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kylemeko
Guest
In the Early church what did they mean by deification and how can we show that their understanding of is different then that of the LDS?
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Semper_Fi_1
Guest
The Beatific Vision is so that we will know God, not become a separate God.
newadvent.org/cathen/02364a.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatific_Vision
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kylemeko
Guest
Thank you Semper Fi for your reply. It is not so much that I don’t understand that the Catholic position as it is that I need ideas on how to show that the Church Fathers were not speaking of the Mormon idea of becoming gods.
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Brad_Haas
Guest
Kylemeko,
I’m sorry I can’t be of more immediate help to you - maybe this will make a good project for my website - but right now I can only recommend that you look through the work Adversus Haereses by St. Irenaeus of Lyons. He gets pretty explicit about how man becomes like God. At times he uses phrasing that sounds like LDS teaching, and indeed is taken by LDS apologists as support for their version of divinization, but it’s very much out of context. He’s usually quite explicit that God is the only uncreated being, and that man becomes like God, i.e. shares the nature that only God has, rather than becoming a god and possessing another such nature. At one point, he writes that “they who are more destitute of reason than dumb animals insist that there is no distinction between the uncreated God and man, a creature of to-day.”
I’ll also mention a famous doctoral thesis written by then-Father Jordan Vajda. He was a Dominican priest who wrote his thesis comparing and contrasting early Christian beliefs about divinization to LDS beliefs about it. He has since joined the LDS church. I’ve read an excerpt from the thesis, and in fact I ordered the whole thing this past weekend from BYU’s bookstore. I don’t know for sure yet, but it might be something you find helpful as well.
I’m sorry I can’t be of more immediate help to you - maybe this will make a good project for my website - but right now I can only recommend that you look through the work Adversus Haereses by St. Irenaeus of Lyons. He gets pretty explicit about how man becomes like God. At times he uses phrasing that sounds like LDS teaching, and indeed is taken by LDS apologists as support for their version of divinization, but it’s very much out of context. He’s usually quite explicit that God is the only uncreated being, and that man becomes like God, i.e. shares the nature that only God has, rather than becoming a god and possessing another such nature. At one point, he writes that “they who are more destitute of reason than dumb animals insist that there is no distinction between the uncreated God and man, a creature of to-day.”
I’ll also mention a famous doctoral thesis written by then-Father Jordan Vajda. He was a Dominican priest who wrote his thesis comparing and contrasting early Christian beliefs about divinization to LDS beliefs about it. He has since joined the LDS church. I’ve read an excerpt from the thesis, and in fact I ordered the whole thing this past weekend from BYU’s bookstore. I don’t know for sure yet, but it might be something you find helpful as well.
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amgid
Guest
What makes you so sure that they weren’t teaching “the Mormon idea of becoming gods”?
I would have thought that the best way to find out what they really meant by what they taught was to read their own writings. What makes you so sure that the guys on this board have a better idea what was in the minds of the Church Fathers than they did?
amgid
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Brad_Haas
Guest
Amgid,
You’ve read the ante-Nicene Fathers, then, right?
You’ve read the ante-Nicene Fathers, then, right?
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kylemeko
Guest
Hey Brad Haas thanks for the suggestions.
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