I know this question has come up on these boards before, and I have looked at the responses and not been able to understand. I would request that those responding not resort to convoluted language or stock phrases with no added explaination if you can help it. just give me a plain answer. pretend I am a not very bright ten year old.my question is: theosis or divinization, deification whatever you want to call it, what EXACTLY is meant by this? at the end of the day does it simply mean that those in heaven will be filled with God’s nature, and absorbed into his being in a certain way while still remaining his creatures, just sanctified, purified, and drawn completely into communion with him through Christ etc. second scenario, if this is the case why all the talk about humans becoming Gods? I thought I understood when I ran across phrases such as men will become God, and took it to mean that we will be so absorbed by God as to be completely sharing in his nature, but it is the S on the end of the word Gods that gets me. what does this mean. I can easily see someone hearing this and immediately picture themself in heaven being omnicient omnipotent, omnipresent and with powers of creation even the ability to hurl lightning bolts like zeus or something. or even as a God and creator of another planet etc. this second way of thinking is very distressing and does not sound at all kosher. what is meant by these things in the most elementary terms possible. is it the first scenario I described?
My friend Google came up with paragraph 460 in the *Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition. *This particular paragraph refers to us as “partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1: 3-4) Google then dropped me in the middle of the
CCC section “Grace and Justification.” While I did not read this section, I did spot a reference to “the *sanctifying or deifying grace *received in Baptism.” in *CCC *1999.
Since my brain is older than dirt, I would start with something simple like Genesis 1: 26-27 when explaining deification to a ten year old. We need to picture God as a pure spirit without human ears. We, human creatures, are both spirit and matter aka soul and body. Because we have a spiritual soul, we are kind of like God in a small way. We can say that we are in the [spiritual] image of God.
Amazingly, being in the “spiritual image” is enough so that we can share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life here on planet earth and in joy eternal, never turning away from being face to face with God aka the Beatific Vision in heaven. A 10 year old might ask if he would need his smart phone in heaven. Maybe not a smart phone; however, we need to be in the State of Sanctifying Grace. (Information source.
CCC 355 -357;
CCC Glossary, Sanctifying Grace, page 898; *CCC *Glossary, Beatific Vision, page 867))
It would be a good idea to remind our ten year old that when someone is Baptized, that girl or boy becomes an adopted child of God. This means that the girl or boy has received spiritual sanctifying grace because her or his spiritual soul is in the spiritual image of the Maker of heaven and earth of all things visible, and invisible. Our soul is real, yet, it is invisible to our human eyes. (Creed professed at Sunday Holy Sacrifice of the Mass)
My point is that when it comes to explaining deification, one must start with the basics of our own spiritual soul and what Sanctifying Grace is. Sanctifying Grace does not automatically turn us into a full-fledged deity. When we are baptized, we keep our human nature. In some way, we need to understand that being in the image of God is based on our spiritual soul which is directly created at our conception. (Information source. *CCC *362-366)
Once a ten year old is clear about being in the image of God, one might ask – Are you the same as God? Recall that God does not eat junk food because He does not have a material anatomy like ours. I cannot speak for all adults, but a ten year old knows the difference between a human person and God. God does not need a smart phone.
The word deify usually means to make a god out of something, human or animal. When it is understood that Baptism’s sanctifying grace does not change our material/physical bodies into something new and different, but rather it allows us to share in God’s own life, then one can understand deification in the real sense that we become “partakers of the divine nature.” (
CCC 460)
