[Wondergirl]

Akoue is not a dictionary, so you are tying your definition to Akoue's opinion.

He was using passages from the NT.

[Tj3]

He was using passages from the NT.

Most of which were not even related to the topic. Just using references does not mean that the reference are relevant or that they support the claim.

[Wondergirl]

Most of which were not even related to the topic. Just using references does not mean that the reference are relevant or that they support the claim.

They were VERY relevant. Am I supposed to requote them for you?

[Tj3]

They were VERY relevant. Am I supposed to requote them for you?

Again, why don't you read my response first before we start going around in circles. Because if all you do is quote them again, then I will just copy and paste my response.

[arcura]

Tj3,
Really?
How interesting for I just did that.
Fred

[Wondergirl]

Again, why don't you read my response first before we start going around in circles. Because if all you do is quote them again, then I will just copy and paste my response.

I have read your response (more than once). You were not speaking to the subject, to what Akoue was saying is deification.

I see that you are not willing to move your imagination past the logjam that is stopping up your cognitive processes and be willing to consider that there is more than one way to think about deification, so I am off to wash dishes. Good night.

[Tj3]

I have read your response (more than once). You were not speaking to the subject, to what Akoue was saying is deification.

I was indeed. For some reason, you appear to miss a lot of what I post.

I see that you are not willing to move your imagination past the logjam that is stopping up your usual cognitive processes and be willing to consider that there is more than one way to think about deification, so I am off to wash dishes. Good night.

Ah, I see that we are back into the personal attack mode.

BTW, I am well aware of the different ideas around deification, but you are right that I stick to one - the one taught in scripture. I am not like Fred who just said that he holds to two different mutually exclusive positions at the same time.

[Wondergirl]

I was indeed. For some reason, you appear to miss a lot of what I post.

No, you weren't. No, I don't. I pour over what you write. Here are two of the passages mentioned:

Hebrews 12.10: "in order that we may share <or: participate> in his holiness".

2Peter 1.4: "may become participants of the divine nature" (FYI: the divine nature is divinity--so we will participate in God's divinity).

Even Wikipedia has it figured out a la Akoue.

Ah, I see that we are back into the personal attack mode.

Just paying you back for your subtle putdowns.

BTW, I am well aware of the different ideas around deification

And those are?

Dishes are air-drying, and I am off to bed.

[arcura]

Wondergirl,
Your are right to not let him get away with that.
Fred

[adam7gur]

Adam and Eve were made in the image of God.
His image has unlimited levels and one of them is NOT KNOWING EVIL . Adam and Eve were EXACTLY so , they did not know evil until they ate the fruit of knowing good and evil.
Psalm 82 is about how men , even though created not to know evil, choose to know .Men even though made like God, choosing to die like men.Men were not supposed to die at all but after they ate the fruit of knowing good and evil , death came.
Psalm 82 , John 10:34 is not about men being gods in God's place but as Akoue through Scripture indicated that men participate in God's holiness.If I participate in a murder , I am a murderer too,and if I participate in God, I am god too!
Psalm 82 is God saying,you chose evil but I said you are gods, therefore you die like men.
Those who participate in God, are foreknown and predestinated, because they are IN God,they are HIS.Don't let time mislead you, God is beyond time.
The Pharissees and the scribes knew the law and the prophets better than anyone but they failed to recognize Christ as the Son of God,while simple fishermen and taxcollectors became His desciples.

[adam7gur]

Tj3,
I can agree with both and I have done so.
Fred

And so do I!

[Akoue]

Then you would not be so confused about what role article 460 had in the discussion.

What is quite clear, amid all this jousting, is that you haven't understood CCC 460. It occurs in a section that addresses the salvific import of the Incarnation. It opens with a quote of 2Peter 1.4 and goes on to include a quote from Athanasius and another from Aquinas. These appear to be the two things about which you are jumping up and down.

Both Athanasius and Aquinas are talking about theosis/deification. You would know this if you had taken the time to read the texts that are being quoted at CCC 460. The bit from Athanasius, taken from his On the Incarnation of the Logos, is the locis classicis for the doctrine of theosis/deification.

This is why it is important to work at understanding a view before proceeding to criticize it. You have elected to criticize CCC 460 because you find the formulations of the doctrine of theosis offered by Athanasius and Aquinas to be objectionable. But you clearly don't understand what they are saying, what their formulations mean, because they are saying nothing other than what I have already said about theosis/deification.

Had you studied this stuff as you have often claimed you would know this, you would understand that Athanasius and Aquinas are offering glosses on 2Peter 1.4, they are unpacking what is meant by participation in the Divine nature. Now one could argue that they are confused about this, that their glosses get 2Peter 1.4 wrong. But you haven't done this; you haven't argued that they are confused about the meaning of Scripture. Instead, you have fixated on their terminology, all the while giving voice to your incomprehension of that terminology. This is why the exchange that took place here last night, after I posted my second response to you, was doomed to go nowhere: You simply don't understand what is being said. Had you done your homework you'd have discovered that these two quotes are dealing with the doctrine of theosis/deification as I have explained it above. There is a word for what you have done: sophistry.

Show me the dictionary definition that you are using.

Why on earth would you think that an English dictionary is of any use in this context? The concept of theosis or deification is a very technical theological notion which cannot be adequately grasped by surveying the different uses to which the term "deification" is put in English (and which is what a dictionary provides). In order to understand it, one would have to roll up one's sleeves and read some pretty hard stuff, including Athanasius's On the Incarnation of the Logos, Pseudo-Macarius's Spiritual Homilies, Augustine's On the Trinity, and most of Evagrius of Pontus, to name only a very few of the seminal works on the topic. Rather than making an investment of time and effort by reading works from which you may learn something, you have instead chosen to come off half-cocked and opine about things you manifestly do not understand.

Scripture tells us that we will participate or share in God's nature, in his divinity. What could this possibly mean other than this: We will become one with God, we will be transformed by this oneness with God, we will be divinized. Why divinized? Because this is what it means to participate or share in God's divinity. This is what oneness with God means. The work of sanctification that has begun will be perfected when God is all in all.

If you wish to object to the claims, made by Athanasius and Aquinas and quoted at CCC 460, that we will become God or gods, try at least to come to grips with what that actually means. It isn't an exaltation; it is a description of the intimacy with the Holy Trinity that awaits us.

[Tj3]

No, you weren't. No, I don't. I pour over what you write. Here are two of the passages mentioned:

Okay, let's do the copy and paste approach, if you wish.

Hebrews 12.10: "in order that we may share <or: participate> in his holiness".

Christ's righteousness is imputed to those who believe - but it is HIS righteousness, not our. This has nothing to do with becoming "gods" or becoming God.

2Peter 1.4: "may become participants of the divine nature" (FYI: the divine nature is divinity--so we will participate in God's divinity).

Ever heard of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? God remains God, man remain man. It does not make man God.

Once again, it would be so much easier, WG, if you would only read what I posted.

[Tj3]

What is quite clear, amid all this jousting, is that you haven't understood CCC 460. It occurs in a section that addresses the salvific import of the Incarnation.

I understand it only too well.

Let me ask a direct question. If you don'y mean "men become gods", why do you say "men become gods"?

If you don't mean "men become God", why do you say "Men become God"?

You in this context refers to the Roman Catholic denomination.

Why on earth would you think that an English dictionary is of any use in this context?

Maybe because we are speaking the English language

[Wondergirl]

Maybe because we are speaking the English language

But deification is not a concept easily explained in English.

If you insist on a dictionary, maybe you will accept Wikipedia?

Through theoria, the contemplation of the triune God, human beings come to know and experience what it means to be fully human (the created image of God); through their communion with Jesus Christ, God shares Himself with the human race, in order to conform them to all that He is in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. [This is what is to happen during our earthly life.]

As God became human, in all ways except sin, He will also make humans god, in all ways except his divine essence. St Irenaeus explained this doctrine in Against Heresies, Book 5, in the Preface, "the 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."

St Maximus the Confessor wrote, "A sure warrant for looking forward with hope to deification of human nature is provided by the incarnation of God, which makes man god to the same degree as God himself became man... Let us become the image of the one whole God, bearing nothing earthly in ourselves, so that we may consort with God and become gods, receiving from God our existence as gods. For it is clear that He who became man without sin (cf. Heb. 4:15) will divinize human nature without changing it into the divine nature, and will raise it up for his own sake to the same degree as He lowered himself for man's sake. This is what St Paul teaches mystically when he says, '... that in the ages to come he might display the overflowing richness of His grace' (Eph. 2:7)."

From Wondergirl -- Think about it! He who became man without sin (cf. Heb. 4:15) will divinize human nature without changing it into the divine nature, and will raise it up for his own sake to the same degree as He lowered himself for man's sake -- now THAT I can wrap my mind around, not we will become gods as the Mormons believe, but, as Akoue mentioned, be brought into some aspect of God's divine nature as the final stage, completion, of the sanctification process.

[Akoue]

I understand it only too well.

Your posts belie that statement.

This is just posturing. And it's a pity, since people here are trying to help you to learn something. It is sad that you aren't able to recognize them as benefactors or their efforts as acts of generosity. You have people taking time out of their day, time away from other meaningful things, in order to explain and help you to understand something quite profound. Wondergirl has been especially patient and generous in this regard and she does not deserve the frequent put-downs with which you have repaid her efforts on your behalf.

Let me ask a direct question. If you don'y mean "men become gods", why do you say "men become gods"?

I should think that were you interested in an answer to this question you might have read Aquinas's Opusculum 57.1-4, since this is the origin of the quote (the CCC provides the citation for this).

In any case, I did not choose this phrasing for Aquinas, he chose it for himself. I have already explained what it means above. It is important to understand the idiom in which a writer chooses to express himself or herself. Once you have taken the time, and invested the effort to do so, you will see that there is nothing theologically suspect about what Aquinas, or Athanasius (below), have said. Or, at least, you'll then be in a position to formulate a congent and informed response to what they've said. So far all you've offered is hand-waving.

If you don't mean "men become God", why do you say "Men become God"?

Here again, if you were genuinely interested in understanding what you read you would by now have studied Athanasius's On the Incarnation of the Logos and taken an especially close look at 54.3. It's a very famous work. Had you studied the matter as you have claimed you would surely have read it many times and so would not be as mystified by this use of language as you manifestly are.

That said, it should be quite obvious by now what it means, since I have explained participation in the Divine nature. If you disagree with the view then by all means bring forth a reasoned and cogent argument against it. But it's time to bring the rhetorical bluster to an end.

You in this context refers to the Roman Catholic denomination.

It's very important to you to peg people in denominational terms, which is all the more unfortunate as it keeps you from coming to grips with the things people say (or write, as the case may be). You've decided antecedently that you don't like Catholicism and that seems to motivate a good deal of what you write. We see this in evidence here, where you have taken a paragraph out of the CCC and adduced it to show that Catholics believe something that would strike some as quite preposterous. It certainly strikes you that way, because you have shorn that paragraph of its rich theological context which, if you had really studied it as you like to claim, would cause you far less cognitive dissonance. Oh, sure, you might still disagree with the doctrine of theosis/deification: Reasonable people can disagree about such things, it seems to me. But you are clearly hung up on the words; you haven't even made it to their meaning, to their theological import. And that shows us that you have, in fact, invested no time or effort to understand the view you are now bent on subjecting to scorn.

I have never posted any denominational affiliation. Nor will I, as I don't see that such things are anybody's business. I have, however, frequently defended Catholicism and Orthodoxy from your criticisms of them. The reason for this is that your criticisms--and this has been pointed out to you many times, by numerous posters--give evidence of a very superficial knowledge of them. I am not here to advocate for CCC 460 but rather to point out that you have misunderstood and distorted its meaning--this for the benefit of others who might otherwise read this thread and be misled by your posts. I am certainly not here to attempt to vindicate Catholicism in the face of your criticisms of it. As I see it, it is in need of no vindication, particularly in the face of your profoundly ill-informed criticisms--criticisms which, as I say, betray a pretty appalling ignorance, particularly coming from someone who regularly tells us all how thoroughly he's studied it. You seem to regard AMHD as an occasion to evangelize; I, on the other hand, see it as a question-and-answer forum and so am concerned that the information disseminated be accurate and, as far as possible, free from error and distortion. Where Catholicism is concerned, distortion is your stock-in-trade. My view is that if someone is going to reject Catholicism, or Orthodoxy, it should be for the right reasons and not as a result of a caricature that has been presented to them by a polemicist.

In any case, my sympathies lie more with Eastern Orthodoxy on this point, as I believe that the Catholic Church has not sufficiently emphasized the centrality and importance of theosis but has instead--in modern times, at least--overemphasized the notion of substitutionary atonement. I have the same criticism of Protestantism (I include your brand of fundamentalism here) which tends toward a single-minded obsession with substitutionary atonement to the nigh-well wholesale neglect of theosis and operates with a soteriology that is all the more impoverished as a consequence of that neglect. We see the upshot of that neglect played out here in your posts: You haven't even made conceptual space for it and so are mystified by not only the concept itself but by the language some have used to try to capture it. Since theosis was at the heart of the soteriology of the early Church, your mystification in the face of it proves that you have never truly studied early Christian history or theology. Now that would be fine if only you hadn't repeatedly claimed to have spent decades studying early Christian history and theology. We see once again that this was a lie.

Maybe because we are speaking the English language

Here again you betray the superficiality of your study of theology. The concept of theosis is not something that can be sufficiently grasped merely by surveying the common uses to which the word "deification" is put in English (this is all that a dictionary provides). A first semester freshman would know better than that. But you don't, and this can only be because you simply don't understand what is involved in working toward a deep understanding of theological concepts; it is foreign soil to you. Now I certainly don't begrudge anybody their choice to devote to their time and energies to things other than the study of theology and ancient languages. But it is just dishonest of you repeatedly to assert that you have studied these things when it is blazingly obvious to anyone with even a passing familiarity with them that you have not. Rather than constantly misrepresenting yourself as an expert, allow yourself to learn from others who know more than you about a particular issue. Or, at the very least, don't go out with both guns blazing when you don't know what you're talking about. Sit back, read what others post, and take it as an opportunity to learn something. I've done that many times. There's no shame in it.

[arcura]

adam7gur,
Very good explanation.
Thanks,
Fred

[Tj3]

But deification is not a concept easily explained in English.

Sure it is:

de·i·fi·ca·tion
n.

1.
1. The act or process of deifying.
2. The condition of being deified.
2. One that embodies the qualities of a god.



de⋅i⋅fy

–verb (used with object), -fied, -fy⋅ing.
1. to make a god of; exalt to the rank of a deity; personify as a deity: to deify a beloved king.
2. to adore or regard as a deity: to deify wealth.

(Source: Dictionary.com)

Some may try to deny what the CCC says when it says that men become gods or men become God, and others on here write long posts making demeaning comments about those who disagree to distract away from this, but the word is actually very simply to define and understand in English.

What you will not find is the concept of deification endorsed in scripture.

[Wondergirl]

What you will not find is the concept of deification endorsed in scripture.

You didn't read Akoue's post, did you.

OR I now wonder if you are as befuddled by string theory or multiple dimensions or worm holes or five-dollar words in English as you are by theosis. Here are two relevant Bible verses:

Hebrews 12.10: "in order that we may share <or: participate> in his holiness".

2Peter 1.4: "may become participants of the divine nature" (FYI: the divine nature is divinity--so we will participate in God's divinity).

[Tj3]

You didn't read Akoue's post, did you.

I did. I acknowledge that his opinion differs.

Hebrews 12.10: "in order that we may share <or: participate> in his holiness".

2Peter 1.4: "may become participants of the divine nature" (FYI: the divine nature is divinity--so we will participate in God's divinity).

Refers to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In no way, not by any sense of the word does that make a man God.