My daughter Anne-Marie asked me to speak of "the doctrine of deification, as an acquaintance is writing a thesis on the subject. The word is synonymous with deification deification (French), theosis (Greek) deiformity (Latin).
God, perfectly happy and self-sufficient in the Trinity, still decided to create free beings endowed with reason and with them to establish a relationship of friendship. Humans have chosen to break the bond of love with their Creator. God then chose to become fully human in Jesus Christ to restore that relationship. The initiative of creation, incarnation, redemption, resurrection, the glorification comes only from God and fully.
Saint Athanasius summed up admirably deification: "God became human so that man might become divine." Jesus is the God-man. The unity between humanity and divinity of Jesus the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is perfect, incomparable, inimitable. Jesus is divine in nature. We humans are divine by participation in the divinity of Jesus. Insofar as we are united to Jesus, we are deified.
Becoming divine is our calling, our reason for being. We are created by God to achieve a union with him that we will participate, as much as possible for created beings to do, at the Paradise Trinity. The love of friendship can only exist between two equals. In Jesus, God wants us to love with a love of friendship, is our equal and made us equals. In Jesus, the one perfect Mediator, God is within our grasp and we are within the reach of God.
In Scripture, the reality of deification is expressed in various ways: we are Christ's body, temple of the Holy Spirit, Christ's brothers, children of God. We also talk about new birth, adoption as sons, sanctification, transformation, assimilation. The latter term means we transformed the image of God insofar as we are similar / Emirates (similar) to Christ through the action of the Holy Spirit.
The deification, which is God's work, is attributed to the Holy Spirit. Risen Jesus is the model of what we are called to become by the grace of God (desired by the Father, through Jesus deserved, accomplished by the action of the Holy Spirit) and the collaboration of each and every one of us . This is beyond our human capacity, but is possible with the help of grace. The ability to see God as He is (as God gives us to heaven, the resurrection) is the largest of all the wonders of creation, because it abolishes the infinite distance between the created and the Uncreated, the creature and the Creator.
This deification is real and current, but now hidden, invisible, hidden, supernatural. This happens in the depths of our being. The body part of our being involved, at the resurrection, this deification, as the deification will total up all our being in all its dimensions. During our life on earth, the Spirit's action does not occur often so obvious or fast, but it can sometimes have an impact in some or even inside the body. These events are significant as a pledge (a glimpse) of what we will be life after the resurrection. But this eternal life, God is already present within us.
The Son is God from all eternity. By our union with Christ by grace alone, we become like him. Without the action of the Holy Spirit, we could become like God, no, nor reach union with God which we call the Trinity, and we intended. By grace, when we see God as we become like him. The more we are united to Christ and we are like him, the more we are united to God and we will be more divine. We can and must cooperate today to our deification enjoying the means at our disposal to live a supernatural life: the sacraments, the word of God, prayer, implementation of the theological virtues and moral commitment, etc..
