Divine Sonship (Help Please)

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Ghosty said:
While the Beatific Vision is certainly part of it, it’s not the whole of it. First, because we become partakers in this life, and secondly because Glorification is a direct part of partaking of the Divine Nature, and itself does not fall under the heading of the Beatific Vision except incidently.

For example, St. Thomas Aquinas, when speaking of the Theological Virtue of Charity in the Summa Theologica (newadvent.org/summa/3023.htm), says:

So when we love a neighbor with infused Charity, we are literally loving them with God’s own power of Love.

St. John of the Cross (post-Trent) writes in “Ascent of Mount Carmel”(catholictreasury.info/Ascent/asc21.htm):

Strictly speaking, the Beatific Vision is the aspect of Divine Sonship where God Himself directly informs the mind without end, creating perfect and never-ending Happiness (and which only occurs in Heaven). This teaching of Divine Sonship, or participating in the Divine Nature, is very central to the Catholic theology of infused Grace, as opposed to imputed Grace taught by certain Protestants; it was perhaps the primary theological difference between the Reformers and the Catholic Church.

Peace and God bless!
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Thank you, Ghosty, for your excellent addition (which I’ve saved to my own files) to the discussion. :tiphat:
 
Semper_Fi said:
Skeptic,

This: newadvent.org/cathen/02364a.htm is what I think of the Catechism passage.

The frailty of the human language to communicate philosophical/theological ideas is apparent in the wording of this passage (which is why the Church continuesto use Latin as its official language). It needs to be explained in the realities of the constant teaching of the Church, of which the Beatific Vision is part of our most Apostolic Tradition.
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I think you are right about the human language trying to communicate these ideas. I would only like to add a couple scriptures that might help the OP see that this is completely in line with scriptural language:

PS 82:6-7
6: I say, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you;
7: nevertheless, you shall die like men, and fall like any prince.”

Then, later, Jesus refers to this Psalm in John 10:32-36

32: Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?”
33: The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself 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 came (and scripture cannot be broken), **36: do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, You are blaspheming,’ because I said, `I am the Son of God’?

So, is the Bible telling us we will literally become gods? Despite LDS teachings to the contrary, I do not believe that is the message being conveyed here. Nor is that the message the Catechism is trying to convey. The Catechism is only using the biblical language to convey its message…which is nicely restated in some of the other posts on this thread.
 
Thanks for the kind words :o

The major difference between the LDS doctrine and the Catholic is that the LDS claimed that we would become gods substantially, meaning we’d be the same kind of thing as God. That is absolutely heretical. We will always be reflecting God, as Bishopite said, and we will never be the substance of Divinity within ourselves. Our nature remains completely distinct from God’s, we being creatures and the Trinity being Divine and infinite.

Peace and God bless!
 
The thing is, the transformation has already begun.

We were always made in the image and likeness of God, both body and soul. That was the cruelty of the serpent’s lie – he tempted Adam and Eve with what God fully meant to give them, and what they possessed already in more fullness than we do. The Fall made God’s image a little less obvious, but it didn’t take it away from us; nothing can.

God then took flesh and dwelt among us; therefore, all human bodies and souls are a little bit divine. Our glorified bodies and souls will be even more so.

Of course, none of that will do us any good if we don’t get on the stick here and start acting like we really believe we’re God’s children.

Eye has not seen and ear has not heard…
 
rwoehmke said:
My apologies, I gave you the bio of the woman who calls herself Mystic Rose. Here is the correct site:

home.nyc.rr.com/mysticalrose/grace3.html
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Thank you! That is quite a lovely summary of Catholic belief, drawing from both East and West; I’ll definately keep that one bookmarked for the future. I actually learned something new: I didn’t know that the priest speaks of deification at every Mass, since that prayer is said quietly during the Consecration ritual.

Peace and God bless!
 
Father Vadja who became a Mormon because of this Doctrine has some intresting information on Theosis in his Masters thesis from Berkley Dominican college.
"In 1998 Jordan Vajda wrote a remarkable master’s thesis at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California, entitled “‘Partakers of the Divine Nature’: A Comparative Analysis of Patristic and Mormon Doctrines of Divinization.”
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The thesis is remarkable both for what it has to say and, perhaps even more strikingly, for who is saying it: Jordan Vajda is a Dominican Catholic priest. At the present time, he serves in the Catholic campus ministry at the Newman Center adjacent to the University of Washington in Seattle.
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“The underlying motive for this thesis,” Father Vajda states in the new introduction that he has written for FARMS, “was my . . . perception that one connection between the Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lay in the fact that those who sought to deny the label ‘Christian’ to the LDS Church were, more often than not, the very same people who would then turn around and attempt to deny this label to the Catholic Church with the same reasons often being used in both instances to justify the conclusion. And since it was easy enough for me to see through the many half-truths, misunderstandings, and even outright errors alleged against the Catholic Church, I suspected that similar critiques leveled against the LDS Church as to its ‘non-Christian’ status were equally flawed.” Accordingly, he decided that he “wanted to reach beyond the rhetoric and discover for [himself] what the LDS Church actually taught,” in the hope of encouraging responsible and accurate interfaith dialogue.
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“I firmly maintain,” writes Father Vajda, “that the Latter-day Saints are owed a debt of gratitude by other Christians because the Saints remind us all of our divine potential. The historic Christian doctrine of salvation theosis, i.e., human divinization for too long has been forgotten by too many Christians.” “Members of the LDS Church,” he promises near the beginning of his thesis, “will discover unmistakable evidence that their fundamental belief about human salvation and potential is not unique nor a Mormon invention. Latin Catholics and Protestants will learn of a doctrine of salvation that, while relatively foreign to their ears, is nevertheless part of the heritage of the undivided Catholic Church of the first millennium. Members of Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches will discover on the American continent an amazing parallel to their own belief that salvation in Christ involves our becoming ‘partakers of the divine nature.’”
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Father Vadjas thesis is availble online here.
farms.byu.edu/publications/papersmain.php
 
Jordan Vajda was at my Dominican parish when he joined the LDS. I’ve spoken with classmates of his, and they were all very astonished that, of all things, he became LDS. They view his thesis as a pre-apologia, since nothing he has to say about theosis isn’t already found in Dominican theology; it’s not as if the LDS had been keeping something alive that had been lost, nor do they have even remotely the same concept of theosis/divinization as the Apostolic Christians do. Their traditional view is about actually becoming the same substance as the Father, just like the Son and Holy Spirit.

Peace and God bless!
 
skeptictank said:
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.
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nativityukr.org/worship/eastern_spirituality.html

This article explains it quite well.

The words from the Catechism come from the words of the Holy Father Saint Athanasius of Alexandria. St Athanasius is the one who wrote the Athanasian creed, the basic Trinitarian formula. He was living at a time when there was a great multitude of heretics around his see, most notably the great Arian heresy which denied the divinity of Christ.

newadvent.org/cathen/01148a.htm

this describes supernatrual adoption.
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]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
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I’m wondering how you as catholics take this section of the catechism.

God Bless,

Skeptictank

I only speak for myself, but it is very similar to my understanding of the Catholic position as it was taught to me, except that I would delete ‘so that we might become God’, as I understand that to be blasphemy. There is but 'ONE God.

I would also ammend ‘become a son of God’ to ‘children of God’. ‘son’ of God is a bit sexist don’t you think?

My understanding is that God in Christ humbled Himself to our nature, in order to elevate us to His. This is echoed in Psalm-8 verse-4 line-1[what is man that you should keep in mind, mortal man that you should care for him] You have made him little less than a god’ 🙂
 
Quote:]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
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I’m wondering how you as catholics take this section of the catechism.
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God Bless,
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Skeptictank
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It is very similar to my understanding of the Catholic position as it was taught to me, except that I would delete ‘so that we might become God’, as I understand that to be blasphemy. There is but 'ONE God.

I would also ammend ‘become a son of God’ to ‘children of God’, ‘son’ of God is a bit sexist don’t you think?

My understanding is that God in Christ humbled Himself to our nature, in order to elevate us to His. This is echoed in Psalm-8 verse-4 line-1[what is man that you should keep in mind, mortal man that you should care for him] Yet you have made him little less than a god’. 🙂
 
Quote:Quote:]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
Click to expand...
I’m wondering how you as catholics take this section of the catechism.
Click to expand...
God Bless,
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Skeptictank
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It is very similar to my understanding of the Catholic position as it was taught to me, except that I would delete ‘so that we might become God’, as I understand that to be blasphemy. There is but ‘ONE’ God. But I have read this text somewhere so am probably being pendantic.

I would also ammend ‘become a son of God’ to ‘children of God’, ‘son’ of God is a bit sexist don’t you think?

My understanding is that God in Christ humbled Himself to our nature, in order to elevate us to His. This is echoed in Psalm-8 verse-4 line-1[what is man that you should keep in mind, mortal man that you should care for him] Yet you have made him little less than a god’. 🙂
 
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Sixtus:
It is very similar to my understanding of the Catholic position as it was taught to me, except that I would delete ‘so that we might become God’, as I understand that to be blasphemy. There is but ‘ONE’ God.
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Yes, and we are called to be united to Him in every way when we enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It is what separates us from His angels. Please read my article linked above.
 
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