Partakers of the Divine Nature
Jordan Vajda
Ocassional Papers by FARMS
Provo, UT
Number 3, 2002
Editor's Introduction
William J. Hamblin
Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute
Joseph's Smith's teaching that humans have the potential to become like God has
frequently aroused cries of blasphemy in anti-Mormon circles, perhaps most famously
in the unseemly film The Godmakers.Latter-day Saints have long maintained that the
doctrine of deification is not only thoroughly Christian, but is an idea which can be
found in some of the earliest Christian writings. Our third installment in
theOccasional Papers examines this issue by comparing and contrasting LDS and
Roman Catholic views on the venerable doctrine of theosis, or divinization.
This monograph is a slightly revised edition of Joseph Vajda's master's thesis
completed at the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California,
Berkeley, in 1998. Fr. Vajda is Roman Catholic Dominican monk currently assigned
as Assistant Director of the Campus Ministry of the Blessed Sacrament Parish in
Seattle. As a non–Latter-day Saint, Fr. Vajda brings an interesting perspective to this
topic, including a useful elucidation of the similarities and differences between LDS
teachings on exaltation and Roman Catholic and other early Christian traditions. We
are grateful that he has given us permission to publish his thesis, and look forward to
continuing dialogue on this important and fascinating subject.
I would like to thank the Executive Assistant of the FARMS Occasional
Papers, Sharon Nielson, for her patient assistance in preparing this manuscript for
publication. Likewise, thanks are due to Jacob D. Rawlins, Alison Coutts, and the
editorial staff of FARMS, and to Daniel C. Peterson for bringing this manuscript to
my attention.
William J. Hamblin
Editor, FARMS Occasional Papers
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the members of my thesis committee for the guidance and
support they have shown over the past year: Fr. Richard Schenk, OP, coordinator,
from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology; Professor James Skedros,
second reader, from the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute; D. Brent Collette,
Third Reader, from the Berkeley, California, Institute of Religion of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In the midst of his own busy schedule, which keeps him in Germany for most of the
year, Fr. Schenk has always believed in this project and has given generously of his
time and attention.
Professor Skedros's fall 1997 class, "Orthodox Spirituality," was enormously helpful
as I had no real background in either the Greek Fathers of the Church or current
Orthodox theology. My term paper for that class provided the basis for chapter 2 of
this thesis.
I am indebted to D. Brent Collette for his gracious hospitality and for allowing me to
take courses at the Berkeley, California, Institute of Religion of the Church of Jesus
Christ for the past two years.
Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dennis Murdock, director of
the Eugene, Oregon, Institute of Religion of the Church of Jesus Christ. In the spring
of 1995, when I first inquired about the possibility of a "nonmember" taking Institute
classes, he welcomed and encouraged me in my study of Mormonism.
Introduction
I am often asked how it is that a Catholic Priest knows so much about Mormonism (I
was ordained in 1998, at the age of twenty-seven, about a month before I wrote the
bulk of what you now hold in your hands). Of course, sometimes the question is
expressed a bit more bluntly: Why? Why do I continue to read and reflect upon LDS
literature? When will I finally outgrow my interest in the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints? While my answer to this last question is I hope not anytime soon, I
do recognize the need to explain, at least to some extent, why an "outsider" continues
to interact with the doctrines of a church to which he does not belong—to explain
something of my motivations.
To put it most simply: upon reading The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of
Jesus Christ for the first time, and after having been taught the restored gospel of
Jesus Christ by a pair of sister missionaries—now some eighteen years ago—I began
to see patterns and make connections between my own (Catholic) faith and that of the
Latter-day Saints; and I have never ceased to benefit from the insights gained as a
result.
More to the point though, as regards the underlying motive for this thesis, was my
eventual perception that one connection between the Catholic Church and the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lay in the fact that those who sought to deny the
label "Christian" to the LDS Church were, more often than not, the very same people
who would then turn around and attempt to deny this label to the Catholic Church—
with the same reasons often being used in both instances to justify the conclusion.
And since it was easy enough for me to see through the many half-truths,
misunderstandings, and even outright errors alleged against the Catholic Church, I
suspected that similar critiques leveled against the LDS Church—as to its "nonChristian" status—were equally flawed.
At some point I became especially interested in the LDS doctrine of salvation after
becoming aware of its status as a favorite target for critique—and even attack—as will
be noted in chapter 1. I wanted to reach beyond the rhetoric and discover for myself
what the LDS Church actually taught, and how that compared with the teachings of
ancient Christian leaders—specifically, the Greek Fathers of the Church—as currently
received or understood by those who, to this day, trace their religious heritage back to
these same Greek Fathers. In other words, I was not engaging in a strictly historical
project (e.g., asking what St. Athanasius and his contemporaries thought about
salvation in the fourth century and then comparing this to current LDS beliefs);
instead, my focus was more theological (i.e., I wanted to know how a teaching of the
Greek Fathers, in its modern articulation, most notably by Eastern Orthodox
theologians, compare to the LDS doctrine of salvation.)
I also hoped, through this thesis, to further a climate of dialogue where religious
difference does not stand in the way of religious understanding. It is my conviction
that, despite differences in faith or testimony, people of good will have much to learn
from one another; and as regards the specific issue discussed in this thesis, I firmly
maintain that the Latter-day Saints are owed a debt of gratitude by other Christians
because the Saints remind us all of our divine potential. The historic Christian
doctrine of salvation—theosis, i.e., human divinization—for too long has been
forgotten by too many Christians, despite the fact that this teaching is a part of that
common inheritance—first millennium Christianity—that unites Catholics,
Protestants, and Orthodox Christians. If this thesis contributes to an ongoing dialogue
between "Restoration Christians" (i.e., the Latter-day Saints) and "Historic Christians"
(i.e., Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox), then I will consider it to be a success.
...
Given the nature of the project undertaken in this thesis, it is worth noting that
religious dialogue between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the
Catholic Church was explicitly encouraged in the 1 August 2001 (English) issue of
the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. In a commentary explaining the
decision of the Catholic Church to not recognize as valid the baptism of the Latter-day
Saints, Fr. Luis Ladaria, S.J. concludes by stating ". . . Catholics and Mormons often
find themselves working together in a range of problems regarding the common good
of the human race. It can be hoped therefore that through further studies, dialogue and
good will, there can be progress in reciprocal understanding and mutual respect." Of
course, the content of the article itself, an explanation of the invalidity—from a
Catholic perspective—of LDS baptism, could be interpreted as hindering, not helping,
a new quest for religious dialogue and understanding.
My intuition, however, which I hope to more fully develop into an article in the near
future, tells me that the decision of the Catholic Church to not recognize the validity
of LDS baptism actually parallels something that the Latter-day Saints have
understood since their beginning in 1830. To be specific: in April 1830, within days of
the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Prophet Joseph
Smith was taught by means of divine revelation that the baptismal ordinances
performed by all other Christians—the current-day adherents of that era or
dispensation of salvation history, which was established by Christ during his earthly
ministry (and which, from an LDS perspective, has gone into apostasy)—are
essentially different and invalid as compared to those performed in the LDS Church,
which has ushered in the new "dispensation of the fulness of times" (Doctrine and
Covenants 128:18). This divine instruction would subsequently appear in the first
authorized collection of the Prophet Joseph's revelations, The Book of
Commandments (1833), and can now be found as section 22 of the Doctrine and
Covenants, one of the four volumes of LDS scripture (along with the Holy Bible, the
Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, and the Pearl of Great Price).
The Catholic Church, albeit a bit inarticulately, has now recognized that the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints represents not just another development of
Protestantism, but is truly a "new religious tradition" (as also noted by Professor Jan
Shipps in her landmark study Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition).
Thus, the Catholic Church has recognized that the baptism of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints is the baptism of a different gospel dispensation; and if a
person wants to "cross-over" from one gospel dispensation to another, the baptism of
the other dispensation will not and cannot be regarded as valid.
To summarize: from an LDS perspective, LDS baptism is given to a "previously
baptized" convert precisely because the previous (invalid) baptism lacked priesthood
authority: it was administered by those who still cling to the apostate institutions that
survive from the (previous) dispensation of the meridian of time; but, from a Catholic
perspective, an LDS convert to Catholicism will be given a Catholic baptism precisely
because the LDS baptism is an ordinance of a gospel dispensation different from that
in which the Catholic Church locates itself (and also locates Protestants and Orthodox
Christians)—which dispensation the Catholic Church regards as permanently valid—
and thus, the different LDS gospel dispensation, along with its ordinances, the
Catholic Church does not regard as true or valid. (Thus, both Latter-day Saints and
Catholics consider each others' baptism to be invalid, but for different reasons.)
...
I am grateful to The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS)
for publishing my thesis and making it available to a wider audience. A special word
of thanks goes to Professor William Hamblin for initiating the contact that led to the
publication of this latest volume of the Occasional Papers. This thesis is being
published as it was approved by my thesis committee in August 1998; however, on
the occasion of its publication, I have added this preface.
Finally, I would like to note the passing of D. Brent Collette (†2000), who served as
the third reader on my thesis committee. His support and enthusiasm were
indispensable to me as I undertook the writing of this thesis. Following in the
footsteps of the Savior whom he loved and served so well, Brother Collette was truly
a "Master Teacher."
Another Look at The God Makers
At the dawn of the third millennium, Mormonism (the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints) enjoys a level of growth and recognition unparalleled in its 168year history. By the end of 1997 the LDS Church1 had over 10 million members
worldwide, over half of whom (51.1%) lived outside the United States.2 Although still
small in terms of absolute numbers (Mormons currently make up only .17 of 1% of
the world's population of 5.9 billion3), what this current membership statistic does not
adequately convey is the phenomenal rate of growth which undergirds it. Established
with six members on April 6, 1830, it took the LDS Church over a century to reach
the one million mark. In 1950 it had 1.1 million members; by 1970, a span of just 20
years, it had more than doubled its membership to 2.4 million. In 1980, with 4.6
million members, it had nearly doubled once again. The current level of 10 million
members once more represents a doubling in membership which has taken place in a
little less than 20 years (1980—1997).4 As University of Washington sociologist
Rodney Stark remarked in 1980, Mormonism's rate of growth represents nothing less
than "the rise of a new world religion . . . [with] a worldwide following comparable to
that of Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and other dominant world faiths."5
In his opening address at the 167th Semiannual General Conference (October 4—5,
1997), President Gordon B. Hinckley, the presiding officer of the LDS Church, in
reflecting back upon the events of the preceding year, which had included the 150th
anniversary of the Mormon pioneer trek into the Salt Lake Valley, noted: "The media
have been kind and generous to us. This past year of pioneer celebrations has resulted
in very extensive, very favorable press coverage."6 One aspect of that press coverage
has involved probing questions into the Mormon beliefs surrounding salvation and
demonstrates the abiding interest of non-Mormons in the Mormon doctrine of
exaltation: the belief that the fullness of salvation involves the divinization of the
human person, i.e., humans becoming gods.7 Two examples, taken from nationally
recognized publications, will serve to illustrate this interest in Mormon doctrine.
President Hinckley, in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, which was
printed in its Sunday edition on April 13, 1997, was asked to elaborate on the LDS
view of God and salvation.
Q: There are some significant differences in your beliefs. For instance, don't Mormons
believe that God was once a man?
A: I wouldn't say that. There was a couplet coined, "As man is, God once was. As
God is, man may become." Now that's more of a couplet than anything else. That gets
into some pretty deep theology that we don't know very much about.
Q: So you're saying the church is still struggling to understand this?
A: Well, as God is, man may become. We believe in eternal progression. Very
strongly.8
Even more pointed was Time magazine's cover story of the LDS Church in its August
4, 1997 issue. The issue of human divinization was again raised with President
Hinckley in his interview by Time.
At first, Hinckley seemed to qualify the idea that men could become gods, suggesting
that "it's of course an ideal. It's a hope for a wishful thing," but later affirmed that
"yes, of course they can." (He added that women could too, "as companions to their
husbands. They can't conceive a king without a queen.") On whether his church still
holds that God the Father was once a man, he sounded uncertain, "I don't know that
we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it. . . . I understand the philosophical
background behind it, but I don't know a lot about it, and I don't think others know a
lot about it."9
Arguably, it was because of such interviews with the press as described above that
impelled President Hinckley to add to his comments that "I personally have been
much quoted, and in a few instances misquoted and misunderstood. I think that's to be
expected. . . . You need not worry that I do not understand some matters of doctrine. I
think I understand them thoroughly, and it's unfortunate that the reporting may not
make this clear."10
In his opening general conference talk President Hinckley also pointed out that "We
meet today under very favorable circumstances. . . . Never before has the Church had
a better reputation than it has now."11 Yet, as in its earliest years, the LDS Church
continues to be attacked for its doctrines and history. Perhaps no critique is better
known, or more notorious, than the film and its companion book, The God
Makers. The book, first published in 1984, was rereleased in an expanded version in
1997.12
Whatever else may or may not have been accomplished through its publication, The
God Makers, as well as its sequel, The God Makers II,13 have served to highlight the
full meaning of salvation as defined by the LDS Church: exaltation, that is, humans
becoming gods, the very same doctrine which had attracted the clear interest of the
press in their reporting on Mormon events and leaders in 1997. Obviously the title
chosen for these books was no accident; it was used as something of a summary
statement. Through reference to the doctrine of the LDS Church considered most
objectionable, human divinization, the title epitomized the view of the authors that the
LDS Church "is not Christian at all but a revival of primitive paganism in modified
form."14 What is truly intriguing, however, is the nature of the Mormon apologetic
response.
In the years since the release of The God Makers in 1984, a body of literature has
developed which seeks to respond to the numerous charges and accusations made
against the LDS Church in this and other similar critiques of the Mormon faith. A key
aspect of these LDS rebuttals has been the explanation and defense of the LDS
doctrine of salvation; one common strategy for doing so has been the use and citation
of patristic sources to demonstrate an ancient Christian belief in a doctrine of human
divinization.15 What is at issue then is LDS soteriology (that is, the LDS doctrine of
salvation) and the extent to which it can legitimately lay claim to being a variation of
an ancient theme. A survey of the literature dealing with LDS soteriology during the
past 25 years, a literature which now encompasses both LDS and non-LDS responses,
reveals that there are at least four distinct yet interrelated ways of approaching the
LDS belief that the fullness of human salvation involves the attainment of godhood.
The first way of analyzing the apparent uniqueness of LDS soteriology can be called
the "patristic parallel" model.16 This approach, utilized by LDS authors, seeks to show
the basic continuity between current LDS belief and teaching and the beliefs and
teachings of the ancient Christian church. In other words, the essential point being
made is that LDS soteriology is neither a nineteenth-century novelty nor an unChristian understanding of the salvation made possible through Jesus Christ. The
work of the authors in this category actually antedates the 1984 release of The God
Makers; and so, for the sake of precision, their position will be referred to as the "pre1984 patristic parallel" model.
The next category of writers to deal with the claims of LDS soteriology can be
described as utilizing an "incompatibility" model. In this approach non-LDS authors
seek to show that the LDS doctrine of human divinization is fundamentally
incompatible with Christian faith. This view would maintain, at least implicitly, that
the Christian heritage of faith and doctrine is rooted in the classic confessions of faith
contained in the conciliar creeds of first millennium Christianity, that is, the undivided
Catholic Church, composed of two halves: one roughly corresponding to the western
half of the Roman Empire (whose spoken language was Latin) and the other roughly
corresponding to the eastern half of the Roman Empire (whose spoken language was
Greek). For the sake of accuracy two strains should be distinguished within this
model: a "hard incompatibility" approach17 and a "soft incompatibility"
approach.18 The former regards LDS soteriology, as well as the LDS Church in
general, to be pagan and even Satanic, whereas the latter is content to simply conclude
that LDS belief is sui generis.19
Another way of approaching LDS soteriology can be described as the "post-1984
patristic parallel" model. As was the case with the "pre-1984 patristic parallel"
methodology, this body of LDS literature also seeks to draw upon patristic texts to
establish the legitimacy for the LDS conception of human salvation. What
distinguishes it from the earlier "patristic parallel" model is its specific awareness of
and reaction to the "incompatibility" model, which was most notoriously worked out
in The God Makers.
Additionally, some authors in this category have begun to explicitly differentiate or
contrast LDS and patristic descriptions of human salvation. Thus, for the sake of
precision, one can distinguish a "hard post-1984 patristic parallel" approach20 from a
"soft post-1984 patristic parallel" model.21 The former, like the "pre-1984 patristic
parallel" model, sees a genuine similarity between LDS and patristic teachings while
the latter finds, to a greater or lesser degree, only a nominal similarity. Writers who
adopt a "soft post-1984 patristic parallel" methodology ground the differences found
in patristic doctrine, relative to LDS doctrine, in an apostasy of the ancient Christian
Church.
A final, non-LDS stance towards LDS soteriology can be characterized as the
"patristic incompatibility" model. While this approach is similar to the
"incompatibility" model insofar as it too maintains that Christian doctrine cannot be
reconciled with the LDS understanding of salvation, what distinguishes it is an
awareness of and reaction to the "post-1984 patristic parallel" model. Moreover, as
was the case with the "incompatibility" model, there are two kinds of "patristic
incompatibility": one "hard" and one "soft."
The "hard patristic incompatibility" model22 is simply dismissive of any patristic
evidence that humans can become gods because it would (apparently) involve these
patristic authors in a polytheism which is manifestly contrary to their unambiguous
professions of monotheism. There is also the subtle inference that any "patristic
parallel" model involves an attempt to usurp or escape from the normative role of the
sacred scriptures which, within the context of this model, are understood to be
opposed to any sense of salvation which involves a divinization of the human person.
The "soft patristic incompatibility"23 model, while approaching LDS soteriology with
a much more nuanced view, still finds it incompatible with a Christian understanding
of salvation. Specifically, this "soft" version of the "patristic incompatibility" model
maintains that while there are apparent similarities between LDS and patristic
writings, there are no genuine similarities. Attempts at using patristic texts to
demonstrate such a similarity with LDS doctrine involve a distortion of such texts.
Similarly, while not rejecting outright the belief that humans can share in the divine
nature, this model holds a highly attenuated view of what such a sharing would entail.
While humans can share in the divine nature by possessing the moral attributes of
God, e.g., goodness and holiness, the metaphysical gap or divide between Creator and
creature is never bridged. Humans can become "like" God, but in no real sense do
humans "become" gods.24
As can be seen from these four general ways of evaluating LDS soteriological claims,
an accurate and comprehensive understanding of patristic soteriology will be
indispensable if any useful comparison is to be drawn between it and LDS belief.
While one can easily (or perhaps simplistically) summarize the patristic understanding
of salvation with the term theosis or human divinization, the challenge comes in
"unpacking" this doctrine of theosis—in determining its meaning and in
understanding the process by which it is attained. Moreover, in exploring this patristic
understanding of human salvation, one rapidly realizes that patristic soteriology
cannot be meaningfully described apart from Christology (which deals with the
doctrines regarding the person of Christ), anthropology (which deals with the
doctrines regarding the nature of the human person), or sacramentology (which deals
with the doctrines regarding the sacraments). Insofar as these other, related areas of
theology impinge on the question of human salvation, they too will need to be
incorporated into this project.
Similarly, a clear description of LDS soteriology, shorn of all half-truths and
sensationalism, will prove essential if there is to be any hope of a useful comparative
analysis. And while the LDS doctrine of salvation can be succinctly summarized with
the term "exaltation," the task at hand is to understand the meaning of this possible
future human state and the way in which it can become an existential reality. As was
noted above with regards to patristic theology, other areas of LDS doctrine which are
linked to soteriology will necessarily require inclusion so as to achieve a clear and
balanced presentation.
The purpose of this thesis, therefore, will be twofold: first, to engage in a sustained
investigation into the content of both patristic (chapter 2) and LDS (chapter 3)
soteriology and second, to systematically compare these soteriologies to determine not
only their commonalities but the significance of their differences as well (chapter 4).
The corollary to this second purpose will be to examine the ramifications of
soteriology for one's doctrines of deity and the nature of the human person. But since
chapter 4, with its comparative analysis of two distinct systems, comprises the real
heart of the thesis, a word of explanation needs to be given regarding the two
essentially expository chapters that precede it (chapters 2 and 3).
It will be important to keep in mind that the presentations of patristic and LDS
doctrines offered in chapters 2 and 3 do not pretend to be the last word on the subject.
These chapters do not offer a history of the development of the doctrines of theosis or
exaltation; nor are they apologetic attempts to prove or justify these doctrines through
appeal to scripture, tradition, or reason. Such historical or apologetic approaches fall
outside the limited scope of this thesis. Instead, what will be provided is a concise yet
accurate present-day understanding of the doctrines under investigation which can
then be analyzed for the sake of comparison. The primary heirs of the patristic
understanding of salvation as theosis are members of the Orthodox Church; hence, the
majority of the secondary source material for that section of the thesis
explaining theosis comes from twentieth century Orthodox historians, theologians,
and church leaders. Similarly, the presentation of the doctrine of exaltation will be
based upon both the official statements and scriptures of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints as well as the explanations of this doctrine penned by reputable
Mormon scholars who remain in good standing with their Church.
That there is need for a full-length study such as this was clearly recognized by the
LDS authors who adopted a "pre-1984 patristic parallel" model for discussing LDS
soteriology. In his 1975 article juxtaposing Mormon and patristic teachings on
salvation, Keith Norman described Christian historians as unwilling to explore the
topic of human divinization; in fact, "they tend to dismiss such talk of the deification
of man as a curious aberration, not worthy of serious consideration, or at least to tone
it down enough so that it escapes notice."25 While noting that Jaroslav Pelikan's
discussion of theosis in The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition26 was a "notable
exception"27 to the dismissive attitude he perceived, Norman sounded a call for others
to "probe and elucidate this heretofore sadly ignored aspect of the history of Christian
thought."28 His 1980 doctoral dissertation, "Deification: The Content of Athanasian
Soteriology,"29 while significant for patristic studies, was not able to return to the
connection between Mormon and patristic soteriologies, which he had begun to raise
in 1975.30 When Philip Barlow in 1983 again made the connection between Mormon
and patristic conceptions of human salvation he, like Norman, was not able to provide
an in-depth study given the limitations inherent in an article about six pages long, a
fact which he frankly admitted: "Space limitations prevent a thorough study."31
Another significant reason for the present study arises from the work of both the "pre" and "post-1984" patristic parallel authors. In a number of places they stress the idea
that the patristic doctrine of theosishas either evaporated from the content of current
Christian belief or has undergone significant changes which in some way have altered
the purity and force of earlier formulations. Norman, representative of the former
viewpoint, states that "the doctrine of Divinization could not survive in the church's
theology proper . . . today defenders of orthodoxy cringe at the full implications of
Paul's hope for the saints to come 'unto the measure of the fullness of Christ.' (Eph.
4:13)"32 Likewise the following from Peterson and Ricks: "Indeed, if the Latter-day
Saints were inclined to do so, they could point out that they alone, among
contemporary followers of Jesus, seem to possess the ancient Christian doctrine
of theosis."33 Peterson and Ricks are also representative of the latter (alteration)
viewpoint, and they maintain that "It is certain that the ancient doctrine had undergone
massive dislocations by the time it reached the sixteenth century. . . . We suspect, in
fact, that even relatively late statements on theosis represent the Hellenization of an
earlier doctrine—one that was perhaps much closer to Mormon belief."34 In a similar
vein it is postulated that the Trinitarian and Christological formulations of the early
church in some way redefined the essential content of the patristic doctrine
of theosis.35 Although none of these comments are developed or substantiated, the fact
that they are not is understandable given the space or length constraints of the authors
who at least raised these issues. Nevertheless, this illustrates once again the need for a
more extensive study that could examine and test these provocative ideas. If even
before the release of The God Makers in 1984 scholars felt a need for something along
the lines of this current project, the need and the questions have only intensified in the
intervening years.
That something is to be gained in undertaking a study such as this flows from a belief
that despite the ecclesiological and theological divisions that separate the followers of
Jesus Christ, those very divisions can be a source of meaning and light. In
his Foundations of Christian Faith36 the twentieth century Catholic theologian Karl
Rahner (1904—1984) cogently presents this argument for the good which can be
derived from the evil of Christian disunity.37 One way in which rival theologies can be
of service to one another is through their ability to exercise a "corrective
influence."38 A faith community that experiences no external challenge or opposition
can overemphasize one doctrine at the expense of another. Likewise, nuances that are
needed to accurately grasp the content of a particular doctrine can fade from the
consciousness of a faith community over time if there is no pressing reason or need to
make them explicit. Therefore a rival theology, insofar as it offers unacceptable
answers to the same doctrinal questions, can serve as a catalyst for the accurate and
balanced reexpression of those doctrines which are held to be true. This corrective
influence inherent in comparative studies of alternative belief systems has also been
highlighted by Roger R. Keller, a professor of LDS-operated Brigham Young
University, in Religions of the World: A Latter-day Saint View: "By learning about
other people's faith we also learn about our own. The important elements in other
religions enrich the tapestry of ours as we are reminded of truths of which we may
have lost sight, even though they are present in our own tradition."39Moreover, Rahner
points out that rival theologies can also serve to bring about greater clarity as each
side seeks to "perceive and experience . . . more clearly" what is distinctive and
unique within its own tradition as opposed to alternative possibilities.40
Given this understanding of what can be accomplished through theological dialogue
and interaction, it is hoped that this exploration of the doctrines of theosis and
exaltation, and then the consequent comparative analysis, will be of particular interest
to at least three distinct groups of people: members of the LDS Church, members of
churches that are descended from the ancient western or Latin Catholic Church (Latin
Catholics and Protestants), and members of churches that are descended from the
ancient eastern or Greek Catholic Church (Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics).
Members of the LDS Church will discover unmistakable evidence that their
fundamental belief about human salvation and potential is not unique nor a Mormon
invention.41 Latin Catholics and Protestants will learn of a doctrine of salvation that,
while relatively foreign to their ears, is nevertheless part of the heritage of the
undivided Catholic Church of the first millennium. Members of Eastern Orthodox and
Eastern Catholic Churches will discover on the American continent an amazing
parallel to their own belief that salvation in Christ involves our becoming "partakers
of the divine nature."42
The responsibility that participants in theological dialogue have for one another was
aptly expressed by Rahner when he wrote, "we have to force each other mutually to
be and to become as Christian as possible, and to understand what is really radical
about the Christian message a little better."43 To the extent that the following chapters
fulfill this responsibility, the effort involved in their production will have been
justified.
Notes
1. Strictly speaking, Mormon and Mormonism are nicknames. As in common
speech, they will be used as synonyms for LDS (Latter-day Saint) or the LDS
Church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).
2. Church News (Salt Lake City), 1 November 1997.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Rodney Stark, "The Rise of a New World Faith," Review of Religious
Research 26 (September 1984): 18.
6. Gordon B. Hinckley, "Drawing Nearer to the Lord," Ensign, November 1997,
4.
7. Gospel Principles (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, 1992), 9, 297, 302.
8. "Musings of the Main Mormon," San Francisco Sunday Examiner and
Chronicle, 13 April 1997.
9. David Van Biema, "The Empire of the Mormons: Kingdom Come," Time
Magazine, 4 August 1997, 56.
10. Hinckley, "Drawing Nearer to the Lord," 4.
11. Ibid.
12. Ed Decker and Dave Hunt, The God Makers, updated and expanded (Eugene,
Oreg.: Harvest House, 1994).
13. Ed Decker and Caryl Matrisciana, God Makers II (Eugene, Oreg.: Harvest
House, 1993).
14. Decker and Hunt, God Makers, 16.
15. Since the term patristic will appear repeatedly throughout the course of this
thesis, the following is offered by way of definition. Broadly
speaking, patristic refers to the Fathers of the Church, that is, the great teachers
and leaders of Christian history who are noted for their writings in defense and
explanation of the faith they believed had been handed down to them from the
Apostles. The Fathers of the Church are customarily designated as being either
Latin or Greek and this reflects the fact that Church members who lived in what
came to be known as the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire spoke and
wrote in Greek while those who lived in what came to be known as the Western
Roman Empire spoke and wrote in Latin. While the word patristic, strictly
speaking, can be used with reference to either the Greek or Latin Fathers of the
Church, for the sake of economy, within this thesis it will be used as a kind of
shorthand to refer to the Greek Fathers of the Church unless otherwise stated.
16. Philip Barlow, "Unorthodox Orthodoxy: The Idea of Deification in Christian
History," Sunstone 8 (Sept/Oct 1983): 13—18; Keith Norman, "Divinization:
The Forgotten Teaching of Early Christianity,"Sunstone 1 (winter 1975): 15—
19.
17. Decker and Hunt, God Makers; Decker and Matrisciana, God Makers II.
18. William Taylor, A Tale of Two Cities: A Comparison between the Mormon and
the Catholic Religious Experiences, 2nd ed. (Pocatello, Idaho: privately
printed, 1980).
19. As will be seen, it is of no little significance that this category only represents
Latin Christians, that is, Christians whose heritage stems from that portion of
the ancient Catholic Church that existed in the western, Latin-speaking part of
the Roman Empire.
20. Craig L. Blomberg and Stephen E. Robinson, How Wide the Divide? A
Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation (Downers Grove, Ill.:
InterVarsity, 1997), 80—81, 83, 208—9 n. 9; Darrick T. Evenson, "Man Can
Attain Godhood: Ancient Evidence for Modern Mormon Doctrine," in The
Gainsayers: A Converted Anti-Mormon Responds to Critics of the LDS
Church (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon, 1989); Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons
Christians? (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991), 60—70; idem, "LDS Doctrine
Compared with Other Christian Doctrines," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel:
Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), 132—37; Gilbert W. Scharffs, The Truth
About "The God Makers"(Salt Lake City: Publishers, 1986), 77—79.
21. Robert L. Millet, The Mormon Faith: A New Look At Christianity (Salt Lake
City: Shadow Mountain, 1998), 175—77, 192—94; idem, "What We Believe,"
delivered at the weekly Brigham Young University devotional in the Marriott
Center on February 3, 1998; Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D.
Ricks, Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack
the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1992), 75—92.
22. Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson, "Do You Really Believe You Can Become a
God?" in Questions to Ask Your Mormon Friend: Effective Ways to Challenge
a Mormon's Arguments Without Being Offensive (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany
House, 1994).
23. Blomberg and Robinson, How Wide the Divide?, 106—7, 110.
24. See note 19 in this chapter.
25. Norman, "Divinization," 15.
26. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100—600) vol. 1 of
The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1971).
27. Norman, "Divinization," 15.
28. Ibid., 19.
29. Keith Norman, "Deification: The Content of Athanasian Soteriology" (Ph.D.
diss., Duke University, 1980; Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon
Studies Occasional Papers 1 (2000).
30. Norman, "Divinization," 15—19.
31. Barlow, "Unorthodox Orthodoxy."
32. Norman, "Divinization," 18.
33. Peterson and Ricks, Offenders for a Word, 92.
34. Ibid., 76—77.
35. Barlow, "Unorthodox Orthodoxy," 15.
36. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, trans. William V. Dych (New
York: Crossroad, 1978).
37. Although Rahner originally wrote in the context of Catholic/Protestant
dialogue, his comments are offered as being equally applicable to any dialogue
seeking to engage theologies flowing from ecclesial bodies which understand
themselves to be Christian.
38. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 367.
39. Roger R. Keller, "Restoration Fulness," in Religions of the World: A Latter-day
Saint View, ed. Spencer J. Palmer et al., 2nd ed. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young
University, 1997), 273.
40. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 369.
41. Significantly, in Palmer et al., Religions of the World, no reference is made to
the doctrine of theosis in its survey of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
42. 2 Peter 1:4, King James Version (hereafter referred to as KJV).
43. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 369.
The Doctrine of Theosis, or Becoming a
God
Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, and after they had climbed a high
mountain, something amazing happened. The face of Jesus "shone like the sun and his
clothes became as white as the light."1 This account of the transfiguration of Christ
became a key text when patristic writers, and specifically the Greek Fathers of the
Church, attempted to understand and explain the doctrine of theosis, or salvation as
human divinization.2 The transfiguration was interpreted as a revelation illustrating
what happens when a human body is divinized, when it participates "in the divine
nature."3 In the words of St. Gregory Palamas (1296—1359), it was a revelation of
"what we once were and what we are to be" when deified by Christ.4 These gospel
passages were also significant because they so handily encapsulated a number of
issues central to the content and experience of theosis: the unearthly light which
emanated from Christ's body, the vision of that light by human persons, the
relationship between divinity and humanity, and, at the center of it all, the person of
Christ himself.
From the very beginnings of the Church the centrality of Christ has been recognized;
he is the one who makes salvation—human divinization—a possibility. Two classic
texts which come from the early centuries of the Church clearly demonstrate this
belief. St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130—c. 202)—who had known St. Polycarp, who had
known the Apostles5—wrote, "the Word of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, who because
of his immeasurable love became what we are in order to make us what he is."6 St.
Athanasius of Alexandria (295—373) also explained that "God became man, so that
we might be made gods."7 Thus, at the root and core of the doctrine of theosis was not
only a belief in the centrality of Christ but also the belief that he
makes theosis possible precisely because he is both God and human. Before
proceeding, then, to analyze Christ's divinized humanity, it will be useful to first back
up and present the patristic doctrines on the nature of God and the nature of the human
person. After having done that, it will become possible to adequately discuss the
divinization of human nature which Christ accomplished in his person and what the
implications are for human persons who can thus become divinized themselves.
The Nature of God
The fundamental teaching regarding the nature of God is the doctrine of the Trinity:
that the three divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are the one God. The
source and guarantee of their oneness is the monarchy of the Father. The Father is the
source of divinity for the Son and Holy Spirit: the Son is eternally begotten by the
Father while the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father.8 While each divine
person is uncreated and eternal, transcending the created categories of time and space,
it is the Father alone who is the unbegotten source of divinity; the
terms begotten and proceeding are used in reference to the Son and Holy Spirit to
indicate that while they both receive their divinity from the Father they are,
nevertheless, distinct persons. Thus there is order in the Trinity without subordination.
Another way of expressing the doctrine of the Trinity is to say that there is one divine
nature and three divine hypostases.9 Nature answers the question of
"what"; hypostasis answers the question of "who."10Hence, there is one God, one
"what," because one divine nature, and there are three divine persons, three "whos,"
because each possesses the fullness of the divine nature. The eminent theologian
Vladimir Lossky explains it this way:
There is no partition or division of nature among the three Persons of the Holy Trinity.
The Hypostases are not three parts of a whole, of the one nature, but each includes in
Himself the whole divine nature.11
And beyond the real distinction between nature and person in God is the distinction
between essence and energy.
The reason for distinguishing between essence and energy in God—Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit—is to preserve the following antinomy: on the one hand, God is uncreated
and wholly transcendent, unknowable, and unparticipable; on the other hand, God has
spoken to his creatures, is wholly immanent, knowable, and participable.12 Lossky
again offers a masterful synopsis, this time on the difference between essence and
energies in God:
Moreover, distinction is not separation: it does not divide God into knowable and
unknowable. God reveals Himself, totally gives Himself in His energies, and remains
totally unknowable and incommunicable in His essence. He remains identical in these
two modes of existence: the same, and at the same time, different. . . . If one must
distinguish in God essence and that which is not essence, that is precisely because
God is not limited by His essence. He is more than essence, if He is truly the living
God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the Holy Trinity—and not the God
of the philosophers and the scholars.13
Furthermore, it needs to be noted that the energies of God are not a consequence of
the divine activities of creation or revelation; the energies are an eternal aspect of the
divine nature. God is always and forever both unknowable (a function of God's
essence) and knowable (a function of God's energies).14
If God is essentially unknowable and unparticipable, that is because he is eternal and
uncreated, wholly other and different from anything which has been created, which
has been brought into being from nonbeing. The essence/energies distinction helps to
emphasize the fact that what God is by nature, what God is essentially, cannot be
shared or participated in by any creature or created reality.15 Only the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit possess—can possess—the divine nature essentially because only
they are eternal and uncreated persons. By definition, any created reality can share in
the divine nature only through God's divine energies. But, given what was said before
by Lossky, to share in the divine energies is to possess God himself as he
communicates himself to creatures. In sum, the energies of God are the uncreated God
himself as he communicates himself to created beings. Ultimately this antinomic
doctrine of the divine energies will become supremely important when discussing in
what way created human nature can become divinized.
The Nature of the Human Person
As with God, one can distinguish between person16 and nature in a human being.
Person answers the question of "who," while nature answers the question of "what." In
other words:
"Person" signifies the irreducibility of man to his nature—"irreducibility" and not
"something irreducible" or "something which makes man irreducible to his nature"
precisely because it cannot be a question here of "something" distinct from "another
nature" but of someone who is distinct from his own nature, of someone who goes
beyond his nature while still containing it, who makes it exist as human nature by this
overstepping and yet does not exist in himself beyond the nature which he
"enhypostasizes" [or personalizes] and which he constantly exceeds.17
Furthermore, strictly speaking, persons act, natures do not: persons act through their
nature. Since a human person is one who possesses a human nature, a human person
will act in a human way.
There are two distinct elements which make up human nature: a material element (the
body) and an immaterial element (the soul). However, a human person does not
possess two natures, one material and the other immaterial. Rather, the human person
has one nature which is composite, containing both a material and an immaterial
element.18
Matter, in its origin, was created out of nothing and each human soul is created out of
nothing. Therefore, a human person is created when matter, which most immediately
comes from parents, is vivified by a human soul. Thus a human person is a created
hypostasis—as opposed to the uncreated hypostases of the Trinity—forever dependent
on God for being and life.19
Although in essence the human person is ontologically20 different from God, the
human person has nevertheless been created for communion with God, for
divinization: to become by grace or free gift what God is by nature, essentially.21 This
possibility for divinization is summarized by the Greek Fathers of the Church through
reference to the statement in Genesis22 that human beings are created in God's "image
and likeness."
The image, or to use the Greek term the icon, of God signifies our human free will,
our reason, our sense of moral responsibility—everything, in short, which marks us
out from the animal creation and makes each of us a person. But the image means
more than that. It means that we are God's 'offspring' (Acts xvii, 28), His kin; it means
that between us and Him there is a point of contact and similarity. The gulf between
creature and Creator is not impassible, for because we are in God's image we can
know God and have communion with Him. And if we make proper use of this faculty
for communion with God, then we will become 'like' God, we will acquire the divine
likeness; in the words of John Damascene, we will be 'assimilated to God through
virtue.' To acquire the likeness is to be deified, it is to become a 'second god,' a 'god
by grace.'23
Thus "image" refers to what is given, the human reality, whereas "likeness" refers to
what is potential. The "image of God" is potential likeness, and "likeness" is realized
image.24
If the primordial man, Adam, was created in the "image and likeness of God," this
means that from his first moment of existence he was in relationship with God, he had
the gift and companionship of the Holy Spirit.25 Adam was in the process of
progressing and of being divinized, of acquiring the divine likeness. But then Adam
sinned.
The real content of Adam's "original sin" consisted in the fact that Adam attempted to
"become a god without God"; he was disobedient.26 As a result of Adam's sin he lost
the companionship of the Holy Spirit and his progression stopped. He could no longer
be divinized, attain the divine likeness. But more resulted than just this inability to
actualize the image of God within him; the image of God itself was "tarnished . . .
man's reason was obscured, his will weakened."27
Through sin Adam became subject to emotional discord, suffering, sickness, and
death.28 Adam's human existence became unnatural, less than natural. Having been
created in communion with God, to lose this relationship and to exist without it
signified an "inhuman" existence.29 What Adam transmitted to his children was not
the guilt of his sin; that was his alone. Instead, his descendants inherit the
consequences of his sin: a corruptible, mortal nature, separated from God, which is
inclined to sin.30 "[Adam's sin] spread from his soul to his body, and from his body to
the bodies which derived from his, and from those bodies to the[ir] souls."31 How then
could human persons once again enjoy the companionship of the Holy Spirit? How
would the image of God be healed so that humans could once more progress and
realize their divine potential? This would require the work and ministry of a new
Adam, a second Adam—Jesus the Christ.
Christ: The Second Adam
For the first time, Christ, in his very person, accomplished the divinization of human
nature.32 To understand how this occurred, one must first reflect on Christ's divinity.
Before Christ's incarnation, that is, before he became human, he was the preexistent,
uncreated, eternal Son of God, one of the members of the Trinity. Thus, before
mortality, Christ is a divine person—an uncreated hypostasis who possesses a divine
nature. What occurred then at the moment of Christ's incarnation—his conception in
the womb of the Virgin Mary—was that he assumed to himself a created human
nature, a body and a soul, and personalized or enhypostasized it.33 After the
incarnation the Son of God, an eternal, uncreated divine person, possesses two
natures: an uncreated divine nature and a created human nature.34 The separation
between divinity and humanity is forever abolished in the person of the Son of God.
The same person is both human and divine.35
A further consequence of the incarnation is that the Son of God, called Jesus Christ
after his incarnation/assumption of a human nature, possesses a human nature which
has been divinized. The "image of God" is not only healed but it is actualized, the
"likeness" is attained. This comes about because the energies of Christ's divine nature
completely interpenetrate his human nature.36 In other words, the incarnation does not
result in an obliteration of Christ's human nature. Nor does his human nature merge
with the divine nature to produce something which is a mixture of the two natures.
Instead, Christ shows that the divinization of human nature means that human nature
is perfected—what was meant to occur in the first Adam has been realized in the
second Adam. Communion is restored in the person of Christ between humanity and
divinity.
The humanity of Christ is wholly united to God precisely because it is God's own
humanity. Recalling that natures do not act, but that persons act through their natures,
we can say that, since Christ is God who now possesses a created human nature, God
learns, suffers, feels pain, even dies—but not because of his divine nature but through
his human nature. Likewise, Christ can heal and raise the dead—but not because of
his human nature but through his divine nature. The same person possesses distinct
yet inseparable natures because they are the natures of one single person: the eternal
Logos, the second person of the Trinity, who after the incarnation is called Jesus
Christ and who can, precisely because of the incarnation, act both by means of his
uncreated divine nature as well as by his created human nature.37
All this explains the centrality of the incarnation of Christ in the teachings of the
Greek Fathers of the Church.
Everything that Christ did throughout His earthly life was based on the presupposition
that humanity was already saved and deified, from the very moment of His conception
in the womb of Mary. . . . Therefore, salvation, as life in communion with God, is
already present in Christ's humanity on the basis of the hypostatic [or personal] union
of human and divine natures in Christ. What needs to be done, is for the other
obstacles to be abolished, so that humanity (and the entire cosmos in it) may be freed
from the additional consequences of the "ancestral sin" [personal sin and death].38
Ultimately, Christ overcame the obstacle of sin through his atoning suffering and
death, and overcame the obstacle of death through his glorious resurrection.39 Having
now considered the central role of Christ as the second Adam, it will be helpful to first
revisit the scene of Christ's Transfiguration, which opened this chapter, before
specifically focusing on what it means to say that a created human person is divinized.
According to the Greek Fathers of the Church, what the Apostles saw at the
Transfiguration of Christ was a natural consequence of the divinization of Christ's
humanity. What naturally occurs to a body that is wholly divinized, or completely
interpenetrated by the divine energies of the divine nature, is that it becomes luminous
and brilliant like the sun. The light which emanated from Christ's body was in fact the
light of Christ's divinity—Christ's divinity which was inseparably united to his
humanity, his body and soul. What the Apostles experienced on the Mount of
Transfiguration was the normal state of Christ's body. At all other times the Apostles'
eyes were shielded or "blinded" so that they did not see the radiance and glory of
Christ's divinized humanity.40
Theosis or the Divinization of Created Human Persons
What exactly takes place, then, when a human person is divinized? What does it mean
to say that "humans become gods"? In a sense, we are to replicate in our own persons
what first occurred in the person of Christ.
The human person was called, according to St. Maximus, 'to reunite by love created
with uncreated nature, showing the two in unity and identity through the acquisition of
grace.' The unity and identity here refer to the person, to the human hypostasis. Man is
thus to reunite by grace two natures in his created hypostasis, to become 'a created
god,' a 'god by grace,' in contrast to Christ who being a divine person assumed human
nature.41
What is deified in Christ is His human nature assumed in its fullness by the divine
person. What must be deified in us is our entire nature, belonging to our person which
must enter into union with God, and become a person created in two natures: a human
nature which is deified, and a nature or, rather, divine energy, that deifies.42
Like the divine Person of the Word who assumed human nature, human persons in
whom union with God is being accomplished ought to unite in themselves the created
and the uncreated, to become, so to speak, persons of two natures, with this
difference, that Christ is a divine Person while deified men are and always will remain
created persons.43
Clearly, then, human persons become "partakers of the divine nature" in a way that is
existentially different from the way Christ is divine.
The supreme difference between human persons and Christ is that while humans are
created persons, Christ is an uncreated person.44 What Christ is by nature, divine, we
are called to be by grace or participation.
In the tradition of the Eastern Church grace usually signifies all the abundance of the
divine nature, in so far as it is communicated to men; the deity which operates outside
the essence and gives itself, the divine nature of which we partake through the
uncreated energies.45
Recalling what was said previously regarding the real distinction in the divine nature
between essence and energies, it becomes clear that Christ is divine essentially; and
by definition only Christ, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, can possess the
divine nature essentially, as they are the only three persons who are uncreated and
eternal. Humans are, by nature, human. God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is,by
nature, divine. When a human is divinized, a human is united to God's divine
energies—the "'divine nature' in which humanity participates is not the essence of
God but God's divine energies"—which are God himself but only insofar as God is
participable.46
To paraphrase St. Maximus the Confessor (580—662), a divinized human person
becomes all that God is except for identity in essence.47 In other words, a divinized
human person does not cease to be human and created when participating in the
uncreated and divinizing energies of God, just as Christ did not cease to be divine in
essence and uncreated when he united to himself a created human nature. Timothy
Ware expresses it in this way:
Nor does the human person, when it 'becomes god,' cease to be human: 'We remain
creatures while becoming god by grace, as Christ remained God when becoming man
by the Incarnation.' The human being does not become God by nature, but merely a
'created god,' a god by grace or by status.48
The significance and magnitude of human divinization becomes evident when one
takes into account that just as it is possible to predicate both divine and human
attributes of Christ, insofar as he is one person who is both divine and human, so too it
is possible to predicate divine and human attributes of a divinized human person—
"for they will be by grace everything that God is by nature."49 A person who has
"become a god" through union with the divine energies can be called "unoriginate and
eternal," granted that one understands what one is saying.
The uncreated and imperishable grace of God dwelling in man renders him, too,
imperishable, eternal and unoriginate. These bold terms, used to describe the man who
through God's grace is regenerate, are not met with for the first time in [Gregory]
Palamas; Maximus the Confessor had already used the same words to characterize the
man who is alive in Christ and who is guided by His grace. They do not, of course,
alter the basic distinction between man and God as created and Creator, but they
express the truth of the genuine regeneration as experienced by the man who enters
into communion with the divinizing grace, which makes him a god in every respect
"save identity of essence."50
But when man shares the uncreated divinizing gift, he acquires supernatural attributes.
Without ceasing to be created as regards his nature, he is nevertheless placed beyond
the category of created things because of the grace within him. He is now in
possession not only of his created nature but of an uncreated and indwelling grace,
and he can be defined not only according to his natural characteristics but also
according to the qualities of the grace dwelling within him: "He who achieves
deification is fittingly defined by both: he is on the one hand unoriginate, eternal, and
heavenly, as we heard just above, on account of the uncreated grace that eternally
derives from the Eternal God; he is on the other a new creation and a new man and
things similar to these, on account of himself and his own nature."51
Thus, a divinized person, insofar as remaining human by nature, is created; but insofar
as one becomes divine by grace, united to the divine energies, then one is also, at the
same time, "unoriginate and eternal."52
Finally, it needs to be noted that for human persons, divinization is both an immediate
reality and a matter of progression. A person is truly divinized from the first moment
they are united to God's energies; but the full transformation that divinization effects
on a person will not be fully completed until after death, at the time of the resurrection
of the body.53 This time of resurrection has been evocatively described by Nicholas
Cabasilas:
Then each one of us can shed forth rays brighter than those of the sun. . . . A
solemnity unsurpassed! A whole people of gods around their God, of beautiful
creatures around him who is the Beautiful, of servants around their Master. . . . The
choir of the elect, the company of the blessed. . . . Such dazzling wonder descends
from the skies to earth, and suns in their turn will rise from earth to glorify the Sun of
Righteousness himself . . . all is flooded with light.54
Even after the resurrection of the body, however, progress continues. Salvation is not
a static reality. If the human person crosses a threshold through the divinization of the
body, still a threshold is not the whole house.
Perhaps the most noteworthy writer on the subject of the eternal progression of the
human person who has become a "god by grace" is the fourth-century bishop, Gregory
of Nyssa (c. 335— c. 395). Nearly a century and a half before Gregory's birth,
however, St. Irenaeus, in his treatise Against Heresies, had begun to speak on the
topic: "And those to whom He says, 'Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the
Kingdom prepared for you for eternity' (Matt. 25:34), will receive the Kingdom and
progress in it for ever."55 In another passage St. Irenaeus, in referring to the "age to
come," speaks of how God will be "always teaching and man always learning from
God."56 Gregory of Nyssa remains, nevertheless, as the great teacher on the doctrine
of eternal progression.57
In his treatise The Life of Moses Gregory explains that human perfection consists in a
person's eternal growth and progress in virtuous activity.
Made to desire and not to abandon the transcendent height by the things already
attained, it makes its way upward without ceasing, ever through its prior
accomplishments renewing its intensity for the flight. Activity directed towards virtue
causes its capacity to grow through exertion; this kind of activity alone does not
slaken its intensity by the effort but increases it . . . the place with [God] is so great
that the one running in it is never able to cease from his progress.58
In this teaching eternal progress is rooted in the infinite nature of God. A divinized
person will never stop growing and learning and doing precisely because the source of
divinization, the uncreated energies of God, is limitless and infinite. Divinized persons
will never exhaust God's ability to empower them for virtuous activity.59
During mortality, however, a divinized person is still subject to suffering and death.
Sin is still a reality with which to contend. What then are the means for divinization to
begin and progress? How is the divinization of human nature, accomplished by Christ
in his person, to become a reality in our human lives? To answer that question we
need to turn to another member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.
How Theosis is Accomplished
The mission of Christ was to divinize human nature, to restore communion between
God and humanity. As was seen above, in the subsection "Christ—The Second
Adam," he did that in his person by uniting to himself human nature. But how is this
divinization of human nature, accomplished in Christ, to be communicated to human
persons? That is the mission of the Holy Spirit.
One may say that the work of the Spirit serves that of the Son, for it is by receiving
the Spirit that human persons can bear witness in full consciousness to the divinity of
Christ. The Son has become like us by the incarnation; we become like Him by
deification, by partaking of the divinity in the Holy Spirit, who communicates the
divinity to each person in a particular way. The redeeming work of the Son is related
to our nature. The deifying work of the Holy Spirit concerns our persons. But the two
are inseparable . . . ultimately they are but one dispensation of the Holy Trinity,
accomplished by two Divine Persons sent by the Father into the world. This double
dispensation of the Word and of the Paraclete has as its goal the union of created
beings with God.60
And the Holy Spirit communicates the gift of divinization through the instrumentality
of the sacraments.
The sacraments are rituals through which the grace of Christ is communicated to
persons by the power of the Holy Spirit operative in their administration. 61
The sacraments are created media which transmit the uncreated grace of God. Man as
a created being has need of these things if he is to approach and receive the uncreated
grace of the Holy Spirit.62
The sacraments of the Church make it possible for man to enter freely and personally
into communion with the divinizing grace which the Logos of God bestowed upon
human nature in assuming it.63
"Some of the major sacraments are:" Baptism, Chrismation (or Confirmation), the
Eucharist, Confession, Holy Orders (Holy Priesthood), Marriage, and Oil of the
Sick.64 Two of these seven, however, Baptism and the Eucharist, are regarded as
preeminent and are the key sacraments for the divinization of the human
person.65 "The two chief sacraments, according to [Gregory] Palamas, are those of the
Holy Eucharist and of Baptism, and on them depends man's salvation."66 For the sake
of economy, discussion of the sacraments will thus be limited to brief overviews of
Baptism and Eucharist.67
As noted above, through natural descent we inherit our human nature. The fallen
humanity of Adam which is liable to suffering, disorder, and death is what we receive
at birth. On the other hand, the humanity of Christ is a divinized one, a reality which
occurred at the incarnation. There needs to be a way for human persons to join their
human natures to the already divinized human nature of Christ so that we can become
"one body" with Christ to counteract the effects of the nature we share with Adam.
This new way or new birth is the sacrament of Baptism.68 The sacrament of Baptism
is received when a person is immersed three times in water (or has water poured over
him or her three times) and invocation of the Trinity is made: "In the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."69 Through Baptism one's personal sins
are forgiven, and one is brought into relationship with Christ, united to the divine
energies which flow from Christ to the newly baptized person. At Baptism, while the
soul is immediately divinized in an invisible way, the body is divinized by way of
promise and hope.70 In this sense, Baptism divinizes one immediately while also
placing one on a path that leads to continued progression and growth in divinizing
grace since, as was noted above, human divinization is both immediate and a process
that is only fully realized at the resurrection of the body when one's body is
divinized—experiences the full effects of divinization—as well.
Through baptismal grace that which is "in the image" is purified and brightened and
acquires the power to achieve likeness to God, or deification, which the fall had made
impossible.71
The key point regarding Baptism is that it is the sacrament which unites a person to
Christ; by it "life in Christ" begins, and through union with Christ's divinized
humanity we begin to partake of the divinizing energies of God.72
In the sacrament of the Eucharist a person receives the bread and wine, which have
been consecrated by a man holding the priesthood to become the body and blood of
Christ. Thus, in the Eucharist, when a person consumes the consecrated bread and
wine, that person is receiving into his or her bodies the person of Christ himself. 73
That of which we partake [the sacrament of the Eucharist] is not something of His, but
[Christ] Himself. It is not some ray of light which we receive in our souls, but the very
orb of the sun. So we dwell in Him and are indwelt and become one spirit with Him.
The soul and the body all their faculties forthwith become spiritual, for our souls, our
bodies and blood, are united with His. . . . What a thing it is for Christ's mind to be
mingled with ours, our will to be blended with His, our body with His Body and our
blood with His Blood!74
By way of more clearly understanding what takes place through reception of the
Eucharist, it helps to recall the meaning underlying the Transfiguration.
Christ's body is divinized because it is completely interpenetrated by the energies of
his divine nature. By receiving the Eucharist again and again a person is progressively
divinized more and more through a union with Christ that is accomplished by means
of union with his divinized body. In other words, the divine energies which
interpenetrate Christ's body interpenetrate ours as well whenever we become one with
Christ's body through receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist.75
In addition to the reception of the sacraments—the most significant of which are
Baptism and Eucharist—prayer, obedience to the commandments, and ongoing
repentance are also crucial elements in the life of a person who is gradually being
transformed and shaped by the divinizing energies of God. St. Maximus the Confessor
expressed it in this way:
The Logos [Jesus Christ] bestows adoption on us when He grants us that birth and
deification which, transcending nature, comes by grace from above through the Spirit.
The guarding and preservation of this in God depends on the resolve of those thus
born: on their sincere acceptance of the grace bestowed on them and, through the
practice of the commandments, on their cultivation of the beauty given to them by
grace.76
This doctrine of divine-human cooperation in the process of divinization is termed
"synergy."77
While the doctrine of synergy is meant to underscore the need for human acceptance
and response to God's divinizing grace, it is often misunderstood to mean that humans
in some way "earn" their salvation or that human works alone, apart from God's grace,
are meritorious and deserving of divine reward. Of course, nothing could be further
from the truth. What is at stake is a very real antinomy which seeks to balance two
truths: that God is the sole source of salvation, or deifying grace, and that human
acceptance and rejection of such grace is always a real possibility.78 Within the
context of the modern Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue, synergy has been described as
follows:
With regards to the work of God, we can affirm that divine initiative precedes human
response. . . . Synergy or cooperation is restricted to our response to grace, a response
possible because the human will is not in total bondage but remains sufficiently free to
"seek first the kingdom of God." . . . Election can be voided by acts of
unrighteousness and faithlessness. Predestination is not absolute. Freedom of the will
is manifest in the coming to faith and in the sinful rejection of grace.79
As was noted previously, prayer, obedience to the commandments, and ongoing
repentance are all aspects of our human cooperation with God's divinizing
grace.80 Likewise, the ongoing and faithful reception of the sacrament of the Eucharist
is another key way in which human persons freely unite themselves ever more closely
to the person and grace of Christ.
The need for repentance in the life of a person who has experienced the "already" of
divinization, through union with God's energies, underscores the "not yet" aspect of
divinization.81 The grace of God eliminates neither human weakness and
susceptibility to temptation nor free will. Accordingly, baptized persons still do sin in
large and small ways. The process of repentance involves the admission of personal
guilt, the recognition of an ongoing need for God's sustaining grace, and the firm
intention to reject sinful acts and habits in favor of a more virtuous and loving manner
of living. For serious transgressions of God's commandments, normally recourse will
also be had to the sacrament of confession wherein a repentant person confesses his or
her sins to a man possessing the priesthood, who is then authorized to grant
absolution.82
The Experience of Theosis
While the human person is "fully" divinized with the resurrection of the
body, fully being in quotation marks because, as was also seen, theosis involves
progression eternally; nevertheless, theosis or human divinization begins in mortality
and is a reality which therefore can—and indeed must—be experienced, beginning in
mortality.83 The following is from St. Symeon the New Theologian (942—1022), a
Byzantine Abbot and theologian, who is, without a doubt, the greatest teacher on the
human experience of theosis:
What a terrible misfortune that we who have been born of God and become immortal
and partakers of a heavenly calling (Heb. 3:1), who are "heirs of God and fellow-heirs
with Christ" (Rom. 8:17) and have become citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20), have not
yet come to the realization of so great blessings!84
There are two basic kinds of experience of theosis while in mortality: the more
ordinary one, the experience of the companionship of the Holy Spirit, and a rarer,
more infrequent one, the vision of uncreated light.
All baptized persons can expect to experience, as a natural consequence of their union
with the divinizing energies of God, the companionship of the Holy Spirit. As was
noted previously, it is the Holy Spirit—a divine person, member of the Trinity—who
communicates the salvation of Christ to individual human persons.
For this Spirit, when He descends on you, becomes like a pool of light to you, which
encompasses you completely in an unutterable manner. As it regenerates you it
changes you from corruptible to incorruptible, from mortal to immortal, from sons of
men into sons of God and gods by adoption and grace—that is, if you desire to appear
as kinsmen and fellow-heirs of the saints and enter with all of them into the kingdom
of heaven.85
What the Holy Spirit enables a divinized person to have is the same kind of conscious
relationship with the Eternal Father that Jesus had while He walked the earth.86 The
mission of the Holy Spirit is to enter our lives so that through our union with Christ
we can be consciously aware, in a way that transforms our lives, of having a
relationship with God the Father—the father of Christ by nature, our father through
adoption.87
The vision of uncreated light is another way of experiencing the effects
of theosis while still in mortality.88 By way of background and explanation, it should
be noted that the Greek Fathers of the Church took very seriously the revelation
contained in 1 John 1:5 that "God is light." Keeping in mind the real distinction in
God between essence and energies—between God as uncreated, unknowable, and
unparticipable, and God as communicable, knowable, and participable—the
term uncreated light is synonymous with God's energies as well as the
term grace. Lossky quotes St. Gregory Palamas who wrote, "God is called light not
according to His essence, but according to His energy" and writes that
[Uncreated light] is the visible character of the divinity, of the energies in which God
communicates Himself. . . . This uncreated, eternal, divine, and deifying light is grace,
for the name of grace also refers to divine energies insofar as they are given to us and
accomplish the work of our deification . . . [grace] is God Himself, communicating
Himself and entering into ineffable union with man.89
Thus whenever God unites himself to a person, it is God's uncreated light which
divinizes; in other words, it is God himself who divinizes, God who is light as he
shares his uncreated nature with created persons. St. Symeon the New Theologian
offers this powerful testimony on this doctrine of God as light:
We bear witness that "God is light," and those to whom it has been granted to see Him
have all beheld Him as light. Those who have received Him have all received Him as
light, because the light of His glory goes before Him, and it is impossible for Him to
appear without light. Those who have not seen His light have not seen Him, for He is
the Light, and those who have not received the Light have not yet received grace.
Those who have received grace have received the Light of God and have received
God, even as Christ Himself, who is the Light, has said, "I will live in them and move
among them" (2 Cor. 6:16).90
This passage makes it clear that while God always communicates himself—divinizing
us—as light, this uncreated light is not usually seen by the human eye. However,
when God so wills He can appear to those who have become "gods by grace"—hence
the experience of the vision of uncreated light.
This vision of uncreated light is an experience which is analogous to our vision of
physical, earthly light and to our experience of intellectual light, that is, our
experience of intellectual illumination (often graphically portrayed as a light bulb
switching on above a person's head). It is enlightening, allowing us to see and know
and understand in a divine manner. Yet the vision of uncreated light is perceptible to
the sense of sight and to the mind precisely because it transcends both these human
faculties.
This light simultaneously fills reason and the senses, manifesting itself to the total
man, and not just to one of his faculties. The divine light is immaterial and contains
nothing sensible in it, but neither is it an intelligible light.91
Moreover, insofar as the vision of uncreated light is an experience in which the body
shares, it is a tangible reminder that the final destiny of those who are divinized is the
divinization of both soul and body.92
Clearly, not all baptized persons, that is, those who have been divinized through union
with God's energies—his uncreated light—experience the vision of God's uncreated
light. It is a special blessing God gives to those who are worthy of it and whom he
chooses.93 However, in the next life, all who have been divinized will experience the
vision of uncreated light and progress in that vision eternally.
The vision of uncreated light is by nature dynamic, and is more obscure or more
transcendent according to the individual's degree of perfection. But as a progressive
revelation of God's infinite glory it never comes to an end, either in the present age or
in the age to be.94
Thus, even if uncommon in mortality, the vision of uncreated light is always a real
possibility for every baptized person since the vision is simply a more intensified
manifestation and experience of an already existing relationship between God and the
divinized human person who is, by definition, divinized through union with God's
energies or uncreated light.
What is the vision of uncreated light like from a phenomenological standpoint?
Enough instances have been recorded throughout the Church's history—both in the
Latin West and the Greek East—so that documentary evidence is readily available.
The experience of St. Symeon the New Theologian, which he narrates in the third
person in his Discourses, is representative. He recounts:
One day, as he stood and recited, "God, have mercy upon me, a sinner" (Lk. 18:13),
uttering it with his mind rather than his mouth, suddenly a flood of divine radiance
appeared from above and filled all the room. As this happened the young man lost all
awareness (of his surroundings) and forgot that he was in a house or that he was under
a roof. He saw nothing but light all around him and did not know whether he was
standing on the ground. He was not afraid of falling; he was not concerned with the
world, nor did anything pertaining to men and corporeal beings enter into his mind.
Instead, he was wholly in the presence of immaterial light and seemed to himself to
have turned into light. Oblivious of all the world he was filled with tears and with
ineffable joy and gladness.95
In another section of his Discourses, St. Symeon, this time speaking in the first
person, recounts another of his visions:
I fell prostrate on the ground, and at once I saw, and behold, a great light was
immaterially shining on me and seized hold of my whole mind and soul, so that I was
struck with amazement at the unexpected marvel and I was, as it were, in ecstasy . . .
[the Light] scattered whatever mist there was in my soul and cast out every earthly
care. It expelled from all material denseness and bodily heaviness that made my
members to be sluggish and numb. What an awesome marvel! It so invigorated and
strengthened my limbs and muscles, which had been faint through great weariness,
that it seemed to me as though I was stripping myself of the garments of corruption.
Besides, there was poured into my soul in unutterable fashion a great spiritual joy and
perception and a sweetness surpassing every taste of visible objects, together with a
freedom and forgetfulness of all thoughts pertaining to this life. In a marvelous way
there was granted to me and revealed to me the manner of the departure from this
present life. Thus all the perceptions of my mind and my soul were wholly
concentrated on the ineffable joy of that Light.96
Thus, it becomes evident that the teachings and insights of St. Symeon the New
Theologian on the subject of the experience of theosis were grounded in the
revelations and visions he himself had been blessed to receive.
At this point, given the context and vocabulary provided by this section on the vision
of uncreated light, it will be useful to revisit one last time the story of Christ's
transfiguration. What were Peter, James, and John really experiencing on the
mountaintop as they beheld Christ's transfiguration? It was a vision of uncreated light.
These three chosen Apostles were permitted to see with their human eyes the light of
Christ's divine nature. This light, the energies of Christ's divinity, completely
interpenetrated his humanity—his body and soul—and from the first moment of His
incarnation had divinized it. What the Apostles saw was, quite simply, the natural
consequences of the divinization of Christ's human nature; a reality which other
persons were not permitted to see or experience during the course of Christ's mortal
ministry.
Summary
Theosis, or the doctrine of human divinization, as understood and taught by that
subset of patristic writers who are the Greek Fathers of the Church, centers around the
concept of participation. The triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—uncreated
divine persons, incommunicable and unparticipable in their essence, freely will that
created human persons, created out of nothing, should share or participate in their
divine nature. Vladimir Lossky aptly and succinctly wrote of this great mystery of
divine love:
Everything proceeds from the Trinity and everything leads to It: to the Father, who is
the source of all divinity; to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, who proceed from Him in
the unity of the inaccessible nature. The energies which flow eternally from this
nature, being communicated to us by the Holy Spirit, deify us and make us participate
in the life of the Holy Trinity, which the Gospels call the Kingdom of God.97
An Image: Iron and Fire
To help concretize the patristic doctrine of theosis presented in this chapter, consider
the following image.98 Taken from the writings of St. Maximus the Confessor, it
underscores the concept of participation.99 Reflect on what occurs when iron is
plunged into fire, as happens when a sword is being shaped. A definite change takes.
The fire penetrates the metal and communicates to it some of its own properties. The
metal begins to glow. It becomes hot and burning. It becomes malleable. None of
these things is a natural property of iron; as is well known, by nature iron is inflexible,
cold, and dense. It is only when the iron participates in the nature of the fire that it
becomes what it was not while still retaining its essential identity as iron.
In similar fashion, the doctrine of theosis explains human divinization as being
fundamentally a matter of participation. Between the persons of the triune God and
human persons there is an infinite ontological divide—the difference between the
uncreated and the created. God, however, bridges this ontological divide. The three
persons who are God by nature—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—make
created persons who are human by nature to be "gods by grace" through participation
in their divinizing energies. Divinized human persons, without ceasing to be human,
become what they were not—gods. The revelation of Christ and the dispensation
inaugurated by him, according to the Greek Fathers of the Church, makes clear and
accomplishes what in God's plan is the purpose of human existence—to become a
god.
Notes
1. Matthew 17:1—8, Jerusalem Bible (hereafter referred to as JB). Parallel
passages are in Mark 9:2—8 and Luke 9:28—36.
2. Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, ed. John H. Erickson and
Thomas E. Bird (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974),
60—61; Andrew Louth, trans.,Maximus the Confessor (New York: Routledge,
1996), 70—71, 108—9; Georgios I. Mantzaridis, The Deification of Man: St.
Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition, trans. Liadain Sherrard
(Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984), 100, 123;
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600—1700), vol. 2 of The
Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1974), 260—61; Symeon the New
Theologian, The Discourses, trans. C. J. de Catanzaro (Mahwah, New Jersey:
Paulist, 1980), 357.
3. 2 Peter 1:4, KJV.
4. St. Gregory Palamas, Homilies 16, quoted in Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern
Christendom, 266.
5. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, On the Apostolic Preaching, with an introduction by
John Behr (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1997), 1.
6. Robert M. Grant, trans., Irenaeus of Lyons (New York: Routledge, 1997), 164.
7. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word 54, quoted in Christoforos
Stavropoulos, Partakers of the Divine Nature: An inspiring presentation of
man's purpose in life according to Orthodox theology, trans. Stanley Harakas
(Minneapolis, Minn.: Light and Life, 1976), 24.
8. Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's
Seminary Press, 1995), 119—20.
9. Hypostasis being an equivalent term for "person."
10. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 118—19.
11. Ibid., 106.
12. Ibid., 54—56, 68; John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends
and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979), 77—78;
John Meyendorff and Robert Tobias, ed., Salvation in Christ: A LutheranOrthodox Dialogue (Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg Fortress, 1992), 108, 118;
Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, 269—70; Timothy Ware, The
Orthodox Church (New York: Penguin, 1993), 67—68, 208—9.
13. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 55—56.
14. Ibid., 55.
15. Meyendorff and Tobias, Salvation in Christ, 108—9.
16. See note 9 in this chapter.
17. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 120.
18. Irenaeus, On the Apostolic Preachings, 46—47; Mantzaridis, The Deification of
Man, 19; Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 140—41.
19. Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, 145—46; Irenaeus, On the Apostolic
Preachings, 42—43.
20. That is, on the level of being (created vs. uncreated).
21. Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, trans. Carmino J. de Catanzaro
(Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974), 190—91;
Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 135, 153, 225; Meyendorff and
Tobias, Salvation in Christ, 60—61; Ware, Orthodox Church, 231.
22. Genesis 1:26, KJV.
23. Ware, Orthodox Church, 219.
24. Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 20—21.
25. Meyendorff and Tobias, Salvation in Christ, 60.
26. Ibid., 38.
27. Ibid., 39. It needs to be stressed that the "image of God" in fallen humanity,
although "tarnished," or blurred or covered, was not fundamentally damaged or
destroyed. Even in their fallen condition, human persons are still essentially
good.
28. Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 24.
29. Ibid., 22; Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 139.
30. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 143—46; Meyendorff and Tobias, Salvation
in Christ, 39, 60—61.
31. Cabasilas, Life in Christ, 77.
32. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 104; Louth, Maximus the
Confessor, 34; Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 128; Meyendorff, Byzantine
Theology, 163—65.
33. That is, he made it his own.
34. Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 185.
35. Ware, Orthodox Church, 20—22.
36. Vladimr Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood,
New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976), 146; Mantzaridis, Deification
of Man, 30.
37. This ability to predicate the operation of the two natures (divine and human) to
the one person who possesses both natures (Christ) is technically called
the communicatio idiomatum.
38. Meyendorff and Tobias, Salvation in Christ, 41, 44.
39. Cabasilas, Life in Christ, 106.
40. See note 2 in this chapter.
41. Lossky, Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 126.
42. Ibid., 155.
43. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 65. See Lossky, Mystical Theology
of the Eastern Church, 182.
44. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 65; idem, Mystical Theology of the
Eastern Church, 119.
45. Lossky, Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 162—63.
46. Meyendorff and Tobias, Salvation in Christ, 49.
47. Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 158; Pelikan, Spirit of Eastern
Christendom, 267.
48. Ware, Orthodox Church, 232, emphasis in original.
49. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 65.
50. Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 42—43.
51. Ibid., 112. The portion in quotation marks is from Gregory Palamas.
52. Lossky, Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 90; Pelikan, Spirit of
Eastern Christendom, 268.
53. Cabasilas, Life in Christ, 43; Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 65;
Ware, Orthodox Church, 233.
54. Cabisilas, Life in Christ, 166—67.
55. Hans Urs von Balthasar, ed., The Scandal of the Incarnation: Irenaeus Against
the Heresies, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1990), 110.
56. Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, 118, 184.
57. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett
Ferguson (New York: Paulist, 1978), 30—31, 111—20 passim, 133;
Meredith, The Cappadocians, 77; Meyendorff,Byzantine Theology, 219, 225,
226; Meyendorff and Tobias, Salvation in Christ, 63.
58. Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses, 113, 117.
59. Ibid., 12—13.
60. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 109—10.
61. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 42—43; idem, Mystical Theology of
the Eastern Church, 183; Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 41—45 passim.
62. Ibid., 41.
63. Ibid., 42.
64. Meyendorff and Tobias, Salvation in Christ, 52—53.
65. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 43—44.
66. Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 43.
67. Arguably, the greatest writer on the role of sacraments in the attainment
of theosis is Nicholas Cabasilas. For his discussion of Baptism: Cabasilas, Life
in Christ, 65—102 passim; on Eucharist: Cabasilas, Life in Christ, 113—48
passim.
68. Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 42.
69. Cabasilas, Life in Christ, 73.
70. Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 48.
71. Ibid., 46.
72. Cabasilas, Life in Christ, 65—66; Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 45—51.
73. Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 51—56 passim; Meyendorff, Byzantine
Theology, 203, 205.
74. Cabasilas, Life in Christ, 115—16.
75. To forestall any misunderstanding, it bears repeating that the way in which
Christ is divine is fundamentally and existentially different from the way
humans become "partakers of the divine nature." Christ is divine by nature, in
essence, and at the incarnation hypostatically united to his divine person human
nature, which nature is divinized through complete interpenetration by the
energies of Christ's divine nature. Human persons are by nature "human" and
are divinized by participating in the energies—not essence—of the divine
nature, which in this instance are mediated through Christ's eucharistic body.
76. Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 33—34.
77. Cabasilas, Life in Christ, 159—94 passim.
78. The Rev. Fr. John Breck states that "Synergy implies a fundamental antinomy:
a person must accept God's grace to be saved (through an exercise of free will);
but such acceptance is only possible through the sanctifying power of the
Spirit." Meyendorff and Tobias, Salvation in Christ, 153.
79. Ibid., 152—53.
80. Cabasilas, Life in Christ, 198; Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 61—85 passim;
Symeon the New Theologian, Discourses, 151, 164; Ware, Orthodox
Church, 303—6.
81. Ware, Orthodox Church, 236.
82. Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 44, 67—68; Meyendorff, Byzantine
Theology, 195—96; Ware, Orthodox Church, 288—90.
83. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 215.
84. Symeon the New Theologian, Discourses, 145.
85. Ibid., 337.
86. Ibid., 17.
87. Ibid., 350.
88. Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 96—104 passim.
89. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 58, 59.
90. Symeon the New Theologian, Discourses, 298.
91. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 58; see Ware, Orthodox
Church, 68—69.
92. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 63—64.
93. Ibid., 58—59, 59—60; Symeon the New Theologian, Discourses, 365.
94. Mantzaridis, Deification of Man, 104.
95. Symeon the New Theologian, Discourses, 245—46.
96. Ibid., 200, 201.
97. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 57.
98. Similarly, at the end of the next chapter, which will review the LDS doctrine of
exaltation, another image will be suggested.
99. Lossky, Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 146; Louth, Maximus the
Confessor, 178—79.
The Doctrine of Exaltation, or Becoming
a God
The Prophet Joseph Smith approached the stand in the grove behind the Nauvoo
Temple—it was 3:15 p.m. on Sunday, April 7, 1844, in Nauvoo, Illinois. He would be
addressing the largest gathering ever of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.1 The general conference talk he gave that Sunday afternoon has become
known as the "King Follett Discourse"2 and is universally believed to be the most
significant sermon ever delivered by the Prophet during his ministry.3 What was
unique about the talk was not the novelty of the doctrines presented; in fact, the key
points had all been taught at various times previous to 1844. Instead, the significance
of the King Follett Discourse lies in the fact that in it the Prophet Joseph provided a
systematic overview of doctrines touching upon God, human nature, and the human
potential for exaltation—godhood. The LDS researcher Van Hale has documented the
four key principles contained in the discourse:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Men can become gods.
There exist many gods.
The gods exist one above another innumerably.
God was once as man now is.4
The Prophet Joseph structured his presentation of these principles by describing first
the nature and personality of God, then human origins and destiny, and finally the
person of Christ and his role in making possible the exaltation of human persons. This
methodology for ordering content will also be used in this chapter to present an
overview of the doctrine of exaltation as taught by the LDS Church, a doctrine which
teaches of the divine potential of the human person.
The Nature of God
What kind of being is God? The Prophet Joseph opens the King Follett discourse by
posing this question and parenthetically remarks, foreshadowing his later comments in
the address, that without knowledge of the nature of God, human persons will not
accurately understand their own identities.5 God, most commonly referred to in LDS
discourse as "our Heavenly Father," is an exalted or divinized man.6 In the Discourse
the Prophet Joseph had this to say:
God Himself who sits enthroned in yonder heavens is a Man like unto one of
yourselves—that is the great secret! . . . For I am going to tell you how God came to
be God and what sort of a being He is. For we have imagined that God was God from
the beginning of all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil so you may
see. . . . The first principle of truth and of the Gospel is to know for a certainty the
character of God, and that . . . He once was a man like one of us and that God
Himself, the Father of us all, once dwelled on an earth the same as Jesus Christ
himself did in the flesh and like us.7
In other words, God attained the perfections of divinity through a process of
progression; He is of the same species as human persons.8
As does Christ, God possesses a resurrected and glorified body of flesh and
bones.9 He is not extratemporal or -spatial; God does not exist outside of space and
time, but, like us, lives within the space-time continuum.10 As an exalted being, God
possesses all perfections; he is omnipotent and omniscient.11 The last point needs to
be emphasized. The belief that God is an exalted man, that at some point eons ago he
was as human as we are today, in no way implies that now he is less than fully divine.
Joseph Smith's teachings about the Deity in no way suggest that God is a finite being.
Eloheim [God the Father] is an exalted man, but he possesses in their fulness the
attributes of Godhead. . . . Simply because God has not always been God, it need not
follow that he is not now a possessor of that fulness of light, truth, and glory that
constitute him as infinite.12
Because of the infinite nature of God's love, he desired to share his love and divine
life with others. Thus, prior to the existence of this universe as we know it, God
produced spirit children.
The Nature of the Human Person
God and the Heavenly Mother, God's eternal companion, bore spirit children in their
own image and likeness.13 Thus, these children are gendered—male and female—in
the likeness of their divine parents. But to understand fully this teaching, one first has
to take into account the revelations of the Prophet Joseph which speak of and describe
the nature of matter and intelligence.
Intelligence, the essential core or essence of the human person, is eternal and
uncreated.14 The following is from the King Follett Discourse:
The mind of man—the intelligent part—is as immortal as, and is coequal with, God
himself. I know my testimony is true. . . . Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a selfexistent principle . . . there is no creation about it.15
Likewise, matter, the material substrate of the universe, is eternal and
uncreated.16 Matter, though, exists in one of two forms: spirit matter, which is
invisible to the unaided human eye, and physical, or tangible, matter, which is visible
to the unaided human eye.
There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or
pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies
are purified we shall see that it is all matter.17
What occurred, then, when these Heavenly Parents produced spirit children, is that
they provided spirit bodies for intelligences by organizing preexistent matter. 18 These
bodies are material realities but, insofar as they are spirit bodies, composed of spirit
matter, they would not be visible to unaided human vision. This event, whereby
intelligences are clothed with spirit bodies and become conscious personalities, can be
referred to as a spirit birth.19
All human persons who have ever been born on this earth, or who will be born, were
first born of divine parents as described above and lived with them prior to their life
on earth. This of course means that all human persons—past, present, and future—are
literally brothers and sisters to one another because they are all the spirit children of
God and his eternal companion. The firstborn of these Heavenly Parents is Jesus
Christ, known prior to his life on earth as Jehovah. And thus, Jesus Christ is literally
the elder brother to all human persons.20
Just as children born to earthly parents have the inborn potential to grow up and
develop into the image and likeness of their human parents, so too all human persons,
because of their divine heritage, have the inborn potential to grow and become as their
Heavenly Parents: divine, perfected, exalted persons, or in other words, gods.21 The
Heavenly Parents of all humanity knew, however, that their spirit children could not
continue their progression and attain exaltation—godhood—if they remained where
and as they were;22 and so God called a "grand council" and presented to his spirit
offspring a plan whereby they could eventually become as he is, an exalted being. 23
The Grand Council
God presented to his children, gathered together with him and his eternal companion,
a plan of salvation for their consideration. This plan was to be the means by which
God's spirit children could continue their growth and development and thus attain
exaltation. A world would be created—this earth—where they would be born of
mortal, human parents and receive a body of flesh and bones. A veil of forgetfulness
would come over them and they would not remember their premortal lives with their
Heavenly Parents. All this would occur so that their obedience could be tested while
in mortality. Mortal life would be a probationary state where through free choices and
character development they could demonstrate their worthiness to return to the
presence of their Heavenly Parents and continue their progression—a progression
which has as its goal exaltation, becoming exalted personages like their Heavenly
Parents.24
In this grand council God also told his spirit children that the first mortal parents
(Adam and Eve) would transgress; sin and mortality would enter the world, and hence
a redeemer would be necessary. Two of God's children volunteered to serve as the
world's redeemer: Jesus Christ, the first-born and eldest of all, and Lucifer, another
spirit-child. Although Lucifer proposed to redeem all of God's children it would have
come about through the removal of free will; Lucifer also wanted to get glory for
himself in the process. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, sought only to glorify God and
to be obedient to the designs of his Heavenly Parents.
Ultimately, God chose Jesus Christ to serve as the savior and redeemer of the world.
One third of all God's spirit children, however, took the side of Lucifer and rebelled
against God. A war in heaven ensued; Lucifer and the rebellious spirits were finally
cast out of their Heavenly Parents' celestial home to a place utterly lacking in glory or
light—outer darkness. In punishment for their disobedience their progression towards
exaltation was stopped short. They will not have the privilege of receiving a mortal
body and experiencing life on earth.25
When the universe and this earth were brought into being it was at the command of
God, under the direction of Jesus Christ. He organized the eternal and preexisting
elements and fashioned all that is visible in the cosmos.26 A key point to keep in mind
is that prior to this creative activity Jesus Christ had attained exaltation and become a
god.27 At this point it will be helpful to describe the doctrine of the Godhead—that
divine presidency which governs our universe.
The Godhead
The Godhead is composed of three separate and distinct persons: God, the Eternal
Father; Jesus Christ (called Jehovah prior to his mortal ministry); and the Holy Ghost.
Each of these persons is a god.28While both God and Jesus Christ have resurrected
and glorified bodies of flesh and bone, the Holy Ghost is a male personage and
possesses a spirit body.29 The Godhead is spoken of as the one God because they are
perfectly united in will.
Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are called the Godhead. They are
unified in purpose. Each has an important assignment in the plan of salvation. Our
Heavenly Father is our Father and ruler. Jesus Christ is our Savior. The Holy Ghost is
the revealer and testifies of all truth.30
Everlasting covenant was made between three personages before the organization of
this earth, and relates their dispensation of things to men on the earth; these
personages . . . are called God the First, the Creator; God the second, the Redeemer;
and God the third, the witness or Testator.31
It is perfect unity between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost that binds these
three into the oneness of the divine Godhead.32
On June 16, 1844, the Prophet Joseph Smith, in the last sermon he gave prior to his
martyrdom, spoke of the Godhead:
I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and
distinct personage from God the Father and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage
and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods. 33
Thus, while the three divine persons who make up the Godhead are separate and
ontologically distinct, and can be described as three Gods, because of their perfect
unity of purpose they are the one God, the one Godhead. In practice, LDS are strict
monotheists: they worship God the Father, in the name of the Son, by the power of the
Holy Ghost.34
The Centrality of Christ
The very heart of the LDS doctrine of exaltation centers on the person of Jesus Christ.
Latter-day Saints believe that complete salvation is possible only through the life,
death, resurrection, doctrines, and ordinances of Jesus Christ and in no other way.35
Through the infinite atonement which he accomplished at the close of his mortal
ministry Christ made it possible for all the spirit sons and daughters of God to
continue to progress and receive the blessings of exaltation. But before examining
more closely the sacrificial work of Christ, the question needs to be answered, from
what was Christ redeeming humanity? In other words, what occurred that blocked
human progression towards exaltation? Quite simply, physical death and spiritual
death.
The mortal parents of all humanity, Adam and Eve, transgressed God's command
while in the Garden of Eden and so incurred the penalty of death—both spiritual and
physical. Spiritual death refers to separation from God while physical death refers to
the separation of body and spirit.36 Physical death, and all that is associated with it,
such as the possibility for illness and suffering, was transmitted to all human
persons.37 All persons born into this world eventually suffer the separation of their
bodies from their spirits. And since exaltation involves becoming like God, who
possesses a glorified body, to end up in a state of separation from one's body is an
obstacle to progression that a person is helpless to overcome. This first barrier to
exaltation is further compounded by the reality of sin.
Personal sin involves the willful disobedience of a person towards the commands and
person of God; the natural consequence of sin is thus separation from God. Because of
our sins we cannot return to the presence of God, who is all holy and cannot tolerate
sin to the least degree. As with physical death, this spiritual death, or separation from
God, short-circuits our ability to progress towards exaltation. Essentially, what occurs
in sinning is that we shape our characters in ways that are incompatible with living the
kind of life that God lives.38 And the bad news of sin is that we are helpless to make
reparation for our evil choices, to make the kind of infinite atonement necessary to
return to God's presence.39
However, when speaking on the subject of sin, it needs to be emphasized that
according to LDS doctrine the descendents of Adam and Eve do not inherit their guilt
or sin; the original transgression of Adam and Eve is imputed to them alone. Human
persons are only guilty for their own personal sins. In view of the foreseen merits of
Christ, Adam and Eve were forgiven after they had repented of their original
transgression. Furthermore, because of the merits of Christ's atonement, all persons
born into the world are born in a saved state. In other words, through the grace of
Christ's atoning sacrifice the "original sin" of Adam and Eve does not touch or affect
any other person. Sin only becomes a reality in a child's life when it has reached the
age of accountability (age 8) and can freely choose for itself between good and evil;
prior to reaching this age of accountability little children are natural heirs of
exaltation.40
Listen to the words of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God . . . wherefore,
little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the
curse of Adam is taken from them in me, and it hath no power over them. . . . But
little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world. 41
Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man
from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.42
Thus, LDS doctrine rejects any notion of "original sin" which imputes spiritual
death—separation from God—to infants and children for acts which are not their
own.43
It is Christ, then, who is the Savior and the one who redeems humanity from sin and
death. As was noted above, Christ was ordained and chosen by God before the world
existed to serve as its redeemer. And Christ was able to make an infinite atonement to
God because he is the only person born into mortality who was both human and
divine.44 As was also noted previously, Christ attained godhood prior to his mortal
birth. Moreover, he is the only begotten of the Father in the flesh.
Latter-day Saint scripture affirms unequivocally that the birth of Jesus Christ was the
mortal advent on earth of an actual God, a second distinct member of the Godhead.45
God the Father became the literal father of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only person on
earth to be born of a mortal mother and an immortal father. That is why he is called
the Only Begotten Son. From his mother he inherited mortality and was subject to
hunger, thirst, fatigue, pain, and death. He inherited divine powers from his Father.
No one could take the Savior's life from him unless He willed it. He had power to lay
it down and power to take up his body again after dying.46
The actual atoning sacrifice of Christ began in the Garden of Gethsemane, where
Christ suffered to the point of sweating blood, and was completed on Calvary, when
Christ sacrificed his life for the redemption of humanity.47 Thus, Christ's suffering and
death overcomes the barrier of sin while his glorious bodily resurrection ensures that
all persons will have their bodies restored to them in a glorified, perfected state.48 The
question now becomes, how does this atonement, accomplished by Christ, become
effective in the lives of human persons? To answer this question, which deals with the
means whereby human persons can continue on the path of progression towards
exaltation, one must turn to an examination of the saving ordinances of the gospel of
Jesus Christ.
The Ordinances of Exaltation
The ordinances (or sacraments) of the gospel are sacred rites or ceremonies.49 Some
can be categorized as ordinances of exaltation, insofar as they are necessary means
whereby the grace of Christ is communicated to human persons so that they can attain
exaltation, while others can be described as ordinances of healing or comfort, insofar
as they are not essential to a person's progression and attainment of exaltation.50 What
is of interest here are the former, those ordinances required for exaltation: baptism,
confirmation, the endowment, and marriage for time and eternity.51
After a person has come to faith in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ52 and has
repented of all wrongdoing, baptism by immersion, by one possessing valid
priesthood authority, can be administered. It should be noted that the ordinance of
baptism is only given to persons who have reached the age of accountability (age 8).
Through baptism all sins are forgiven and a person becomes a member of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.53 Because it is the first ordinance that can be
received, baptism is often described as the gateway to the celestial kingdom, that is,
the highest kingdom of heaven wherein one's progression towards exaltation can take
place.54
Soon after baptism, oftentimes immediately after baptism, a person will receive the
ordinance of confirmation. Confirmation is administered by the laying on of hands by
men possessing valid priesthood authority. Two things occur as a result of
confirmation: a person has his or her membership in the LDS Church "confirmed" and
he or she is given the gift of the Holy Ghost.55 This gift entitles a person who lives a
worthy life to the right to receive "guidance and inspiration from the Holy Ghost." 56
The final two ordinances necessary for exaltation, the endowment and marriage for
time and eternity, can only be performed in "houses of the Lord," that is, temples of
the LDS Church.57 Only adults—baptized and confirmed members of the LDS
Church—who are morally worthy can gain admission to a temple to receive their
endowment or be married.58 The exact content of the endowment is never talked about
or discussed outside of a temple because of the sacred nature of this ordinance.
However, Elder James E. Talmage, an apostle of the LDS Church, has published an
authoritative overview of the endowment which, although a bit lengthy, provides the
basic information needed to appreciate its significance.
The temple endowment, as administered in modern temples, comprises instruction
relating to the significance and sequence of past dispensations, and the importance of
the present as the greatest and grandest era in human history. This course of
instruction includes a recital of the most prominent events of the creative period, the
condition of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, their disobedience and
consequent expulsion from that blissful abode, their condition in the lone and dreary
world when doomed to live by labor and sweat, the plan of redemption by which the
great transgression may be atoned, the period of the great apostasy, the restoration of
the gospel with all its ancient powers and privileges, the absolute and indispensable
conditions of personal purity and devotion to the right in the present life, and a strict
compliance with gospel requirements. . . . The ordinances of the endowment embody
certain obligations on the part of the individual, such as covenant and promise to
observe the law of strict virtue and chastity, to be charitable, benevolent, tolerant and
pure; to devote both talent and material means to the spread of truth and the uplifting
of the race; to maintain devotion to the cause of truth; and to seek in every way to
contribute to the great preparation that the earth may be made ready to receive her
King, the Lord Jesus. With the taking of each covenant and the assuming of each
obligation a promised blessing is pronounced, contingent upon the faithful observance
of the conditions.59
After a person has received his or her endowment, the final ordinance needed for
exaltation is marriage, specifically a temple marriage.
Marriages performed outside LDS temples typically will have as part of the exchange
of vows something to the effect of "until death do us part"—not so with an LDS
temple marriage. A marriage solemnized in a temple, with the officiant being a man
validly possessing the priesthood and the sealing power, will last not only until death,
but for all eternity as well.60 Hence, temple marriages are often referred to aseternal
marriages. Moreover, children born to a couple who have been married in the temple
are automatically "sealed" for time and all eternity to their parents. This means that
families and family relationships can be eternal. Through a temple marriage, not only
is the marriage relationship eternal, but the relationships between parents and children
are eternal as well.61 If baptism is the gateway or entrance into the celestial kingdom
(the highest kingdom of heaven), then an eternal marriage is the gateway or entrance
into the highest level of the celestial kingdom, wherein human progression can reach
fruition and exaltation can be attained.62
The significance of eternal marriage cannot be overstated. The unit of exaltation—
human divinization—is not an individual but a married couple, a man and a
woman.63 And herein lies the meaning of the pattern and example set by the Heavenly
Parents of humanity. Just as God is not single or solitary, but has an eternal
companion, the Heavenly Mother, with whom he produced spirit offspring, so it will
be with those persons who attain exaltation, or godhood. For an eternally married
couple to be exalted, to become gods, means attaining the perfection and capacities
which their Heavenly Parents already possess, including the capacity to organize
matter and produce spirit offspring.64
Our exaltation depends on marriage. . . . Heavenly Father has given us the law of
eternal marriage so we can become like him. We must live this law to have spirit
children. . . . We learned [in the Grand Council] that if we followed his plan, we
would have all power in heaven and on earth; we would become heavenly parents and
have spirit children just as he does.65
The ability of an exalted couple to enlarge their family by having spirit children is
most commonly referred to as the blessing of eternal increase.66 And it is precisely by
gaining the experience of being a parent in mortality, together with one's eternal
companion, that one begins to learn how to be a heavenly parent.67
Grace vs. Works
The attainment of exaltation is, however, not just a matter of receiving the requisite
ordinances. A person must "endure to the end,"68 or in other words, develop through
their choices and good works a righteous and godly character. Of course, this raises
the thorny issue of exactly how human salvation is accomplished. Is exaltation
attained through grace or through human works? Is it a free gift that comes through
the atonement of Christ or must it be earned? Although often characterized as being a
program of "salvation by works," LDS doctrine in fact teaches that salvation is not an
either-or proposition. It is not either grace or good works, but
rather both grace and good works.
Too often we fail to recognize the invaluable reconciliation of the grace-works issue
in the Book of Mormon. Stated simply, grace is a necessary but insufficient condition;
works is a necessary but insufficient condition; the works of man (those things we can
do), when coupled with the grace of God (those things only the Lord can do), are
sufficient for salvation. . . . It is misleading to suggest that Joseph Smith and the
Saints forsook the doctrine of salvation by grace in favor of a view of exaltation by
works. . . . The inspired translation of Romans 4:16 points up the mandatory union of
divine assistance and individual deeds: "Therefore ye are justified of faith and works,
through grace, to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed." 69
Ultimately, then, no one can experience the fullness of salvation, or be exalted,
without the grace that comes through the atonement of Christ; yet the atonement of
Christ will be of no worth to a person if that person does not accept it, an acceptance
that is made manifest through human cooperation, through which people "bring to
pass much righteousness."70
The Attainment of Exaltation
The growth and progression that a person experiences both in the premortal existence
and in mortality (earth life) will continue even after death. Ultimately all persons who
have ever lived on the earth will, through the grace of Christ's atonement and bodily
resurrection, experience the resurrection of their own bodies. Then, at the final
judgment, when human history as we know it on this earth will end, almost all the
spirit children of God will be assigned a degree of glory.71 However, Lucifer, the
rebellious spirit children who were cast out of heaven during the premortal existence,
as well as those persons who "had testimonies of Jesus through the Holy Ghost and
knew the power of the Lord" but nevertheless "denied the truth," will not be assigned
a degree of glory but will be cast into outer darkness—to be eternally miserable and
unhappy.72
The lowest kingdom of glory is called the telestial kingdom. The persons assigned to
this level of heaven are the unrepentant sinners who never accepted the gospel of
Jesus Christ—either in mortality or in the postmortal world. Prior to entering the
telestial kingdom, they will have to undergo an extensive period of suffering to atone
for their own sins because they rejected the atoning sacrifice of Christ. All who are in
this kingdom of glory will be visited by the Holy Ghost, but not by God the Father or
Jesus Christ.73
The second kingdom of glory is called the terrestrial kingdom. This level of heaven
will have in it two kinds of people: those who were members of the LDS Church but
did not live in such a way that they could inherit the highest kingdom of glory and
those who refused to accept the restored gospel of Jesus Christ while in mortality but
did accept it in the postmortal world. Persons in the terrestrial kingdom will be visited
by Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, but not by God the Father.74
The highest degree of glory is called the celestial kingdom. Those assigned to this
kingdom of glory are children who died before the age of accountability (age 8),
persons who were faithful and worthy members of the LDS Church, and, because they
never had the possibility of joining the LDS Church in mortality, persons who
accepted the gospel in the postmortal world. Persons in the celestial kingdom will live
with God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. There are, moreover, three
levels within the celestial kingdom, and admittance to the highest level—which is the
only level of glory in which a person can realize his or her capacity for exaltation—is
dependent on having entered into an eternal marriage and living faithfully within the
context of that relationship.75
All who inherit the telestial and terrestrial kingdoms will never be able to attain
exaltation. Similarly, those in the two lower levels of the celestial kingdom will not
attain exaltation precisely because they are saved as single persons; they did not enter
into an eternal marriage, so their progression will be limited.76
The celestial kingdom will consist of God's heavenly family linked together in love as
husbands and wives, parents and children, and brothers and sisters forever. As single
individuals, human beings may be saved in lesser degrees of glory, but only families
can be exalted.77
The ultimate destiny of all those who do not enter into the highest level of the celestial
kingdom is to serve as angels or ministering servants to those who are found worthy
to attain exaltation.78
Although it has been recorded in LDS scriptures that a few persons have already been
exalted and attained godhood—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob79—it seems that most
couples who inherit the highest level of the celestial kingdom will continue to
progress for an unspecified amount of time before they perfect their potentiality, attain
exaltation, and become as God is now.80 In the King Follett Discourse the Prophet
Joseph stated:
When you climb up a ladder, you must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step,
until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the Gospel—you must
begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation. But it
will be a great while after you have passed through the veil [died] before you will
have learned them. It is not allto be comprehended in this world; it will be a great
work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave.81
Ultimately, those couples who are exalted become gods: omniscient beings with the
capacity to organize matter into new universes, provide intelligence with spirit bodies
and thus have spirit children, and offer these spirit children the possibility of
exaltation.82
We must seek earnestly to obey every covenant that we make in the temple. The Lord
has said that if we are true and faithful, we will pass by the angels to our exaltation.
We will become gods.83
Those who receive exaltation in the celestial kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ
will receive special blessings. . . . They will become gods. . . . They will have their
righteous family members with them and will be able to have spirit children also.
These spirit children will have the same relationship to them as we do to our Heavenly
Father. They will be an eternal family. . . . They will have everything that our
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have—all power, glory, dominion, and
knowledge.84
Every man who reigns in celestial glory is a God to his dominions.85
Thus, exalted couples, when they become gods, imitate and continue what was done
for them by their own loving Heavenly Parents.
Summary
All human persons are of the same race as God the Father. To quote again from the
Prophet Joseph Smith: "God himself who sits enthroned in yonder heavens is a Man
like unto one of yourselves—that is the great secret!"86 As an exalted man, God has
already succeeded and become a god and now desires to enable all his spirit children
to attain the same rank and glory that he enjoys.87 As the literal offspring of God, all
persons have innately a divine potential. And although the human essence is eternal
and uncreated, every person is radically dependent on God, and specifically, on the
atoning sacrifice of Christ, in the process of attaining salvation, a process which is
aptly described in LDS scripture as "the great plan of happiness."88 In LDS doctrine,
the fullness of salvation is, in fact, the fulfillment of our God-given potential—
exaltation, to become a god.
An Image: The Infant and the Adult
To help concretize the doctrine of exaltation, consider the following image. Taken
from official doctrinal expositions signed by President Joseph F. Smith (the sixth
prophet of the LDS Church) and President Heber J. Grant (the seventh prophet of the
LDS Church), this image underscores the ideas of growth and development.89 Think
of an infant cradled by its parent. The infant and the parent are both human beings.
Yet, from observation alone, apart from any other knowledge or experience, one
would be hard-pressed if asked to prove this assertion. The infant and its parent look
different, sound different, are amazingly unequal as to their abilities or actual
capacities. Apart from some knowledge and experience, one could never guess that
the infant has already the inborn capacity to grow and develop into the maturity and
capacity of the adult parent. And although the child possesses, as a fact of its being,
this innate capacity to grow up and thus possess for itself the already-possessed
maturity of its parent, it is, nevertheless, utterly dependent on the love and providence
of its parent for the realization of this potential.
In a similar way, the LDS doctrine of exaltation explains human salvation as being
fundamentally about a process of human growth and progress. Being literal spirit
children of divine parentage, all persons who come into this world possess already the
capacity to grow up and become just like their Heavenly Parents—with all the same
powers and abilities. But, as with the children we see every day, this growth and
progress can only take place in radical dependence on the love and grace of God the
Father, by freely accepting his "great plan of happiness," a plan whose heart and
center is the person of Jesus Christ, whose atonement then enables us to attain the full
measure of our existence—to become a god.
Notes
1. Van Hale, "The King Follett Discourse: Textual History and
Criticism," Sunstone 8 (Sept/Oct 1983): 5.
2. This General Conference talk became known as the "King Follett Discourse"
because its immediate aim was to memorialize a particular Mormon elder, King
Follett, who had died in Nauvoo on March 9, 1844. The Prophet Joseph Smith
developed the doctrinal themes contained within the sermon as a way of
explaining the ultimate potential of King Follett and all other members of the
human family. Donald Q. Cannon, "The King Follett Discourse: Joseph Smith's
Greatest Sermon in Historical Perspective," Brigham Young University
Studies 18 (winter 1978): 179–80.
3. Thomas G. Alexander, "'A New and Everlasting Covenant': An Approach to
the Theology of Joseph Smith," in New Views of Mormon History: A Collection
of Essays in Honor of Leonard J. Arrington, ed. Davis Bitton and Maureen
Ursenbach Beecher (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987), 58; M.
Gerald Bradford and Larry E. Dahl, "Doctrine: Meaning, Source, and History
of Doctrine," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia
of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994),
125; Donald Cannon, "The King Follett Discourse," 179; Van Hale, "The
Doctrinal Impact of the King Follett Discourse," Brigham Young University
Studies 18 (winter 1978): 211; idem, "The King Follett Discourse," 5.
4. Hale, "Doctrinal Impact of the King Follett Discourse," 212.
5. Stan Larson, "The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated
Text," Brigham Young University Studies 18 (winter 1978): 199.
6. Bradford and Dahl, "Doctrine," 125; Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon
Doctrine, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 300.
7. Larson, "King Follett Discourse," 200–1, emphasis in original.
8. Alexander, "A New and Everlasting Covenant," 58; Craig L. Blomberg and
Stephen E. Robinson, How Wide the Divide? A Mormon and an Evangelical in
Conversation (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 82; Gospel
Principles (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
1992), 305; Robert L. Millet, The Mormon Faith: A New Look At
Christianity(Salt Lake City: Shadow Mountain, 1998), 34; Daniel C. Peterson
and Stephen D. Ricks, Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word
Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1992),
88–89. Given that God and humans are members of the same species, this gives
rise to the semantic issue of how to convey the distinction between God and
humans. To speak of a divine nature in contrast to human nature can imply that
there is an ontological distinction between the divine and the human—a
distinction which LDS doctrine clearly rejects. I would propose that both God
and human be referred to as possessing an intelligent nature.
Thus human and divine would indicate different levels of progression
of intelligent nature. In other words, at one point an intelligent nature can be
described as human but the same intelligent nature, at a later time, can be
described as divine.
9. Doctrine and Covenants 130:22.
10. Kent Robson, "Time and Eternity," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections
from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 458–61 passim.
11. Gospel Principles, 9; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 239; David L. Paulson,
"Omnipotence of God; Omnipresence of God; Omniscience of God," in Jesus
Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 368–
69; David H. Yarn, Jr., "God," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections from
the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 192.
12. Robert L. Millet, "Joseph Smith and Modern Mormonism: Orthodoxy,
Neoorthodoxy, Tension, and Tradition," Brigham Young University Studies 29
(summer 1989): 56, 57.
13. Elaine Anderson Cannon, "Mother in Heaven," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel:
Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 359–61 passim; Jerry C.
Giles, "Jesus Christ: Firstborn in the Spirit," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel:
Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 263–64; Gospel
Principles, 11; Jay E. Jensen, "Spirit," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel:
Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 438; Gerald N. Lund, "Plan
of Salvation, Plan of Redemption," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections
from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 384.
14. Alexander, "A New and Everlasting Covenant," 58–59; Bradford and Dahl,
"Doctrine," 126; Alma P. Burton, "Doctrine: Distinctive Teachings," in Jesus
Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 128;
Doctrine and Covenants 93:29; Paul Nolan Hyde, "Intelligences," in Jesus
Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 249–
51 passim; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 387; Dennis J. Packard,
"Intelligence," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 248; Yarn, "God," 193.
15. Larson, "King Follett Discourse," 203–4.
16. Burton, "Doctrine: Distinctive Teachings," 128; Doctrine and Covenants 93:33;
McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 218.
17. Doctrine and Covenants 131:7–8.
18. Spencer W. Kimball, "Our Great Potential," Ensign, May 1977, 50.
19. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 750.
20. Giles, "Jesus Christ: Firstborn in the Spirit," 263; Gospel Principles, 11–13
passim; Gordon B. Hinckley, The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Salt Lake City:
Bookcraft, 1988), 4, 7–8; Robert L. Millet, "Jesus Christ: Overview," in Jesus
Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 255.
21. Gospel Principles, 11; T. Edgar Lyon, "Doctrinal Development of the Church
During the Nauvoo Sojourn," Brigham Young University Studies 15 (summer
1975): 439.
22. The firstborn spirit child of God, Jesus Christ, is the exception. As will be
noted in the subsequent section of this chapter, he attained exaltation—
godhood—prior to his mortal birth.
23. Gospel Principles, 13–14.
24. Gospel Principles, 13–15, 192, 301; Lund, "Plan of Salvation," 383–85 passim;
John H. Lund, "Council in Heaven," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections
from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 83–85 passim.
25. Gospel Principles, 15, 17–19 passim; Larson, "King Follett Discourse," 206;
Lund, "Plan of Salvation," 384–85.
26. Gospel Principles, 27–8; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 169.
27. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 129, 323; Millet, "Jesus Christ: Overview,"
255–56.
28. Paul E. Dahl, "Godhead," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 203–5.
29. Doctrine and Covenants 130:20; Gospel Principles, 37, 137; Hinckley, The
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 10–11; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 358–59;
Joseph Fielding McConkie, "Holy Ghost," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel:
Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 231–35 passim.
30. Gospel Principles, 37, emphasis in original.
31. Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1976), 190.
32. Hinckley, The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 13.
33. Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 370.
34. Gospel Principles, 9, 41, 43.
35. Millet, "Jesus Christ: Overview," 255.
36. Gospel Principles, 71–72.
37. Ibid., 33; Millet, "Joseph Smith and Modern Mormonism," 59, 61.
38. Gospel Principles, 33, 122–23.
39. Ibid., 73.
40. Doctrine and Covenants 137:10; Gospel Principles, 132–33;
McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 63.
41. Moroni 8:8, 12.
42. Doctrine and Covenants 93:38.
43. Articles of Faith 2; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 153–54; Byron R. Merrill,
"Original Sin," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 372.
44. Hansen, "Only Begotten in the Flesh," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel:
Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 264–65; Lund, "Plan of
Salvation," 387; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine,129; Millet, "Jesus Christ:
Overview," 256–57.
45. Andrew Skinner, "Birth of Jesus Christ," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel:
Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 265.
46. Gospel Principles, 64.
47. Ibid., 73; Millet, "Jesus Christ: Overview," 257.
48. Gospel Principles, 74–75; Millet, "Jesus Christ: Overview," 257, 259.
49. Gospel Principles, 380; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 548–49.
50. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 549.
51. Gospel Principles, 98–99, 303.
52. The restored gospel: The gospel of Jesus Christ as restored through the
instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It is to be found in the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
53. Gospel Principles, 129–35 passim; Carl S. Hawkins, "Baptism," in Jesus Christ
and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 31–34
passim; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine,69–72 passim.
54. Gospel Principles, 131; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 70, 118.
55. Rulon G. Craven, "Confirmation," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections
from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 74–76 passim; Gospel Principles, 137–
40 passim; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 156.
56. Gospel Principles, 137.
57. Alexander, "A New and Everlasting Covenant," 56–57; Burton, "Doctrine:
Distinctive Teachings," 30–31; Burton, "Salvation," in Jesus Christ and His
Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 431; Gospel
Principles, 255–56; Margaret McConkie Pope, "Exaltation," in Jesus Christ
and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 159.
58. Young adults who are called to serve a full-time mission for the LDS Church
(for men, typically at age 19 for 24 months of service, for women, typically at
age 21 for 18 months of service) will receive their endowment prior to entering
the Missionary Training Center. Those to be married in a temple, if they have
not already received their endowment, receive it within a short period of time
prior to their scheduled wedding date. However, mature adults, even if
marriage is not imminent, may receive their endowment if approved to do so by
their local priesthood leaders.
59. James E. Talmage, The House of the Lord (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1912), 99–101, quoted in McConkie, Mormon
Doctrine, 27–28.
60. Doctrine and Covenants 132:19; Gospel Principles, 241–46 passim;
McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 117–18.
61. Gospel Principles, 232, 243. Children born subsequent to their parents' temple
marriage are "born in the covenant"—they are automatically sealed for time
and eternity to their parents. Children born to a couple prior to a temple
marriage can be sealed to them in the temple through a separate sealing
ordinance.
62. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 118.
63. Burton, "Doctrine: Distinctive Teachings," 131; idem, "Salvation," 432; Gospel
Principles, 234; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 117–18.
64. Doctrine and Covenants 131:1–4; 132:19–20; Kimball, "Our Great Potential,"
49–50; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 257; Pope, "Exaltation," 159.
65. Gospel Principles, 14, 241, 242.
66. Lisa Ramsey Adams, "Eternal Progression," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel:
Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 155; Larry E. Dahl, "Degrees
of Glory," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of
Mormonism, 102; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 237–38; Shirley S. Ricks,
"Eternal Lives, Eternal Increase," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections
from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 153–54. See Doctrine and Covenants
131:4; 132:19–20.
67. Gospel Principles, 231.
68. Mormon 9:29.
69. Millet, "Joseph Smith and Modern Mormonism," 63.
70. Doctrine and Covenants 58:27.
71. Dahl, "Degrees of Glory," 101–4 passim; Gospel Principles, 297;
McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 420–21.
72. Gospel Principles, 298; Larson, "King Follett Discourse," 206.
73. Doctrine and Covenants 76:81–86, 88–90, 98–112; Gospel Principles, 298;
McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 278; Clyde J. Williams, "Telestial Kingdom,"
in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of
Mormonism, 451–52.
74. Susan Easton Black, "Terrestrial Kingdom," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel:
Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 454–55; Doctrine and
Covenants 76:71–80, 87, 91, 97; Gospel Principles, 297–98;
McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 783–84.
75. Black, "Celestial Kingdom," 56; Doctrine and Covenants 76:50–70, 92–
96; Gospel Principles, 297; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 115–17 passim.
76. Doctrine and Covenants 131:1–4.
77. Burton, "Doctrine: Distinctive Teachings," 131.
78. Doctrine and Covenants 132:15–17.
79. Doctrine and Covenants 132:29, 37; Kimball, "Our Great Potential," 50–51.
80. Lyon, "Doctrinal Development," 445.
81. Gospel Principles, 305, quoting Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph
Smith, 348, emphasis in original.
82. Kimball, "Our Great Potential," 49–51 passim. Emphasis should be placed on
the term "couple" in this sentence. A man cannot be exalted—become a god—
apart from a wife, and a woman cannot be exalted—become a god—apart from
a husband.
83. Gospel Principles, 245.
84. Ibid., 302.
85. Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 374.
86. Larson, "King Follett Discourse," 200.
87. Gospel Principles, 305.
88. Alma 42:8.
89. Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H. Lund, "The Origin of Man,"
in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of
Mormonism, 483; Heber J. Grant, Anthony W. Ivins, and Charles W. Nibley,
"'Mormon' View of Evolution," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections
from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 485.
Theosis and Exaltation: In Dialogue
In the book How Wide the Divide? A Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation, an
evangelical professor, Craig L. Blomberg, from Denver Seminary, and an LDS
professor, Stephen E. Robinson, from Brigham Young University, engage in an
honest exchange over the similarities and the differences between LDS and
evangelical Christian belief. In chapter 2 they cover the topic of "God and
Deification," and within the context of his presentation of LDS doctrine, Professor
Robinson states the following in a footnote:
So many others in the Christian tradition have used the term gods to refer to the
glorified saints. Evangelicals are always telling me that these authors used the
term gods differently from the way the LDS do—but I can never understand the basis
of the claim. When I read Clement or Irenaeus or C. S. Lewis and say, "There!
That's exactly what I believe," Evangelicals usually answer, "No, that's not what you
believe at all."1
The aim of this chapter is to begin to clarify why Professor Robinson would find an
equivalence to his belief in exaltation in the doctrinal writings of patristic authors as
well as why his belief in an exact parallel would be challenged by his non-LDS
friends. Thus, the similarities and the differences between the doctrines of theosis and
exaltation will be covered before offering a concise analysis of the precise relationship
between the two doctrines in question.
Similarities
Terminology and Attributes
The most profound similarity between theosis and exaltation is reflected in the fact
that the exact same terminology is used to describe the status of those persons who
attain the full blessings of salvation: they are gods. Although the process for attaining
salvation is different, the core idea in both doctrinal systems is the same: humans
become "partakers of the divine nature." The attributes and qualities of deity become
the attributes and qualities of the divinized human person.
The Centrality of Christ
Another profound similarity between the doctrines of theosis and exaltation concerns
the person of Christ. In both patristic writings and in LDS teachings, Jesus Christ is
the one who makes human divinization a possibility. The doctrine
of theosis highlights the incarnation of Christ as the central moment in salvation
history because through it the perfect union of humanity and divinity was realized.
And there is agreement that, apart from Christ, no human person could ever overcome
the obstacles of physical or spiritual death. Through Christ's sacrificial death the sins
of all humanity are forgiven, and because of his resurrection all persons who have
ever lived will experience the resurrection of their own bodies. Christ, then, is at the
heart and center of the doctrines of theosis and exaltation.
Role of Human Works
Human cooperation and participation in the process of salvation is essential to
both theosis and exaltation. The patristic doctrine of synergy and the LDS doctrine of
grace can be described as both-and systems when it comes to the relationship between
human works and divine grace in that both teach that God does not bring about
salvation by "grace alone." Although the primacy is always on the enabling power of
God's grace, the engagement in good works is crucial for the development of a
"godly" personality. Personal growth through freely chosen virtuous activity is
essential if the new life given in baptism is to have any effect or contribute towards
the process of divinization.
Role of Ritual
The doctrines of theosis and exaltation both teach that God uses material realities,
sacraments and ordinances respectively, to communicate his divine life and grace. In
fact, the following rituals, recognized by patristic authors as "sacraments," are similar
to ordinances found in the LDS Church: baptism, confirmation, eucharist,2 priesthood
ordination, marriage, anointing of the sick with oil, confession of sins to a priest.
However, a difference does appear when it becomes a question of which sacraments
or ordinances are necessary for divinization, such as the need for an eternal marriage
in LDS doctrine, which need is not recognized by patristic authors. Likewise, some
sacraments are unique to the LDS Church, such as the endowment. As a corollary to
this common belief in the role of ritual in the process of human divinization, there is
also a common belief that the context in which divinization takes place, the church, is
a hierarchically constituted reality governed by priesthood or apostolic authority.
Eternal Progression
A nonstatic view of heaven is another shared belief. Contrary to a modern mythology
which depicts heaven as that place where the saved do nothing more than strum on
harps, both the doctrines of theosisand exaltation understand heaven to be a place
where divinized humans continue to learn and grow and do. In both systems the idea
of "eternal progress" reflects a fundamental belief that humans who become gods will
continue in progression and activity forever.
Differences
Participation vs. Growth
The most profound difference between the doctrines of theosis and exaltation revolves
around the way in which humans become divinized, or become gods. In the doctrine
of theosis, divinization comes about through participation in the divine energies of the
one divine nature, which divine nature is fully possessed by each of the three divine
persons who comprise the Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the
doctrine of exaltation, divinization comes about through growth of a capacity which is
innate to the children born of Heavenly Parents—the Father and his eternal
companion. This difference—the difference between participation and growth—can
be rooted in two very different ontological understandings of divine nature and human
nature.
The doctrine of theosis presupposes that there is a fundamental distinction between
uncreated being and created being. God, that is, the three divine persons who are the
one God, are understood to be uncreated and eternal. God always has been divine and
always will be divine. Human persons, on the other hand, are created from nothing—
creatio ex nihilo. They are forever dependent on God for existence. Thus, the divine
nature, the nature of God, is fundamentally different from human nature, the nature of
human persons. In fact, one can speak of an ontological divide or chasm separating
the two: the former is unoriginate, the latter is originate.
The doctrine of exaltation presupposes that God is of the same species as human
persons. There is no distinction between uncreated and created beings or persons since
all persons, divine as well as human, are uncreated. In other words, intelligence, the
core or essence of every person (whether divine or human) is self-existent and eternal,
uncreated and uncreatable. Through the process of spirit birth, intelligences are
clothed by divine parents with spirit bodies and become autonomous, conscious
selves. And just as with human children in relation to their human parents, the spirit
children of divine parents possess the innate capacity, as a fact of their spirit birth, to
progress and grow up into the likeness of their divine parents.
Thus, for the doctrine of theosis, to become divine means to unite in one created
person both his or her own created human nature and the uncreated divine energies of
the three uncreated divine persons. In other words, a divinized human person never
ceases to be created and human; but insofar as that person is divinized, he or she
becomes through grace what he or she is not by nature—divine. Furthermore, to speak
of divinization by the divine energies, as opposed to the divine essence, is meant to
reflect the ontological distinction between uncreated and created. Only God—the
three divine persons—is divine essentially. Only the persons of the Trinity are
uncreated and eternal by fact of their nature. Human persons cannot become divine
essentially because this would be a logical contradiction. What humans are in essence,
by nature, is created and dependent. The divine energies are God himself insofar as he
shares his uncreated nature with created persons, thus divinizing them. In this sense,
the divinized person is always both created and uncreated, finite and infinite: created
and finite by nature, uncreated and infinite by grace, by reason of union with God's
divinizing energies. The divinized person becomes all that God is except for identity
in essence, which is to say, without ceasing to be created and finite.
In contrast, within the context of the doctrine of exaltation, there is no ontological
divide or distinction between human and divine—divine and human do not refer to
ontological categories.3 Instead, divine andhuman signify different levels of
progression within a continuum. In other words, some uncreated intelligences have
progressed to the point of godhood (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost), while
other uncreated intelligences have not and are thus dependent on those who have
already done so to attain godhood themselves (human persons). Thus, because
humans and God already share a like essence, at some future time humans, as exalted
beings, can become exactly as God now is.
Even given this profound difference rooted in ontology, the difference between
participation and growth, the doctrines of theosis and exaltation both agree in teaching
that divinized humans are always subordinate to the God who makes their divinization
a reality. In the case of theosis, this subordination is clearly founded on ontology:
those who become "gods by grace" are as dependent for their status as gods as they
are for their very existence and being. And while the doctrine of exaltation has as
premises the ontological independence of human persons from God and the innate
potential of humans to become gods, based on being literally children of divine
parents, this is not meant to imply that divinized persons will ever become greater
than God or cease to be related to God after the attainment of exaltation.
Latter-day Saints do not, or at least should not, believe that they will ever be
independent in all eternity from their Father in heaven or from their Savior Jesus
Christ or from the Holy Spirit. Those who are exalted by his grace will always be
"gods" (always with a small g, even in the Doctrine and Covenants) by grace, by an
extension of his power, and will always be subordinate to the Godhead.4
Despite what our critics claim, the Latter-day Saints do not believe that human beings
will ever become the equals of God, or be independent of God, or that they will ever
cease to be subordinate to God.5
So just as human children have within their very being the capacity to become mature
human adults, provided they receive the assistance of their parents, the doctrine of
exaltation teaches that while human persons are ontologically independent of God and
have within their very nature a capacity to become divine, they can do so, ultimately,
only by the grace of God. In this sense, it is appropriate to refer to exalted persons as
"gods by grace" as well.
The Status of the Doctrine
The doctrines of theosis and exaltation can also be seen to differ from one another
when one examines the doctrinal status or the level of authority which each has for
those who profess belief in it. On the one hand, exaltation is a doctrine explicitly
taught in the Doctrine and Covenants, one of the four volumes of scripture within the
LDS Church—the other three being the Bible, the Book of Mormon: Another
Testament of Jesus Christ, and the Pearl of Great Price.6 Because only those
revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith or his successors which are accepted into this
four-volume canon of scripture are considered normative and binding upon the entire
membership of the LDS Church—"The standard works contain a selection of
revelations or scriptural utterances that are the standard in directing and governing the
Church"7—this means that the doctrine of exaltation possesses the highest level of
doctrinal authority.
On the other hand, since the doctrine of theosis is a teaching which was never
formally defined or promulgated by one of the seven Ecumenical Councils of the
undivided Catholic Church of the first millennium, it does not possess the same,
highest level of authority as do those doctrines which were formally proclaimed by
one of the Ecumenical Councils. To help differentiate between these two levels of
doctrinal authority one can make a distinction between the
terms dogma and doctrine. A doctrine would refer to any teaching of the church that
is commonly taught and believed, whereas a dogma would refer to a doctrine which
has been definitively defined and proclaimed by an Ecumenical Council. Thus, all
dogmas are doctrines but not all doctrines are dogmas.
While the relation of Jesus Christ to God and the relation of the human and the divine
within his person became the subject for doctrinal controversy and dogmatic
definition, the saving work of Christ remained dogmatically undefined. Yet it was
certainly a major constituent of Christian doctrine—if by doctrine we mean what the
church believes, teaches, and confesses, not only in its polemics and creeds, but also
in its liturgy and exegesis . . . the doctrine of the person of Christ did become a dogma
even though the doctrine of the work of Christ did not.8
However, pointing out that the doctrine of theosis does not possess the highest level of
doctrinal authority is in no way meant to imply that the doctrine is in any sense
doubtful or less true for not having been promulgated by an Ecumenical Council. The
lack of a dogmatic definition by an Ecumenical Council in the case of theosis is, in
fact, indicative of a lack of doctrinal controversy; the doctrine did not have to be
defined because it was never seriously challenged throughout the course of the first
millennium.
The Experience of Divinization
Another difference between the doctrines of theosis and exaltation
concerns when human persons become divinized. According to the doctrine
of theosis, human divinization begins in mortality with baptism since it is through
baptism that one first begins to participate in the divinizing energies of God.
However, this mortal experience of divinization is not irrevocable. Through sin, one's
divinizing relationship with God can be broken; it can be regained, though, through a
process of repentance. Furthermore, persons divinized through baptism will only
progress and persevere in their status of being "gods by grace" if they grow in virtue
and in their relationship with God during their lives. The full experience of
divinization will not be realized until the resurrection of the body takes place. In a
sense, then, the doctrine of theosisteaches that divinized humans are "infant gods"
while in mortality and that they will not come to maturity until that time when their
bodies are resurrected.
On the other hand, the doctrine of exaltation teaches that mortal life is a time of
preparation for human divinization. While the resurrection of the body is an important
and necessary step on the path of human divinization, growth and progress towards
divinization will continue even after the resurrection of the body. Eventually, after an
unspecified amount of time, one's progression will be complete and at that point
divinization, and all the blessings that pertain thereto, will be experienced.
The Meaning of Eternal Progress
As was noted previously, the doctrines of theosis and exaltation both teach a concept
of eternal progress; where they differ in this regard has to do with how they specify
the meaning of the work and activity that divinized humans will undertake. While
patristic writers such as St. Irenaeus and St. Gregory of Nyssa consistently affirm the
unlimited potential of the divinized human person, they are just as consistent in their
vagueness when it comes to speaking of just what those who experience divinization
actually "do." Not so with the doctrine of exaltation. The activities of exalted persons
are very clear. They will do all those things that their own Heavenly Parents have
done: they will organize matter into universes and worlds; they will produce spirit
children; they will provide a plan whereby their spirit children can attain divinization
also. Just as they were the recipients of blessings and grace from God, exalted persons
become sources of blessing and grace for other intelligences.9
Salvation vs. Divinization
Another significant difference has to do with whether or not all persons who are
"saved," or experience salvation, will therefore also experience divinization.
According to the doctrine of theosis the answer is "yes"—all persons who are saved
by Christ, who enter into heavenly glory are, by definition, divinized. This should not
be misconstrued to mean that all such divinized persons will be of an equal status in
heaven. On the contrary, there will be differing degrees of divinization among the
saved. Those more intensely united to the divinizing energies of God will thereby
experience the powers and capacities consequent upon divinization to a greater degree
than others who are less intensely united to God's divinizing energies.
In contrast, the doctrine of exaltation does not equate salvation with exaltation or
human divinization. As was noted in the previous chapter, LDS doctrine teaches that
heaven consists of three kingdoms of glory, the highest of which, the celestial
kingdom, is further defined by three distinct levels. All persons who enter into any
level of heaven, even the lowest, exist in a saved condition, in a condition of glory
which carries with it certain specified blessings. However, only those who live worthy
of the highest level of the celestial kingdom will have the capacity to eventually attain
exaltation. Therefore, those who are saved without the capacity for attaining
exaltation have a limited ability to progress and will serve as ministering servants for
those who do inherit the capacity to reach exaltation.10
Similarities with a Difference
It has become evident that one cannot discuss soteriology, that is, a theology of
salvation, without also speaking of doctrines having to do with the nature of deity—
the nature of the God who makes salvation possible. Likewise, the use of doctrines or
revelations at all implicitly presupposes an underlying theology on the nature or
development of doctrine. Based on the research and study undertaken to provide the
expository and comparative work of this thesis, significant similarities, but similarities
with significant differences, have been uncovered regarding the nature of God and the
issue of the development of doctrine.
Godhead and Trinity
The doctrines of theosis and exaltation both teach that the one God is understood to be
three uncreated, eternal, divine persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Within the context of the doctrine oftheosis they are referred to as the Trinity; within
the context of the doctrine of exaltation as the Godhead. And when it comes to
describing the attributes of deity, both the members of the Trinity and the members of
the Godhead appear the same. They are always described as perfectly one and as
being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. They are all-loving and desire to bring
about the divinization, the perfect happiness, of all human persons. Moreover, the
roles or functions of the members of the Trinity are equivalent to those of the
Godhead. The Eternal Father is the one who establishes the plan of salvation, the
creator of all things. The Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, is the one who serves as
the immediate agent of creation, under the direction of the Father. He becomes man
and makes possible human salvation through his atoning death and glorious
resurrection. The Holy Ghost is a witness or testator to the divinity of Christ, the one
who enables human persons to believe in the plan of salvation established by the
Father, the person who comes as an abiding, guiding presence through confirmation.
However, despite these profound similarities between the doctrine of the Trinity and
the doctrine of the Godhead, there are also profound differences as well.
While the members of the Trinity and the members of the Godhead are all believed to
be one, uncreated, and eternal, they are believed to be so in different senses. The
members of the Trinity are uncreated and eternal in the sense that they are outside of
time, which is their creation, and have always been divine—there never was a time
when the members of the Trinity were not fully divine persons. As they are now, they
have always been and always will be. Further, the oneness of the members of the
Trinity is ontologically based. While each of the three persons—Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit—is truly a person distinct from the others, each possesses the fullness of
the one divine nature. To clarify this point, it will be worthwhile to repeat the words
of Vladimir Lossky:
There is no partition or division of nature among the three Persons of the Holy Trinity.
The Hypostases [Persons] are not three parts of a whole, of the one nature, but each
includes in Himself the whole divine nature.11
The members of the Godhead, on the other hand, are uncreated and eternal in the
sense that their intelligences are uncreated and eternal. They exist and have always
existed within the context of the space-time continuum. As they are now, they will
always be, but they have not always been as they are now. From the perspective of
this universe and the people on this earth, the Father has certainly always been divine;
but strictly speaking, he was not always a god. At one point he was a mortal man, and
through a process of growth and progression he "became God."12
Jesus Christ began to be the son of the Father at a particular point in time such that,
prior to that time, his eternal and uncreated intelligence was not related to the Father.
And like his Father, Christ was not always a god, having attained his exalted status
during his premortal life. Admittedly, the Holy Ghost is the most mysterious member
of the Godhead. While it is clear from LDS scriptures that he is a god and that he is a
male person possessing a spirit body, his origin and destiny have not yet been
revealed. It is probably safe to assume that in some way, like Jesus Christ, he became
a god without first experiencing a mortal life.
Furthermore, the union of the three divine persons who make up the Godhead is
moral, not ontological. In other words, they are one because they are perfectly
"unified in purpose," perfectly united in will.13Thus, ontologically speaking, the three
divine persons of the Godhead are distinct and unrelated because their intelligences,
the essence of their natures, are autonomous and independent in terms of being. The
members of the Godhead become "one" through a common, voluntary agreement, not
through ontological necessity. Ultimately, then, the doctrines of the Trinity and the
Godhead can be categorized as functionally equivalent yet ontologically distinct
descriptions of deity.
The Development of Doctrine
The doctrines of theosis and exaltation are both alike in their genesis. In other words,
the present content of the doctrines, their present formulations, were not present as
such, in either case, from the beginning. The first clear mention of what is now known
as the doctrine of theosis can be found in the writings of St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons
(c. 130—c. 202).14 This doctrine of salvation in which humans can become gods
continued to be reflected upon and its implications were more and more worked out
over the course of centuries. The doctrine of theosis did not really attain its present
form until the fourteenth century when, in the heat of doctrinal controversy, St.
Gregory Palamas (1296—1359) achieved what is now known as the "Palamite
synthesis." Similarly, the content of the doctrine of exaltation was revealed "line upon
line, precept upon precept" to the Prophet Joseph Smith.15 While he received his first
revelation, the "first vision," in 1820 and established the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints in 1830, it would not be until 1844, the year of the Prophet Joseph's
untimely death, that the doctrinal structure of the LDS Church and the doctrine of
exaltation would be in place.16 However, while it certainly took time for both the
doctrines of theosis and exaltation to attain their present forms, nevertheless, there still
remain important differences as to how doctrine and revelation develop.
At the risk of being overly simplistic, the patristic authors who explained and
developed the doctrine of theosis did not think that thereby they were adding to the
revelations of the Church. The person, work, and words of Jesus Christ were believed
to be the definitive revelation of God the Father to the world precisely because, since
Christ was and is the unique Son and Word of God, the Logos, the Father could not
possibly reveal or utter anything more that was not already contained in the revelation
of Jesus Christ. The Apostles, as eyewitnesses of the person, work, and words of Jesus
Christ, were the privileged transmitters of this final and full revelation of the Father to
the world.
Bishops, whose ordination could be traced to one of the Twelve Apostles, possessed
the fullness of apostolic authority and power, and were the divinely appointed arbiters
of what was truly part of the apostolic faith and what was not. This supreme power of
elucidating and defining the faith handed on to them by the Apostles was fully
exercised when bishops gathered together in a worldwide or ecumenical council,
whose decisions were not considered authoritative and binding unless ratified by the
common consent of the church. The church's acceptance of conciliar definitions and
creeds was understood to be a definitive sign that the decisions of the church council
in question had in fact been inspired of and protected by the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, within this context, the development of doctrine by church leaders and
teachers means the elaboration or explication or the making explicit of what has
always been present, at least implicitly, in that full and perfect revelation of the Father
which is the person, work, and words of Jesus Christ. And such development of
doctrine was and is always subject to the teaching authority of the successors of the
Apostles, the bishops. Hence, while it is possible to say that, because of a historical
development of doctrine, as is the case with the doctrine of theosis, there is a
"newness" to how the revelation of God is understood and articulated, this should not
be misconstrued to mean that the doctrines which have developed over time are "new
revelations" in the sense that they are supplements or additions to the revelation
contained in the person, words, and work of Jesus Christ, which revelation has been
handed on by the Apostles and their successors in the apostolic ministry of preserving
and handing on the faith.
By way of contrast, the development of doctrine which took place during the life of
the Prophet Joseph Smith in general, and in particular with regards to the doctrine of
exaltation, is understood to involve not just new articulations of a previous revelation,
but completely new and supplemental revelations as well. The person and words and
work accomplished by Jesus Christ in "the meridian of time" are all believed to be the
high point of the Father's plan of salvation; nevertheless, the revelatory activity of
Christ during his ministry on earth is not regarded as definitive or unsusceptible to
further additions.17 In fact, the revelations given through the Prophet Joseph Smith in
the current "dispensation of the fulness of times" include restorations of revelations
given in previous eras of human history as well as knowledge never before revealed in
any era of human history.18
For it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which
dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect
union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories
should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time.
And not only this, but those things which never have been revealed from the
foundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be
revealed unto babes and sucklings in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times. 19
In other words, in LDS teaching, salvation history is understood to be a series of
dispensations or eras of history in which God reveals himself through the ministry of
prophets whom he chooses and calls, and no one dispensation is essentially greater
than another since the same basic gospel message and ordinances are proclaimed and
administered.
Several fundamentals are common to all dispensations: priesthood authority, baptism
by immersion and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, the sealing
power (D&C 128:9—11), and temple worship. Basic gospel doctrines, including the
fall of Adam, faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, and the need for an infinite atonement,
were taught in each era from Adam's day onward whenever there were living prophets
selected by the Lord (Moses 5:4—12; D&C 112:29—32).20
Eventually, the church that is established at the beginning of each dispensation
apostatizes after a period of time and a restoration eventually comes about through the
calling of a new prophet and the establishment of a new dispensation.21 Thus, the
development of the doctrine of exaltation which took place over the course of the
1830s and 1840s resulted from ongoing revelations which continued to provide new
knowledge, as opposed to deriving new knowledge and insight from an ongoing
explication of a revelation definitively given, as is the case with the doctrine
of theosis.
Summary
How, then, to characterize or summarize the similarities and the differences between
the doctrines of theosis and exaltation? In this attempt to comparatively analyze two
different ways of describing how humans can become "gods by grace," the conclusion
offered at the end of the subsection comparing the Trinity and the Godhead would
appear to be tremendously significant. There the doctrines of the Trinity and the
Godhead were described as functionally equivalent yet ontologically distinct. Given
the similarities and differences detailed in this chapter, it can be said that, like the
doctrines of deity which they presuppose, the doctrines of theosis and exaltation are
functionally equivalent while being ontologically distinct. In other words, in both
cases the results of human divinization are equivalent—humans come to possess
divine qualities and attributes, a new manner of life, which they did not possess before
and which they could not attain of their own volition. Yet the ways in which human
divinization take place—in the case of theosis, through participation, and in the case
of exaltation, through growth—are grounded in profoundly different ontological
visions of human and divine nature.
Notes
1. Craig L. Blomberg and Stephen E. Robinson, How Wide the Divide? A
Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation (Downers Grove, Ill.:
InterVarsity, 1997), 209 n. 16, emphasis in original.
2. In LDS terminology known as "the sacrament."
3. See note 8 in chapter 3.
4. Blomberg and Robinson, How Wide the Divide? 86.
5. Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft,
1991), 65.
6. See Doctrine and Covenants 76:58, 95; 132:19—20. These four volumes which
the LDS Church recognizes as possessing the authority of scripture are
commonly referred to as the "standard works" of the Church.
7. Joseph Fielding McConkie, Answers: Straightforward Answers To Tough
Doctrinal Questions (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1998), 210. See James E.
Faulconer, review of The Mormon Concept of God: A Philosophical
Analysis, by Francis J. Beckwith and Stephen E. Parrish, Brigham Young
University Studies 32 (fall 1992): 187—88.
8. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100—600), vol. 1
of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 141—42.
9. Those who attain godhood are perfected and do not, therefore, attain "higher
states" of godhood. In other words, there are not differing degrees of exaltation;
one either is or is not a god. Exalted persons continue to progress and increase
in glory insofar as they enable their spirit children to attain the same blessings
of exaltation. See Moses 1:39.
10. Doctrine and Covenants 131:1—4; 132:15—17, 20.
11. Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, ed. John H. Erickson and
Thomas E. Bird (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974),
106; see chapter 2, page 10.
12. Gospel Principles (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, 1992), 305. This, of course, also explains why the Father has a glorified
and resurrected body of flesh and bones.
13. Gospel Principles, 37.
14. Robert M. Grant, trans., Irenaeus of Lyons (New York: Routledge, 1997), 164.
15. Doctrine and Covenants 98:12.
16. M. Gerald Bradford and Larry E. Dahl, "Doctrine: Meaning, Source, and
History of Doctrine," in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book, 1994), 126.
17. Courtney J. Lassiter, "Dispensations of the Gospel," in Jesus Christ and His
Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 116—19 passim.
18. Rand H. Packer, "Dispensation of the Fulness of Times," in Jesus Christ and
His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 114—16 passim.
19. Doctrine and Covenants 128:18.
20. Lassiter, "Dispensations of the Gospel," 117.
21. What distinguishes the previous dispensation, the "dispensation of the meridian
of time" inaugurated by Christ, is that Christ's atoning sacrifice was
accomplished during it. What distinguishes the current "dispensation of the
fulness of times," inaugurated by the Prophet Joseph Smith—in addition to
possessing that fullness of revelation previously mentioned—is the fact that it
will not end through apostasy but through the second coming of Jesus Christ.
New Possibilities and Final Conclusions
The first chapter categorized much of the extant literature dealing with the nature of
LDS soteriology, especially as compared to patristic soteriology, by offering seven
distinct models. These models can be reduced to one of two basic types: an
incompatibility view or a parallel view. Generally speaking, the former holds that the
LDS doctrine of salvation is incompatible with the patristic or historically
"normative" Christian view of salvation while the latter holds that there is
fundamental agreement between the two. The question now becomes, given the
analysis and conclusion of the last chapter, how would the viewpoint established in
this thesis fit into the schematization worked out in the first chapter?
The four incompatibility models (hard incompatibility, soft incompatibility, hard
patristic incompatibility, soft patristic incompatibility) are fundamentally inadequate
in their attempts to make sense of LDS soteriology because of their overly simplistic
approach. These models latch onto dissimilarities while failing to take into account
genuine similarities. Furthermore, all of the incompatibility models evidence an
ignorance of the normative significance of the heritage of the Greek Fathers of the
Church. This ahistorical approach to theology simply ignores the theological and
doctrinal formulations of the Greek-speaking portion of the first millennium Catholic
Church. Of course, this is perhaps not too surprising when one realizes that all the
authors of incompatibility models are members of churches descended from the Latin
half of the ancient Catholic Church (Latin Catholics and Protestants). This is most
likely another instance of the traditional Latin bias against and ignorance of the
contributions of non-Latins.
Of the patristic parallel models, the pre-1984 patristic parallel model and the hard
post-1984 patristic parallel model are, again, too simplistic in their approach to the
question of how to compare patristic and LDS soteriologies. They recognize and
highlight similarities without also taking into account the real dissimilarities which do
exist between patristic and LDS doctrine. This now leaves the soft post-1984 patristic
parallel model for consideration.Given the conclusion of the last chapter, that the doctrines of theosis and exaltation
are functionally equivalent yet ontologically distinct, the soft post-1984 patristic
parallel model does appear to be the most adequate way to categorize LDS
soteriology. It allows for similarity while respecting the dissimilarities that exist
between LDS and patristic teachings. However, to the extent that this model
categorizes similarities as being nominal only, it would need to be more finely
nuanced. The similarities which were uncovered are areas where authentic agreement
is possible and where no compromises need be made by either side. It is true, though,
that on an ontological level, similarities in vocabulary or terminology are nominal
only (for example, while both doctrines of human divinization under examination
regard the God who makes salvation possible as "eternal," the ontologies underlying
that belief are profoundly different).
The first chapter of this thesis also noted that three particular audiences were being
targeted as likely finding this examination and comparison of interest; how has each
been challenged by what has been presented? Members of churches that are
descended from the ancient western or Latin Catholic Church (Latin Catholics and
Protestants) are challenged to allow their theology and doctrine to be affected by the
corrective influence of the Greek Fathers of the Church. The inability of Latin
Catholics and Protestants to appreciate or understand the parallels between the LDS
doctrine of exaltation and the patristic doctrine of theosis, as has been noted, is
essentially a consequence of the neglect of the doctrinal heritage of that part of the
church that existed in what was the Greek-speaking eastern part of the Roman Empire.
Historically, Latin theology has emphasized the negative aspect of salvation—from
what salvation liberates—while neglecting the positive aspect of salvation—for
what salvation liberates. In contrast, Greek theology, while acknowledging the
negative aspect of salvation, has consistently emphasized the positive aspect of
salvation: human divinization.1 The typically Greek way of describing what was
accomplished by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has been concisely
restated by the Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky:
Considered from the point of view of our fallen state, the aim of the divine
dispensation can be termed salvation or redemption. This is the negative aspect of our
ultimate goal, which is considered from the perspective of our sin. Considered from
the point of view of the ultimate vocation of created beings, the aim of the divine
dispensation can be termed deification. This is the positive definition of the same
mystery, which must be accomplished in each human person in the Church and which
will be fully revealed in the age to come, when, after having reunited all things in
Christ, God will become all in all.2
Of course, Latin Catholic theology can and does occasionally acknowledge that the
full meaning of salvation involves human divinization;3 but its essentially negative
view of salvation predominates, especially in popular consciousness, and while not
untrue, is still incomplete.
Members of churches that are descended from the ancient eastern or Greek Catholic
Church (Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics) are challenged to more clearly
articulate their beliefs surrounding the authority of Ecumenical Councils and the role
theologians play in the unfolding of doctrines that can develop, as did the doctrine
of theosis, over centuries. In other words, this is a call for the rearticulation of a
theology of revelation. There is a common perception among the LDS that councils
and the work of theologians are simply human gatherings and endeavors, devoid of
divine protection or guidance, where a majority vote of church leaders, in favor of one
theologian or theology over another, manufactured truth and determined the standard
of orthodoxy.
The Latter-day Saints believe . . . that the theology of the councils and creeds
represent a radical change from the theology of the New Testament Church. The
Latter-day Saints see this change between the first and fourth centuries as part of a
great apostasy; scholars refer to it as the Hellenization of Christianity, meaning the
modification of the Christian message into forms that would be acceptable in the
gentile Greek cultural world. But in that process of modification and adaptation,
Christian teaching became Greek teaching, and Christian theology became Greek
philosophy. In the LDS view the admixture of Greek elements with the original
message of the gospel did not improve it but diluted it. The resulting historical church
was still generically Christian, but was no longer the pure, true Church of the New
Testament period.4
This is not to say that new articulations of belief will necessarily convince, or are
meant to convince, those who hold an alternative or different faith-stance regarding
such things as the authority of the Council of Nicea (AD 325) or the normative
influence of the writings of the Church Fathers. What can be accomplished, however,
is a presentation of faith that will be recognized by others as a reasonable, alternative
explanation for how God could have worked to govern His church and preserve
doctrinal purity. The key is to build bridges of understanding among peoples of
different faiths.5
Members of the LDS Church are challenged to be sensitive in how they use religious
terminology when speaking with other Christians. Language used in an LDS context
often has a different meaning in a non-LDS context, even though the same words are
being used in both situations. This can give rise to the perception that Latter-day
Saints intend to deceive others (by attaching nonstandard meanings to words
traditionally defined in a particular way) when, in fact, they do not.6 Latter-day Saints
define the same terms differently not because of any attempt to hide what they really
believe, but because of the specific content of the revelations which, as a Church, they
have received through their prophets. It does seem clear, though, that any attempts to
cover over or minimize genuine differences in doctrine, no matter how well
intentioned, do not help but only hinder the possibility of authentic religious dialogue
and conversation.
New Possibilities
As a result of the comparative analysis of the doctrines of theosis and exaltation
undertaken in this thesis, three areas suggest themselves as possibilities for further
study: the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo,"crossover theologians," and the issue of
Christian Hellenization. Because one of the significant issues that arose in the course
of this thesis was the distinction between the created and the uncreated—a distinction
at the heart of patristic theology but one which is completely absent from LDS
theology—study of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, or creation from nothing, would
seem to be invaluable for furthering dialogue between Latter-day Saints and other
Christians. The LDS scholar Keith Norman wrote on this doctrine from a Latter-day
Saint perspective in 19777 but historical studies such as Gerhard May's Creation Ex
Nihilo: The Doctrine of 'Creation out of Nothing' in Early Christian
Thought, published in German in 1978 and made available with an updated preface in
English in 1994,8 need to be incorporated into contemporary discussions of how and
why and to what end the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo arose in the early Catholic
Church.
"Crossover theologians" refers to those religious thinkers who have reformulated their
own traditions in ways that facilitate dialogue with other religious traditions. The one
person who immediately comes to mind is the Latin Catholic theologian Karl Rahner,
some of whose writings on religious dialogue were used at the conclusion of the first
chapter. His work has been cited by both LDS9 and Eastern Orthodox10writers as
being illuminative of ways in which the Latin Catholic tradition already contains
within it, even if implicitly, the explicit insights of LDS and Orthodox doctrine.
Another possibility would be the Latin Catholic theologian Teilhard de
Chardin.11 However, without a doubt the most significant area for further study is
Hellenization.
As was noted previously in the challenge to members of churches that are descended
from the ancient eastern or Greek Catholic Church, the chief LDS objection to
doctrinal development in the early church stems from the belief that the faith handed
on by the Apostles was corrupted when it was recast in nonbiblical or non-Hebraic
terminology and categories by uninspired men and councils. This is usually referred to
as the Hellenization of the pure, apostolic faith.
We [Latter-day Saints] believe that the church established by Christ in the New
Testament was changed by later Christian intellectuals who believed the simple New
Testament proclamation to be inadequate. Feeling the language of the Scripture to be
unsophisticated, incomplete, vague, ambiguous or imprecise, the second-, third- and
fourth-century church sought to "improve" the New Testament gospel by the
standards of Hellenistic philosophy, but compromised it instead.12
Thus, according to this understanding of Hellenization, all original doctrines of the
primitive church, including the doctrine of theosis or human divinization, underwent
"massive dislocations" over the course of time.13
However, this very serious issue of church history and doctrine needs to be
reexamined in the light of ongoing scholarship in the field of early church history,
especially since in recent decades it seems to be suggesting that the classic nineteenthcentury thesis of "Hellenization equals corruption" might be too simplistic a reading
of what actually took place in the early church.
The very legitimacy of the development of Christian dogma has been challenged on
the grounds of its supposed hellenization of the primitive message; the contrast
between Greek and Hebrew ways of thought has been used to explain the
distinctiveness of Christian doctrine. . . . It is even more a distortion when the dogma
formulated by the catholic tradition is described as "in its conception and development
a work of the Greek spirit on the soil of the gospel." Indeed, in some ways it is more
accurate to speak of dogma as the "dehellenization" of the theology that had preceded
it and to argue that "by its dogma the church threw up a wall against an alien
metaphysic." For in the development of both the dogmas of the early church, the
trinitarian and the christological, the chief place to look for hellenization is in the
speculations and heresies against which the dogma of the creeds and councils was
directed.14
And, to prevent misunderstanding, it needs to be explicitly stated that the purpose of
doing such further study is not to convince persons who hold alternative or different
faith-stances regarding such things as what did or did not happen in the early church
to believe otherwise, but to build bridges of understanding between people of good
will who interpret the same historical events differently.
Final Conclusions
Perhaps more than anything else, this thesis has demonstrated the need for more
people to be "theologically bilingual," which is to say, able to converse accurately and
sensitively about another's religious tradition as well as their own. Unfortunately, very
few non-Mormons seem able or have the desire to maintain professional standards of
objectivity and sensitivity when comparatively analyzing LDS doctrine; an
observation borne out when one examines the work of writers who hold one of the
four incompatibility points of view and a reality of which Mormons are painfully
aware.
It is a rare thing indeed for non-Mormons writing about the Saints to get it right even
when they are trying to, and most contemporary non-LDS writing on the Mormons is
frankly not trying to get it right.15
Moreover, there is the basic issue of simply knowing enough about LDS doctrine and
culture before attempting to discuss it; it is often forgotten that Mormonism, like
Judaism, is as much about a culture and a people as it is about doctrine and faith. In an
otherwise laudatory review of The Mormon Concept of God by Francis J. Beckwith
and Stephen E. Parrish, a book which critiques the LDS doctrine of deity from a
conservative Protestant point of view, James E. Faulconer, an LDS professor at
Brigham Young University, points out that "A major problem with Beckwith and
Parrish's book is that they do not know Latter-day Saints and LDS culture well
enough to establish the object of their criticisms."16 However, even well-written LDS
authors are not immune from "getting it wrong" when they attempt to articulate
classical Christian doctrine.
In his well-researched and very readable apologetic in defense of the "Christianity" of
the LDS Church, Are Mormons Christian?,17 Stephen E. Robinson, the former
department chair of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, states the
following regarding the duophysite Christology of the Council of Chalcedon (AD
451):
Of course the greatest passion of all was the suffering of Christ in Gethsemane and on
the cross. Thus the central fact of the Christian gospel was also the biggest obstacle to
embracing the absolutely nonbiblical Greek ideal of an impassible God—a God who
cannot suffer. This obstacle was finally overcome in 451 AD at the Council of
Chalcedon, when the theologians declared that unlike all other entities, which have a
single essence or nature, Jesus Christ must have had two natures, one human and one
divine. It was the human nature that suffered on the cross—the divine nature, the
preexistent Son of God, didn't feel a thing. The human Jesus may have suffered and
died for sinners, but the divine Son of God never did!18
This fundamental misunderstanding of the distinction between person and nature in
Chalcedonian orthodoxy misrepresents one of the essential beliefs of Catholic and
Orthodox Churches: that the person of God the Son, Jesus Christ, did suffer and die
on Calvary for the redemption of the world by means of the humanity which he had
assumed. Likewise, with a little bit of research and understanding of the contemporary
Christian world, the following factual error would never have been made in what is an
otherwise praiseworthy presentation of the doctrine of theosis by LDS authors:
"Indeed, if the Latter-day Saints were inclined to do so, they could point out that they
alone, among contemporary followers of Jesus, seem to possess the ancient Christian
doctrine of theosis."19 As was noted previously, to build bridges of understanding, it
will be necessary for participants in religious dialogue to know each other accurately:
to be able to recognize genuine similarities and to acknowledge real dissimilarities.
Finally, what has resulted from taking "Another Look at The God Makers," as the title
of chapter one proposed to do? As chapter three has made abundantly clear, the
Mormons are truly "godmakers": as the doctrine of exaltation explains, the fullness of
human salvation means "becoming a god." Yet what was meant to be a term of
ridicule has turned out to be a term of approbation, for the witness of the Greek
Fathers of the Church, described in chapter two, is that they also believed that
salvation meant "becoming a god." It seems that if one's soteriology cannot
accommodate a doctrine of human divinization, then it has at least implicitly, if not
explicitly, rejected the heritage of the early Christian church and departed from the
faith of first millennium Christianity. However, if that is the case, those who would
espouse such a soteriology also believe, in fact, that Christianity, from about the
second century on, has apostatized and "gotten it wrong" on this core issue of human
salvation. Thus, ironically, those who would excoriate Mormons for believing in the
doctrine of exaltation actually agree with them that the early church experienced a
"great apostasy" on fundamental doctrinal questions. And the supreme irony is that
such persons should probably investigate the claims of the LDS Church, which
proclaims that within itself is to be found the "restoration of all things."20
Notes
1. Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 48–
49.
2. Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, ed. John H. Erickson and
Thomas E. Bird (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974),
110.
3. The great medieval Latin theologian St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) wrote
the following in his Summa Theologica as part of his affirmative response to
the question "Whether it was necessary for the restoration of the human race
that the Word of God should become incarnate?": "Fifthly, with regard to the
full participation of the Divinity, which is the true bliss of man and end of
human life; and this is bestowed upon us by Christ's humanity; for Augustine
says in a sermon (xiii de Temp.): 'God was made man, that man might be made
God.'" (ST III, Q 1, A 2, in corp.)
4. Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft,
1991), 38.
5. The idea of and term "building bridges of understanding" comes from a 17
February 1998 talk given by Elder M. Russell Ballard, an LDS Apostle, at the
Logan, Utah Institute of Religion, entitled "Building Bridges of
Understanding"; transcript in possession of author.
6. Ed Decker and Dave Hunt, The God Makers, updated and expanded (Eugene,
Oreg.: Harvest House, 1994), 25.
7. Keith Norman, "Ex Nihilo: The Development of the Doctrines of God and
Creation in Early Christianity," Brigham Young University Studies 17 (spring
1977): 291–318.
8. Gerhard May, Creatio Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of 'Creation out of Nothing' in
Early Christian Thought, trans. A. S. Worrall (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994).
9. Truman G. Madsen, "Are Christians Mormon?" Brigham Young University
Studies 15 (autumn 1974): 77.
10. John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (Crestwood, New York:
St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1975), 211–13.
11. Madsen, "Are Christians Mormon?" 77.
12. Craig L. Blomberg and Stephen E. Robinson, How Wide the Divide? A
Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation (Downers Grove, Ill.:
InterVarsity, 1997), 17.
13. Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks, Offenders for a Word: How AntiMormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City:
Aspen Books, 1992), 76–77.
14. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600), vol. 1 of
The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1971), 12, 55.
15. Blomberg and Robinson, How Wide the Divide? 14, emphasis in original.
16. James E. Faulconer, review of The Mormon Concept of God: A Philosophical
Analysis, by Francis J. Beckwith and Stephen E. Parrish, Brigham Young
University Studies 32 (fall 1992): 185–95.
17. Robinson, Are Mormons Christian?
18. Ibid., 85.
19. Peterson and Ricks, Offenders for a Word, 92.
20. Doctrine and Covenants 86:10.
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