Divinization, lets hear it

[DasErlibnis]

Okay. So I struggle with the concept of Divinization. Yeah, I know its in the Catechism, but this is a really contentious issue, and the Catechism’s address of it is so inadequate.

I’ve read Aquinas’ thoughts and Augustine’s too. But I find it all very wanting. There is just very little to actually work with.

The definitions are even ambiguous. So are the premises. And the logic, well, it hardly exists.

So I’ll state the specific problem to be addressed, give this a little “focus”:

A thing cannot both be and not be at the same time. So, are Saints gods? Also, why the different words? Stick with one. But the bigger issue is, if we become gods, presumably because we move into Kairos and leave the Chronos, but we are still dependent on God for our existence, well, then, we could not be God because being God means not being dependent for anything.

I’m going to clarify the use of the terms. On some occasions it can be reads that we become ‘gods’: not the little “g”. On other occasions however, it says that we become “God”. Very different.

But I don’t think that “saint” is synonymous with “god” or “God”. God is greater.

I hope this gets a lot of new sources and answers. I’m at a loss here.

 

[Crux_Sancta]

Divinization is a topic which I’ve brought up to priests, and when I asked them if it was in any way making human beings into gods, they usually claimed that this was not to be taken literally, but that it was the effect of sanctifying grace to raise men to the divine nature. This seems to be the prevalent view.

However, I find this hard to reconcile with scripture, the writings of the Church fathers, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, none of which seem to suggest that “become gods” is non-literal.

Of course, acting as a “god” would involve doing things contrary to scripture, and putting one’s own will ahead of God’s, so it is a difficult concept. Christ, however, was God and a suffering servant, empty of his own will, and I think that is the key to understanding how man could be made “a god” and still serve God. But I may be wrong.

 

[GelasianumVetus]

The Eastern Church Fathers are going to be of much more help to you in this area than the Western Fathers or Doctors. This was dealt with a lot more in the East than in the West and they have a more developed theology of it. It really is the basis of Eastern Christian spirituality.

The idea is to be taken literally or non-literally depending on what you are meaning by God or gods. The whole concept of divinization (theosis) has to be looked at through the lens of the Incarnation. We come to, in some mysterious way, share in the divine nature, analogously to how Christ came to share in our human nature. We do not become ‘gods’ in any way separate from God. We do not lose our human ‘substance’. We do not become other ‘persons’ of the Trinity. We are ‘gods’ in the sense that the Trinity has fully transformed us into an image of itself, and so, through Christ’s uniting with our humanity, we come to be united, in some mysterious way, with his divinity. Our nature is completely transformed by our union with Christ and the gift of the Spirit, to a place where it is so filled with and radiant of the divine that it is ‘divine’. But we are not God, we are not of divine substance, we are not divine persons. We become divinized human persons.

St. Maximus the Confessor in the Philokalia: “For it is clear that He who became man without sin (cf. Heb. 4:15) will divinize human nature without changing it into the divine nature, and will raise it up for his own sake to the same degree as He lowered himself for man’s sake. This is what St Paul teaches mystically when he says, ‘…that in the ages to come he might display the overflowing richness of His grace’ (Eph. 2:7).”

 

[fhansen]

Okay. So I struggle with the concept of Divinization. Yeah, I know its in the Catechism, but this is a really contentious issue, and the Catechism’s address of it is so inadequate.

I’ve read Aquinas’ thoughts and Augustine’s too. But I find it all very wanting. There is just very little to actually work with.

The definitions are even ambiguous. So are the premises. And the logic, well, it hardly exists.

So I’ll state the specific problem to be addressed, give this a little “focus”:

A thing cannot both be and not be at the same time. So, are Saints gods? Also, why the different words? Stick with one. But the bigger issue is, if we become gods, presumably because we move into Kairos and leave the Chronos, but we are still dependent on God for our existence, well, then, we could not be God because being God means not being dependent for anything.

I’m going to clarify the use of the terms. On some occasions it can be reads that we become ‘gods’: not the little “g”. On other occasions however, it says that we become “God”. Very different.

But I don’t think that “saint” is synonymous with “god” or “God”. God is greater.

I hope this gets a lot of new sources and answers. I’m at a loss here.

All experiences truly worth having in the ultimate sense, such as the Beatific Vision, are supernatural, attainable only as a gift. God can certainly have us partake of His divine nature, experience the goodness of Himself directly, without our being Him; we’ll always be created beings. Having said that, we’re already part of Him, expressions of Him, images of Him-we just don’t act like it here very well at all and can’t relate to it yet.

 

[DasErlibnis]

Why use the specific words, “God” and “gods”? Why not just say “saints”?

They are not the same. Very very different. The words have meaning, which until now, I have never known to be synonymous. One is dependent, the other is not. And that part is critical. And for that their definitions are utterly different.

Saying we will become gods, or even saying we will become God is just one step too far. It’s easy to get excited about, I know I am. I can only hope to be a Saint, and what a glorious day that would be! But I recognize that being a saint means that we receive power from God to do God’s work, and living in God’s time (koine) means not being limited by our physical bodies in time or space, we are eternal, and we transcend our bodies physical properties. But still, being dependent means we are not God, and being real means we are not gods. We are “other”, we are “holy”, we are “saints”. And I have not found any justification for calling ourselves God.

Anyway, that is my objection. If it is so that we become God, I don’t know what I’m missing.

 

[DasErlibnis]

It should be added that those Saints who wrote that they are now God, were not, definitely not, speaking metaphorically. I pretty keen about discerning the differente senses of text. And I’m not bad with hermeneutics. No, it was literal.