Theosis - Each Day We Become God More Fully

The RCC abandoned this teaching of the Early Church so completely that Pope JPII said that theosis was one the greatest gifts of the Eastern Church.

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When brought up on OBOB, the notion of becoming God seemed to really bother folks. Many, many rejected this doctrine as Gnostic or from Eastern non-Christian faith walks.

I found this very, very strange. When I came to the Church in the 90's, I was well acquainted with this doctrine under the name of "utter sanctification" as John Wesley taught (the Anglican priest who fond the Methodist Church). As a Baptist, we often prayed for God to change us every day, making us more nearly comported to Him, with the full union with God rarely reached this side of Heaven. When I later taught children in the RCC, we made similar prayers.

So, I don't no whether this is liberal or conservative. I do know that theosis is central to our pilgrim walk.

What say you all?

Some more background

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Open Heart said:

I don't care for the notion that we are God or we become God. I don't consider it liberal ... I don't consider it even Christian. Sure it's been around since the time of the early Church as has been most heresies. But basic Christianity makes the distinction between Creator and Creation. That's the whole point of Genesis 1.

Now if you want to talk about that we are made in the image of God, or that we reflect God's greatness, or anything like that, I'm all for it. Sanctification is a great idea, and I love Wesley and his ideas of holiness (he didn't believe we become God).

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Ok, we are not talking about liberal or conservative.

We seem to be taking about whether you consider the Orthodox and many of the Early Church Fathers to be Christian. WOW! In the Latin Church, we call this teaching "divination" or "deification". Yes, this about "becoming", about partaking in the divine.

I call you attention to the statements from the Early Church Fathers at the end of this article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization_(Christian)

In the Latin Church, the words used are "divination" and deification". Here is CS Lewis on the subject.

http://www.cslewis.org/journal/shine-as-the-sun-cs-lewis-and-the-doctrine-of-deification/

Open Heart said:

You keep saying divination, which is a completely other word. Don't forget the Z in divinization.

I read the Lewis artical and it said: "Deification (also known as theosis or divinization) sees salvation not merely as divine pardon but rather as a process of spiritual transformation that culminates in mystical union with God." I have NO problem with that. A mystical union with God is not the same thing as becoming God. Perhaps I misunderstood your OP.

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I apologize for my spell checker killing the "z".

I suspect that our difference is simply a slightly differently understanding of what the Early Church fathers meant when speaking of a mystical union with God, and when they spoke of partaking the Divine Essence as St Peter spoke about.

I think that it is the teaching of the Church that we might go three stages, the purgative way, the illuminative way and eventually (perhaps) the unitive way.

St John of the Cross spoke eloquently,

"In thus allowing God to work in it, the soul ... is at once illumined and transformed in God, and God communicates to it His supernatural Being, in such wise that it appears to be God Himself, and has all that God Himself has. And this union comes to pass when God grants the soul this supernatural favour, that all the things of God and the soul are one in participant transformation; and the soul seems to be God rather than a soul, and is indeed God by participation; although it is true that its natural being, though thus transformed, is as distinct from the Being of God as it was before."[Primary 6]

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The section below is from wiki. The references are in wiki, in the article I cited in an earlier post.

Patristic writings[edit]
There were many varied references to divinization in the writings of the Church Fathers, including the following:

• Irenaeus (c. 130-200)
  • "[T]he Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself."[Primary 10]
  • "'For we cast blame upon [God], because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him invidiousness or grudgingness he declares, "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are sons of the Most High." "[Primary 11]
  • "For it was necessary, at first, that nature should be exhibited; then, after that, that what was mortal should be conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and the corruptible by incorruptibility, and that man should be made after the image and likeness of God."[Primary 11]
• Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215)
  • "[T]he Word of God became man, that thou mayest learn from man how man may become God."[Primary 12]
  • "For if one knows himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like God"[Primary 13]
  • "[H]is is beauty, the true beauty, for it is God; and that man becomes God, since God so wills. Heraclitus, then, rightly said, “Men are gods, and gods are men.” For the Word Himself is the manifest mystery: God in man, and man God"[Primary 13]
  • "[H]e who listens to the Lord, and follows the prophecy given by Him, will be formed perfectly in the likeness of the teacher—made a god going about in flesh."[Primary 14]
  • "And to be incorruptible is to participate in divinity..."[Primary 15]
• Justin Martyr (c. 100-165)
  • "[Men] were made like God, free from suffering and death, provided that they kept His commandments, and were deemed deserving of the name of His sons, and yet they, becoming like Adam and Eve, work out death for themselves; let the interpretation of the Psalm be held just as you wish, yet thereby it is demonstrated that all men are deemed worthy of becoming “gods,” and of having power to become sons of the Highest."[Primary 16]
• Theophilus of Antioch (c. 120-190)
  • "For if He had made him immortal from the beginning, He would have made him God. Again, if He had made him mortal, God would seem to be the cause of his death. Neither, then, immortal nor yet mortal did He make him, but, as we have said above, capable of both; so that if he should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God..."[Primary 17]
• Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170-235)
  • "And you shall be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ, no longer enslaved by lusts or passions, and never again wasted by disease. For you have become God: for whatever sufferings you underwent while being a man, these He gave to you, because you were of mortal mould, but whatever it is consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon you, because you have been deified, and begotten unto immortality."[Primary 18]
  • "If, therefore, man has become immortal, he will also be God. And if he is made God by water and the Holy Spirit after the regeneration of the laver he is found to be also joint-heir with Christ after the resurrection from the dead."[Primary 19]
• Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296-373)
  • "Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us"[Primary 20]
  • "for as the Lord, putting on the body, became man, so we men are deified by the Word as being taken to Him through His flesh."[Primary 21]
  • "For He was made man that we might be made God."[Primary 22]
• Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395)
  • "For just as He in Himself assimilated His own human nature to the power of the Godhead, being a part of the common nature, but not being subject to the inclination to sin which is in that nature (for it says: "He did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth), so, also, will He lead each person to union with the Godhead if they do nothing unworthy of union with the Divine."[Primary 23]
• Augustine of Hippo (c. 354-430)
  • "'For He hath given them power to become the sons of God.'[John 1:12] If we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods."[Primary 24]
• Maximus the Confessor
  • "Nothing in theosis is the product of human nature, for nature cannot comprehend God. It is only the mercy of God that has the capacity to endow theosis unto the existing... In theosis, man (the image of God) becomes likened to God, he rejoices in all the plenitude that does not belong to him by nature, because the grace of the Spirit triumphs within him, and because God acts in him."[53]
• Cyril of Alexandria says that humankind "are called 'temples of God' and indeed 'gods', and so we are."[citation needed]
• Gregory of Nazianzus implores humankind to "become gods for (God's) sake, since (God) became man for our sake."[citation needed]. Likewise, he argues that the mediator "pleads even now as Man for my salvation; for He continues to wear the Body which He assumed, until He make me God by the power of His Incarnation." [54]
• Basil of Caesarea stated that "becoming a god is the highest goal of all" [55]

Open Heart said:

Yeah, I'm just uncomfortable with the "become God" language. Become LIKE God is fine. Become God just seems wrong, even if Athanasius says it. That's just how I'm going to feel, and I doubt if anything is going to change it.

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I understand. Many of us have problems with this teaching. I was not brought up a Christian. Many of us that were brought up as Jews (as I was) or as Muslims, have a difficult time with God being accessible. Becoming like God is indeed much different than God coming into our hearts, removing barriers every day, making us more and more part of Him. Saint Peter called this partaking in the divine nature. The early Church fathers taught that this was one of the many gifts of Jesus. His death and resurrection tore down the curtain separating from God, and allowed us during each day of our life to become more and more like God each day, and eventually in the unitive way to become part of God.

For me, part of the example of this teaching is the nature of the Trinity itself. God is three person is one, all part of the one. As so we are, when we come in full union with God.
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As a final note, this is a path. Very, very, very few complete this path while on this earth. However, it is important to understand that this indeed our path.
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This understanding gives new meaning to "being" a child of God, part of His family. We are not of this earth. We are god-stuff. This understanding helps me understanding what it means to have God in my heart, working hard, first purging, then illuminating and finally uniting.

It seems so impossible for a mere mortal to have love and compassion. This seems so much more possible when I realize that God is within, and that it is the God-part of me that can be loving and compassionate. I know that this isn't great theology, but it certainly is useful and helpful to me.