Brief Thoughts on Deification

 

Oftentimes the Western understanding of deification/glorification is watered down by its opponents to a simple statement of “created grace.” However, at least within Thomism, our participation in God also includes things like the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity), the infused moral virtues, and the missions of the Trinity. This human participation in the divine pertains to all of our faculties, though sanctifying grace is the means in which it comes to the essence of the soul (John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus III, disp. 22, art. 1, n. 10  [Paris: Vivès, 1883-1886, 6:794]). 

“Hence it is necessary for man to receive from God some additional principles, whereby he may be directed to supernatural happiness, even as he is directed to his connatural end, by means of his natural principles, albeit not without Divine assistance. Such like principles are called "theological virtues": first, because their object is God, inasmuch as they direct us aright to God: secondly, because they are infused in us by God alone: thirdly, because these virtues are not made known to us, save by Divine revelation, contained in Holy Writ. A certain nature may be ascribed to a certain thing in two ways. First, essentially: and thus these theological virtues surpass the nature of man. Secondly, by participation, as kindled wood partakes of the nature of fire: and thus, after a fashion, man becomes a partaker of the Divine Nature, as stated above: so that these virtues are proportionate to man in respect of the Nature of which he is made a partaker.” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 62, art. 1)

When it comes to the writings of the patristics (particularly the Greek fathers), nearly everyone has some level of familiarity with Athanasius’ famous axiom “God became man, so that man might become God.” Indeed, the doctrine of deification was something that was presupposed by Athanasius in his polemical treatises against the Arians (Norman Rusell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition [Oxford University Press, 2004], pgs. 170-172). If the Son’s incarnation is the source of the deification of human nature, then the Son Himself has not been deified by the Father, and thus is not God “by participation”, as the heretics believed. He is God by essence and nature, being homoousios with the Father. 

But in what does the deification of human nature actually consist, for Athanasius? Russell points out two levels for understanding it: ontological and ethical (The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, pgs. 184-185). The following passage from Athanasius constitutes for us a concrete example of how these two “levels” of deification are juxtaposed in his theology, both with regard to anthropology and soteriology:

“But let them understand that one assimilated to God by virtue and will is liable also to the purpose of changing; but the Word is not thus, unless He is 'like' in part, and as we are, because He is not like [God] in essence also. But these characteristics belong to us, who are originate, and of a created nature. For we too, albeit we cannot become like God in essence, yet by progress in virtue imitate God, the Lord granting us this grace, in the words, 'Be merciful as your Father is merciful:' 'be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Luke 6:36; Matthew 5:48.' But that originate things are changeable, no one can deny, seeing that angels transgressed, Adam disobeyed, and all stand in need of the grace of the Word. But a mutable thing cannot be like God who is truly unchangeable, any more than what is created can be like its creator. This is why, with regard to us, the holy man said, 'Lord, who shall be likened unto you ,' and 'who among the gods is like you, Lord ;' meaning by gods those who, while created, had yet become partakers of the Word, as He Himself said, 'If he called them gods to whom the word of God came John 10:35.' But things which partake cannot be identical with or similar to that whereof they partake. For example, He said of Himself, 'I and the Father are one ,' implying that things originate are not so. For we would ask those who allege the Ariminian Synod, whether a created essence can say, 'what things I see my Father make, those I make also.' For things originate are made and do not make; or else they made even themselves. Why, if, as they say, the Son is a Creature and the Father is His Maker, surely the Son would be His own maker, as He is able to make what the Father makes, as He said. But such a supposition is absurd and utterly untenable, for none can make himself.” (Athanasius, Synodal Letter to the Bishops of Africa, §7)