An Evangelical Explores Deification

Man, I wish I could comment on these posts or e-mail the author!  Mr. Scott William Bryant of the blog Blood Stained Ink, I hope you see this response (and open your comboxes a little!)

His posts:

• Becoming a “god” … (part 1) 
• Becoming a “god” … Through the Catholic Church?! … (part 2)
• Becoming a “god” … and the Great Bill Murray! … (part 3) 
• Becoming a “god,” Razorback Ridge, and the Things that Tend to Scare Us … (part 4) 
• Becoming a “god” just like Bill Murray. What is it with this guy?! … (part 5) 
• Becoming a “god” … Need a Roadmap? … (part 6) 
• Becoming a “god” … Through Luther, Calvin, Lewis, Wright and Other Protestant Giants?! … (part 7)

I was reading through them, Catholic outsider that I am, jumping up and down inside, thinking, "Yes!  You've begun exploring one of the most important doctrines in Christianity!"  And I marveled at the consonance of some of the issues raised in the comments with a number of the things I've read and explored.

A few commentators wonder if the doctrine has dropped out of Protestant favor because of the Enlightenment or perhaps radical individualism, even though it's a part of the broad Christian tradition.  I'd point to the via moderna and the rise of nominalism hundreds of years before.  The same analysis is presented in Father Louis Bouyer's The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, a fantastic and fascinating book exploring some of the dominant truths at the root of Protestant Christianity which prompt their perennial revivals, and how nominalism/modernism glommed onto Protestantism, serving to eventually drag down Protestantism until a revival hits.  Most of the issue comes from doctrines of grace and nature.

Speaking of which, a few commentators wondered what this meant for the status of our essence in eternal beatitude.  The answer can be found in Daniel Keating's Deification and Grace (an excellent summary of the doctrine of deification in Scripture and tradition), where he cites the ancient formula "Jesus is deified by nature; we are deified by grace."  Also, Catholic and Orthodox understandings of sacramentality can be very helpful in this discussion.

And guess who else has been writing about deification for years?  Pope Benedict XVI!  Check out Dr. Scott Hahn's Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI--there's tons of good stuff on how Benedict approaches Scripture and where he locates the meaning of life (in deification!).  See, for example:

If, meanwhile, we look at the world in faith, we know that there is another, second breakthrough point within it: the moment at which God became man, the moment at which was achieved, not just the breakthrough from nature to mind, but the breakthrough from Creator to creature. That is the moment when, in one place, the world and God became one. The significance of all the history that followed after can only be that of including the entire world within this union and, on that basis, giving it the fulfilled meaning of being at one with its Creator. "God became man, in order that men might become gods," is what Saint Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, said. We can say, as a matter of fact, that the actual meaning of history is being announced to us here. In the breakthrough from the world to God, everything that went before and everything that followed afterward is given its proper significance as the great movement of the cosmos is drawn into the process of deification, into a return to the state from which it originated.--Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), What It Means to Be a Christian, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), pg. 53

For more on deification, see here.  For a reading list on deification (both what it is and how to cooperate with God's deification of us), see here.

Man, I love seeing people discover this doctrine!