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Entry: Theosis in White Harlem Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/theosis_in_white_harlem#8782 Post contents: Mr. Ramus, you wrote: The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods. That’s Mormonism. Two points: 1) The passage from the CCC I quoted, quotes in turn four passages: a) 2 Peter 1:4 b) St. Irenaeus, Against the Heresies c) St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation d) St. Thomas Aquinas, Smaller Work # 57, Sermon on the Feast of the Body of Christ You noted that on the surface these passages are similar to the Mormon doctrine of "exaltation." Let's assume for a moment that it is the same. Unless you reject as the quotations as spurious, you must hold that these four saints taught Mormonism. But since you only quoted Aquinas perhaps you meant only to accuse him of Mormonism. If so, how would you distinguish what he says from what the rest say? 2) The traditional teaching of theosis or deification as represented by these quotes is not the same as the Mormon doctrine of exaltation, although it is superficially similar. But in order to truly understand these respective doctrines we must understand them in context. The Mormons hold that God the Father and God the Son where once men who have been exalted to the status of gods, and that other man can follow this path of progression. (http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/basic/godhead/farms_man.htm) Godhood for them is not really different from creaturehood. It is something more on the order of assuming an office.There doctrine is metaphysically incoherent, and indeed is the product of a materialist mentality that lacks any true metaphysical understanding. On this count the traditional Catholic doctrine of deification is poles apart in that it assumes a metaphysical worldview, and, indeed, the reality of the metaphysical. It is because there is an analogia entis, a hierarchical community of being that God can become man and raise man to a greater participation in his life. The traditional doctrine does not mean that man can become God the Father or God the Son, but that man can, because he was created in God's image, and if he chooses, grow ever more like God without ever ceasing to be a creature. John Ball wrote: "That sounds like a plot for a science-fiction-horror movie about Rudy Giuliani having sex with himself and multiplying himself in ballot-boxes all over the land." That would indeed be a horror! Although it wouldn’t be so bad if this little Taki comment box were a ballot box and all the Taki commenter could multiply their votes! Sent at: 2008 09 07