Theosis

[PJD1987]

I’m just looking for a clarification on this topic. I read an article from the archived “This Rock” magazine here that refuted Mormonism on many things, one of them was that they believe that we can become gods ourselves (or something similar, it was awhile ago). My question involves 2 Peter 1:4 where Peter says we can “share in His Divine nature”. I was just wondering the difference between the Mormon belief on this and the Catholic belief?

I was attending a talk on worship and prayer by a religious brother who used the quote from 2 Peter to explain like the communion between us and the Lord in our contemplative prayer life and a red flag went up when he used the word theosis, is “our” definition of theosis different from the Mormons, and how?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts and time.

God bless,
Paul

 

[JamestheOlder]

Kind of a neat and simple (sort of) explanation at this site:
orthodoxwiki.org/Theosis

As Roman Catholic English-speakers, we might be uncomfortable with the wording, but, if we trust a preeminent Doctor of the Church, Athanasius, we should be assured of what we should believe.

Peace.

 

[Contarini]

I’m just looking for a clarification on this topic. I read an article from the archived “This Rock” magazine here that refuted Mormonism on many things, one of them was that they believe that we can become gods ourselves (or something similar, it was awhile ago). My question involves 2 Peter 1:4 where Peter says we can “share in His Divine nature”. I was just wondering the difference between the Mormon belief on this and the Catholic belief?

I was attending a talk on worship and prayer by a religious brother who used the quote from 2 Peter to explain like the communion between us and the Lord in our contemplative prayer life and a red flag went up when he used the word theosis, is “our” definition of theosis different from the Mormons, and how?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts and time.

God bless,
Paul

The problem with the Mormon version is their definition of God. This gets tricky, because many Mormons downplay the more theoretical statements on this point found in their tradition. But the “King Follett Sermon” of Joseph Smith apparently claimed that God was once a man. Lorenzo Snow, fifth President of the LDS Church, put the teaching in the form,

“As man now is, God once was:
As God now is, man may be."

According to this Mormon source, this teaching is accepted doctrine in the LDS Church.

Mormons make a great deal of the concept of God as “Father”–they argue that since we are God’s “spirit children,” it is our calling to grow up and become like our Father in every respect.

The orthodox (and Orthodox) Christian doctrine of theosis, on the other hand, holds that God’s nature is infinite and incomprehensible. God created us out of nothing in His image and calls us to share in His nature by grace. Obviously orthodox Christians do not believe that God evolved into His present state, and we do not believe that we will ever be “gods” in the way God is God. Rather, we are divinized by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, reflecting God’s glory as a mirror reflects the image of the person looking into it.

Edwin

 

[ConstantineTG]

In short, we will be partakers of God’s life, share in his divinity but not be His equal in the divine essence.

The Gospel of John has a recurring theme of Jesus saying that He lives in the Father and His faithful followers will live in Him. And if we live in Jesus who lives in the Father, then we live in the Father by living in Jesus. That is theosis.

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

In short, we will be partakers of God’s life, share in his divinity but not be His equal in the divine essence.

The Gospel of John has a recurring theme of Jesus saying that He lives in the Father and His faithful followers will live in Him. And if we live in Jesus who lives in the Father, then we live in the Father by living in Jesus. That is theosis.

And that’s how a growing number of LDS folks interpret Lorenzo Snow’s words, “As God is, man may become.” In the past, we overwhelmingly believed in a change in essence, but that’s never been canonically accepted. So we don’t know. I personally agree with what you said, or at least what I think that you’re saying … that we may become one in mind with the Father, through the Son.

While I still believe that those that overcome the world (to cite the Gospel of John) may create worlds without number, I have always understood that this would be on God’s behalf, and for His glory.

 

[fhansen]

This is from the Catechism:

460 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 [St. Athanasius] "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 [St. Thomas Aquinas]

Man will always be a created being; God will always be the uncreated Creator-always infinitely superior. But His plan for us includes theosis. Again, from the Catechism speaking on the topic of Original Sin:

398 In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.279

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

This is from the Catechism:

460 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 [St. Athanasius] "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 [St. Thomas Aquinas]

Man will always be a created being; God will always be the uncreated Creator-always infinitely superior. But His plan for us includes theosis. Again, from the Catechism speaking on the topic of Original Sin:

398 In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.279

Exactly! There’s nothing wrong with wanting God to work his miracles in us and through us, according to His Will; the sin would be wanting to be “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God.”