Sect. 140The Teaching of Tradition on Supernatural Union with God: Especially on the “Deification” of the CreatureThe Teaching of Tradition on Supernatural Union with God: Especially on the “Deification” of the Creature

The supernatural union of the adopted creature with God is commonly called by the Fathers the “deification” of the creature. The frequent and constant use of this appellation is in itself sufficient to prove that they saw, in the adoptive sonship, something higher than the necessary complement of man’s natural faculties. They saw in it the “likeness” which gives to the created “image” of God a share in the supernatural privileges of His “Uncreated Image.” The sense of the Fathers on this point is evident from the manifold explanations they give of it and from the manner in which they connect the adoptive sonship with other dogmas. We can, however, only give a general outline of their doctrine: for quotations we must refer the student to Petavius, De Trin., l. viii., and Thomassin, De Incarn., l. vi., or to the Fathers themselves.

I. The doctrine in question forms the central point of the whole of the theology of St. Irenæus. He calls the adoptive sonship deification, and finds in this deification the likeness which, in a supernatural manner, perfects the “image” of God in the creature. He points out as final object of the deification, the beatific vision—that is, an elevation unto the bosom of God; as its principle, the closest union with the Holy Ghost; and, according to him, the deification itself is the proportionate object of the Incarnation of God the Son (Adv. Hær., l. iii., c. 17 and 19; l. iv., c. 20; l. v., c. 6, 12 et 16, etc.).

II. In the fourth century, the doctrine concerning the elevation of the creature by means of a gratuitous communication of the Divine Nature, came to the fore in the Arian controversies. The Fathers used it to illustrate and to defend the essential communication of the Divine Nature to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.

I. They proved the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost from Their being the principle of the deification of the creature.

2. In defending the Divinity of the Son, they compare His natural Sonship to the adoptive sonship of creatures, and describe the latter as standing midway between the status of servant natural to creatures and the Sonship natural to the Second Person of the Trinity: high in dignity above the first, and participating, by grace, in the dignity of the second. And when explaining how human attributes are predicated of the Incarnate Son of God, they draw attention to the Divine attributes predicated of man elevated by adoption, stating that man is entitled to the double predicates by the deification of his nature, whereas the Logos owes them to His Incarnation. See Card. Newman, Athanasius, ii., p. 88.

3. When defending the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, the Fathers establish this difference between the holiness of the Holy Ghost and that of creatures: the Holy Ghost is essentially holy, or His essence is holiness, whereas the holiness of creatures is from without, consisting in a transfiguration of their nature by the communication and indwelling of the Holy Ghost. In connection with this point, the Fathers represent sanctity as something specifically Divine, or purely and simply as a participation of the Divine Nature, whence they look upon sanctification (= being pervaded by the Holy Ghost) as the same as deification, and in Ps. 81:6, “I have said: Ye are gods, and all of you the sons of the Most High,” they take “gods” to be the same as “children or sons of God.”

III. Still more stress was laid on the supernatural character of the vocation of rational creatures, in the controversies with the Nestorians. Here the aim of the Fathers was (1) to show that the Divine gifts to the children of adoption were of such exalted excellence as to require Incarnation; (2) to find in the Incarnation something corresponding with the humbling of the Son of God, viz. the elevation of the creature to a participation in the Divine Nature; (3) to represent the Incarnation as the root and the ideal of a supernatural union of all mankind with God. Hence we find the champion of the Catholic doctrine on the Incarnation, St. Cyril of Alexandria (Comm. on St. John, l. i., cc. 13, 14), constantly extolling the sublimity of adoptive sonship and of the privileges connected therewith. Considering how intimately he connects the two doctrines of the Incarnation of the Logos and the deification of the creature, we are bound to see in him the organ and mouthpiece of the Church on the latter as well as on the former dogma. The doctrine of St. Cyril is also found in the Latin Fathers, chiefly in St. Peter Chrysologus, who points out that the adoptive sonship is almost as marvellous as the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ (Serm., 68 and 72).

IV. At first sight it may appear strange that, whilst in the East the controversies with the Nestorians called forth such a splendid affirmation of the absolutely supernatural character of our adoptive sonship; in the West, St. Augustine and the Church herself seem to claim the actual destiny of man as natural to him, not indeed due to fallen man, but due to the integrity of innocent man, although obtainable only by grace. That this is not a real, but merely an apparent contradiction, may be presumed à priori. If it were real, there would have been a serious difference between the public teaching of the Eastern and the Western Church, whereas no such difference was noticed at the time. Again, we cannot suppose that St. Augustine, who is honoured with the title of “Doctor of Grace,” had a less sublime notion of grace than that generally held in the Church and affected even by the Pelagians. Lastly, the teaching of St. Augustine contains many elements which prove his consent with the Eastern Church. The special form which he gave to his doctrine, and which was adopted by the Holy See, arose from the nature of the heresy which he opposed, as we have shown in the preceding section.

V. The doctrine of the older Greek Fathers concerning: the vocation of rational creatures to a union with God implying deification—a doctrine which they taught in connection with the dogmas of the Trinity and of the Incarnation—was retained and logically evolved by the representatives of the Eastern scholastic theology, especially by the author of the books commonly ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, and by Maximus Confessor. In the West, on the contrary, the same doctrine kept the form given to it by St. Augustine.

VI. During the Middle Ages the schools of theology submitted St. Augustine’s treatment to a searching analysis, and brought it into harmony with the conception always predominant in the East. This result was arrived at in consequence of more accurate notions of “nature” and of “man as the natural image of God.” The concept of nature was evolved in the controversy with the Monophysites; the concept of the natural image of God in man, in the struggle against Averroism. From these notions the Schoolmen inferred that the nature of the created spirit, as such, possesses the power and the destiny to a sort of beatitude and to a union of some kind with God. Further, comparing created nature with the supernatural excellence of the beatific vision, to which, as a revealed fact, man is actually called, they concluded that the actual destiny of the creature surpasses all the powers, and is beyond all the claims of nature, and contains a union with God by which the creature is raised to fellowship with God’s own beatitude.

This twofold consideration necessarily led to another conclusion. In order to be made worthy of such beatitude and to be able to tend towards it, the creature must, even in the present life, be elevated to a higher dignity and furnished with new powers, and must be united with God in closer fellowship. Thus the creature becomes the friend, the child, the bride of God, and is consecrated as a temple of God. From this point of view a more general bearing was given to the question between St. Augustine and the Pelagians concerning grace as the principle of salutary actions in fallen man. The question was now, “Which are, in general, the conditions necessary to enable rational creatures to merit eternal life?” to which the answer can be no other than this: “Every operation tending, in any way whatsoever, towards the acquisition of eternal life, must be considered as a rising above the sphere of nature and, consequently, as a good of a higher kind than natural good; every operation properly and perfectly meritorious supposes, besides, that the person acting must be of a rank or position raised above nature.” The principle of merit being once found in an elevation of the status and of the powers of the creature, grace itself was looked upon as the principle giving to human actions a supernatural merit. Now, grace is the principle of merit, because, by means of grace, nature is made worthy of eternal life. Thus the scriptural notion of adoptive Divine sonship was followed out to its last consequences: the supernatural vocation of man became the foundation upon which the whole doctrine concerning God’s operation in man, and man’s operation to attain his end, is built up. Since St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure, the doctrine of grace has been generally drawn out on the above lines, and the Church sanctioned this system as her own in the condemnation of Baius. See St. Thom., Quæst. Disp., De Veritate, q. 27, a. 1; St. Bonav., in 2 Dist. 29, and Breviloq., v. 1.