Divinization

[matthewleeser5]

I new to the forums.

Would anyone be able to confirm a statement for me with regards to divinization? And provide any futher comment to help me understand what divinization is all about?

Jesus was a divine person who possed a fully human and fully divine nature. So when we become justified when become Children of God. So, God communicates and we received Gods divine nature. So, we are a human person but yet we have a fully human and fully divine nature?

 

[passus]

No, we never receive a divine nature. The divine nature is proper only to the Godhead.

 

[Cecilianus]

Yes, divinization (theosis) is a doctrine of the Church, based on 2 Peter 1:4 which promises that we will become “partakers of the divine nature”. Following this, St. Irenaeus said “God became man so that men might become gods”. (This saying was quoted by and therefore occasionally attributed to St. Athanasius the Great, over a century later.)

It is also taught quite clearly by the Greek Fathers. Most of the Latin Fathers preferred to speak of the same doctrine in terms of filiation, but some spoke directly of “divinization” (such as St. Benedict and his passage on the “divinizing Light” which was identified by the Greeks - St. Basil the Great, St. Maximos the Confessor, St. Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas - with the manifestation or “energies” of God). I read a passage by a Western saint recently which spoke of it as well, though I cannot remember where.

To deny the real change in our soul from the “old Adam” to the “new man” was the main heresy of the Protestants; the main difference that separates Protestants from Catholics and Orthodox is the doctrine of theosis by grace. As the priest whispers shortly before the Consecration, “May the mystery of this water and wine enable us to share in the divinity of Christ, Who humbled Himself to partake in our humanity.”

 

[FCEGM]

I new to the forums.

Would anyone be able to confirm a statement for me with regards to divinization? And provide any futher comment to help me understand what divinization is all about?

Jesus was a divine person who possed a fully human and fully divine nature. So when we become justified when become Children of God. So, God communicates and we received Gods divine nature. So, we are a human person but yet we have a fully human and fully divine nature?

Welcome to CAF, matthew.

We can “become” god-like by our participating in the life of Christ in the bosom of the Father, but we can never by nature be what each Person of the Trinity is and has by virtue of their Divine Nature.

We can, though, by the grace of the Incarnation of the Son, rise to share in that glory - and already participate in it here and now, though often unawares, through our participation in Christ - initially through Baptism, and subsequently through faithfulness to the sacramental life of the Church. Now humans may share in His perfection by the grace won for us in Christ. What we can never be is what God is in Himself. By His grace He allows us to participate in the perfection of His Divinity, but it is never ours on our own since we are creatures.

St. John of the Cross addresses the soul’s call to this participation in his writings; some examples:

"Because we said that God makes use of nothing other than love, it may prove beneficial to explain the reason for this before commenting on the stanza. The reason is that all our works and all our trials, even though they be the greatest possible, are nothing in the sight of God. For through them we cannot give him anything or fulfill his only desire, which is the exaltation of the soul. Of these other things he desires nothing for himself, since he has no need of them. If anything pleases him, it is the exaltation of the soul. Since there is no way by which he can exalt her more than by making her equal to himself, he is pleased only with her love. For the property of love is to make the lover equal to the object loved.1 Since the soul in this state possesses perfect love, she is called the bride of the Son of God, which signifies equality with him. In this equality of friendship the possessions of both are held in common, as the Bridegroom himself said to his disciples: I have now called you my friends, because all that I have heard from my Father I have manifested to you [Jn. 15:15]. (Stanza 28, The Spiritual Canticle).

“. . .the Bridegroom [Christ] communicates Himself to the soul by means of the adornment of these virtues, He feeds on the soul, transforming her into Himself, now that she is prepared and seasoned with the flowers of virtues, gifts, and perfections, the seasonings with which, and among which, He feeds on her. By means of the Holy Spirit, who prepares the dwelling, these virtues delight the Son of God so that through them He may feed more on the love of the soul. This is the characteristic of the Bridegroom: to unite Himself with the soul amid the fragrance of these flowers.” Stanza 17, #10, SC.

"Turn Your face toward the mountains. . .The face of God is the divinity, and the mountains are the soul’s faculties (memory, intellect, and will). This verse is like saying: Let Your divinity shine on my intellect by giving it divine knowledge, and on my will by imparting to it divine love, and on my memory with the divine possession of glory.

“The soul asks in this line for everything she possibly can ask of Him. She is no longer satisfied with the knowledge and communication of the “back” of God - which was His communication to Moses [Ex. 33:23] - and which is knowledge of Him in His effects and works; she can only be satisfied with God’s face, which is an essential communication of the divinity of the soul. This communication is not brought about through any means, but through a certain contact of the soul with the divinity. This contact is something foreign to everything sensory and accidental, since it is a touch of naked substances - of the soul and the divinity.” Stanza 19, #4, SC.

 

[Religio71]

yes, this is all quite different from the Mormon doctrine of exaltation, which is where we can become gods, co-heirs in Christ, but it is because we are all literally children of God, and thus have a divine nature.

 

[matthewleeser5]

Thank you for the helpful information Guys!! :

 

[jonnyws]

I new to the forums.

Would anyone be able to confirm a statement for me with regards to divinization? And provide any futher comment to help me understand what divinization is all about?

Jesus was a divine person who possed a fully human and fully divine nature. So when we become justified when become Children of God. So, God communicates and we received Gods divine nature. So, we are a human person but yet we have a fully human and fully divine nature?

We become by Grace what God is by nature. By the Incarnation of Christ, our lives inside of the Church particularly partaining to the sacraments and by our constant striving and longing to become like Christ we can reach a point where we are like Christ and one with the Divine. However we are one with the Divine not by any actions of our own and our place there is sustained purely by the Grace of God. Even our actions and struggles to become like our Lord would all be impossible without Grace.

The most important part of the process of Theosis, certainally as I’ve been taught anyway, is to internalise and make part of your very being unceasing prayer.