNossor]

So what I have tried to show specifically with McConkie is that you seem to be willing to quote him, but I can show that he also recognizes the oneness of God. Here is a statement from St. Irenaeus. I would not suggest that St. Irenaeus should be labeled a polytheist, would you?

Irenaeus - Adv. Her. 3.6.1 “God stood in the in the congregation of the gods, He judges among the gods.” He [here] refers to the Father and the Son, and those who have received the adoption; but these are the Church. (ANF 1.419).

Charity, TOm

 

[TOmNossor]

OfTheCross:

The burden of proof is on you Tom, not me to demonstrate that the statements of LDS leaders/prophets are fully acceptable and conformable to Catholic teaching. All I have received thus far is a few pithy quotes from a couple fathers, JPII, on the concept of diviniztion. Divinization can be defined many different ways, and I still do not think the quotes you posted can be reconciled with the quotes I just posted.

The difference is that the quotes you posted do not take into account the oneness demanded by LDS authorities and scriptures. I acknowledge that there is a oneness demanded within Catholicism and merely state that “men becoming gods” is compatible with this oneness.

Also, I have identified that there are difference between the spectrum of LDS thought and the spectrum of Catholic thought. It is you who fail to recognize that there is a tremendous area of agreement.

Again, I know an intelligent educated Catholic (who has not posted on this board to my knowledge) who utilizes an apologetic that suggests that the CoJCoLDS has not introduced such new and restored doctrines because the Catholic Church continues to believe as the ECF taught that men may become gods.

This thread was about what CCC460 means. It seems that you try to define the CoJCoLDS away from CCC460 despite my insistence that there is a great deal of witness including my personal witness that the CoJCoLDS embraces a deification that is similar to the Catholic Church. All the time you seem unwilling to deal with what CCC460 can mean. You merely insist it mustn’t mean something that a LDS can embrace.

Charity, TOm

 

[darcee]

The point of showing the LDS belief in a personal deification as contrasted to the ECF and CCCs statements of a unification with the divinity of God was to show how far apart the two beliefs are. Your personal interpretation of LDS doctrine aside the two beliefs are not at all similar.

-D

 

[Vincent]

Catholic divinization presupposes that the divine nature is subsistent Existence itself, which is totally possessed the Father, totally possessed by the Son and totally possessed by the Holy Spirit.

Everything participates in the subsistent Existence insofar as they exist contingently. Some of these participate in not just a greater degree but in a unique kind, by being united with the subsistent Existence through charity (i.e. by being made “gods”).

In the LDS understanding, is God the subsistent Existence itself? Or, on the other hand, is God’s existence contingent on the existence of another?

 

[TOmNossor]

darcee:

The point of showing the LDS belief in a personal deification as contrasted to the ECF and CCCs statements of a unification with the divinity of God was to show how far apart the two beliefs are. Your personal interpretation of LDS doctrine aside the two beliefs are not at all similar.

-D

Did you read what John Taylor wrote?

What I present is within the spectrum of available beliefs for LDS; it is basically in alignment with John Taylor (3rd president); and in light of the fact that I can make the ECF sound polytheistic, we can recognize that even the isolated quotes presented by you and others do not explain the entire picture.

And it is not just my personal interpretation. We have Father Vajda who conducted a detailed exploration and found remarkable simularities. Five years later he even choose to become a LDS.

Charity, TOm

 

[TOmNossor]

Vincent:

Catholic divinization presupposes that the divine nature is subsistent Existence itself, which is totally possessed the Father, totally possessed by the Son and totally possessed by the Holy Spirit.

Everything participates in the subsistent Existence insofar as they exist contingently. Some of these participate in not just a greater degree but in a unique kind, by being united with the subsistent Existence through charity (i.e. by being made “gods”).

In the LDS understanding, is God the subsistent Existence itself? Or, on the other hand, is God’s existence contingent on the existence of another?

John Taylor, Blake Ostler, and I are saying that it is through this “uniting with the subsistent Existence through charity” that men are deified (I think).

It should be noted (and will be by others so I will mention it) that it is not outside of the spectrum of available thought for a LDS to speak of a possible “another God above God.” There is no binding LDS doctrine that points to this. And as Blake Ostler points out our scriptures do point to the supremacy of God the Father. Gordon B. Hinckley has recently said that “we do not know very much about that [the idea that God was once a man].” And we should also remember these words from the early church when St. Irenaeus said that we should not “fall into the danger of starting the question whether there is another God above God.”

So, I see in our scriptures words that demand that God has never not been God. I see in our scriptures words that point to God as supreme. But, I do recognize that there are a number of folks who read the scriptures differently and arrive a different explanations. I am in good company with scholars like Blake Ostler and I recognize that if Gordon B. Hinckley doesn’t know much about these things, I can afford to not worry about it much.

Charity, TOm

 

[TOmNossor]

Tmaque:

Please show us the proof that the doctrine of men becoming Gods is “consistent tradition” of the Catholic Church prior to 700 A.D. Also, please give us the biblical proof.

I have been meaning to respond to this. I would still rather do this at this link:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=1624

but it seems like this link is awful hard to respond to in that everyone would like to bring up concerns on new threads and not respond to the words on this thread.

Again, these quotes were not collected by me, I am not so well read, but here they are.

Ignatius - To the Ephesians 4.2 It is therefore profitable for you to be in blameless unity, that ye may also be partakers ,J,P0J,)of God always.

Justin **- 1st Ap. **And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue.(ANF 1.170).

**Justin - Dial. 124 **…thereby it is demonstrated that all men are deemed worthy of becoming “gods”, and of having power to become sons of the Highest.(ANF 1.262).

**Justin - Discourse To The Greeks 5 **The Word exercises an influence which does not make poets: it does not equip philosophers nor skilled orators, but by its instruction it makes mortals immortal, mortals god. (ANF 1.272)

Irenaeus - Adv. Her. 3.6.1 “God stood in the in the congregation of the gods, He judges among the gods.” He [here] refers to the Father and the Son, and those who have received the adoption; but these are the Church. (ANF 1.419).

**Irenaeus - Adv. Her. 3.19.1 **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.(ANF 1.448). [See also 3.6.1]

**Irenaeus - Adv. Her. 4.Pref.4/ 4.1.1 **…there is none other called God by the Scriptures except the Father of all, and the Son, and those who possess the adoption. Since, therefore, this is sure and steadfast, that no other God or Lord was announced by the Spirit, except Him who, as God, rules over all, together with His Word, and those who receive the Spirit of adoption.(ANF 1.463).

 

[TOmNossor]

**Theophilus - To Autolycus 27 **Was man made by nature mortal? Certainly not. Was he, then, immortal? Neither do we affirm this. …He was by nature neither mortal nor immortal. For if He had made him immortal from the beginning, He would have made him God. … keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as a reward from Him immortality, and should become God.(ANF 2.105).

**Clement of Alexandria - Exhortation 1 **…the Word of God became man, that thou mayest learn from man how man may become God.(ANF 2.174).

**Clement of Alexandria - The Instructor 3.1 **It is then, as appears, the greatest of al lessons to know one’s self. For if one know himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like God…But that man with whom the Word dwells does not alter himself, does not get himself up: he has the form which is of the Word; he is made like to God…and that man becomes God, since God so wills. Heraclitus, then, rightly said, “Men are gods, and gods are men.”(ANF 2.271).

Clement of Alexandria - Strom. 4.23 On this wise it is possible for the [true] Gnostic already to have become God. “I said, Ye are gods, and sons of the highest.” (ANF 2.437).

**Clement of Alexandria - Strom. 6.14 **By thus receiving the Lord’s power, the soul studies to be God; …To the likeness of God, then, he that is introduced into adoption and the friendship of God, to the just inheritance of the lords and gods is brought; if he be perfected, according to the Gospel, as the Lord himself taught.(ANF 2.506).

**Clement of Alexandria - Strom. 7.10 **…they are called by the appellation of gods, being destined to sit on thrones with the other gods that have been first put in their places by the Saviour.(ANF 2.539).

Clement of Alexandria - Strom. 7.13 What, then, shall we say of the [true] Gnostic himself? “Know ye not”, says the apostle, “that ye are the temple of God?” The [true] Gnostic is consequently divine, and already holy, God-bearing and God-borne. (ANF 2.547).

**Clement of Alexandria - Strom. 7.16 **But he who has returned from this deception, on hearing the Scriptures, and turned his life to the truth, is, as it were, from being a man made a god.(ANF 2.551)

**Tertullian - Adv. Hermogenes 5 **Well, then, you say, we ourselves possess nothing of God. But indeed we do, and shall continue to do—only it is from Him that we receive it, and not from ourselves. For we shall be even gods, if we shall deserve to be among those of whom He declared, “I have said, Ye are gods,” and “God standeth in the congregation of the gods.” But this comes of His own grace, not from any property in us, because it is He alone who can make gods.(ANF 3.480).

…

 

[TOmNossor]

**Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies 5.29 **The Creator did not wish to make him a god, and failed in His aim; nor an angel,—but a man. For if He had willed to make thee a god, He could have done so. Thou hast the example of the Logos. His will, however, was, that you should be a man, *and * He has made thee a man. But if thou art desirous of also becoming a god, obey Him that has created thee.(ANF 5.151).

**Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies 5.30 **And thou shalt 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 thou hast become God: for whatever sufferings thou didst undergo while being a man, these He gave to thee, because thou wast of mortal mould, but whatever it is consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon thee, because thou hast been deified, and begotten unto immortality. …For the Deity, (by condescension,) does not diminish aught of the dignity of His divine perfection; having made thee even God unto His glory!(ANF 5.153).

**Hippolytus - Discourse on the Holy Theophany 8 **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.(ANF 5.236).

**Origen - Contra Celsus 3.28 **…they see that from Him there began the union of the divine with the human nature, in order that the human, by communion with the divine, might rise to be divine, not in Jesus alone, but in all those who not only believe, but enter upon the life which Jesus taught, and which elevates to friendship with God, and communion with Him every one who lives according to the precepts of Jesus.(ANF 4.475).

**Origen - Comm. on John 2.2,3. **…the Savior says in His prayer to the Father, “That they may know Thee the only true God;” but that all beyond the Very God is made God by participation in His divinity…And thus the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other gods beside Him, of whom God is the God, as it is written, “The God of gods, the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth.” It was by the offices of the first-born that they became gods, for He drew from God in generous measure that they should be made gods, and He communicated it to them according to His own bounty. The true God, then, is “The God”, and those who are formed after Him are gods, images, as it were of Him the prototype. …Now it is possible that some may dislike what we have said representing the Father as the one true God, but admitting other beings besides the true God, who have become gods by having a share of God. They may fear that the glory of Him who surpasses all creation may be lowered to the level of those other beings called gods. We drew this distinction between Him and them that we showed God the Word to be to all the other gods the minister of their divinity.(ANF 10.323).

 

[TOmNossor]

Cyprian - Treatise 6.11 Therefore of this mercy and grace the Word and Son of God is sent as the dispenser and master, who by all the prophets of old was announced as the enlightener and teacher of the human race. He is the power of God,He is the reason, He is His wisdom and glory; He enters into a virgin; with the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, He is endued with flesh; God is mingled with man. This is our God, this is Christ, who, as the mediator of the two, puts on man that He may lead them to the Father. What man is, Christ was willing to be, that man may be what Christ is. (ANF 5.468).

Methodius - On the Passion of Christ 2 For the Word suffered, being in the flesh affixed to the cross, that He might bring man, who had been deceived by error, to His supreme and godlike majesty. (ANF 6.400).

**Lactantius - The Divine Institutes 2.9 **He produced a Spirit like to Himself, who might be endowed with the perfections of God the Father. …Then He made another being, in whom the disposition of the divine origin did not remain. …For he envied his predecessor, who through his steadfastness is acceptable and dear to God the Father. This being, who from good became evil by his own act, is called by the Greeks diabolus: we call him accuser, because he reports to God the faults to which he himself entices us. God, therefore, when He began the fabric of the world, set over the whole work that first and greatest Son, and used Him at the same time as a counsellor and artificer, in planning, arranging, and accomplishing, since He is complete both in knowledge, and judgement, and power.(ANF 7.52-53).

Lactantius - The Divine Institutes 6.23 If anyone can incline toward this and strive after it, the Lord will own him as a servant, the Master will acknowledge this man as His disciple. The man will triumph over the earth. He will be exactly similar to God (hic erit consimilis Deo) who has embraced the virtue of God. (Latin text ANF 7.190).

**Athanasius - De Incarnation 54 **For He was made man that we might be made God.(NF 4.65).

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***Athanasius - Defence of the Nicene Definition 14 **…the Word was made flesh in order to offer up this body for all, and that we, partaking of His Spirit, might be deified, a gift which we could not otherwise have gained than by His clothing Himself in our created body, for hence we derive our name of “men of God” and “men in Christ.” But as we, by receiving the Spirit, do not lose our own proper substance, so the Lord, when made man for us, and bearing a body, was no less God; for He was not lessened by the envelopment of the body, but rather deified it and rendered it immortal.(NF 4.159).

**Athanasius - Contra Arians 1.11.38 **…but rather He Himself has made us sons of the Father, and deified men by becoming Himself man.(NF 4.329).

 

[TOmNossor]

**Athanasius - Contra Arians 3.25.25 **…and as we are sons and gods because of the Word in us, so we shall be in the Son and in the Father, and we shall be accounted to have become one in Son and in Father…(NF 4.407).

**Athanasius - Contra Arians 3.28.48 **For now the flesh had risen and put off its mortality and been deified.(He is here speaking of Christ’s flesh). (NF 4.420).

Hilary of Poitiers - De Trinitate 9.38 For the object to be gained was that man might become God. But the assumed manhood could not in any wise abide in the unity of god, unless, through unity with God, it attained to unity with the nature of God. Then, since God the Word was in the nature of God, the Word made flesh would in its turn also be in the nature of God. (PNF 9.167)

Hilary of Poitiers - De Trinitate 10.7 For when God was born to be man the purpose was not that the Godhead should be lost, but that, the Godhead remaining, man should be born to be God. Thus Emmanuel is His name, which is God with us, that God might not be lowered to the level of man, but man raised to that of God. (PNF 9.183-184)

**Gregory Nazianzen - The Third Theological Oration(Oration 29.19) **While His inferior Nature, the Humanity, became God, because it was united to God, and became One Person because the Higher Nature prevailed … in order that I too might be made God so far as He is made Man.(PNF 7.308)

G.N. - The Fourth Theological Oration(30.3) What greater destiny can befall man’s humility than that he should be intermingled with God, and by this intermingling should be deified.(PNF 7.310)

…

 

[TOmNossor]

**Basil - On the Spirit 9.23 **Hence comes foreknowledge of the future, understanding of mysteries, apprehension of what is hidden, distribution of good gifts, the heavenly citizenship, a place in the chorus of angels, joy without end, abiding in God, the being made like to God, and, the highest of all, the being made God.(PNF 8.16)

(see 1.2 …so far as possible with human nature, to be made like unto God. PNF 8.2)

Augustine - Letters 140.4 This is called adoption. For we were something before we were the sons of God, and we received the benefit of becoming what we were not, just as the one who adopted, before adoption, was not yet the son of the one who adopts him; still, he was one who could be adopted. From this begetting by grace we distinguish that son who, although He was the Son of God, came that He might become what He was not; nevertheless, He was something else, and this something was the Word of God, by whom all things were made, and the true light which enlightens every man, and God with God. Still, we were something, and this same something was much lower, that is sons of men. He therefore descended that we might ascend, and, while remaining in His own nature, became a sharer in our nature, so that we, while remaining in our own nature, might become sharers in His nature; but not in the same way, for He did not become worse by sharing in our nature, but we become better by sharing in His, (Fathers of the Church volume 11, pp. 64, 65.)

***Augustine - On the Psalms 50.2 **It is evident then, that He hath called men gods, that are deified of His Grace, not born of His Substance. For He doth justify, who is just through His own self, and not of another; and He doth deify who is God through Himself, not by the partaking of another. But He that justifieth doth Himself deify, in that by justifying He doth make sons of God. “For He that given them power to become sons of God”. If we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods: but this is the effect of Grace adopting, not of nature generating. For only the Son of God, God, and one God with the Father, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, was in the beginning the Word, and the Word with God, the Word God. The rest that are made gods, are made by His own Grace, are not born of His Substance, that they should be the same a He, but that by favour they should come to Him, and be fellow-heirs with Christ. …“But we know,” he saith,“that when He shall have appeared, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” The Only Son is like him by birth, we like by seeing.(PNF 8.178).

**Jerome - Homily 14 **…That we are gods, not so by nature, but by grace. “But as many as received him he gave power of becoming sons of God.” I made man for that purpose, that from men they may become gods. “I said: You are gods, all of you sons of the most High.”(The Fathers of the Church 48.106)

John Chrysostom - Homilies on the Acts #32 …the man can become God, and a child of God. For we read, “I have said, Ye are gods, all of you are the children of the Most High.” (Ps. lxxxii. 6) And what is greater, the power to become both God and angel and child of God is put into his own hands.(PNF 11.205)

 

[TOmNossor]

And from much latter than 700AD:

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**Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica IIIaQ1article2 **Fifthly, with regard to the full participation of the Divinity, which is the true bliss of man and end of human life; and this is bestowed upon us by Christ’s humanity, for Augustine says in a sermon (xiii, de Temp.): “God was made man, that man might be made God.” (Christian Classics IV.2021).

Thomas Aquinas - Opusculum 57.1-4 The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make us gods. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 116).

 

[darcee]

TOm, have you actually read these? Do you not understand the concept of becoming one in the body of Christ, the concept of Divine adoption or the idea that the Church is the Bride of Christ?

Do you not realize that the LDS church really does teach that men will become God and God was once a man and that they will unite with their wives in eternity and procreate spirit children who will in turn worship them? This has been a consistant teaching since Joseph Smith. This is the entire concept of exaltation. It is NOT within the scope of LDS belief to think that exaltation is the same as divine adoption or becoming one with God in the Body of Christ.

-D

 

[OfTheCross]

TOmNossor:

So what I have tried to show specifically with McConkie is that you seem to be willing to quote him, but I can show that he also recognizes the oneness of God. Here is a statement from St. Irenaeus. I would not suggest that St. Irenaeus should be labeled a polytheist, would you?

Irenaeus - Adv. Her. 3.6.1 “God stood in the in the congregation of the gods, He judges among the gods.” He [here] refers to the Father and the Son, and those who have received the adoption; but these are the Church. (ANF 1.419).

Charity, TOm

From the Catholic viewpoint St. Irenaeus is making a simple statement against FALSE gods. The ONE TRUE GOD judges all of the FALSE PAGAN gods. He is making no admission that there are other true “gods” that exist in reality, he is only admitting that there are many false gods who do not exist in reality that are being worshipped. There is nothing in this quote that could be used to support divinization.

To explain every quote of the ECF’s in context (and in the greater context of Catholic teaching) would take a great deal of effort, and quite honestly I don’t think I would be qualified to undertake such an assignment.

It is interesting how the LDS, very similar to Protestants, will read their doctrines and predjudices into our dear Catholic Fathers to try to bolster their claims in favor of their “resurrected Church”.
Both claim the very Bride of Christ, the Church, fell into apostasy. This is the most basic prerequisate to any counter-claim that the Church has now been resurrected.

Christ died to save and reconcile mankind to Himself and established a Church to acheive this end until the end of time. What a feeble and impotent God if His Church lasted a mere one hundred (or five hundred) years after his death. If the Church ever failed and apostasized, Christianity is dead and damned and never to be resurrected. I began to see this very clearly prior to my conversion, and see it even more clearly today.

It is difficult to continue such a discussion. Catholic divinization is simply what has been stated over and over and over in this thread. I assure you that the LDS concept of divinization is not allowable to be believed by a Catholic.

If I am misunderstanding the LDS concept of divinization (or perhaps your personal view of divinization) forgive me. It is so easy to talk past eachother in these discussions. I have learned from your posts, and am glad you post here. I will pray that you continue to seach with an honest heart for Truth and will pray with the Mother of Christ and all the Saints that you will return someday to the Catholic Church.

Charity in Kind,

Peter John

 

[Tmaque]

Tom,

Thanks for all the quotes but they still do not demonstrate that any of the early Christians, these scholars included, believed in the LDS concept of man becoming a God with his own world to have dominion over. It’s clear from ALL of the quotes that through Christ’s sacrifice we become sons of God through God’s embrace of us. Nowhere is there the suggestion that God was once a man, has a physical body, has sex with his resurrected wives, etc. You are taking the simple concept (that when we become immortal we in essence become God THROUGH God) and twisting into ammuntion for LDS beliefs which go far, far beyond what the ECF were trying to say. You’re seeing what you WANT to see Tom, not what the ECF wanted to convey.