Deification of Man in Christianity

Marcelle Bartolo-Abela

• Publisher: Hope and Life Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780993863110
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

Deification is the transformation of man into god through the grace of God. Predominant in the theology of Eastern Christianity, but marginalized and obscured in contemporary interpretations of the theology of Western Christianity, Bartolo-Abela explores how it is deification, not just salvation, that was and remains the intent of God for mankind, with deification occurring not solely in patria, but in via and in patria. This is an understanding of deification which has been largely lost and needs to be recovered in the Western Church. Examining the works of the Church Fathers on both sides of the East-West divide in Christianity, Bartolo-Abela shows that rather than being restricted to the East, deification featured consistently in many theological works popular in the West, with the most prominent being those of Aquinas, Augustine, Hilary of Poitiers, Irenaeus and Jerome. Bartolo-Abela argues that it was deification, not just salvation as commonly understood, that was also inherently referred to by Paul VI in the universal call to holiness found in Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. Deification is the process of man becoming god and attaining theoria, seeing God, after purification of the heart and illumination of the heart of the soul have ensued through baptism in the Holy Spirit, as understood throughout tradition. Deification from this life, not solely the next, is the desire of God for mankind in accord with the words of Christ and Peter, “I said you are gods” (Jn 10: 34) and “partakers of the divine nature” (2 P 1: 4).

Deification of Man in Christianity

by

Marcelle Bartolo-Abela

Kobo Edition

Copyright © 2014 Marcelle Bartolo-Abela – All rights reserved.

The front cover shows the icon of the Transfiguration (1516) found at the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior Monastery, Yaroslavl, Russia.

All references to Scripture in this book were taken from the Jerusalem Bible (1966 ed.), Doubleday.

Dedication

To Jesus Christ, only-begotten Son of the Father.

Published by

Apostolate of the Divine Heart, P. O. Box 37, East Longmeadow, MA 01028, USA

Website: http://divineheartofgod.org

Email: [email protected]

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Deification of Man in Christianity

What is Deification?

Deification and Man

On Deification

Deification versus Salvation

More Sayings of the Church Fathers on Deification

Illumination and Deification

Deification and Theoria

The Eight Stages of Theoria

The Divine Light

Deification and Theology

References

Other Kindle Ebooks Published by the Apostolate of the Divine Heart

DEIFICATION OF MAN IN CHRISTIANITY

What is Deification?

Deification is the attaining of likeness to God and union with Him so far as is possible (Dionysus the Aeropagite, EH 1.3, PG 3.376a).

God, you see, wants to make you a god; not by nature, of course, like the One whom He begot but by His gift and by adoption (Augustine of Hippo, Serm. 166.4).

Deification can be defined as “God’s perfect and full penetration of man” (Staniloae, 2002, p. 362). The deification or divinization of man is not “an identification with God; it is only an assimilation, a very eminent restoration of the original divine likeness . . . [whereby one] participates by grace in the perfections that God possesses by nature . . . The Spirit transforms the soul to the image of the Logos, the natural Son of God, thus making the Christian an adoptive child of God. Affecting, it seems the very essence of the soul, this mysterious conformation is not of a moral nature only but of a physical nature; it is a veritable partaking of the divine nature and of the divine life” (Gross, 1938/2002, p. 272).

Deification is the “enhypostatic and direct illumination which has no beginning but appears in those worthy as something exceeding their comprehension. It is indeed a mystical union with God beyond intellect and reason, in the age when creatures will no longer know corruption. Thanks to this union, the saints, observing the light of the hidden and more-than-ineffable glory become themselves able to receive the blessed purity, in company with celestial powers. Deification is also the invocation of the great God and Father, the symbol of the authentic and real adoption, according to the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit, thanks to the bestowal of which grace the saints become and will remain the sons of God” (Maximus the Confessor, Ad Th. 61, PG 90, 636C; Schol. 16, PG 90, 644C). Maximus (Chapt, 2.88) added that “The soul becomes god and rests from all its mental and physical works by participation in divine grace; at the same time all the natural operations of the body rest with it. They are deified along with the soul in proportion to its participation in the deification, to the extent that then only God will be visible, through the soul as well as through the body; the natural attributes are conquered by the overabundance of glory.”

Deification, then, is “both the light encountered (inasmuch as it is a visible apparition) and something that attaches to the person, becoming one with her and changing her. It is both God as other and God transforming the human person from within” (Williams, 1999, p. 105). Deification results in the theoria of the uncreated light (Lossky, 1967/1974), because its processes are directly related to theosis – the vision of the divine light (Lossky, 1944/1976, 1983).

Deification and Man

When Adam was first created, the Spirit of God clothed him in holiness and made him a perfect person. However, such perfection was not absolute but relative, in order that Adam and his descendants could “progress peacefully and rise up toward the perfect . . . to draw closer to the Unbegotten” (Irenaeus of Lyon, Adv. Haer. 3.23.5 [963]). It was progressive deification that was originally intended for mankind and presented to our first parent (Gross, J. 1938/2002; Symeon the New Theologian, 1994). But after Adam sinned (Gn 3:1-24), it was Christ, the new Adam, who reopened the gate for the deification of mankind through the three spiritual stages of purification (of the heart), illumination (of the heart of the soul) and deification.

On Deification

Is it not written in your Law: I said, you are gods? (Jn 10:34).

He has given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature (2 P 1:4).

Two kinds of deification exist. The first kind refers to the “elevation of man to the highest level of his natural powers, or to the full realization of man . . . [when] the divine power of grace is active in him . . . [The second kind refers to the] progress which man makes beyond the limits of his natural powers, beyond the boundaries of his nature, to the divine and supernatural level” (D. Staniloae, 2002, p. 363). For man to pass from the first kind of deification which is well-known, to the second kind which is rarely heard about in Western Christianity, a leap of grace occurs because “man too works during the first stage, but during the second, only God” (p. 364).

Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theol, 2.1:112.1) maintained that in the latter kind of deification, “the gift of grace surpasses every capability of created nature, since it is nothing short of a partaking of the divine nature, which exceeds every other nature . . . God alone should deify, bestowing a partaking of the divine nature by a participated likeness.” He added that “this name God is communicable, not in its whole signification, but in some part of it by way of similitude so that those are called gods who share in divinity by likeness, according to the text I have said, ‘You are gods (Ps 82:6)” (Resp. I.13,9). Aquinas also declared that “Man’s happiness is twofold … One is proportionate to human nature . . . The other is a happiness surpassing man’s nature and which man can obtain by the power of God alone, by a kind of participation of the Godhead [ad quam homo sola divina virtute pervenire potest secundum quandam divinitatis participationem], about which it is written (2 P 1:4) that by Christ we are made partakers of the divine nature” (Resp. I-II.62,1).

In deification, “the Paraclete illuminates from on high the man who attai...

Table of contents

• Dedication