reclaiming deification in the latin west by tsakanikas.108203752

8/13/2019 Reclaiming Deification in the Latin West by Tsakanikas.108203752

1/25

1

Reclaiming Deification in the Latin West

In his treatise on the Incarnation, Saint Athanasius writes, [The Word of God] assumed

humanity that we might be made God.1

By the time of Nominalism in the West the

relationship between Thy will be done and authentic human becoming was lost and

the centrality of the doctrine of deification begins to evaporate in the Western Church.

Since then, many Christians more concerned with avoiding sin than living the life of

God2 - look upon Athanasius statement as something that needs to be watered-down

instead of shouted from the roof tops, but, in our reaction to the New Age we are failing

to present the authentic Christian view of deification.

Athanasius understanding of deification can be recovered through St. Gregory of

Nyssas presentation of the Lords Prayer when he presents Thy Kingdom come as

Thy Spirit come.3 Read in light of Saint Pauls Second Letter to the Corinthians,

Moses Sinai experience was seen as an expression of Eden and what humans were

originally called toto be made God by participatory entrance into the true Holy of

Holies. For this reason Saint John of Damascus expresses the Eucharist as accomplishing

the forgiveness of sins4 through deification. Thy will be done is restored to mans

progress in love; becoming like God who is love (1 Jn 4:16).

This essay will take two detours before addressing how a proper Eucharistic centered

spirituality can be accomplished through renewed emphasis on the doctrine of deification

and a renewed patristic stress on as in The Lords Prayer.5 In our

first detour, we will briefly look at how Nominalism obfuscated the Thomistic


2/25

2

understanding of deification in Thomas synthesis of the Fathers and which leads to

todays modernmisunderstanding of freedom in the West and Gods will as a hindrance

to rightful autonomy. In our second detour, we will briefly look at how Pope John Paul

the Great reinserts the mystery of the Transfiguration into weekly Latin spirituality and

inspires Catholics to contemplate the mystery between the Kingdom and the Eucharist.

This will launch us into our last and main point of the importance of Nyssas and

Maximus emphasis on Thy Spirit Come in order to overcome false New Age doctrines

of Gods immanence. Along with the Irenaean and Athanasian kerygma (that God

became man so that we might become God), focus on Moses Sinai experience will help

draw this last and main point together.

Part I: The First Detour, Nominalism

It is certainly a bold claim to discuss Aquinas and deification in a setting where many

Orthodox may still hold Aquinas as the point where the Latins shifted from relationality

to substantiality6and abandoned a true patristic understanding of deification. The alarm

may resound amongst some Catholic theologians if they were to hear that Gregory

Palamas is not so distant from Aquinas and that Palamas has been just as misrepresented

in the West as Aquinas has in the East. Nevertheless, the work of the Cambridge patristic

scholar Anna Williams bridges the divide. In The Ground of Union: Deification in

Aquinas and Palamas, she demonstrates a substantial consonance between Aquinas and

Palamas7 in which there is not a categorical opposition

8 when they are interpreted

according to their own systems.


3/25

3

Aquinas did not slavishly follow Aristotle. Faith came first for Aquinas. For instance,

Williams writes: "Not surprisingly, Thomas chose to preserve divine uniqueness, taking

Aristotle head on in I.3,5, where he bluntly denies God is contained in a

genus[Aquinas] not so much rejects Aristotle as bends the Philosophers thought to his

own end."9 We know a tree by its fruits. How did students of St. Thomas read mans

calling here and now? Trained10

in theology through study of Scripture, the Fathers and

St. Thomas we find Saint John of the Cross writing:

for to love is to labor to divest and deprive oneself for God of all that is not God.

When this is done the soul will be illumined by and transformed in God. And

God will so communicate his supernatural being to the soul that it will appear to

be God himself and will possess what God himself possesses.

When God grants this supernatural favor to the soul, so great a union is caused

that all the things of both God and the soul become one in participant

transformation, and the soul appears to be God more than a soul. Indeed it is God

by participation. Yet truly, its being (even though transformed) is naturally as

distinct from Gods as it was before, just as the window, although illum ined by

the ray, has being distinct from the rays.11

It is hard to miss in this student of Aquinas: love, illumination, transformation,

one or union, participation, becoming God without being absorbed or violating


4/25

4

Gods transcendence; all key features of deification (theosis) found in the Fathers.12

Throughout St. John of the Cross we find a culmination of the spirit13

of Damascene and

Aquinas just before the full impact of Nominalism and the Churchs response at Trent

and the manualist tradition that followed. That manualist tradition for training future

priests - until the time of Ressourcementand Vatican II disregarded the question of

our last end and beatitude, seeing in it no relevance for fundamental moral theology.14

Many of the Fathers were at one and the same time bishops, preachers, pastors of souls,

theologians and spiritual leaders, to say nothing of mystics.

15

To them, the above

manualist separations were unthinkable. Conforming himself to the spirit of the Fathers,

Saint Thomas was himself a mystic and his Summa Theologiaewas not made to be read

as a manual but as an architectonic whole revealing mans call to participate in Gods

own beatitude.

To some degree a misinformed response against Aquinas, the Nominalists - juxtaposing

nature against freedom - denied the existence of natures altogether in a further attempt

to defend Gods freedom against a perceived Aristotelian necessitarianism in natures.16

Such a move tore teleology from formal considerations. No real forms, no real ends

revealed through natures. A patristic and Thomistic imago Dei realized through the

graced development of the virtues17

would become incoherent18

amongst Western

thinkers. Dumitru Staniloae, in his synthesis of Orthodox theology, reminds us: the

Fathers, from the beginning right down to St. Gregory Palamas, have all stressed the fact


5/25

5

that image develops into likeness, and this particularly by means of the virtues which

are in a special way the work of the will helped by grace.19

Mixed with a misrepresented Augustinian anthropology, Nominalism ends in fideism:

Gods will is totally free and not bound in any way by the expression of His goodness;

study of nature cannot reveal Gods will since God could just as easily have willed the

opposite; Gods commands are morality; we can only know Gods will through

revelation; natural philosophy is useless and so is analogy. Having eliminated the

possibility of ethics based on the exploration of human nature, the Nominalists began to

develop a deontological, voluntaristic, legal theory of morality.20

The relationship of

nature to grace began its great malformation. The legal theory of morality led

Nominalists to:

think of grace not in ontological terms as a transformation of the human person

elevating that person from the natural order to a share in the supernatural life of

God, or as a restoration of the divine image, but as an extrinsic, legal (forensic)

relation between God and man.21

Caught within legalistic extrinsic relationships, participation in God becomes foreign;

deification fades. Morality is separated from spirituality. Western Christian civilization

moves towards legalism and minimalism in morality22

; more concerned with avoiding

sin than living the life of God.23

The Irenean and Athanasian summary is suffocated.


6/25

6

Amongst Enlightenment thinkers Nominalism becomes Empiricism as faith is suspended;

replaced instead by scientific positivism and governments gradually separating

themselves from theism just as man separates himself from participation in Gods

divinity. Freedom is no longer recognized as freedom for24

excellence and becoming25

.

With the advent of the scientific revolution freedom becomes the conquest over our

inclinations and design:

the body as furnishing a teleological basis for ethical norms dwindles, and the

natural world is viewed more and more objectivelyas a collection of things to be

used for their utility rather than to be contemplated as a mirror of the Creator.26

Faith and reason part company. Reason becomes a tool for overcoming creation instead

of a gift enabling man to enter into relationship with God on behalf of creation. Man

made to the image and likeness of God and so ordered to relationship with God becomes

less rational and begins to worship the creature rather than the Creator (cf. Rom 1:25).

Freedom becomes primarily freedom from coercion as opposed to freedom for truth,

goodness, and fulfillment. Jesus told us he came that we may have life and have it more

abundantly (Jn 10:10). He told us he would set-us free, but this freedom was always

freedom for something. It was not freedom to remain as we are, but freedom to become

sons of God.

After the very passage when Jesus tells us the truth will set us free, Jesus tells us: A

slave does not remain in the household forever, but a son always remains. So if a son


7/25

7

frees you, then you will truly be free (cf. Jn 8:33-37). What is this talk of a son and his

household? During the Institution of the Eucharist, Christ will tell us: In my Fathers

house there are many dwelling placesI go to prepare a place for you (Jn 14:2 -3).

Commenting on this passage, St. John of the Cross tells us it is about sharing in Gods

divinity and progressing in this participation until the soul appears to be God.27

Jesus does not just free us from sin by calling us to repentance and helping us overcome

internal coercion, Jesus frees us from sin in the process of making us children of God

through a share in his divinity. He becomes for us the strong man who enters our house

(soul) (cf. Mt 12:29; Lk 22) by grace to deliver us from sin and enable us to receive that

for which we were madefreedom for becoming partakers in the Divine Nature (2

Pet 1:4); the freedom of the sons of God (Rom. 8:21).

Part II: Second Detour: Towards Re-establishing Contemplation of the

Transfiguration

The Second Vatican Council wasted no time in announcing the same freedom for in its

Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. Immediately after introducing

the document, the Council Fathers wrote: The eternal Fatherchose to raise up men to

share in his own divine life.28

This is the immediate announcement of the Dogmatic

Constitution On Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum,as well: In His goodness andwisdom

Godchose toreveal Himself and to makeknown to us thehiddenpurpose of His will (see

Eph.1:9)by which throughChrist, theWord made flesh,man might in theHoly Spirit
http://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3gg.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/7i4.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3g4.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/1ny.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/61h.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/482.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3nb.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/5oi.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/6a6.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/2ut.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/ob.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/1o4.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/7iz.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/385.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/4h8.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3op.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/6kk.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/6kk.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3op.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/4h8.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/385.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/7iz.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/1o4.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/ob.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/2ut.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/6a6.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/5oi.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3nb.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/482.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/61h.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/1ny.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3g4.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/7i4.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3gg.htm


8/25

8

haveaccess to theFather and come to share in thedivinenature (seeEph.2:18;2Peter

1:4).29

The only two dogmatic constitutions of the council both begin with the same

announcement: man has a purpose; he was created for eternal life. Freedom exists for

that participation.

It should not be surprising that both of these dogmatic constitutions begin with the same

proclamation. Lumen GentiumandDei Verbum30

were both assisted in their drafting by

the same peritus, Henri De Lubac, a leader in the Ressourcement project; a project

whose scholars believed that it was necessary to recover the wisdom of the patristics in

order to deal with the intellectual challenges posed by the culture of modernity.31

In the

Catechismwhich followed the Council we find the wisdom of the Fathers repeated. On

the question of the purpose of the Incarnation, Irenaeus and Athanasius are emphasized:

God became man so that we might become God.32

As the authentic interpreter of Vatican II, Pope John Paul the Great placed emphasis on

spiritual renewal and a continuation of the Ressourcement projects of Conciliar periti

such as Cardinal Henri de Lubac.33

He continually proposed Article 22 of Gaudium et

Spes as the interpretive key of the document - another segment of a constitution De

Lubac was known to have inspired and even collaborated on with Wojtyla34

- and which,

according to Joseph Ratzinger commenting in 1968,

culminates in Christ who is now presented as the true answer to the question of

every human beingArticle 22 thus returns to the starting-point, Article 12, and

presents Christ as the eschatological Adam to whom the first Adam already
http://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/r8.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/34x.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/1s3.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/6dc.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/2ke.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/4sa.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/6a6.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/2ut.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/9i.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/62.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/9i.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/59g.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/g5.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/g5.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/3.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/59g.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/9i.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/62.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/9i.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/2ut.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/6a6.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/4sa.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/2ke.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/6dc.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/1s3.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/34x.htmhttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/Intratext%20files/2VatCoun.IXT/r8.htm


9/25


10/25

10

than three years ago; impacting millions who pray the Rosary daily. Orthodox and

Eastern Catholic spirituality always gave special emphasis to the mystery amongst the

Twelve Great Feasts. Pope John Paul was asking Latins that they frequently contemplate

the Transfiguration for their spiritual formation:39

To look upon the face of Christ [in the Transfiguration], to recognize its mystery

amid the daily events and the sufferings of his human life, and then to grasp the

divine splendour definitively revealed in the Risen Lord, seated in glory at the

right hand of the Father: this is the task of every follower of Christ and therefore

the task of each one of us. In contemplating Christs face we become open to

receiving the mystery of Trinitarian life, experiencing ever anew the love of the

Father and delighting in the joy of the Holy Spirit. Saint Pauls words can then be

applied to us: Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being changed into his

likeness, from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is

the Spirit (2 Cor 3:18).40

This provides the perfect opportunity for East to assist West to meditate again on so

central a mystery of Christianity, a meditation which requires the help of our common

heritage - the Fathers - and the rediscovery of deification in Western spirituality. How

are people to understand what Christ meant when just before the Transfiguration - he

announced: Amen I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death

before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom (Mt 16:28) if they have not

heard Nyssas or Maximus commentary on the Lords Prayer? And how are they to


11/25

11

place emphasis on the Eucharist within their spirituality without Nyssa and Damascene

helping us understand Holy Communion through Moses?

Part III: Understanding Holy Communion Through Moses

Kingdom and Spirit

Modern day loss of the authentic interpretation of the phrase "the kingdom" in Matthew

16:28 has contributed to some wild ideas about what Jesus meant

41

; especially in the

West where positivism42

strongly effects historical critical analysis of the Scriptures.43

It

may even be the loss of the core Christian belief in deification that even led to the

possibility of such interpretations. Jesus knew very well what he meant concerning "the

kingdom," and by Pentecost, so did his Apostles. In fact, three of the Apostles new

exactly what he meant within days of the claim. Jesus was referring to the mystery of

God sharing his own life and power in our souls; making us divine (the righteousness of

God).

The passage that always follows Jesus promise of seeing the kingdom (Mt 16:28) is

the account of the Transfiguration (Fourth Luminous Mystery of the Rosary) when some

of those standing there for the announcement of the coming kingdom got to see Jesus

come in his Fathers glory (Mt 16:27)...the kingdom. The kingdom is the power and

the glory that emanate from Jesus at the Transfiguration. Through Jesus, and by the

indwelling activity of the Holy Spirit, God can create in us a share in this kingdom. This


12/25

12

is the great mystery hidden from generations pastChrist in you, the hope for glory

(Col. 1:26-27). This is the reason the Word assumed flesh; that we may have life and

have it more abundantly.

When Nyssa tells us in his commentary on the Lords PrayerBut The Kingdom is the

Holy Spirit44

and replaces it with Your Holy Spirit come upon us and purify us,45

we

are brought into the spirituality of praying to be made sharers in the Kingdom of the Son

who showed the Kingdoms meaning by His Transfigurationreal union between God

and man without destruction to either nature. Christians are praying daily for an intrinsic

justification of infusion of the Holy Spirit46

, not an extrinsic legal declaration; not for a

future kingdom with no connection to the here and now. What becomes all the more

convincing is the implicit connection of this with Thy will be done and Moses in

NyssasLife of Mosesand homily on the Song of Songs.

The earlier mentioned Byzantine prayer for the Feast of the Transfiguration47is almost

word for word Nyssas meditation on the meaning of Moses Sinai experience when

Moses came down from Sinai with the Ten Commandments (cf. Ex 34:29-35):

Moses was transformed to such a degree of glory that the mortal eye could not

behold him. Certainly he who has been instructed in the divine mystery of our

faith knows how the contemplation of the spiritual sense agrees with the literal

account. For when the restorer of our broken nature (you no doubt perceive

in him the one who healed our brokenness) had restored the broken table of

our nature to its original beautydoing this by the finger of God [finger is the


13/25

13

Holy Spirit], as I said the eyes of the unworthy could no longer behold him.

[emphasis mine]48

Nyssa assumes the reader no doubt perceives the full significance. He was not

considering the state of biblical studies in the Anglo-phone West or Europe which en

masse questions the agreement of the spiritual and literal. We will take Nyssa on his

terms. What was he trying to tell us?

Beyond any doubt he was telling us this was a type of the Transfiguration, but he

maneuvers us back to Eden by mention of restoration of our nature to its original

beauty. The selection of readings49

in Byzantine Daily Worship on the Feast of the

Transfiguration raise an interesting question: Where was Moses in Exodus 33:11, where

The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face?

The column of cloud (Ex 33:9) two verses earlier gives it away. God had reopened

Eden to Moses at the meeting tent. Moses has entrance to the true holy of holies; what

Nyssa called: the inner sanctuary of the tabernacle not made with hands.50

The

mountain itself has the very designs of Eden when diagramed from an aerial view and the

meeting tent is based on the same design (cf. Ez 28:13-14). Liturgy and Holy

Communion are based on the same design (see attached illustrations). The column of

cloud that stood at the tent entrance was an angel (cf. Ex 13:22; Ex 14:19-20) and

probably the same angel from Eden where God stationed the cherubim and the fiery

revolving sword, to guard the way to the tree of life (Gen 3:24; Ex 40:36 -38). By an


14/25

14

angel standing guard at the tent entrance and the glory of God manifesting in the tent (cf.

Ex 40:34), Moses was showing us that the way to Eden and sharing in God's divinity had

been reopened for him. This is why Moses could walk-out clothed in light (cf. Ex 34:34-

35). Nyssa did not miss this. Saint Gregory is undoubtedly commenting on Exodus

33:11 when he states:

Nevertheless, this man who had experienced such things, this very Moses who

through such attainments had been elevated to divinity, still was not satisfied. He

besought God to see him face to face, although Scripture had already testified that

he was counted worthy of speaking with God face to face.

51

The first three chapters of Genesis are inseparable from the heart of the whole Exodus

account; once again demonstrating why the Church supported the view that Moses is the

substantial author of Genesis and Exodus. In fact, the initial chapters of Genesis might

well be nothing less than a God-breathed theological reflection by Moses and the elders

on their Sinai experienceedited mostly by the very people who knew Moses and beheld

Gods glory at Sinai (i.e. Joshua and the priests).

To somehow miss that Moses in glory points back to Adam and Eve in glory is to

miss the whole key in understanding the salvation Jesus wrought and what Moses

supposes his readers understood when he wrote about Adam and Eve. Moses assumed

his readers and hearers would interpret the events in the Garden of Eden in light of what

happened with him at Sinai. After all, his first audience had witnessed the Sinai events.

Filled with the Spirit of God, the great prophet Ezekiel interpreted Moses this way when


15/25

15

he wrote: In Eden, the garden of Godyou were on the holy mountain of God, walking

among the fiery stones (cf. Ez 28:13-14). Eden unmistakably is made to sound like

Sinai, a mountain top experience where fire came down to earth and clothed everything

in light.

Saint Pauls whole theology as found in his letters backs such an interpretation and is the

reason he calls Jesus the [New] Adam (Rom 5:17-19; 1 Cor 15:45-49). It is also no

accident that Saint Pauls Second Letter to the Corinthians constantly speaks of

transformation to glory (2 Cor.3:18) and the need to be further clothed that what is

mortal may be swallowed up by life (2 Cor 5:4)with constant allusions to the Garden

of Eden (2 Cor 5:3;11:3) and Moses in glory (2 Cor 3:7,12,15). Immersed in the

Scriptures, Saint Gregory would not have missed this as his allusion to divinity and

Exodus 33:11 demonstrates.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven

Notice what Moses received and held close to his heart before Gods glory shone from

him. In his hands were the Ten Commandments, the Will (Wisdom) of God. Moses not

only entered Gods presence in the cloud, but God could enter him because Moses had

fixed his heart to Gods will. Just as the Luminous Mystery of the Transfiguration

follows the Luminous Mystery of the Proclamation of the Kingdom and Call to


16/25


17/25

17

Give us this day our daily bread

Where are we further purified and enlivened in the Spirit now and made sharers in the

divine nature? Where do we enter Eden and have access to the Tree of Life? The phrase

that follows Thy will be done in the Lords Prayer is: Give us this day our daily

bread. The Kingdom, Gods Will, and the Bread from Heaven are three in one and

participate in one another. We find our entrance back into union with God through Christ

the living bread that comes down from heaven (John 6:51). Christ is the gate (Jn

10:8) to the Holy of Holies.

His body and blood are the gate or veil pre-figured by Moses who enters the tent and

glory-cloud and emerges elevated to divinity55

from being in the True Presence.

Through the new veils (Heb 10:19) of Christs body and blood, we enter the true tent

(Jesus himself (Jn 1:14)) and continue to be restored to the dignity that was lost in Eden.

It is no accident that we meet the Lamb who John the Baptist pointed-out just before

Cana at the other great wedding feast in the Book of Revelation (Rev 22:1) and this Lamb

admits those who wash their robes [Baptism] that they may have the right to the tree of

life [eternal life] and that they may enter the city by the gates [Holy Communion] (Rev

22:14).56

In Revelation, as at Eden (Gen. 3:24) and as at Moses tent (Ex 33:9 -10), there

are angels guarding the entrances, stationed (Rev 21:12) at the gates.


18/25

18

It is at the altar of Christthe gate made possible through the Apostolic57

succession (cf.

Rev 12:14) -where we follow Christ (even pledging unto death to follow him) as we give

our will through Him with Him and in Him to the Father58

, so that in dying with Christ

we might also be raised with Christ. Having given our will over to God and having

beseeched Thy Spirit Come, Saint John of Damascus tells us Jesus comes to us as the

burning coal pre-figured in Isaiah for the sake of our deification:

Let us draw near to it with an ardent desire, and with our hands held in the form

of the cross let us receive the body of the Crucified One: and let us apply our eyes

and lips and brows and partake of the divine coal, in order that the fire of the

longing, that is in us, with the additional heat derived from the coal may utterly

consume our sins and illumine our hearts, and that we may be inflamed and

deified by the participation in the divine fire.59

Conclusion

The Latin liturgy today still prepares the laity for this truth when the priest prepares the

gifts placing a few drops of water into the wine - and prays: Through the mystery of

this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself

to share in our humanity. When this is prayed, Athanasius is in some fashion re-echoed:

God became man that we might become God. Yet, in some fashion this needs to

become more audible. Athanasius synthesis of the faith does not need to be watered or


19/25

19

toned down60

. It needs to be shouted from the roof tops. Few and often missed allusions

to the centrality of the doctrine of deification are insufficient.

The Greek Church Fathers took the doctrine of deification seriously and so should all

Christians. On a humorous note, Germain Grisez notes: Some of them argue that the

Word and the Spirit are divine a fortiori, because these divine persons cause the

divinization of human persons, which would be impossible were they not divine

themselves.61

In other words, some Fathers took deification so seriously they first

argued that since humans are deified, the Word and Spirit must be divine. Now that is

emphasis and clarity.

Perhaps not as forceful, but beneficial nevertheless, the work of Ressourcement has

helped the Latin Church reclaim the Tradition as evidenced in the documents of Vatican

II:

Though not opposed to the Thomist tradition per se, [Ressourcementtheologians]

believed that the scholasticism dominant in seminaries of the pre-Conciliar era

was on its own, an inadequate weapon for dealing with the intellectual

complexities of modern atheism, and that in some instances it represented a

seventeenth century distortion of the classical Thomist account of the relationship

between nature and grace;62

a relationship distorted through Nominalist underpinnings which separate morality from

spirituality.


20/25

20

John Paul the Great has managed to refocus the Latin Church on the mystery of the

Transfiguration through the addition of the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary.

Throughout his papacy, he stressed that the key to understanding the documents of

Vatican II was to read them through the lens of Gaudium et Spes22 where Christ reveals

man to himself. Clearly it is at the Transfiguration where Christ reveals mans destiny.

As the convening of the Council was announced at the close of the week dedicated to

Christian unity, John Paul the Great can rest assured that stressing the Transfiguration

will go a long way during this Year of the Eucharist to helping unite East and West in the

their patristic heritage: God became man that we might be made God and this is

accomplished through the Eucharist where we become like God who is love (1 Jn 4:16).

1Cf. Saint Athanasius, On the Incarnation, para.54, trans. CSMV (Crestwood: St. Vladimirs Orthodox

Seminary, 1953).

2Cf. Germain Grisez,Beyond the New Theism(Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 383-384:

Christians in the beginning had high hopes, not merely great expectations. But as the Christian doctrines

of the Trinity and the Incarnation were hammered out, the Christian doctrine of life everlasting was allowed

to atrophy. Partaking of divine life, being one with the persons of the Trinity as they are with each other,

being adopted into the divine family, and knowing God even as one is knownconcepts all found in the

New Testamentbecame for many Christians little more than metaphors. Christian life became more a

matter of avoiding sin than of living the life of God.

3See: Nyssas commentary on theLords PrayerPG 44: 1158C:

s

s s. Cf. InMaximus Confessor: Selected Writings, trans


21/25

21

George Berthold (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 106, we find in Saint Maximuss Commentary on the

Lords Prayer the statement: what Matthew here calls kingdom another evangelist calls Holy Spirit: May

your Holy Spirit come and purify us. Footnote 44 on page 122 tells us: There is indeed a very rare

manuscript that has this variant of Lk 11:2 but Maximus undoubtedly got this reading from Gregory of

Nyssa, The Lords Prayer3(PG 44, 1157C and 1160).

4 Sin is being used in this context as venial.

5See: Nyssas commentary on theLords Prayerin PG 44:1158C:

.

6Cf. Dumitru Staniloae, Image likeness, and deification in the human person, trans. from Orthodoxe

Dogmatik in Communio13 (Spring 1986), 64-83, at 71. After praising Palamas, Staniloae quotes Paul

Evdokimov: Above all, we must eliminate any substantialist conception of the image.

7Anna Williams, Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas(Oxford University Press, 1999),

172.

8Williams, Ground of Union, 172.

9Ibid., 41.

10See: Biographical Sketch, inThe Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross, Revised Edition, trans.

Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1991), 12, (hereafter all

works of St. John of the Cross cited by his work and page number in this edition).

11St. John of the Cross,Ascent of Mt. Carmel, Book 2.5.7, 165.

12Cf. Williams, Ground of Union, 32, especially: Where we find the idea of participation in divine life,

union with God and humanity portrayed as human destiny, and a mode of articulating divine transcendence

in this context, we can say we are dealing with a doctrine of deification.

13Cf. St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, 1.16, 646-647: transformation of loveresembles

glowing embersso hot they shoot forth a living flameunion comparable to the fire of God which Isaiah

says is in Zion. Compare with St. John of Damascus on the Eucharist as the coal creating a fire of union

between God and man (PG 1149B):

s s s


22/25

22

s and Aquinas reiteration (STh. III, q.79, a.8): Sed contra est quod Damascenus

dicitet illuminet corda nostra, ut participatione divini ignis ingniamur et deficemur.

14Cf. Servais Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Sr. Mary Thomas Noble (Wash., D.C.: Catholic

University of America Press, 1995), 263.

15Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, 258.

16Cf. Ernest L. Fortin, Natural Law and Social Justice, American Journal of Jurisprudence, 30 (1985), 1-

20, at 10-11.

17See: Augustine Di Noia, Image Dei-Imago Christi: The Theological Foundations of Christian

Humanism,Nova et Vetera, English Edition, 2:2 (2004), 267-78. See also: Daniel Keating Justification,

Sanctification and Divinization in Thomas Weinandy, OFM et al (eds),Aquinas on Doctrine(London:

T&T Clarke, 2004), 139-158, at 155.

18Cf. Alasdair MacIntryre,After Virtue(Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 57.

19Staniloae, Image, likeness and deification, 73.

20Benedict Ashley, Theologies of the Body: Humanist and Christian(Braintree: The Pope John Center,

1985), 162.

21Ashley, Theologies of the Body, 163.

22Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, 270.

23Cf. Grisez,Beyond the New Theism, 383-84. Whole quote in Footnote 2.

24Ibid. The notions of freedom from and for are inspired by Servais Pinckaers discussion of freedom

of indifference and freedom for excellencepp. 328-378.

25Saint Irenaeus, Against Heresies, in The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. I, trans. William Jurgens.

(Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1970), 84-104, (para 229) at 94: God differs from man in this, that

God makes, but man is made. Surely that which makes is always the same; but that which is made must

receive a beginning, a middle, addition and increase.

26Cf. Ashley, Theologies of the Body, 164. See also: John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor#48.

27St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, 1.13, 645.

28Lumen Gentium#2

29Dei Verbum #2


23/25

23

30Cf. Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, Henri de Lubac: Reader ofDei Verbum, Communio28 (Winter 2001),

669-694 at 669-671.

31Tracey Rowland, Reclaiming the Tradition: John Paul II as the Authentic Interpreter of Vatican II, in

William Oddie (ed.),John Paul the Great(London: Catholic Truth Society, 2003), 2748 at 31.

32Holy See, Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 460 (Liguori: Liguori Publications, 1994), 116.

33Rowland, Reclaiming the Tradition, 31.

34David L. Schindler, Christology and theImago-Dei: Interpreting Gaudium et Spes in Communio 23

(Spring 1996), 168, Footnote 21.

35Schindler, Christology and theImago-Dei, 168.

36Byzantine Daily Worship(Alleluia Press, 1995), 748.

37John Paul II, Apostolic Letter:Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 16 October 2002.

38John Paul II,Rosarium Virginis Mariae#38.

39Cf.Rosarium Virginis Mariae#3: It offers a fruitful spiritualformation of the people of God.

40Rosarium Virginis Mariae#9.

41Heterodox opinions such as:Jesus mistakenly believed he would usher in paradise for his followers

within the lifetime of his hearers.

42Cf: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: On the Question of the Foundations and

Approaches of Exegesis Today, Lecture delivered on 27January 1988 at Saint Peter's Church in New

York, New York and carried with special permission of the Sacred Congregation on www.tcrnews2.com,

19 April 2004.

43See: George Kelly, The New Biblical Theorists(Michigan: Servant Books, 1983)

44The Lords Prayer3 (PG 1157,C): .

45Ibid.: s s. See earlier Footnote 3.

46Cf. Aidan Nichols,Discovering Aquinas(London: Darton, Longman and Todd, ), 106: The upshot is

justification, the victorious grace of the Spirit setting us right with God: forgiveness of sins, union with the

Father. Subjectively, this appears as faith working through love; objectively, it is God converting us to

himself. The transformation is instantaneous, no longer how long prepared. In this moment we become
http://www.tcrnews2.com/http://www.tcrnews2.com/http://www.tcrnews2.com/


24/25

24

adopted sons to whom the inheritance of heaven belongs by right. It is meant to be an abiding possession

of the Christian, qualifyingindeed, transfiguringthe soul that receives it.

47Byzantine Daily Worship, 748: Through your Transfiguration, You returned Adams nature to its

original splendor, restoring its very element to the glory and brilliance of your divinity.

48Saint Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, trans.Abraham Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York:

Paulist Press, 1978), para. 217, 111.

49Byzantine Daily Worship, 747.

50Nyssa, The Life of Moses, para. 229, 114.

51Saint Gregory of NyssasHomily 12 on theCanticle of Canticles. Taken from the Introduction to The

Life of Moses, 21-22. See: PG 44, 1025C-D.

52cf. Nichols,Discovering Aquinas, 106.

53Nyssa reveals the mind of St. Paul about being clothed when in theLife of Moseshe writes: Envy

walled us off from the tree of life, divested us of holy garments para. 256, 120.

54Nyssa,Life of Moses, para. 253, 120.

55Nyssa,Life of Moses, 21 (see previous notes on this quote).

56I am indebted to Dr. Scott Hahns influence in reading Revelation as the Divine Liturgy according to his

study of the Fathers and popular talks.

57In Rev 12:14 the twelve apostles of the Lamb as the citys foundation make possible the entrance

way into the city which is the Holy of Holies as only they and their successors can confect the sacred

mysteries.

58Cf. Matthew Tsakanikas, Understanding Marriage Through Holy Communion: Rediscovering the

Essential Meaning of Sexual Love,Logos7:2 (Spring 2004), 118-136, at 131-132. Cf. Lumen Gentium

#11: Taking part in the eucharistic sacrifice, the source and summit of the Christian life, they offer the

divine victim to God and themselves along with it.

59Saint John of Damascus,Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, Chapter 13, inNicene and Post-

Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 9, W. Sanday (ed.) (Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), 1-

101, at 83.

60Cf. Grisez,Beyond the New Theism, 383-384.


25/25

25

61Ibid., 407, Footnote 6.

62Rowland, Reclaiming the Tradition, 31.

reclaiming deification in the latin west by tsakanikas.108203752

Documents