Theosis: Becoming Gods in This Life

In a previous article published at HPR, I wrote about moral perfection in this life, but I focused on contrasting mortal and venial sins for the purposes of helping us to remove sin from our lives and to grow in holiness.¹ In that article, I briefly mentioned theosis (or deification) of which eradicating sin from one’s life is a part. Theosis, deification, and divinization mean the same thing — to make one divine by grace. Generally, the Eastern Christians use the Greek word theosis, while Western Christians use deification or divinization. This article will use theosis because it appears to be the most popular of the three words. Please note that by becoming divine, we share in God’s divinity by way of His grace. We do not become objects of worship.

In this article, I would like to delve deeper into theosis to provide a better understanding of complete sanctification and holiness. This process involves cooperating with grace not only to root out sin but also to do the good works that God creates us to do and to do them joyfully out of love for Him. By doing this, we dispose our souls to more grace until we reach that perfection of holiness to which God calls us (see Hebrews 12:14).

Theologians traditionally teach three stages of theosis. Although knowing these stages is important, the crux of this article will focus on more practical matters to help one achieve theosis. Nevertheless, we should familiarize ourselves with the stages as they will help us to better imagine our journeys with God.

Stages of Theosis

God created Adam and Eve full of sanctifying grace, a point we will explore in more detail below. They had no inclinations to sin, which means they had no impediments to grace in their souls. And God interacted with Adam and Eve (see Genesis 1:28–30 and 2:16–23), which means that He somehow revealed Himself to them while they were in this state of complete holiness. In this life, God gives us power to return to this state and even move beyond it.

This is not to say that we absolutely cannot fall into sin or that temptations will cease. In this life, temptations are sure to come (Luke 17:1). Rather, interior and exterior temptations will no longer attract us; they will have no power over us. By cooperating with grace, grace will purify our minds and bodies. This is the purgative stage of theosis. Eastern Christians, especially Greek Catholics and Greek Orthodox, call this stage katharsis, which means purification.

The next stage of theosis is the illuminative, what the Eastern Christians call theoria, which means contemplating or viewing. In this stage, God periodically illuminates our minds with His wisdom. This happens directly rather than indirectly, such as when we read Scripture or theology. It is akin to God interacting with Adam and Eve and giving them revelations (see the Genesis passages above).

The last stage is the unitive stage, what the Eastern Christians refer to as theosis. Here, God gives us a habitual and perceptible union with Him. This is not something we know by faith alone. Rather, God unites us to Him in such a way that we perceive His immanent presence in our souls continuously. He not only illuminates our minds, but He also fills us with His burning love in such a way that we sense its presence. At this point, we become fully human the way God intended. The image is now “like” God (see Genesis 1:26).

The Catechism of the Ukrainian Catholic Church states:

For the Holy Fathers, spiritual struggle is the primary path to divinization. The first (‘purgative’) stage of this spiritual asceticism is purification from passions and passionate intentions through the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. The second (‘illuminative’) stage is the illumination of the mind and contemplation or vision of God (in Greek, theoria). The third (‘unitive’) stage is the actual attainment of divinization.²

A few paragraphs later, it explains the unitive stage in terms of divine love:

Divine love, which is the summit of the virtuous life, is also the force that accompanies our divinization. In his love for humankind, God became one of us, and through our love for God we grow toward divinization. In divinization, the human mind becomes illumined and enraptured by divine light. The human person becomes a partaker of divine love, and their entire being is transfigured: the person becomes a god by grace.

Please note that theosis does not consist of clearly delineated stages. Rather, God may give a person illuminations before the purgative stage is complete, and He may fully unite the person to Him while He continues to give illuminations. We would better understand these stages as signs along a highway. The stages help us to know that we are on the right path as we journey with God.

Additionally, between the first and second stages (purgative and illuminative), God deprives one of sensible consolations such as those feelings of progress and satisfaction that one experiences during prayer and study. He does this because the person becomes too sure of himself too quickly and loves the consolations too much. Similarly, between the second and third stages (illuminative and unitive), God deprives one of both sensible and spiritual consolations such as supernatural (directly from God) insights on the mysteries of salvation, eager desires for them, ease of learning these mysteries, and ease of preaching and teaching, for which the soul had felt a secret pride and complacency.³

These deprivations are called passive purgations, and God uses them to purify the soul before it moves on to a subsequent stage. By removing consolations, the person has a decision to make: do I despair and eventually turn away from God, or do I rely on God with even greater fervor, trusting that He will increase my faith and help me to cooperate with grace without the delight of consolations? When spiritual maturity arrives, the person is ready for the next stage of theosis.

A word of caution: We must not view theosis as a list of things to complete to move from one stage to the next. In doing so, we would bring theosis down to the realm of the purely natural. Instead, we must simply cooperate with grace and recognize the path that God is helping us to walk. It is an exercise in humility, love, fervent prayer, and cooperation with grace, rather than forced self-exertion that results in frustrations at one’s failures. This approach will maintain the supernatural order of theosis.

By the way, falls from perfection (i.e., venial sins) can help us to recognize our own weaknesses and develop the habit or virtue of humility. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.” Accordingly, we allow grace to work within us to perfect us, to humble us, and to make our souls ready for the divine light mentioned above. Additionally, we must not haughtily expect illuminations and theosis. Instead, we cooperate with grace and allow God to bestow His gifts upon us if He chooses.

Now, let us take a closer look at how God does this. We will begin with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The Catechism on Theosis

The Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the essential point of theosis and helps us to maintain focus as we explore the Church’s thoughts and teachings on this topic. Quoting Saints Peter, Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Aquinas respectively, it states (emphases mine):

The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature” [2 Peter 1:4, RSV-CE]: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.”⁴ “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”⁵ “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.”⁶

Theologians refer to their descriptions as the “exchange formula.” Based on these four quotes alone, we should have no doubt that God shares His divinity with us so that we may become like Him. Hence, the “exchange.” St. Peter’s words are especially pertinent here.

St. Peter on Theosis

When it comes to theosis, St. Peter gives us the most concise explanation of all Scripture passages. Other passages, like “Put on the mind of Christ,” and “I in Him and you in Me,” point toward theosis, but 2 Peter 1:3–7 strikes at the heart of it. In this passage, Peter tells us (emphasis mine):

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature. For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

Given what we know from the Gospels about Jesus’s mission as the incarnate Word of God, the revelation that God created us in His image and likeness, and this passage from Peter, we should understand that God desires for us to become like Him. Becoming like Him begins with redemption and justification, but in this life, it ends with theosis. Please note that in the next life, this all culminates in the Beatific Vision by which we see God clearly and “understand even as we have been understood” (1 Cor 13:12).

I mention the Beatific Vision because it is the final destiny for which God makes us, and we must not confuse theosis with the Beatific Vision. Theosis can happen in this life, but the Beatific Vision happens only in Heaven. To be more precise, the Beatific Vision is Heaven because our union with God will reach the ultimate heights of intimacy without any temptations, impediments, or other imperfections whatsoever.

St. Paul writes of the Beatific Vision, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood” (1 Corinthians 13:12). To understand as we have been understood is to say that we will behold God as He is and understand with His knowledge infused into our souls. With this complete revelation, we will see with His eyes and our eyes will, as a result, function perfectly.

Exploring St. Peter’s Words on Theosis

Returning to Peter’s words, notice that Peter begins his teaching by acknowledging that our partaking of the divine begins with divine initiative. This is important to understand because we must never believe that we achieve holiness by our own initiatives. Rather, God gives us his grace (i.e., actual grace) to help us move toward Him. By His grace, God justifies us in the sacrament of baptism.

Baptism washes away our sins by infusing our souls with sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace removes our enmity with God and establishes our amity with Him. Within this filial relationship, we take hold of grace and grow closer to Him. To be more precise, we cooperate with grace by grace so that God grows in us. Simply put, the natural cannot reach the Supernatural without the Supernatural first reaching down to us.

Next, Peter writes that God grants us godliness and calls us to His own glory and excellence. This is a way of saying that God gives us the ability to be like Him. Because of Original Sin and through personal sin, we distort our likeness to God. But grace begins the restoration process. With our cooperation, grace also completes the process.

Peter then writes that God helps us to escape corruption and become partakers of His divine nature (cf. Psalm 82:6 and John 10:34). This escape and participation involve turning away from sin and turning toward the good works that God calls us to do joyfully and out of love for Him.

To achieve theosis, Peter tells us to supplement our “faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.” Although Peter says this perfectly, I would like to expound on his words briefly:

• To supplement faith with virtue means that we must put our faith to work with the habitual and divine gift of love;
• To supplement virtue with knowledge means that we must study the faith and properly form our consciences so that truth guides our charity;
• To supplement knowledge with self-control means that we must pursue knowledge without becoming prideful or seeking esteem from others;
• To supplement our self-control with steadfastness means that we should vigilantly guard against temptations that seek to diminish or distort the self-control that God gives us;
• To supplement steadfastness with godliness means that we should look to and imitate Jesus, who is the perfect example of godly perseverance in the face of adversity;
• To supplement godliness with brotherly affection means that our God-given godliness must not remain in us selfishly but shared with our brothers and sisters through selfless acts of love;
• And to supplement brotherly affection with love means that we must allow God’s love, which dwells in us, to order our affection toward loving sacrifice and to purge from us the desire for renumeration.

Some Church Fathers on Theosis

The Early Church Fathers, from both East and West, had a great deal to say about theosis, and all their writings are relevant to our study and for progress in grace. For, without their wisdom, the historical framework of theosis — upon which we must build both for ourselves and for others — would have evaporated long ago. For brevity’s sake, I chose four quotes that will help us appreciate their insights and the beauty of theosis.

In the early third century, St. Clement of Alexandria, an Eastern Father, wrote:

The same also takes place in our case, whose exemplar Christ became. Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made immortal. “I,” says He, “have said that you are gods, and all sons of the Highest.” This work is variously called grace, and illumination, and perfection, and washing.⁷

Origen, another Eastern Father, wrote:

From the fullness of the Spirit, the fullness of love is infused into the hearts of the saints [Rom 5:5] in order to receive participation in the divine nature, as the apostle Peter has taught [2 Pet 1:4], so that through this gift of the Holy Spirit, the word which the Lord said might be fulfilled, “As you, Father, are in me and I in you, may they also be one in us.” [Jn 17:21] This is, of course, to be sharers of the divine nature by the fullness of love furnished through the Holy Spirit.⁸

St. John Cassian the Roman, a Western Father who was raised in the East, wrote:

And this will come to pass [in this life] when God shall be all our love, and every desire and wish and effort, every thought of ours, and all our life and words and breath, and that unity which already exists between the Father and the Son, and the Son and the Father, has been shed abroad in our hearts and minds, so that as He loves us with a pure and unfeigned and indissoluble love, so we also may be joined to Him by a lasting and inseparable affection, since we are so united to Him that whatever we breathe or think, or speak is God.⁹

Finally, Pope Leo the Great wrote:

Thus it is that God, by loving us, restores us to His image, and, in order that He may find in us the form of His goodness, He gives us that whereby we ourselves too may do the work that He does, kindling that is the lamps of our minds, and inflaming us with the fire of His love, that we may love not only Himself, but also whatever He loves.¹⁰

With the Fathers’ words in mind, let us move on to Adam and Eve to see how God designed us to be.

Genesis 1 and Theosis

To understand how God created original man and why this is important for theosis, Genesis chapters 1 and 2 provide us with the details. For brevity’s sake, I will focus on only a few verses. Genesis 1:26–27 states, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him . . .” This passage tells us that God made man to be like Him, which includes being full of grace. We know this for a few reasons:

1) God created man in His own image and likeness (Gen 1:26);
2) God gave man the capacity to receive grace;
3) after God created man, He looked across creation and said it was “very good” (Gen 1:31);
4) God created man to live forever (Genesis 2:17).

First, God, who is spirit and grace, created man in His image and likeness, which means God gave man finite spiritual qualities that mirror His attributes. For instance, God is infinite power, truth, and love, and He gives humans finite power, truth, and love. Similarly, God is grace, and He communicates grace to those whom He designed for its reception for the purpose of making them spiritually alive. To emphasize this point, Genesis 2:7 says that man became a living soul (see also 1 Cor 15:45).

Since God made everything perfect in the beginning (deficiencies came about because of the Fall), and humans must be full of grace to be perfect, God fully infused Adam’s and Eve’s souls with sanctifying grace. Because grace perfects man, God’s creation of the first two humans without grace defies reason. Rather, God made Adam and Eve full of grace because He designed their perfect souls for grace. And they had not inclined themselves toward sin that would have impeded their souls’ reception of grace.

Second, God justifies us with His grace by giving us a soul He designed to receive it. If God did not infuse Adam’s and Eve’s souls with grace at the moment of prelapsarian (before the Fall) creation, He would have made them without something that He clearly designed their souls to receive. If He made them with the capacity to receive grace but did not give it to them, He would have made them with a defect. In other words, God created Adam and Eve in a state of friendship with Him. He did not create them as enemies. To exist in friendship with God, sanctifying grace is necessary. Therefore, God gave them sanctifying grace at the moment He created them.

Third, before God created man, He looked at His physical creation and declared it “good.” But after He created man, He looked across creation and declared it “very good.” Thus, man had something in addition to the natural that allowed God to declare this. If God had created man with merely natural qualities, He would have simply declared him “good” like He had done with the rest of creation.

However, God gave man something that not only made him very good but made all of creation very good. This something was grace, which was God’s supernatural life and love that He communicated to Adam and Eve for the sake of a loving relationship with Him and perfect dominion over creation. Christian tradition has called this state of perfect harmony between the Creator and His creation Original Justice.

Fourth, God told Adam, and Eve by proxy, that they were not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil or they would die. The implication here is that Adam and Eve would have lived forever had they not eaten from this tree. So, God created man to live forever, but man lost life (i.e., grace) after eating from the tree.

Although Adam and Eve lost physical life much later (see Gen 5:1–5), God removed them from the Garden (Paradise) immediately because they lost spiritual life instantly. Since their souls lost communion with God, God did not allow them to remain in the paradise He created for them.

So, God undoubtedly created Adam and Eve in and with grace. This is important for our understanding of theosis because a major component of theosis is becoming full of grace again. By looking at Adam and Eve in the state of Original Justice, we get an idea of what theosis is (i.e., perfect union with God). This is also where Church’s teaching on merit becomes especially relevant.

Merit and Theosis

After teaching that we do not have a strict right to merit, the Catechism states:

The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man’s free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man’s merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.¹¹

Cooperation with grace further disposes our souls to more grace, which God continues to fill with grace. By cooperating with grace, we replace vices with virtues and soften our hearts, our very souls, in the process. This divine softening makes us fit for more grace and helps us to become more like God. The purgative stage of theosis is achieved when we allow grace to detach us from all sin and incline us to love God with our whole selves. This is certainly achievable in this life, but according to St. Peter, it takes patience and practice.

Patience and practice are part of the Church’s teaching on merit.¹² God gives us grace and expects us to use it wisely. By doing so, we develop the virtue of cooperation. By habitually cooperating with grace, our souls become increasingly disposed to it. As actual grace aids the soul in becoming more open to grace, God infuses the soul with even more sanctifying grace. Next, we need to know how suffering and struggles prepare the soul for theosis.

Struggles and Theosis

The Church’s teaching on merit shines light on struggles and suffering. Jesus tells us to take up our crosses daily. Therefore, our crosses must mean something, and grace gives them value. Outside of sanctifying grace, we cannot merit grace. Therefore, in a state of sin, our struggles serve only as impetuses to turn to God and seek His help. They do not contribute to our growth in grace. However, grace that helps us to overcome our struggles can make us better disposed to contrition and ultimately seeking forgiveness.

In a state of sanctifying grace, God can use our struggles to completely purify us. For example, someone who is addicted to this or that sin establishes a habit of turning to God and asking for His help whenever something tempts him. He learns to imitate Christ in the desert. Or the person habitually asks God for forgiveness whenever he recognizes that he committed a venial sin. This person’s habit of turning to God replaces his vices. Given that vices are finite in number, one can conceivably overcome all of them with grace, which is infinite.

Additionally, idle hands are the devil’s workshop. So, pray for busy hands! Ask God to give you good things to do. When we pray, fast, give alms, meditate on Scripture, and dedicate our time to helping others out of love for God, we establish virtuous habits. These virtues replace vices and move us toward detachment from sin and complete sanctification.

The parable of the man born blind (John 9) is a beautiful summation of spiritual sanctification. In this parable, Jesus rubs dirt mixed with His spittle onto the eyes of the blind man. Jesus then tells the blind man to go wash the dirt from his eyes. When the blind man does as Jesus instructed, he sees.

In a similar way, Jesus uses the dirt of this world to help us see. As we cooperate with grace, grace gradually washes away the dirt. As we struggle against the dirt in our lives, we establish the virtue of struggling, and the struggles become easier. God uses temptations, sicknesses, famines, difficult people, persecutions, and our weaknesses to help us grow strong. When St. Paul complains to God about a “thorn” in his flesh, God tells him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). With grace, God turns the disease into the cure. He turns our sins and sufferings into holiness. He cleans us with dirt.

Human Nature and Theosis

After reading all of this, one might presume that theosis (and even the Beatific Vision) somehow erases our human natures and personalities by a kind of divine absorption that renders us indistinct from God and from one another. On the contrary, God’s infusion of Himself into our souls makes us more human and perfects our personalities.

Going back to prelapsarian man, God created Adam and Eve with perfect human natures and individuating characteristics. In other words, they were very good because grace perfected their natures and personalities. For original man, grace was a part of who they were. When they fell from grace, however, they distorted both their natures and their personalities. They lost some of the Adam-ness and Eve-ness that they had previously.

We are born into this impoverished state, but justification by grace begins our restoration. It begins to heal our natures and make us better versions of ourselves. When we reach theosis, we assume the best versions of ourselves in this life because God heals our faults and perfects our love by completely permeating our souls with His love.

Analogy for Theosis

To better understand how grace makes us more like God in this life, the culmination of which is theosis, I would like to present an analogy using water and a sponge. Wetness belongs to water properly, but it makes other things wet accidentally. A dry sponge is certainly a sponge, but it is not fulfilling its purpose as a dry object. It is shriveled and brittle.

Now, when one pours water slowly onto a sponge, the sponge grows by absorbing the water. The water fills every nook and cranny of the sponge as the sponge receives the water and its wetness. When the sponge is full of water, it functions at its full potential. In other words, the wet sponge has become a perfect version of itself because of the water’s effect. It was designed to receive the water and its wetness.

Similarly, grace belongs to God substantially (He is grace), but it becomes part of us accidentally.¹³ Without grace, we are certainly human, but we are not fully realizing our purposes or our true identities as sons and daughters of the Most High. We are not human in the way that God intends. Instead, we are dry and brittle.

However, when we receive grace and then cooperate with it, it increasingly fills every nook and cranny of our souls because our souls become disposed to receiving more and more of it. When we become fully like God, we function as He makes us to be. We become full of grace and perfect versions of ourselves. This process culminates in complete sanctification.

As Purgatory is potentially part of this process, we should understand its role.

Purgatory and Theosis

What role does Purgatory play in our journey toward theosis? Well, it may not play a role at all. The Catechism, in its section on indulgences, states (emphases mine):

Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand, every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is call the “temporal punishment” of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion [in this life] which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain. (CCC §1472)

So, if a person becomes completely sanctified (i.e., full of grace) in this life and cooperates with grace to remove all temporal punishments, that person will avoid Purgatory and go directly to Heaven. However, if a person does not achieve this level of fervent charity in this life, yet dies in a state of grace, Purgatory will purge all remaining attachments to sin from the person before he or she enters Heaven.

Our Path Toward Theosis

For our path toward theosis, Jesus gives us all the tools we need to be successful. First and foremost, He gives us the sacraments, especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist. The Sacrament of Reconciliation restores sanctifying grace, friendship with God, and membership in the Catholic Church (1 John 1:9) if one commits a mortal sin after baptism. This sacrament is indispensable for those seeking moral perfection. In fact, ordinarily speaking, one cannot become perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect without it. Additionally, this sacrament is also available for those who have not committed mortal sins. Many Catholics go to confession every week or two to confess venial sins that they may “grow in the grace . . . of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18; see also CCC 1458).

The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith in God. It is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord (Matthew 26:26–29). Just as the Jews worshipped God who appeared to them as a pillar of cloud (Exodus 33:9–11), we worship Jesus who appears to us as bread and wine. By receiving the Eucharist worthily, God gives us more grace (John 6:32–58). We must receive Him in the Eucharist because He wants to feed us with “true bread” (John 6:32) for our spiritual journeys toward moral perfection, theosis, and Heaven.

Regarding the Eucharist, St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote:

Since, then, that God-containing flesh partook for its substance and support of this particular nourishment also, and since the God who was manifested infused himself into perishable humanity for this purpose, viz. that by this communion with Deity mankind might at the same time be deified, for this end it is that, by dispensation of his grace, he disseminates himself in every believer through that flesh, whose substance comes from bread and wine, blending himself with the bodies of believers, to secure that, by this union with the immortal, man, too, may be a sharer in incorruption.¹⁴

Next, Jesus gives us the grace to replace vices with virtues. He calls us to replace pride with humility, envy with kindness, sloth with diligence, wrath with patience, greed with charity, lust with chastity, and gluttony with temperance. If we simply seek forgiveness but do not replace that which is forgiven with a virtue, we become like the man with an unclean spirit (Matthew 12:43–45):

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest, but he finds none. Then he says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and brings with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.

Accordingly, we must not invite spiritual evils back into our souls with a slothful attitude following forgiveness. Instead, after grace sweeps our souls clean, we must cooperate with it to continue the process of sanctification.

Finally, Jesus gives us His teaching on the beatitudes. Beatitude means blessed, which is why every beatitude begins with, “Blessed are the . . .” Paraphrasing, He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, they who mourn, they that hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers, and they that suffer persecution for justice’s sake,” for they will find true happiness.

The Catechism teaches:

The Beatitudes reveal the goal of human existence, the ultimate end of human acts: God calls us to his own beatitude. This vocation is addressed to each individual personally, but also to the Church as a whole, the new people made up of those who have accepted the promise and live from it in faith. (CCC §1719)

Faith and Theosis

Making theosis the goal of this life takes the ambiguity and subjectivity out of salvation. If one believes that the goal of this life is something less than complete sanctification and union with God, a union which is devoid of excuses and selfish inclinations and is open to the perceptible infusion of God’s love, one sets for himself a trajectory that misses the mark. Because of this, we often hear Christians say that no one can be morally perfect until they reach Heaven. But this is false. Contained within this assertion is subjective behavior setting that results in excuse making.

With theosis, however, God gives us a sure mark for which we can aim. With faith directed at a sure target and with Jesus Christ as our example, we can hit the mark. With His teaching to “be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), Jesus removes all ambiguity from the Christian life and replaces it with precision — “Follow me.”

By learning who Jesus is and how He reflects the Father, God gives us the wisdom needed to reorient our thoughts toward Him. He also gives us the grace to love Him with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. Within this framework, God’s thoughts become our thoughts, and His will becomes our will — “Not my will but your will be done.” Our faith points straight to Him without excuses.

Patience and Theosis

Grace gives us the desire for justification and to receive God’s forgiveness. Grace also prepares the soul for the Holy Spirit, who makes us His temple. However, He does not build the temple overnight. Rather, He rebuilds it over “three days.”

This rebuilding takes time. Colloquially, theosis is a marathon, not a sprint. It requires patience and perseverance, cooperation and reliance on God, and our trust that He will repair the broken vessels that we are one piece at a time.

What begins as a broken vessel ends as a beautiful reflection of God. Similarly, what begins as justification ends as complete sanctification, direct illumination, and a constant perceptible feeling of His presence in our souls. This complete re-formation is theosis, and it is the mark for which we must aim.