An Basic Introduction into the Tradition of Divinizaton

"One God by nature but multiple gods by grace" a controversial statement to some but to others a divine truth. This process to 'god-hood' and in turn the adoption of the numerous divine titles has been somewhat suppressed by the second Vatican Council in an attempt to make the faith far more “Acceptable/Understandable” for the general audience, this watering down causes a severe resurgence of rationalization and in turn, the ultimate loss of faith. The process of Divinization is riddled throughout several writings of the church, from both the Eastern and Latin Traditions and even directly acknowledged through several Pope's and Sermons.

The Father's and Saints on the path to 'god-hood' and the Mormon view

The most evident proof of this now controversial tradition passes down to us by several saints verbatim. However before reading these quotes remember what the proper process of Divinization consists of: One God by nature, that is to say, one first unified cause, three persons but one God, and multiple gods by grace, created, given a 'form' of divinity by grace, not inherited by nature nor within the actualized preexistence. The heretical sect of Mormonism denies the divinity by grace in death and instead holds an extremely blasphemous view of the preexistence of the actualized soul and uncreated nature of it, on top of this disgusting view, they hold to the belief that they, through their pre-existing divine nature can become Coeternal First Causes (Within their own planethood) along side the father and the son. This belief is not only condemned by the simple fact that we only possess one first cause and ‘God’ as expressed in Mark 12:29-34, Ephesians 4:5-13, Deuteronomy 6:4 and many other verses but it has also never been spoken of in this form throughout the traditions of the early church, the father's speak of a unity through grace with the divine energies rather than being united as a first cause, instead this belief originates from the ancient sect of Gnosticism and a general misreading of the earlier church. Here is the true position of Divinization and how it's supported throughout scripture and explained by the multitude of saints:

St. Thomas Aquinas on Hebrews: "It should be noted that although there is but one God by nature, as it says in Deut. 6:4: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord’, nevertheless, by participation there are many gods both in heaven and on earth: ‘For there be gods many, and lords many’ (1 Cor. 8:5). For angels are sometimes called gods: ‘When the sons of God came to stand before the Lord’ (Jb. 1:6 & 11), and also prophets, as is said of Moses: ‘Behold I have appointed you the god of Pharaoh’ (Ex. 7:1), and priests: ‘You shall not speak ill of the gods’, i.e., of the priests (Ex. 22:28)"

“We wished to be God ourselves when we fell away from him, after listening to the Seducer saying, “You will be like gods.” Then we abandoned the true God, by whose creative help we should have become gods, but by participating in him, not by deserting him.” (City of God, 22.30)

Through our own pride we have fallen but through humility we rise to our once disposed positions within Eden, a time before death and sickness.

"He has called men gods, that are deified of His Grace, not born of His Substance. For He does justify, who is just through His own self, and not of another; and He does deify who is God through Himself, not by the partaking of another. But He that justifies does Himself deify, in that by justifying He does make sons of God. “For He has given them power to become the sons of God.” John 1:12 If we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods: but this is the effect of Grace adopting, not of nature generating. For the only Son of God, God, and one God with the Father, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, was in the beginning the Word, and the Word with God, the Word God. The rest that are made gods, are made by His own Grace, are not born of His Substance, that they should be the same as He, but that by favor they should come to Him, and be fellow-heirs with Christ." (Exposition on Psalm 50, 2)

"But the Son did not love the disciples in either of these ways. For he did not love them to the point of their being gods by nature, nor to the point that they would be united to God so as to form one person with him. But he did love them up to a similar point: he loved them to the extent that they would be gods by their participation in grace ‑ “I say, ‘You are gods’” (Ps 82:6); “He has granted to us precious and very great promises, that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4) ‑ and he loved them to the extent that they would be united to God in affection: “He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1 Cor. 6:17); “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29). Thus the Father communicated to the Son a greater good, with respect to each nature of the Son, than the Son did to his disciples; yet there is a similarity, as was said." (St Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John)

“We carry mortality about with us, we endure infirmity, we look forward to divinity. For God wishes not only to vivify us, but to deify us” (Sermon 23B)

Saint Athanasius, Discourse 3 Against the Arians: “For as, although there be one Son by nature, True and Only-begotten, we too become sons, not as He in nature and truth, but according to the grace of Him that calls, and though we are men from the earth, are yet called gods not as the True God or His Word, but as has pleased God who has given us that grace; so also, as God do we become merciful, not by being made equal to God, nor becoming in nature and truth benefactors (for it is not our gift to benefit but belongs to God), but in order that what has accrued to us from God Himself by grace, these things we may impart to others, without making distinctions, but largely towards all extending our kind service. For only in this way can we anyhow become imitators and in no other, when we minister to others what comes from Him.”

St John of Damascus, Commentary on Exodus 7:1: "I say that they are gods, lords and kings not by nature but because they have ruled over and dominated sufferings and because they have kept undebased the likeness of the divine image to which they were made-for the image of the king is also called a king. Finally ... they have freely been united to God and [by] receiving him as a dweller within themselves have through association with him become by grace what he is by nature.”

Saint Peter Chrysologus, Commentary on Exodus 7:1: “Hence it is that through the influence of these three things Moses is made a god: for the sake of his military triumphs he brings all the elements under his control. He bids the sea to withdraw, its waves to solidify, its bottom to become dry and the sky to drop its rain. He supplies food, compels the winds to scatter meats, illumines the night with the splendor of the sun, tempers the sun by the veil of the cloud. He strikes the rock to make it yield from its fresh wound cool streams of water for those who thirst. He first gives to the earth heaven's law, writes down the norms of living, sets the terms of disciplinary control.”

Origen, Cels 3.28; ANF 4:475: “From Him [Christ] there began the union of the divine with the human nature, in order that the human, by communion with the divine, might rise to be divine''

Saint Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.38: “Do we cast blame on him [God] because we were not made gods from the beginning, but were at first created merely as men, and then later as gods? Although God has adopted this course out of his pure benevolence, that no one may charge him with discrimination or stinginess, he declares, "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are sons of the Most High." ... For it was necessary at first that nature be exhibited, then after that what was mortal would be conquered and swallowed up in immortality.”

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124: “In the beginning men were made like God, free from suffering and death, and that they are thus deemed worthy of becoming gods and of having power to become sons of the highest."

Saint Clement of Alexandria, ANF02, Book III, Chapter I: "His is beauty, the true beauty, for it is God; and that man becomes God, since God so wills. Heraclitus, then, rightly said, "Men are gods, and gods are men." For the Word Himself is the manifest mystery: God in man, and man God”

Saint Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata: "He who listens to the Lord, and follows the prophecy given by Him, will be formed perfectly in the likeness of the teacher—made a god going about in flesh."

Hippolytus of Rome, Book X, Chapter 30, Refutation of all Heresies: "And you shall be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ, no longer enslaved by lusts or passions, and never again wasted by disease. For you have become God: for whatever sufferings you underwent while being a man, these He gave to you, because you were of mortal mould, but whatever it is consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon you, because you have been deified, and begotten unto immortality.”

Hippolytus of Rome, The Discourse on the Holy Theophany: “If, therefore, man has become immortal, he will also be God. And if he is made God by water and the Holy Spirit after the regeneration of the laver he is found to be also joint-heir with Christ after the resurrection from the dead.”

Saint Basil of Caesarea On the Spirit 9.23: "Becoming a god is the highest goal of all”

This not only includes a united position with the divine energies but also includes the adoption of the multiple titles of God in respect to it's proper usage, whatever possesses the divine energies must also in respect, possess the divine titles.

Dom Augustin Calmet's Dictionary of the Holy Bible: "Sometimes the name of God is given in Scripture to angels. The angel who appeared to Moses in the bush, Exod. ii. 2, &c. vide Acts vii. 30,31; Gal. iii. 19. who delivered the law to him, spoke to him, and guided the people in the wilderness, is often called by the name of God, and the Lord said, « My name is in him,” Ex. xxiii. 21. The angels who appeared to the patriarchs, are likewise termed Gods, Heb. xiii. 2; Gen. xviii. 3; xix. 1. because they acted in the name of God, as his ambassadors, were intrusted with his power, and his orders: they are not only called, Elohim and Monai, names sometimes attributed to judges and princes, but, by that like wise of Jehovah, which belonged to God only, whose majesty they represented.”

The attribution of these titles are seen for the Great Mother as well, for who can possibly be far more deserving of them then Her who is far more exalted and united to the energies in a far more perfect manner than the generality of Saints?

St Lawrence of Brindisi, Sermon 5 of his Mariale: "Mary enjoys a similar dominion, for she has been invested with divine sovereignty and power and crowned goddess of the universe. As God said to Moses: I have appointed thee the God of Pharaoh, i.e. to exercise the same power over Pharaoh that God has over his kingdom, so God has set Mary over the works of His hands. She is the Goddess of Heaven, the Queen of the universe, the true Spouse of the omnipotent God, the true Mother of the almighty Christ She stands at the right hand of God as heaven's exalted Queen.”

The Summa of Saint Antoninus, Part 139, Volume 4: "When the seraphic holy Mary then came to this supreme order of the Seraphim, they, amazed at the sublimity of such great grace, changed the song of those whom Isaiah heard, Isa. 6:3: Holy, holy etc., saying to her: O holy mother of God and of men [hominum], O holy Virgin of virgins, O holy mediatrix of men, O lady, queen of the heavens, O goddess in the godshape of thy acts, O empress sabaoth of all the hosts of Angels.”

St Albert Magnus, Mariale. Response Q, 164: "He most proper name that is owed to the blessed Virgin, according to her highest dignity, is queen of mercy [regina misericordiae], which is more proper than empress [imperatrix]: for this name is rather a name of fear and severity queen, however, is more the name of provident care and impartiality... Likewise, she is more properly [magis propriè] called the queen of mercy than the lady of ladies [domina dominarum], or queen of ladies, or goddess of goddesses [dea dearum].”

What other traditions of the Latin Rite hold to the Divinization? If the saints were not enough to convince you of the authenticity of this relatively lost tradition, here are some other sources that speak the same:

The Catechism of the Council of Trent or (The Catechism for Parish Priests)

"It should not, however, excite our surprise if the Sacred Scriptures sometimes give the name of God to creatures. For when they call the Prophets and judges gods, they do not speak according to the manner of the Gentiles, who, in their folly and impiety, formed to themselves many gods; but express, by a manner of speaking then in use, some eminent quality or function conferred on such persons by the gift of God."

"Solid happiness, which we may designate by the common appellation, essential, consists in the vision of God, and the enjoyment of His beauty who is the source and principle of all goodness and perfection. This, says Christ our Lord, is eternal life: that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. These words St. John seems to interpret when he says: Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shawl see him as he is. He shows, then, that beatitude consists of two things: that we shall behold God such as He is in His own nature and substance; and that we ourselves shall become, as it were, gods."

- The Catechism of the Council of Trent (The Catechism for Parish Priests)

“Certainly the sacraments of the body and blood of Christ, which we receive, is a divine thing. On account of this and through the same ‘we are made partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Pet. 1:4)” (Pope Gelasius De duabus naturis in Christo aduersus Eutychem et Nestorium, 14)

“We are not the same after the purification of Baptism as we were before it. Instead, the bodies of those reborn turn into the flesh of the Crucified” (Pope Leo The Great Sermon 63.6)

Pope Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus: "Human nature is by necessity the servant of God: “The creature is a servant; we are the servants of God by nature” (St. Cyr. Alex., Thesaur. 1. v., c. 5). On account, however, of original sin, our whole nature had fallen into such guilt and dishonour that we had become enemies to God. “We were by nature the children of wrath” (Eph. ii., 3). There was no power which could raise us and deliver us from this ruin and eternal destruction. But God, the Creator of mankind and infinitely merciful, did this through His only begotten Son, by whose benefit it was brought about that man was restored so that rank and dignity whence he had fallen, and was adorned with still more abundant graces. No one can express the greatness of this work of divine grace in the souls of men. Wherefore, both in Holy Scripture and in the writings of the fathers, men are styled regenerated, new creatures, partakers of the Divine Nature, children of God, god-like, and similar epithets. Now these great blessings are justly attributed as especially belonging to the Holy Ghost. He is “the Spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba, Father.” He fills our hearts with the sweetness of paternal love: “The Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God” (Rom. viii., 15-16). This truth accords with the similitude observed by the Angelic Doctor between both operations of the Holy Ghost; for through Him “Christ was conceived in holiness to be by nature the Son of God,” and “others are sanctified to be the sons of God by adoption” (St. Th. 3a, q. xx ii., a. 1). This spiritual generation proceeds from love in a much more noble manner than the natural: namely, from the uncreated Love.”

To be divinized is to participate with love itself, to be blessed with the ultimate grace and to have our free will perfectly intertwined with that of the highest unified good. This is the primary goal of every Catholic and it should be kept in mind, especially when partaking the Eucharist, for that is when we physical partake within the divine, there is no greater love than God pushing us to share within his very greatness, to participate within the brightest light and the most divine fire.