In this episode of The Open Door, Thomas Storck, Andrew Sorokowski, and Christopher Zehnder interview Matthew Tsakanikas on his book A Catechesis on Deification, Transfiguration & the Luminous Mysteries.
This book is a catechetical exploration of Christian deification, deeply rooted in the theological insights of Saint Athanasius and other Church Fathers. The work connects the mysteries of the Rosary with the transformative grace offered through Christ, focusing particularly on the Luminous Mysteries as a lens for understanding humanity’s participation in the divine life. Central to the book is the concept of deification, described as the process by which humans become “partakers in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
Dr. Matthew A. Tsakanikas emphasizes that deification does not imply losing one’s humanity but rather elevating it through grace, living in God’s will, and growing in love and virtue. Drawing on biblical passages, he demonstrates how the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ make this elevation possible.
The book revisits key moments in salvation history, such as the Transfiguration, where Jesus revealed the glory of divine light to his disciples, and the Eucharist’s institution, portraying these events as glimpses of the divine kingdom. Tsakanikas also explores discipleship in Mary, the Rosary’s role in cultivating divine intimacy, and the unity of Scripture’s Old and New Testaments.
Through theological reflection and practical devotion, Tsakanikas invites readers to embrace their divine calling, entering into Christ’s transformative love.
https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/deification/
This book is a catechetical exploration of Christian deification, deeply rooted in the theological insights of Saint Athanasius and other Church Fathers. The work connects the mysteries of the Rosary with the transformative grace offered through Christ, focusing particularly on the Luminous Mysteries as a lens for understanding humanity’s participation in the divine life. Central to the book is the concept of deification, described as the process by which humans become “partakers in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
Dr. Matthew A. Tsakanikas emphasizes that deification does not imply losing one’s humanity but rather elevating it through grace, living in God’s will, and growing in love and virtue. Drawing on biblical passages, he demonstrates how the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ make this elevation possible.
The book revisits key moments in salvation history, such as the Transfiguration, where Jesus revealed the glory of divine light to his disciples, and the Eucharist’s institution, portraying these events as glimpses of the divine kingdom. Tsakanikas also explores discipleship in Mary, the Rosary’s role in cultivating divine intimacy, and the unity of Scripture’s Old and New Testaments.
Through theological reflection and practical devotion, Tsakanikas invites readers to embrace their divine calling, entering into Christ’s transformative love.
https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/deification/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listening to w c AT radio, your home for authentic
Catholic programming.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to the Open Door with hosts Thomas Torque and
co hosts Christopher Zander and End Stokowski. Our guest today
is Professor Matthew the Techniquas of Christenham College.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
We'll be talking about his new book, catechiss on Gification
and which is a very interesting topic that we will
explore in a couple of minutes.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
So let us begin with our usual prayer in the
name of Father and Son, Oise Spirit. Immen, come, Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful and kindling them the
fire of your love.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Send forth your spirit, and they shall be created, and
you shall renew the face of the earth. Let us spray,
O God, who.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Has taught the hearts of the faithful, but the light
of the Oise Spirit we had that in the same
spirit we may be truly wise, and everyone rejoice in
his consolation to Christ our Lord.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Imen.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Some low spirit. Amen.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
So, the the book that you've written is called it
kind of on Deification, Transfiguration and the Luminous Mysteries that
was published by Root Books in Media on Saint Louis.
Now this term deification is a term that's uh not
(01:27):
really common in the church today, but it was very
common at one point. Could you explain what it means
and uh, someone about the trajectory of its usage.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Yeah, So just breaking up the word just a little bit.
Speaker 6 (01:43):
Deification, So day is related to God andfication is a
form of the verb vacher. So it's really saying in
the Latin, it's saying what the Greeks say with their
word theosis. And so the deification day God facheray. To
(02:03):
be made is to be made God by grace. In
other words, we can never become God by nature. That's
absurd and ridiculous. God is without beginning. We are with
a beginning, and so by nature that never changes that
we're always a creature. And yet somehow God in sharing
(02:24):
the supernatural life in our souls, making us a new
creation in Christ. The supernatural life that brings about the
new creation within us brings the image of God into
greater likeness. And as that likeness develops, we're talking about
being made God by grace. In other words, in the
words of Saint Peter, being made a partaker of the
(02:49):
divine nature second Peter one four. And so deification is
really just biblically about being made a partaker in the
divine nature according to second Peter one four.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
I hope that's a quick intro.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, and now I know that as used that tournament.
So what is the history of that tournament in the
in the church and especially in the Latin Church, where
it was seemed to be less well known.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
Well, that's exactly why I wrote the book.
Speaker 6 (03:22):
And it was because it was probably about nineteen ninety
eight that I had an experience while trying to teach
lay ministers about the Eucharist and the teachings of the
real presence in the eucharists of transubstantiation, but really tying
it to the aspect of somehow this divine food, this
(03:47):
food that Christ said, don't work for the food that perishes,
but the one that endorsed to eternal life, which the
son of Man will give you. So I was doing
this training and I made a statement. I decided to
quote Saint Athanasius, because you know, the Catechism and the
Catholic Church had come out summer around its early additions
that we're looking for commentary around ninety two ninety three,
and I think he got finalized around ninety six or
(04:09):
ninety seven, and so there was a quote, and I
decided to quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
and I quoted Saint Athanasius from around three point twenty
one AD or so when he wrote his on the Incarnation.
And so I said to the group, and they loved
it because I explained it. I said, God became man
so that we might become God. And the Eucharus is
(04:32):
a food in which God's sharing his own divinity to
make us God by grace, in other words, elevating us
from the natural into the supernatural, which comes from above,
not from us. And afterwards, one of the people who
had asked me to speak said, I'm not sure you
should be saying that. That just sounds morbid. I thought, okay, well,
this was a person who was a trained theologian who
(04:53):
said that to me, and I thought, wow, I'm just
trying to bring about and explain what's happening in the
catechism ethic church with which the great doctor Saint Athanasius,
the one who saved us from arianism, taught. And so
clearly the Catechism and Catholic Church has a point. We're
not very well catechized on what the full tradition of
the Church is. When there's a problem with repeating the
(05:17):
Catechism and the great Doctor Saint Athanasius, and granted, it
needs a lot of explanation, and that's why we should
give a lot of explanation. And that's why I wrote
this book. Was if Saint Athanasius is not being properly presented,
people don't even know who he is, and they're praying
the basically the Athenationian Creed. When we pray the Nicea
(05:38):
and Constantinolitan Creed every liturgy, at least on Solemnities and Sundays,
then then there's a need for biblical categoresis of some
sort that that does this.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Now, Andrew, you're all Byzantine Catholic, do you hear that
term more in.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Your yes, yes, it comes up.
Speaker 7 (06:03):
Uh, maybe not in you know, every day preaching on
the parish level, but theologians talk about it quite a bit.
And uh, you know, there's there's It appears in the
literature in various ways.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (06:19):
And I can't say that it's explained in great detail.
You know, there is, as I think we all understand,
there there's a certain danger and you know, in a
misunderstanding of the concept. But I think it's pretty much
used in the same way that you know, other Catholics
(06:42):
talk about simply you know, growth and holiness, but you know,
perhaps a little more with a slightly different emphasis. But yes,
it does come up quite a bit, and in the
kind of not just the theological literature, but the kind
of semi popular literature.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
If the oesis is just growth and holiness, are we
just using a rather dramatic term for a more black concept.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
That's a great question, is it okay? If I go
into this now? Great?
Speaker 6 (07:20):
And so this is the problem that I think has happened.
Why to some degree deifications not sufficiently taught. When we
talk about holiness too often people here rightly so imitation
of Christ. And the difficulty is this imitation of Christ,
(07:42):
this growth in holiness too often becomes in the minds
of people in the West, particularly just from developments that
have happened with nominalism, So particularly nominalism developing more even
though it's existed earlier, but seeing it come into the
set seventeenth century manualist tradition. What happened with the discussion
(08:04):
of growth and holiness was it became a focus that
was on imitation of Christ, but in an external manner,
it wasn't sufficiently emphasizing the interior ontological change that sanctifying
grace causes in the soul in such a manner that
(08:27):
there's a new basis for action that is supernatural and
not merely natural. And I think deification fixes the prioritization. So,
in other words, what was secondary external imitation was giving
priority over what's primary, and that is interior life and
(08:47):
power of God in the soul that makes possible the
exterior imitation of Christ. And until we are regrounded in
that primacy of grace, which the term day modification is
an emphasis of the interior new creation from which true
(09:08):
action must take place. The priority of grace God in us,
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, communicating God's life in
new creation from which we act. And therefore our sanctification
in deification has the emphasis of this development in grace,
(09:30):
which is a real participation in the divine nature. And
so you are correct, it is about growth in holiness.
But the difference is it's not just a fancy word
for it. It recaptures and reprioritizes the primacy of grace,
(09:50):
which is God's life and activity, and what Saint Thomas
Aquinas caused the instinct of the Holy Spirit, the Holy
Spirit who is higher than rationality. So it's not base
animal instinct, it's something even higher than our own rationality.
The communication the Holy Spirit in dwelling and communicating the
(10:11):
new existence in life from which we must act and
by which we are actually participating in eternal life here
and now, not after death. And so it really shifts
at an ontological level, the proper restoration of the primacy
(10:33):
of grace and our call to development into greater likeness
and freedom in God.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Do you think what is the connection of deification to
our being adopted sons of God?
Speaker 6 (10:51):
I'm sorry, just because my volume was perhaps too low.
Could you repeat that?
Speaker 5 (10:55):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (10:56):
How How does how does the eification fit in with
notion in the teaching that we are adopted sons of God?
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (11:05):
Yeah, exactly, So this would be the teachings by which grace,
where before we're merely creatures, Grace gives us a share
in God's own nature, a real ontological change within our souls,
and so in God adopting us, it's not just a
legal declaration that he's declaring us sons, even though we're
(11:28):
really just creatures. In the declaration, a new creation happens
inside the soul through the communication of the Holy Spirit,
who now elevates the natural to share in the supernatural.
And so we're actually born of God through the new
creation that takes place by the Holy Spirit. And so
(11:51):
we are actually made true sons of God through grace.
And so while our nature remains human, the grace elevates
what's human into the supernatural, and we're actually partaking in
God's own life, a direct birth from God in the
communication of the Holy Spirit into the soul, which means,
(12:12):
according to John chapter one twelve, those who believed in him,
he gave the power to come sons of God who
were born not by human effort, nor the will of man,
and in some older tration translations, nor by blood, but
by God. And so if you're born of a cat,
you're a cat. If you're born of a dog, you're
(12:33):
a dog. If you're born of a human, you're a human.
If you're born of God, you are God by grace,
an adopted son of God. But it's not just a
legal declaration. According to two Peter one four there is
a true and real participation quote participation in the divine nature,
(12:54):
and so we're actually now participating in the supernatural and
not any longer left on the natur playing where death rules.
Now that God is in us, God with us born
from above, death no longer has power over us. I
think this is particularly what's being said in Romans Chapter eight,
that because the spirit of God is in us, we
(13:14):
can actually call God Father, because it's his divine nature
that's been communicated, which can't come from nature, but only
from SuperNature, from God himself.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
It sounds like there would be implications.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Only Toychota wasn't just a legal declaration, implications for what
Lutheran said about our justification being merely a forensic fiction,
and so it sounds like this would touch on that also.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Is that correct?
Speaker 6 (13:46):
It's just a re establishment. I think overall, in having
to explain like we're doing right now and having to
explain to an audience what deification is, it gives us
as Catholics the chance to remember and recall the full
teaching of Saint Augustine on the primacy of grace to nature,
to re establish the Councils of Orange on the primacy
(14:08):
of grace to nature, which is what the whole Protestant
Reformation was built upon until it became a revolution and
it started denying the intrinsicist position on grace. It started
denying that grace is something interior and made it simply
God's favor to man instead of a real change in
(14:32):
man by which man, in cooperating with this new life
that God gives, man is continually healed and elevated into
greater likeness to God. So there's real change in us.
God's not merely covering us. And that's why I think
deification is so important to be re established in our
(14:53):
catechetical presentations. And I believe Vatican too believe that because
when the Catechism, which is based on the Second Vatican
Council came out, this is exactly what it was trying
to recapture. I'd like to read something real quickly if
I could, about that, and that is inside the Orientally Luhmen,
(15:16):
which John Paul the Great wrote on the Eastern Churches
on the hundredth anniversary of Leo the thirteenth, talking about
the importance of protecting the Eastern churches and the rights
of the Eastern churches, he said, quoting Unitatis read into
Grazio number fifteen, he says, inside orientally Luhman, he says,
(15:38):
it is earnestly recommend that Catholics avail themselves more often
of the spiritual riches of the Eastern Fathers, which lift
up the whole man to the contemplation of the divine mysteries.
But he only said that immediately after saying talking about
the Eastern Fathers, he said, the teaching of the Capital
(16:00):
Ocean fathers, so the heart of Eastern Fathers, the very
successes of Saint Athanasius. He says, the teaching of divinization
or deification passed unders an edition of all the Eastern
churches and as part of their common heritage. This can
be summarized in the thought already expressed by Saint Irenaeus
(16:21):
at the end of the second century, God passed into
man so that man might pass over to God. This
theology of divinization remains one of the achievements particularly dear
to Eastern Christian thought. And what he's talking about in
this is deification. It's exactly what he's speaking of.
Speaker 7 (16:46):
You mentioned in your historical review the role of nominalism
could you explain that a little bit. I don't quite
see the relationship how that fits in.
Speaker 6 (17:00):
Nominalism had such an effect related to a kind of voluntarism.
At what God commands.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Is law.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
But nominalism had this idea that God could command anything
because our holiness was just based on obedience to what
God commands. He didn't see the connection or make the
connection between how law actually develop develops human nature. So
it was a law an idea and understanding of God's
(17:35):
law disconnected from how humans develop and flourish, which is
important because the whole Sermon on the Mount isn't a
divine law of arbitrary rules, but how does human nature
itself flourish? So when Christ is saying, Blessed are the poor,
(17:56):
the Kingdom of God is theirs. Blessed is Blessed are
the meek, they'll inherit the land or the earth. Blessed
are those who sorrow, they shall be confident. Blessed to
those who hunger and thirst for justice. In order to
enter into these beatitudes, we need the Holy Spirit, who
develops the kind of virtues in us that change our
(18:20):
mindset to learn how to love. And so if you
see merely law as God's commands and you have to
give obedience to them. The Sermon on the Mount no
longer fits into an understanding of law and commandments, and
people start treating them as something that can be ignored,
(18:41):
when the whole point is Jesus was talking about following
him and actually describing his own life as son of
God and then showing us, as the son of God,
how a human flourishes. And so don't mistake what Jesus
is doing for weakness. He's actually saving us and uniting
(19:03):
us in himself to God in what must become in
the Sermon on the Mount and the beatitudes our imitation
of him. And that's why the manualist tradition, because monominalism
lost the importance of the beatitudes because you couldn't treat
them as commandments, and since law was about commandments, we
lost an understanding on the Sermon on the Mount, and
(19:23):
we lost an understanding of the beatitudes, and we lost
an understanding of how the beatitudes, like Luther said, are
not pie in the sky where God's rubbing on our
nose in the fact that we can never accomplish it. Actually,
through the Holy Spirit, we can accomplish it, and Christ
is cheering us on knowing it's not law, that's commandment,
(19:46):
because it takes time to enter into the beatitudes and
grow in the very virtues by which the likeness of
God is taken within us. But it's not the kinds
of virtues that are taken within us by our own effort,
by the primacy of grace. And that's why it's very
interesting the East has always maintained in its liturgies, particularly
(20:09):
on their Sunday liturgies. In the East, you'll notice part
of the linurgy is reciting the Beatitudes. Yes, why because
that's where our deification is taking place through faith in
Jesus Christ, which the Holy Spirit is now active, moving
us to respond to our neighbor with being poor in spirit,
(20:31):
with meekness, with sorrow for our own sins and the
sins of the world, and hungering and thirsting for justice,
and granting mercy, and having the singularity and purity of
heart to put God first in our lives, and thus
becoming reconcilers of Heaven and Earth, sons of God, peacemakers.
Nominalism doesn't allow for a morality of happiness and the
(20:57):
virtues it pushes it out the door deification. God is
giving you divinity in your soul here and now, not
just in the future. How happy you must be to
know you're entering into divine life and therefore, blessed are
the poor. Blessed are the me Blessed are those who
hunger in I'm sorry. Blessed are the sorrowful. Blessed are
(21:19):
those who hunger in thirst. In other words, you're entering
into true human development and flourishing through the New Law.
Because the law is not a written law or an
arbitrary law. According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, the new law
is the grace of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts,
receive through faith and working in charity. This is our
(21:42):
deification with our our cooperation is necessary because second Peter
one four that says, through the sacraments, in other words,
through the promises of Christ, you may become partakers of
the divine nature. The very next verse, second Peter one
to five says, therefore, supplement your faith with virtue. Make
(22:03):
every effort to supplement your faith with virtue. In other words,
now that God has given you grace and talents something
you didn't earn, you must develop it. To show your gratitude.
But it's not just to show your gratitude, it's already
a natural desire to develop in goodness. Deification overturns the
(22:26):
errors of nominalism, which are embedded in what became the
Protestant Revolution. It was a reformation with the priority of grace,
but once it denied the interiority of grace and its development,
it became a revolution filled with heresies leading people astray.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
It would seem like there's a kind of a paradox
here which maybe you can lucidate the nominalists in a
certain sense the powers of nature, for example, our natural
abilities to know God or no God's existence for reason.
(23:11):
And so in that sense they.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Were they were would they could you say they were
elevating grace or in divide, denying nature or but I'm
n interesting to be saying that they were. They were denied.
They were downgrading grace by their voluntaristic idea of commandments.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
I think, in their denial of how God's law is
working towards our development.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
And this is Survey's pink.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
Cares talked a lot about this, and in his works
the Dominican Swiss theologian talks.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
About this a lot in his works.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
But what they were trying to do was re establish
law on a new ground, law and obedience on a
new ground by which we didn't have to have debates
over law itself and over how grace or the virtues
or what development looks like. It was just more an
(24:08):
attempt in some of their minds to simplify discussions, and
I think we have to be careful of oversimplifying things.
We just have to take time to explain them. And
so they did undermine, ultimately a discussion on how God
is also inseparable from his wisdom, that God creates through
(24:33):
wisdom or logos, and I think there was a separation
that in their attempt to answer other issues, in their
attempt to in essence, what it was really about was
an attempt to defend God's freedom. Is what it began
with this idea of some people were seen as limiting
(24:56):
God in his freedom, and it was trying to re
establish God's absolute omnipotence and freedom. But it forgot it
also has to remember that God willingly in creating the world,
So even though he didn't have to create the world,
that in creating the world, God still creates the world
with wisdom, and so in an attempt to protect God's
(25:19):
dignity and its absolute freedom and answer hypothetical questions, it
came up with a system that ultimately rotted and undermined
the truth that Ratzinger called us back to his prefect
for the Congregation, the doctrine of the faith, and especially
in his Regensburg address as Pope. God creates through reason,
(25:43):
and therefore this world is reasonable, and we can detect
reason and come to a knowledge of God through the
things he has made. So that would be That's the
shortest answer I could give, and sorry for some of
the convolution.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
That was one great I find the edification in Saint
thomas appointments MHM, and I think you also can find
Mullifine references in in the Roman paths. Saran is being
to the humble myself to share our humanity. It doesn't
(26:19):
seem that the tusition of deification was foreign to the West,
but you're right to say that at certain point it
seemed to disappear. When did that happen to you?
Speaker 5 (26:32):
Provide?
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Yeah, thank you. So deification belongs to the West, for sure.
So certainly we have to remember the first seven ecumenical
councils were in the East and in Greek, not Latin,
and so those Greek fathers are our fathers in the West.
(27:00):
So deification absolutely belongs to the West thanks to the East.
And that tradition is seen very clearly in all the
Patristic tradition east and west. So if you want to
give the Patristic tradition through the first seven hundred or
eight hundred years of Christianity, deification belongs to it. You
(27:23):
see it NonStop even after that, in the beginning of
the Scholastic tradition. The entire Scholastic tradition is built upon it.
In fact, there's plenty of writings that demonstrate the entire
structure of the Suma is demonstrating how man becomes God
by grace, and there's a lot of articles on that.
(27:44):
Anna Williams wrote a book on this and her examinations
of Deification. She refers to the architectonic structure of the
suma itself and position questions. You watch then this teach
and continue tinuous to the councils of the Church on verification.
You see how strongly in the fourteenth century at Saint
(28:06):
Catherine of Sienna she's always quoting in her dialogue God
became Man, that man might become God, and she's emphasizing
the virtue. So notice wherever there's an emphasis on the
a virtue ethic, I want to say virtue ethic, I
mean one grounded first and foremost in the theological virtues
of faith, hope, and charity that enable man's transformation through faith,
(28:30):
hope and charity. You see that tradition carried in the
mystical tradition. Now it then carries from Saint Catherine of
Sienna into John of the Cross in the sixteenth century.
But after the Council of Trent, a tradition of training
priests in the seminaries begins, which is known as the
(28:51):
manualist tradition, and it tried to eliminate a lot of
the treatises of Saint Thomas Aquinas in order to simplify
Saint Thomas Aquinas's thought, in order to make confessional and
direction in the confessional and an understanding of how to
look at sin in relationship to commandments for the very
(29:12):
good of priests helping people in the confessional. But it
was at that point where the emphasis on commandments and
obedience to some degree there was an not sufficient emphasis
on the mystical tradition that what's primary to all of
this is, first and foremost, you are already a partaker
(29:34):
in the divine nature. You are already one who is
called to flourish through the gift you've received of faith, hope,
and charity, which is the new law. How that new
law is going to carry you deeper into in your
soul participation in the divine nature is a son of God,
male or female feelye is neutral, and so it's inclusive
(29:59):
of male and f femi. And so that tradition then
was re emphasized in the movement of the Patristic Revival,
the Patrictic Revival, which also reemphasized the Liturgical revival. This
then moves itself back into the writings in which the
(30:23):
attempt to recapture a following pink cares thought here overall,
maybe adding a few twists, but overall, after Leo the
thirteenth said, look, we need to re establishtimistic studies, people
began to realize in re establishing from Attorney Patrice the
encyclical of Leo the thirteenth, re establishing Saint Thomas aquinas
(30:44):
in our studies, people began to re establish that, wow,
we weren't connecting the treatises on Happiness and on the
virtues and on man's final end with our teachings and
law in such a way that we were giving the
full picture. And as that recovery came about, the Church
to some degree in its Second Vatican Council saw a
(31:06):
neo Patristic revival as intrinsic to recatechizing everyone to bring
everything back together. And that's where you see now, to
some degree this this unnecessary fighting between neo Scholastics and
neo Patristics over the Second Vatican Council. You need both,
you need both, and so because the neopatristic part is
(31:30):
a part of our history and so, but overall, I
think that's a vast overground of we've always taught verification.
The problem we lost some emphasis when we weren't sufficiently
emphasizing the neopatristic And that's why John Paul the Great said,
make the Catechism of the Catholic Church breathe with both
lungs of the church, and that's why it's loaded with
(31:53):
Patristic quotes.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Yeah, when I read Thomas on the Beat vision. For instance,
it's hard to see how and not he just uses
the term deification. But the very teaching on the vision
exists on deification, you know, because we normally know through
(32:18):
the forms as ourselves, as forms taken Him without matter,
reunited with those in our intellect. But but the Bere vision,
we're actually they don't take in the form of God.
It should just be it would not be God, we
taking God himself. There's a union of the intellect in
and God. If that's the case, there's a kind of
(32:38):
motive being which is communicated to the intellect which you
didn't have before. And I guess what you would be saying.
You would probably say in that case. In some ways,
the Betare vision also begins in a very complete sense
in this in our life now.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
So it's a little bit hard for me to hear
you right now, have my speaker turned all the way up,
and I apologize. But if I'm understanding your question, you're
you're asking more of where is Aquinas demonstrating in the
Summa deification?
Speaker 4 (33:10):
No, I just my point was, I don't think if
one follows Saint Thomas is teaching on the b To vision,
one can come to any other conclusion with deification.
Speaker 6 (33:21):
Oh yeah, So again to your point on his discussion
on the Beetivik vision, Saint Thomas Aquinas very much is
unique in the way he approaches deification. So deification itself,
in the words of Anna Williams, is absolutely pervasive in
(33:46):
the Summa theologia. And and what's unique about Aquinas's approach
and summary of the Patristic tradition since deification is intrinsically
about our sanctification being made holy. But being made holy
is something ontological. It's not merely an external imitation or
(34:13):
just following moral rules or moral conformity. It's first and
primarily through the ontological change that happens in us. And
so you're referring to the infusion of grace in the intellect,
the infusion of grace in the will.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
And so when you.
Speaker 6 (34:32):
Say that Aquinas's discussion of on the Betomic vision intrinsically
is inseparable from his deification, what's so unique is how
seamlessly Aquinas moves in the first part of the Suma
Question ninety three, Article three or article four. He moves
(34:54):
from nature because he says, we image God insofar as
we actually know him by nature, in other words, through
a posteriori reasoning.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
So it's by.
Speaker 6 (35:11):
Nature we image God in the act of knowing and
loving God according to nature, and then through grace, through
the act of knowing Him and loving Him through faith
and charity, likeness increases. And then the beatific vision, where
we actually know and love God through God's own nature.
(35:35):
And therefore he actually makes even more seamless than the
patristic tradition by pushing it all the way back into
how nature is already ordered to knowing and loving God.
And he makes the tradition of sanctification even more seamless
from nature to beatific vision. And so you rightly describe
it as the beatific vision is intrinsically dependent on deification.
(36:00):
In Aquinas's whole structure, is.
Speaker 7 (36:05):
There a difference between the terms deification and divinization and
is there any preference of one or over the other.
Speaker 6 (36:14):
I prefer deification, As one of my colleagues once said
to me, divinization sounds too much like divination. Yes, yes,
and therefore people are already struggling with who WHOA WHOA?
Speaker 5 (36:28):
I live in the twenty first century.
Speaker 6 (36:31):
Ever since the Mormons, we got to be real careful
about emphasizing we're not talking about what they're talking about,
because they're not talking about real participation. They're talking about
parallel development, absolute heresy. And so it's already bad enough
that now we have to explain it in light of
the New Age, which is heresy, in light of the Mormons,
(36:53):
which is heresy. And now you're using a word that
sounds like divination. It's for that which is for people
don't know what that's trying to contact the dead. So
I definitely prefer deification. And I always quote even the
Catechism when I say God became man that man, or
(37:14):
God became man that we might become God. I always
add the word by grace. But then the whole problem
is Protestants don't even understand grace. They see it as
an external change of God's favor towards you, not something
interior in you. And yet you have evangelicals who understand
the Holy Spirit's in you. It all just gets messy there.
(37:37):
So all the heresies have caused us a lot of work,
but it's the work we have to do. And so
no one can ever claim to be bored.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
In money generous by as the twelve emphasized that the
Order of Grace, as I understand it, was something that
was not due to man, but was theoretically at least,
you could have the hun rays existing without the Order
(38:06):
of Grace. Yes, in fact the case, how does that
tie him with everything.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
That you were saying?
Speaker 6 (38:14):
Well, this is a great question, and I love when
I get this question. You see, this brings us back
to nominalism. Nominalism was an effort to defend God's freedom,
making very clear that again God doesn't owe us anything.
(38:37):
In other words, that God creating us, God was absolutely
free in every way not to create us, which is
some of the emphasis on. You know, then by nature
God never lost his freedom. Well that's true because he's
totally free before he creates and so no, he doesn't
(38:59):
lose his freedom. And so this question comes up, Okay, well,
if God is totally free, then could you created a
world with intelligent beings that do not have the beetific
vision as their end or as their natural end? And
the question itself is a hypothetical that tests the question
(39:22):
of whether or not God is sovereign and free. And
so the answer to the question can God, which is
a hypothetical create a world in which an intelligent creature
does not have the beatific vision as his last end.
The answer is always yes, because the beetific vision is supernatural,
(39:45):
and therefore a natural desire cannot does not have to
be answered with the supernatural end. This is kind of
a summary, but the problem with the question is it's
a hypothetical in the order of the only reality we know.
(40:09):
God did make intelligent creatures with the supernatural end, and
so even though our natural desire doesn't require it, there's
something about our natural desire in the way that He
has so structured it that it was always according to
(40:30):
Ephesians chapter one, in which he says that God created
all things in view of Christ, that the only world
we know about, not any hypotheticals, is one in which
man was created with the supernatural end of.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
The Betavia vision.
Speaker 6 (40:51):
And so we have to separate the point of the
hypothetical question from the only reality and world we know,
and which Scripture tells us by revelation, our end was
always supernatural, even though by nature we have no power
to reach it. God in his wisdom so created this
(41:11):
world that he would achieve it in that greater mercy
and gift which was never owed to creatures of Jesus Christ,
so then when.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Applies to blood, was simply seeking to preserve the hypothetical
freedom of God.
Speaker 6 (41:34):
Well, yes, I think there were issues arising in which
people were so presenting theories of the incarnation or theories
of man's development. Perhaps he even had Tehar de Shardan
in the back of his mind on some of these
(41:54):
questions or issues, as though the Omega point was something natural.
I think to some degrees, he was giving clarity where
there was confusion with all of the new questions that
were being asked based on archaeology and anthropology and the
rapid development of the sciences that have been very shocking.
Speaker 5 (42:14):
To all of us.
Speaker 6 (42:16):
He was trying to remind us of we must keep
intact the distinction. What he's really keeping intact is a
distinction between the supernatural and the natural, and that the
natural has zero claim on the supernatural, which is restoring
the primacy of why we call grace a gift, because
if it's owed, it's not a gift, and that violates revelation,
(42:40):
and so he's protecting revelation itself. But the arguments too
often about this have not made enough of those distinctions
sometimes from the theologians that I've read on these matters,
and I think Karfara, Cardinal Kafara answered that. And I'm
following Cardinal Kafara's answer that he gave is where I'm
(43:03):
kind of developing it and repeating some of what he
said regarding that issue. He was the president of the
John Paul two Institute at its founding. We're covering a
vast cambinet of nature and grace on the happenenda.
Speaker 5 (43:23):
So buy my book on Deification.
Speaker 6 (43:25):
What was the title of it again, a kind of
chisis on Deification Transfiguration the Luminous Mysteries.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah. Probably, I'm sure you're familiar with the compilation that
came out, I think last year of some of the
Dominicans who were writing in the late forties Visa VI
the Nobel TAYLG.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
Yeah, that controversy.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
John John Kerwin edited it.
Speaker 6 (43:51):
Yes, there's obviously a great clash between the Jesuits and
the Dominicans, and so the pejorative nou velloteology from the
French journal that was not pleased with the Neopatristic revival
as somehow rivaling the Thumistic Revival and so it created
(44:17):
a bit of hard feelings and statements were made that
were that were not properly contextualized within the Jesuits and
some of the Patristic and some of these early writers
that were also trying to deal with existentialism of the
late nineteenth century into the early twentieth century. The existentialism
(44:38):
that was being dealt with as an attempt at faith
and reason as well was being mixed in with the
Neopatristic and angering the Dominicans for a lack of precision,
and so we did get a bit of Dominican presentations
highly critical of what they pejoraed if they call the
(44:59):
new ve theolog But resourcement is actually and truly coming
from John Henry Newman and the Anglican Patristic revival and
the Anglophone that was really affecting a lot of the
writings as well in the French world. Already this was
occurring amongst the German theologians as well, and so what
(45:20):
it was really about was a Patristic revival in the
midst of a Neo Scholastic revival. And so those wars
between the neo Scholastics and the Neopatristics played out pretty
heavily in the nineteen twenties and thirties and culminated with
some statements in humanity generous. But then you saw it
(45:41):
Vatican two. Some of the very paritists or pariti, I
should say in the plural, they're certainly being recognized for
their work and attempt to reach the culture in the
mix of Marxist revolutions, the loss of church and state,
and the former kingdoms that no longer exist since World
(46:02):
War One and World War Two, and so we're all
having to do that hard work which the Second Vatican Council,
the and the Catechism, the Catholic Church. I do say
we had a pretty big hiccup in Pope Francis, causing
a lot of unnecessary antagonisms by statements he made. And
so I'm hoping Leo will help re establish us on
(46:25):
that proper recognition of all the treasure of the Church,
old and new. The wise man takes from his storm
mouse the storehouse the best of the old and best
of the new, And so we continue that work of
the Holy Spirit of bringing people to know Jesus Christ
and Spirit in a truth. So I hope this book
(46:47):
is a part.
Speaker 5 (46:47):
Of that.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yes, I think so well, shifting gears. When you teach undergraduates,
you introduce this concept and what kind of response do
you Yet.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
I absolutely do.
Speaker 6 (47:10):
It's been a while since I bring it in, particularly
when I am more now so I used to in
the introductory courses. I've been teaching more of the Old
Testament and the New Testament, and so in my attempt
to synthesize the Old and the New Testament in the
discussions we have when we have a semester on the
(47:30):
Old Testament, when we have a semester on the New Testament,
as part of our core, I do bring in deification
and so as a concept I work through in the
same way I discuss it here the relationship of nature
and grace. I use a lot of images, particularly as
I do in the book. It helps people grasp that
(47:53):
what God is always trying to do is to save humans.
And we already see this in the Mystery of Moses
on Mount Sinai. When Moses goes into the Glory Cloud,
he comes out radiating the Divine light, which is what
we see happening in a more powerful way with Jesus
Christ of the Transfiguration. So I make a lot of
those connections for them. And then I make a lot
(48:15):
of the connections of the Church's teachings on the relationship
of nature and grace, and how God is always trying
to bring creatures to partake in his divine nature, how
God is always trying to move what is temporal to
be saved in the eternal, eternal life itself. And that
I teach the seven days of Creation and even the
(48:39):
meaning of the Seventh Day in light of deification, because
because the tradition of all the Church fathers, the tradition
has always been man was made in view of being deified.
That was always God's plan in Christ, per the first
chapter of Ephesians and per the first chapter of Colossi.
(49:00):
It's super clear. And it's also clear that the Church,
in the Patristic tradition and even the composition of John's Gospel,
the Church itself is always the new creation that God
was working towards in the first Creation. That the first
(49:23):
creation existed to bring us into the new creation, which
is the Church, the true Jerusalem, the true Israel of God.
And so I try to show this movement not just
of the seamless development of individual human from nature to
grace to beatific vision. But the whole human race from
(49:46):
its prehistory two modern times is a movement of God
trying to develop us into the great mystery of Jesus Christ.
And so it's absolutely something I bring in and even
with parishes, even parishes that I don't know how much
(50:08):
background people have it, I'll go in and I'll use
the luminous mysteries, which which to some degree are centered
on the Transfiguration and the Eucharist. Ultimately, I would argue
towards those points, showing that we understand deification, especially through
the mystery of the Transfiguration.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
And have you found that the what kind of response
do you get either from your students or from when
you think in parishes.
Speaker 6 (50:41):
It's difficult because living in American culture, which is heavily Protestant,
our culture, whether or not, I mean, we're a lot
of devout Catholics, but we forget how heavily the culture music, TV, Internet,
and if you don't know it, the vast majority of kids,
(51:04):
young kids preteen into their thirties or playing video games
more than watching movies because the video games are like movies.
Every aspect of culture you can define is a Western
postmodern culture that's still built on an American Enlightenment culture,
(51:27):
a heavily Masonic and Protestant culture, bringing in the mystical,
bringing in deification. Our culture is built a nominalism, an
opposition between God's law and human development. Breaking through all
(51:49):
of that takes time, and we're so dependent on the
Holy Spirit. So we got to pray for ourselves to
teach it, pray for the people to receive it, and
pray for the people afterwards that the seeds God permitted
us to plant will grow and develop, because the only
immunity to this culture of death is planting those seeds
(52:09):
and helping them grow and nourishing them and getting people
to pray with the expectation of God developing and sharing
more fully his life within him, which develops as we
grow in the virtues, when we grow in the virtues
through the infused virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and
so as you can imagine, depending on where people are
(52:31):
in their knowledge of the Church Fathers, I've met with
groups of people reading the book who are just like,
oh my gosh, I'm nervous. I know that this is
right or true, but I'm really nervous if I'm allowed
to kind of accept this teaching because I never hear
it in my own parish, and I kind of think
to myself, I know people are afraid to teach it
(52:53):
because it can be misunderstood. But if you don't teach it,
are people ever going to have enough foundation to have
a proper worldview? That the whole point of our existence,
which has always been the great philosophical question, all the
way back to Socrates, all the way to the dialogues
(53:14):
of Plato and the timaeis how does God bring time
into eternity? Well, Genesis was answering that already with Moses
in the Seven Days of Creation. We're always about the
question of how time is brought into eternity. The Covenant
with Moses, building on the promises to Abraham, are about
how does God bring time into eternity. If we don't
(53:36):
re establish a firmer philosophical grounding and a better worldview,
we're going to remain postmodern divided tribes. This is biblically
what unites the whole Bible, and philosophically, which unites the
whole wisdom tradition and philosophical tradition of the whole world.
Deification is the framework for pretty much everything. And I'm
(53:57):
not saying that just because I write about it. I
write about it because it's true.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
Yeah, I would think that.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
It would because especially if someone's trying to preach about
it who doesn't have the background that you do. I mean,
I don't know to what extent in seminaries is it emphasized,
do you know?
Speaker 6 (54:23):
I think because a lot of this work gets popularized,
and because it's appearing in journals and it's appearing likewise
in reaching pastors and reaching educators and seminaries. I do
think thanks to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, thanks
(54:44):
to the Neopatristic Revival exposing us more fully to the
Greek Fathers, and especially the encyclicals of John Paul the
Great of Benedict the sixteenth, even Pope Francis efforts to
reach the UH the Eastern Churches, both the Catholic and
Orthodox Eastern Churches. I think there's been a lot of
(55:07):
progress made. I have to believe Leo is really well educated.
As an Augustinian, he's gonna get the Patristics, and as
an Augustinian, he understands himself as the foundation for ptomism.
The found the Dominican Order is based on the rule
of Saint Augustine. I think there's a lot of great
hope for all of this right now. We just need
(55:31):
we need all the tribalism to especially seek the Holy
Spirit and what the Holy Spirit wants us to do
to build Jesus Christ into the souls of everyone we meet,
that Jesus Christ may be better known and loved. And
that's why I believe Mary's the answer. And I try
(55:52):
to ground all of this teaching when meditating on the
luminous Mysteries of the Rosary.
Speaker 5 (55:57):
So I'm gonna plug the book again, and that.
Speaker 6 (55:59):
Is a catechisis on deification, transfiguration and the luminous mysteries.
That the luminous mysteries are a gift by John Paul
the Great that really helps re establish overall when we
meditate on it, the mystery of our deification, because you
can't meditate on that transfiguration without understanding that's the Kingdom
(56:22):
of God. The Kingdom of God is put in our souls.
It's not first an external kingdom of rules. It's the
rule of Jesus Christ living in our soul. Because according
to Thomas Aquinas. Again, the new law is the grace
of the Holy Spirit. It's only secondarily a written law. Again,
that's Thomas Aquinas. The new Law is the grace of
(56:44):
the Holy Spirit. It's only secondarily a written law.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
There's been alone talk lately about the.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Modern West either needing enchantment or seeking in.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
And I'm sure you're familiar with a lot of it
is all over the map. I mean, some of it
is new AA.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
So it is right question of one sort or another,
not always well focused or well informed. It strikes me
that what you were saying about dentification fit's right into this.
Speaker 6 (57:19):
It does, but this is the danger sometimes with it.
And I saw a good article on Catholic culture about
this as well. I think Thomas Maris address seeing a
lot of traditionalists to some degree. He was saying that
for some reason, I was seeing a lot of a
lot of these writers falling into a neo paganism enchantment
(57:44):
with ritual and he was shocked by some of this.
And I'll avoid making some of the criticisms he made
because I'm not as prepared to make statements about it.
And this is where the importance of what I'm.
Speaker 5 (57:58):
Saying is.
Speaker 6 (58:01):
I'm trying to recover Neopatristic to supplement the right way
to read Thomas Aquinas, who is basically doing a neo
patristic resourcement in his time in a synthesis with Aristotle,
(58:21):
because he's rebuilding after the Crusades and the knowledge of
Aristotle coming back into the West. He's taking Augustine and
the greatness of Augustine, who's the greatest church father of
the West, and he's resynthesizing the philosophers, particularly Aristotle, with
(58:45):
the church fathers in faithfulness to sacred Scripture. And what's
absolutely essential is keeping that distinction between nature and grace.
And too many people do not keep the proper distinction
between nature and grace, where they're trying to a re
enchantment with the wonder and mysticism of the ancient world
(59:06):
which truly actually culminated because it was purified by Jesus
Christ and establishing the truth of monotheism. And there's a
real distinction between the supernatural and the natural. That our
rituals are not superstition, Our rituals are not what accomplishes everything.
(59:26):
It is faith in Jesus Christ that gives power to
the ritual. Now, certainly I understand ex opra operata, but
that's dealing with the configuration of the soul having received
the character of the ministerial priesthood by which sacraments work,
(59:47):
by the work worked. But our rituals don't work because
the rituals, but because they are instruments Jesus Christ through
which He works in the minister of the sacrament. And
so there's an issue there about enchantment, and so I
(01:00:10):
just wanted to add some of that background to it.
And I'm not sure how familiar some people are with
some of what's happening with our attempts at re enchantment,
but I do agree deification is absolutely the part of
waking up in people's minds. Your destiny is not just
about following Christ's rules, but understanding that Christ is communicating
(01:00:31):
and sharing here and now a real divinity in your
soul from which your works now have value, because without that,
your works have no value. So that's what Protestants misunderstand,
and that's where Catholics who speak about works need to
speak rightly about their works, their works in Christ, which
(01:00:51):
is why they have value, which is why there's a
movement from image to likeness because in the exercise of
the grace, our talents develop through the grace.
Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
This is I think maybe maybe another another show just.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Devoted to this enchantment issue, Andrew Christopher, where our time
is almost up? Do you have anything you want to
bring up?
Speaker 5 (01:01:16):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
But I do think, I do think that you're right
about the dangers of enchantment because it gives a false
surms of mysticism. I'm somewhat familiar. I've been reading a
little bit about it lately, and it's it's kind of
shocking some of the ways that we don't even read
an article that claims that we have no holy water
in our church is because we're not using the traditional
(01:01:39):
form of blessing. And I mean completely misunderstanding that. It's
it's the sacramentals work by the you know, the intercession
of the church. Right, But it's those words, those Latin words.
There's no there's no exorcism now, so therefore it can't
be holy water.
Speaker 6 (01:02:00):
Right, that's so important, Meaning I do find people in
other words, there's a beauty to the Latin. But there's
become this aspect where if it's not in Latin, somehow
something is invalid and so instead of remembering that our
rights and rituals are are are and again there's so
(01:02:21):
many distinctions that would need to be made. But I
see people making these claims in exorcisms that that that
they're less effective because they're not being done in Latin
as though in other words, sacramentals are are dependent on
the faith of the church. Sacramentals are dependent and forgive me,
I'm not trying. I mean to understand, I need a
lot of correction and even nuance in what I'm saying
(01:02:42):
in it because I'm saying it so quickly. But the
point being, it's also dependent on terrorisms and the faith
of the person who is doing such things. That's why
Saint Catherine Sienna was one of the greatest exorcists of
her time. Where other exorcists were failing, they'd bring them
to Saint. She wasn't a priest for all I know,
she was just praying an Italian. I'd have to research that.
(01:03:06):
But we're dealing with terrorisms and issues of holiness and
faith when it comes to sacramentos, it's not the language
that you use. So yeah, I think that's an important
thing amongst what might be called a traditionalist or traditionalism movement.
Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
Well, thank you, thank you very much. As a techniquas
for period day. I think it was a very interesting
discussion and maybe we could have a further discussion at
some point about the enchantment question, which I think is aguary.
Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
Christopher is very interesting, in parts of it very disturbing.
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Why don't we end up with a Mari to our
blessed mother and the mothers and the most spirited men,
Mari full of bridge. The Lord is with thee listen,
are dealing among women, and blessed is the furtherly, wom Jesus.
Speaker 5 (01:04:00):
All the Mother of God pray for.
Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
Thank you very much, appreciate today.
Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Hello, God's beloved. I'm Annabel Moseley, author, professor of theology,
and host of then Sings My Soul and Destination Sainthood
on WCAT Radio. I invite you to listen in and
find inspiration along this sacred journey. We're traveling together to
make our lives a masterpiece and with God's grace, become saints.
(01:04:37):
Join me Annabel Moseley for then Sings My Soul and
Destination Sainthood on WCAT Radio. God bless you. Remember you
are never alone. God is always with you.
Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
Thank you for listening to a production of WCAT Radio Plea.
Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Please join us in our mission of evangelization, and don't
forget Love lifts up where knowledge takes flight.
Listening to w c AT radio, your home for authentic
Catholic programming.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to the Open Door with hosts Thomas Torque and
co hosts Christopher Zander and End Stokowski. Our guest today
is Professor Matthew the Techniquas of Christenham College.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
We'll be talking about his new book, catechiss on Gification
and which is a very interesting topic that we will
explore in a couple of minutes.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
So let us begin with our usual prayer in the
name of Father and Son, Oise Spirit. Immen, come, Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful and kindling them the
fire of your love.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Send forth your spirit, and they shall be created, and
you shall renew the face of the earth. Let us spray,
O God, who.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Has taught the hearts of the faithful, but the light
of the Oise Spirit we had that in the same
spirit we may be truly wise, and everyone rejoice in
his consolation to Christ our Lord.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Imen.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Some low spirit. Amen.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
So, the the book that you've written is called it
kind of on Deification, Transfiguration and the Luminous Mysteries that
was published by Root Books in Media on Saint Louis.
Now this term deification is a term that's uh not
(01:27):
really common in the church today, but it was very
common at one point. Could you explain what it means
and uh, someone about the trajectory of its usage.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Yeah, So just breaking up the word just a little bit.
Speaker 6 (01:43):
Deification, So day is related to God andfication is a
form of the verb vacher. So it's really saying in
the Latin, it's saying what the Greeks say with their
word theosis. And so the deification day God facheray. To
(02:03):
be made is to be made God by grace. In
other words, we can never become God by nature. That's
absurd and ridiculous. God is without beginning. We are with
a beginning, and so by nature that never changes that
we're always a creature. And yet somehow God in sharing
(02:24):
the supernatural life in our souls, making us a new
creation in Christ. The supernatural life that brings about the
new creation within us brings the image of God into
greater likeness. And as that likeness develops, we're talking about
being made God by grace. In other words, in the
words of Saint Peter, being made a partaker of the
(02:49):
divine nature second Peter one four. And so deification is
really just biblically about being made a partaker in the
divine nature according to second Peter one four.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
I hope that's a quick intro.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, and now I know that as used that tournament.
So what is the history of that tournament in the
in the church and especially in the Latin Church, where
it was seemed to be less well known.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
Well, that's exactly why I wrote the book.
Speaker 6 (03:22):
And it was because it was probably about nineteen ninety
eight that I had an experience while trying to teach
lay ministers about the Eucharist and the teachings of the
real presence in the eucharists of transubstantiation, but really tying
it to the aspect of somehow this divine food, this
(03:47):
food that Christ said, don't work for the food that perishes,
but the one that endorsed to eternal life, which the
son of Man will give you. So I was doing
this training and I made a statement. I decided to
quote Saint Athanasius, because you know, the Catechism and the
Catholic Church had come out summer around its early additions
that we're looking for commentary around ninety two ninety three,
and I think he got finalized around ninety six or
(04:09):
ninety seven, and so there was a quote, and I
decided to quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
and I quoted Saint Athanasius from around three point twenty
one AD or so when he wrote his on the Incarnation.
And so I said to the group, and they loved
it because I explained it. I said, God became man
so that we might become God. And the Eucharus is
(04:32):
a food in which God's sharing his own divinity to
make us God by grace, in other words, elevating us
from the natural into the supernatural, which comes from above,
not from us. And afterwards, one of the people who
had asked me to speak said, I'm not sure you
should be saying that. That just sounds morbid. I thought, okay, well,
this was a person who was a trained theologian who
(04:53):
said that to me, and I thought, wow, I'm just
trying to bring about and explain what's happening in the
catechism ethic church with which the great doctor Saint Athanasius,
the one who saved us from arianism, taught. And so
clearly the Catechism and Catholic Church has a point. We're
not very well catechized on what the full tradition of
the Church is. When there's a problem with repeating the
(05:17):
Catechism and the great Doctor Saint Athanasius, and granted, it
needs a lot of explanation, and that's why we should
give a lot of explanation. And that's why I wrote
this book. Was if Saint Athanasius is not being properly presented,
people don't even know who he is, and they're praying
the basically the Athenationian Creed. When we pray the Nicea
(05:38):
and Constantinolitan Creed every liturgy, at least on Solemnities and Sundays,
then then there's a need for biblical categoresis of some
sort that that does this.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Now, Andrew, you're all Byzantine Catholic, do you hear that
term more in.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Your yes, yes, it comes up.
Speaker 7 (06:03):
Uh, maybe not in you know, every day preaching on
the parish level, but theologians talk about it quite a bit.
And uh, you know, there's there's It appears in the
literature in various ways.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (06:19):
And I can't say that it's explained in great detail.
You know, there is, as I think we all understand,
there there's a certain danger and you know, in a
misunderstanding of the concept. But I think it's pretty much
used in the same way that you know, other Catholics
(06:42):
talk about simply you know, growth and holiness, but you know,
perhaps a little more with a slightly different emphasis. But yes,
it does come up quite a bit, and in the
kind of not just the theological literature, but the kind
of semi popular literature.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
If the oesis is just growth and holiness, are we
just using a rather dramatic term for a more black concept.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
That's a great question, is it okay? If I go
into this now? Great?
Speaker 6 (07:20):
And so this is the problem that I think has happened.
Why to some degree deifications not sufficiently taught. When we
talk about holiness too often people here rightly so imitation
of Christ. And the difficulty is this imitation of Christ,
(07:42):
this growth in holiness too often becomes in the minds
of people in the West, particularly just from developments that
have happened with nominalism, So particularly nominalism developing more even
though it's existed earlier, but seeing it come into the
set seventeenth century manualist tradition. What happened with the discussion
(08:04):
of growth and holiness was it became a focus that
was on imitation of Christ, but in an external manner,
it wasn't sufficiently emphasizing the interior ontological change that sanctifying
grace causes in the soul in such a manner that
(08:27):
there's a new basis for action that is supernatural and
not merely natural. And I think deification fixes the prioritization. So,
in other words, what was secondary external imitation was giving
priority over what's primary, and that is interior life and
(08:47):
power of God in the soul that makes possible the
exterior imitation of Christ. And until we are regrounded in
that primacy of grace, which the term day modification is
an emphasis of the interior new creation from which true
(09:08):
action must take place. The priority of grace God in us,
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, communicating God's life in
new creation from which we act. And therefore our sanctification
in deification has the emphasis of this development in grace,
(09:30):
which is a real participation in the divine nature. And
so you are correct, it is about growth in holiness.
But the difference is it's not just a fancy word
for it. It recaptures and reprioritizes the primacy of grace,
(09:50):
which is God's life and activity, and what Saint Thomas
Aquinas caused the instinct of the Holy Spirit, the Holy
Spirit who is higher than rationality. So it's not base
animal instinct, it's something even higher than our own rationality.
The communication the Holy Spirit in dwelling and communicating the
(10:11):
new existence in life from which we must act and
by which we are actually participating in eternal life here
and now, not after death. And so it really shifts
at an ontological level, the proper restoration of the primacy
(10:33):
of grace and our call to development into greater likeness
and freedom in God.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Do you think what is the connection of deification to
our being adopted sons of God?
Speaker 6 (10:51):
I'm sorry, just because my volume was perhaps too low.
Could you repeat that?
Speaker 5 (10:55):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (10:56):
How How does how does the eification fit in with
notion in the teaching that we are adopted sons of God?
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (11:05):
Yeah, exactly, So this would be the teachings by which grace,
where before we're merely creatures, Grace gives us a share
in God's own nature, a real ontological change within our souls,
and so in God adopting us, it's not just a
legal declaration that he's declaring us sons, even though we're
(11:28):
really just creatures. In the declaration, a new creation happens
inside the soul through the communication of the Holy Spirit,
who now elevates the natural to share in the supernatural.
And so we're actually born of God through the new
creation that takes place by the Holy Spirit. And so
(11:51):
we are actually made true sons of God through grace.
And so while our nature remains human, the grace elevates
what's human into the supernatural, and we're actually partaking in
God's own life, a direct birth from God in the
communication of the Holy Spirit into the soul, which means,
(12:12):
according to John chapter one twelve, those who believed in him,
he gave the power to come sons of God who
were born not by human effort, nor the will of man,
and in some older tration translations, nor by blood, but
by God. And so if you're born of a cat,
you're a cat. If you're born of a dog, you're
(12:33):
a dog. If you're born of a human, you're a human.
If you're born of God, you are God by grace,
an adopted son of God. But it's not just a
legal declaration. According to two Peter one four there is
a true and real participation quote participation in the divine nature,
(12:54):
and so we're actually now participating in the supernatural and
not any longer left on the natur playing where death rules.
Now that God is in us, God with us born
from above, death no longer has power over us. I
think this is particularly what's being said in Romans Chapter eight,
that because the spirit of God is in us, we
(13:14):
can actually call God Father, because it's his divine nature
that's been communicated, which can't come from nature, but only
from SuperNature, from God himself.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
It sounds like there would be implications.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Only Toychota wasn't just a legal declaration, implications for what
Lutheran said about our justification being merely a forensic fiction,
and so it sounds like this would touch on that also.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Is that correct?
Speaker 6 (13:46):
It's just a re establishment. I think overall, in having
to explain like we're doing right now and having to
explain to an audience what deification is, it gives us
as Catholics the chance to remember and recall the full
teaching of Saint Augustine on the primacy of grace to nature,
to re establish the Councils of Orange on the primacy
(14:08):
of grace to nature, which is what the whole Protestant
Reformation was built upon until it became a revolution and
it started denying the intrinsicist position on grace. It started
denying that grace is something interior and made it simply
God's favor to man instead of a real change in
(14:32):
man by which man, in cooperating with this new life
that God gives, man is continually healed and elevated into
greater likeness to God. So there's real change in us.
God's not merely covering us. And that's why I think
deification is so important to be re established in our
(14:53):
catechetical presentations. And I believe Vatican too believe that because
when the Catechism, which is based on the Second Vatican
Council came out, this is exactly what it was trying
to recapture. I'd like to read something real quickly if
I could, about that, and that is inside the Orientally Luhmen,
(15:16):
which John Paul the Great wrote on the Eastern Churches
on the hundredth anniversary of Leo the thirteenth, talking about
the importance of protecting the Eastern churches and the rights
of the Eastern churches, he said, quoting Unitatis read into
Grazio number fifteen, he says, inside orientally Luhman, he says,
(15:38):
it is earnestly recommend that Catholics avail themselves more often
of the spiritual riches of the Eastern Fathers, which lift
up the whole man to the contemplation of the divine mysteries.
But he only said that immediately after saying talking about
the Eastern Fathers, he said, the teaching of the Capital
(16:00):
Ocean fathers, so the heart of Eastern Fathers, the very
successes of Saint Athanasius. He says, the teaching of divinization
or deification passed unders an edition of all the Eastern
churches and as part of their common heritage. This can
be summarized in the thought already expressed by Saint Irenaeus
(16:21):
at the end of the second century, God passed into
man so that man might pass over to God. This
theology of divinization remains one of the achievements particularly dear
to Eastern Christian thought. And what he's talking about in
this is deification. It's exactly what he's speaking of.
Speaker 7 (16:46):
You mentioned in your historical review the role of nominalism
could you explain that a little bit. I don't quite
see the relationship how that fits in.
Speaker 6 (17:00):
Nominalism had such an effect related to a kind of voluntarism.
At what God commands.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Is law.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
But nominalism had this idea that God could command anything
because our holiness was just based on obedience to what
God commands. He didn't see the connection or make the
connection between how law actually develop develops human nature. So
it was a law an idea and understanding of God's
(17:35):
law disconnected from how humans develop and flourish, which is
important because the whole Sermon on the Mount isn't a
divine law of arbitrary rules, but how does human nature
itself flourish? So when Christ is saying, Blessed are the poor,
(17:56):
the Kingdom of God is theirs. Blessed is Blessed are
the meek, they'll inherit the land or the earth. Blessed
are those who sorrow, they shall be confident. Blessed to
those who hunger and thirst for justice. In order to
enter into these beatitudes, we need the Holy Spirit, who
develops the kind of virtues in us that change our
(18:20):
mindset to learn how to love. And so if you
see merely law as God's commands and you have to
give obedience to them. The Sermon on the Mount no
longer fits into an understanding of law and commandments, and
people start treating them as something that can be ignored,
(18:41):
when the whole point is Jesus was talking about following
him and actually describing his own life as son of
God and then showing us, as the son of God,
how a human flourishes. And so don't mistake what Jesus
is doing for weakness. He's actually saving us and uniting
(19:03):
us in himself to God in what must become in
the Sermon on the Mount and the beatitudes our imitation
of him. And that's why the manualist tradition, because monominalism
lost the importance of the beatitudes because you couldn't treat
them as commandments, and since law was about commandments, we
lost an understanding on the Sermon on the Mount, and
(19:23):
we lost an understanding of the beatitudes, and we lost
an understanding of how the beatitudes, like Luther said, are
not pie in the sky where God's rubbing on our
nose in the fact that we can never accomplish it. Actually,
through the Holy Spirit, we can accomplish it, and Christ
is cheering us on knowing it's not law, that's commandment,
(19:46):
because it takes time to enter into the beatitudes and
grow in the very virtues by which the likeness of
God is taken within us. But it's not the kinds
of virtues that are taken within us by our own effort,
by the primacy of grace. And that's why it's very
interesting the East has always maintained in its liturgies, particularly
(20:09):
on their Sunday liturgies. In the East, you'll notice part
of the linurgy is reciting the Beatitudes. Yes, why because
that's where our deification is taking place through faith in
Jesus Christ, which the Holy Spirit is now active, moving
us to respond to our neighbor with being poor in spirit,
(20:31):
with meekness, with sorrow for our own sins and the
sins of the world, and hungering and thirsting for justice,
and granting mercy, and having the singularity and purity of
heart to put God first in our lives, and thus
becoming reconcilers of Heaven and Earth, sons of God, peacemakers.
Nominalism doesn't allow for a morality of happiness and the
(20:57):
virtues it pushes it out the door deification. God is
giving you divinity in your soul here and now, not
just in the future. How happy you must be to
know you're entering into divine life and therefore, blessed are
the poor. Blessed are the me Blessed are those who
hunger in I'm sorry. Blessed are the sorrowful. Blessed are
(21:19):
those who hunger in thirst. In other words, you're entering
into true human development and flourishing through the New Law.
Because the law is not a written law or an
arbitrary law. According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, the new law
is the grace of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts,
receive through faith and working in charity. This is our
(21:42):
deification with our our cooperation is necessary because second Peter
one four that says, through the sacraments, in other words,
through the promises of Christ, you may become partakers of
the divine nature. The very next verse, second Peter one
to five says, therefore, supplement your faith with virtue. Make
(22:03):
every effort to supplement your faith with virtue. In other words,
now that God has given you grace and talents something
you didn't earn, you must develop it. To show your gratitude.
But it's not just to show your gratitude, it's already
a natural desire to develop in goodness. Deification overturns the
(22:26):
errors of nominalism, which are embedded in what became the
Protestant Revolution. It was a reformation with the priority of grace,
but once it denied the interiority of grace and its development,
it became a revolution filled with heresies leading people astray.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
It would seem like there's a kind of a paradox
here which maybe you can lucidate the nominalists in a
certain sense the powers of nature, for example, our natural
abilities to know God or no God's existence for reason.
(23:11):
And so in that sense they.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Were they were would they could you say they were
elevating grace or in divide, denying nature or but I'm
n interesting to be saying that they were. They were denied.
They were downgrading grace by their voluntaristic idea of commandments.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
I think, in their denial of how God's law is
working towards our development.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
And this is Survey's pink.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
Cares talked a lot about this, and in his works
the Dominican Swiss theologian talks.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
About this a lot in his works.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
But what they were trying to do was re establish
law on a new ground, law and obedience on a
new ground by which we didn't have to have debates
over law itself and over how grace or the virtues
or what development looks like. It was just more an
(24:08):
attempt in some of their minds to simplify discussions, and
I think we have to be careful of oversimplifying things.
We just have to take time to explain them. And
so they did undermine, ultimately a discussion on how God
is also inseparable from his wisdom, that God creates through
(24:33):
wisdom or logos, and I think there was a separation
that in their attempt to answer other issues, in their
attempt to in essence, what it was really about was
an attempt to defend God's freedom. Is what it began
with this idea of some people were seen as limiting
(24:56):
God in his freedom, and it was trying to re
establish God's absolute omnipotence and freedom. But it forgot it
also has to remember that God willingly in creating the world,
So even though he didn't have to create the world,
that in creating the world, God still creates the world
with wisdom, and so in an attempt to protect God's
(25:19):
dignity and its absolute freedom and answer hypothetical questions, it
came up with a system that ultimately rotted and undermined
the truth that Ratzinger called us back to his prefect
for the Congregation, the doctrine of the faith, and especially
in his Regensburg address as Pope. God creates through reason,
(25:43):
and therefore this world is reasonable, and we can detect
reason and come to a knowledge of God through the
things he has made. So that would be That's the
shortest answer I could give, and sorry for some of
the convolution.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
That was one great I find the edification in Saint
thomas appointments MHM, and I think you also can find
Mullifine references in in the Roman paths. Saran is being
to the humble myself to share our humanity. It doesn't
(26:19):
seem that the tusition of deification was foreign to the West,
but you're right to say that at certain point it
seemed to disappear. When did that happen to you?
Speaker 5 (26:32):
Provide?
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Yeah, thank you. So deification belongs to the West, for sure.
So certainly we have to remember the first seven ecumenical
councils were in the East and in Greek, not Latin,
and so those Greek fathers are our fathers in the West.
(27:00):
So deification absolutely belongs to the West thanks to the East.
And that tradition is seen very clearly in all the
Patristic tradition east and west. So if you want to
give the Patristic tradition through the first seven hundred or
eight hundred years of Christianity, deification belongs to it. You
(27:23):
see it NonStop even after that, in the beginning of
the Scholastic tradition. The entire Scholastic tradition is built upon it.
In fact, there's plenty of writings that demonstrate the entire
structure of the Suma is demonstrating how man becomes God
by grace, and there's a lot of articles on that.
(27:44):
Anna Williams wrote a book on this and her examinations
of Deification. She refers to the architectonic structure of the
suma itself and position questions. You watch then this teach
and continue tinuous to the councils of the Church on verification.
You see how strongly in the fourteenth century at Saint
(28:06):
Catherine of Sienna she's always quoting in her dialogue God
became Man, that man might become God, and she's emphasizing
the virtue. So notice wherever there's an emphasis on the
a virtue ethic, I want to say virtue ethic, I
mean one grounded first and foremost in the theological virtues
of faith, hope, and charity that enable man's transformation through faith,
(28:30):
hope and charity. You see that tradition carried in the
mystical tradition. Now it then carries from Saint Catherine of
Sienna into John of the Cross in the sixteenth century.
But after the Council of Trent, a tradition of training
priests in the seminaries begins, which is known as the
(28:51):
manualist tradition, and it tried to eliminate a lot of
the treatises of Saint Thomas Aquinas in order to simplify
Saint Thomas Aquinas's thought, in order to make confessional and
direction in the confessional and an understanding of how to
look at sin in relationship to commandments for the very
(29:12):
good of priests helping people in the confessional. But it
was at that point where the emphasis on commandments and
obedience to some degree there was an not sufficient emphasis
on the mystical tradition that what's primary to all of
this is, first and foremost, you are already a partaker
(29:34):
in the divine nature. You are already one who is
called to flourish through the gift you've received of faith, hope,
and charity, which is the new law. How that new
law is going to carry you deeper into in your
soul participation in the divine nature is a son of God,
male or female feelye is neutral, and so it's inclusive
(29:59):
of male and f femi. And so that tradition then
was re emphasized in the movement of the Patristic Revival,
the Patrictic Revival, which also reemphasized the Liturgical revival. This
then moves itself back into the writings in which the
(30:23):
attempt to recapture a following pink cares thought here overall,
maybe adding a few twists, but overall, after Leo the
thirteenth said, look, we need to re establishtimistic studies, people
began to realize in re establishing from Attorney Patrice the
encyclical of Leo the thirteenth, re establishing Saint Thomas aquinas
(30:44):
in our studies, people began to re establish that, wow,
we weren't connecting the treatises on Happiness and on the
virtues and on man's final end with our teachings and
law in such a way that we were giving the
full picture. And as that recovery came about, the Church
to some degree in its Second Vatican Council saw a
(31:06):
neo Patristic revival as intrinsic to recatechizing everyone to bring
everything back together. And that's where you see now, to
some degree this this unnecessary fighting between neo Scholastics and
neo Patristics over the Second Vatican Council. You need both,
you need both, and so because the neopatristic part is
(31:30):
a part of our history and so, but overall, I
think that's a vast overground of we've always taught verification.
The problem we lost some emphasis when we weren't sufficiently
emphasizing the neopatristic And that's why John Paul the Great said,
make the Catechism of the Catholic Church breathe with both
lungs of the church, and that's why it's loaded with
(31:53):
Patristic quotes.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Yeah, when I read Thomas on the Beat vision. For instance,
it's hard to see how and not he just uses
the term deification. But the very teaching on the vision
exists on deification, you know, because we normally know through
(32:18):
the forms as ourselves, as forms taken Him without matter,
reunited with those in our intellect. But but the Bere vision,
we're actually they don't take in the form of God.
It should just be it would not be God, we
taking God himself. There's a union of the intellect in
and God. If that's the case, there's a kind of
(32:38):
motive being which is communicated to the intellect which you
didn't have before. And I guess what you would be saying.
You would probably say in that case. In some ways,
the Betare vision also begins in a very complete sense
in this in our life now.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
So it's a little bit hard for me to hear
you right now, have my speaker turned all the way up,
and I apologize. But if I'm understanding your question, you're
you're asking more of where is Aquinas demonstrating in the
Summa deification?
Speaker 4 (33:10):
No, I just my point was, I don't think if
one follows Saint Thomas is teaching on the b To vision,
one can come to any other conclusion with deification.
Speaker 6 (33:21):
Oh yeah, So again to your point on his discussion
on the Beetivik vision, Saint Thomas Aquinas very much is
unique in the way he approaches deification. So deification itself,
in the words of Anna Williams, is absolutely pervasive in
(33:46):
the Summa theologia. And and what's unique about Aquinas's approach
and summary of the Patristic tradition since deification is intrinsically
about our sanctification being made holy. But being made holy
is something ontological. It's not merely an external imitation or
(34:13):
just following moral rules or moral conformity. It's first and
primarily through the ontological change that happens in us. And
so you're referring to the infusion of grace in the intellect,
the infusion of grace in the will.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
And so when you.
Speaker 6 (34:32):
Say that Aquinas's discussion of on the Betomic vision intrinsically
is inseparable from his deification, what's so unique is how
seamlessly Aquinas moves in the first part of the Suma
Question ninety three, Article three or article four. He moves
(34:54):
from nature because he says, we image God insofar as
we actually know him by nature, in other words, through
a posteriori reasoning.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
So it's by.
Speaker 6 (35:11):
Nature we image God in the act of knowing and
loving God according to nature, and then through grace, through
the act of knowing Him and loving Him through faith
and charity, likeness increases. And then the beatific vision, where
we actually know and love God through God's own nature.
(35:35):
And therefore he actually makes even more seamless than the
patristic tradition by pushing it all the way back into
how nature is already ordered to knowing and loving God.
And he makes the tradition of sanctification even more seamless
from nature to beatific vision. And so you rightly describe
it as the beatific vision is intrinsically dependent on deification.
(36:00):
In Aquinas's whole structure, is.
Speaker 7 (36:05):
There a difference between the terms deification and divinization and
is there any preference of one or over the other.
Speaker 6 (36:14):
I prefer deification, As one of my colleagues once said
to me, divinization sounds too much like divination. Yes, yes,
and therefore people are already struggling with who WHOA WHOA?
Speaker 5 (36:28):
I live in the twenty first century.
Speaker 6 (36:31):
Ever since the Mormons, we got to be real careful
about emphasizing we're not talking about what they're talking about,
because they're not talking about real participation. They're talking about
parallel development, absolute heresy. And so it's already bad enough
that now we have to explain it in light of
the New Age, which is heresy, in light of the Mormons,
(36:53):
which is heresy. And now you're using a word that
sounds like divination. It's for that which is for people
don't know what that's trying to contact the dead. So
I definitely prefer deification. And I always quote even the
Catechism when I say God became man that man, or
(37:14):
God became man that we might become God. I always
add the word by grace. But then the whole problem
is Protestants don't even understand grace. They see it as
an external change of God's favor towards you, not something
interior in you. And yet you have evangelicals who understand
the Holy Spirit's in you. It all just gets messy there.
(37:37):
So all the heresies have caused us a lot of work,
but it's the work we have to do. And so
no one can ever claim to be bored.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
In money generous by as the twelve emphasized that the
Order of Grace, as I understand it, was something that
was not due to man, but was theoretically at least,
you could have the hun rays existing without the Order
(38:06):
of Grace. Yes, in fact the case, how does that
tie him with everything.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
That you were saying?
Speaker 6 (38:14):
Well, this is a great question, and I love when
I get this question. You see, this brings us back
to nominalism. Nominalism was an effort to defend God's freedom,
making very clear that again God doesn't owe us anything.
(38:37):
In other words, that God creating us, God was absolutely
free in every way not to create us, which is
some of the emphasis on. You know, then by nature
God never lost his freedom. Well that's true because he's
totally free before he creates and so no, he doesn't
(38:59):
lose his freedom. And so this question comes up, Okay, well,
if God is totally free, then could you created a
world with intelligent beings that do not have the beetific
vision as their end or as their natural end? And
the question itself is a hypothetical that tests the question
(39:22):
of whether or not God is sovereign and free. And
so the answer to the question can God, which is
a hypothetical create a world in which an intelligent creature
does not have the beatific vision as his last end.
The answer is always yes, because the beetific vision is supernatural,
(39:45):
and therefore a natural desire cannot does not have to
be answered with the supernatural end. This is kind of
a summary, but the problem with the question is it's
a hypothetical in the order of the only reality we know.
(40:09):
God did make intelligent creatures with the supernatural end, and
so even though our natural desire doesn't require it, there's
something about our natural desire in the way that He
has so structured it that it was always according to
(40:30):
Ephesians chapter one, in which he says that God created
all things in view of Christ, that the only world
we know about, not any hypotheticals, is one in which
man was created with the supernatural end of.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
The Betavia vision.
Speaker 6 (40:51):
And so we have to separate the point of the
hypothetical question from the only reality and world we know,
and which Scripture tells us by revelation, our end was
always supernatural, even though by nature we have no power
to reach it. God in his wisdom so created this
(41:11):
world that he would achieve it in that greater mercy
and gift which was never owed to creatures of Jesus Christ,
so then when.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Applies to blood, was simply seeking to preserve the hypothetical
freedom of God.
Speaker 6 (41:34):
Well, yes, I think there were issues arising in which
people were so presenting theories of the incarnation or theories
of man's development. Perhaps he even had Tehar de Shardan
in the back of his mind on some of these
(41:54):
questions or issues, as though the Omega point was something natural.
I think to some degrees, he was giving clarity where
there was confusion with all of the new questions that
were being asked based on archaeology and anthropology and the
rapid development of the sciences that have been very shocking.
Speaker 5 (42:14):
To all of us.
Speaker 6 (42:16):
He was trying to remind us of we must keep
intact the distinction. What he's really keeping intact is a
distinction between the supernatural and the natural, and that the
natural has zero claim on the supernatural, which is restoring
the primacy of why we call grace a gift, because
if it's owed, it's not a gift, and that violates revelation,
(42:40):
and so he's protecting revelation itself. But the arguments too
often about this have not made enough of those distinctions
sometimes from the theologians that I've read on these matters,
and I think Karfara, Cardinal Kafara answered that. And I'm
following Cardinal Kafara's answer that he gave is where I'm
(43:03):
kind of developing it and repeating some of what he
said regarding that issue. He was the president of the
John Paul two Institute at its founding. We're covering a
vast cambinet of nature and grace on the happenenda.
Speaker 5 (43:23):
So buy my book on Deification.
Speaker 6 (43:25):
What was the title of it again, a kind of
chisis on Deification Transfiguration the Luminous Mysteries.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah. Probably, I'm sure you're familiar with the compilation that
came out, I think last year of some of the
Dominicans who were writing in the late forties Visa VI
the Nobel TAYLG.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
Yeah, that controversy.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
John John Kerwin edited it.
Speaker 6 (43:51):
Yes, there's obviously a great clash between the Jesuits and
the Dominicans, and so the pejorative nou velloteology from the
French journal that was not pleased with the Neopatristic revival
as somehow rivaling the Thumistic Revival and so it created
(44:17):
a bit of hard feelings and statements were made that
were that were not properly contextualized within the Jesuits and
some of the Patristic and some of these early writers
that were also trying to deal with existentialism of the
late nineteenth century into the early twentieth century. The existentialism
(44:38):
that was being dealt with as an attempt at faith
and reason as well was being mixed in with the
Neopatristic and angering the Dominicans for a lack of precision,
and so we did get a bit of Dominican presentations
highly critical of what they pejoraed if they call the
(44:59):
new ve theolog But resourcement is actually and truly coming
from John Henry Newman and the Anglican Patristic revival and
the Anglophone that was really affecting a lot of the
writings as well in the French world. Already this was
occurring amongst the German theologians as well, and so what
(45:20):
it was really about was a Patristic revival in the
midst of a Neo Scholastic revival. And so those wars
between the neo Scholastics and the Neopatristics played out pretty
heavily in the nineteen twenties and thirties and culminated with
some statements in humanity generous. But then you saw it
(45:41):
Vatican two. Some of the very paritists or pariti, I
should say in the plural, they're certainly being recognized for
their work and attempt to reach the culture in the
mix of Marxist revolutions, the loss of church and state,
and the former kingdoms that no longer exist since World
(46:02):
War One and World War Two, and so we're all
having to do that hard work which the Second Vatican Council,
the and the Catechism, the Catholic Church. I do say
we had a pretty big hiccup in Pope Francis, causing
a lot of unnecessary antagonisms by statements he made. And
so I'm hoping Leo will help re establish us on
(46:25):
that proper recognition of all the treasure of the Church,
old and new. The wise man takes from his storm
mouse the storehouse the best of the old and best
of the new, And so we continue that work of
the Holy Spirit of bringing people to know Jesus Christ
and Spirit in a truth. So I hope this book
(46:47):
is a part.
Speaker 5 (46:47):
Of that.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yes, I think so well, shifting gears. When you teach undergraduates,
you introduce this concept and what kind of response do
you Yet.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
I absolutely do.
Speaker 6 (47:10):
It's been a while since I bring it in, particularly
when I am more now so I used to in
the introductory courses. I've been teaching more of the Old
Testament and the New Testament, and so in my attempt
to synthesize the Old and the New Testament in the
discussions we have when we have a semester on the
(47:30):
Old Testament, when we have a semester on the New Testament,
as part of our core, I do bring in deification
and so as a concept I work through in the
same way I discuss it here the relationship of nature
and grace. I use a lot of images, particularly as
I do in the book. It helps people grasp that
(47:53):
what God is always trying to do is to save humans.
And we already see this in the Mystery of Moses
on Mount Sinai. When Moses goes into the Glory Cloud,
he comes out radiating the Divine light, which is what
we see happening in a more powerful way with Jesus
Christ of the Transfiguration. So I make a lot of
those connections for them. And then I make a lot
(48:15):
of the connections of the Church's teachings on the relationship
of nature and grace, and how God is always trying
to bring creatures to partake in his divine nature, how
God is always trying to move what is temporal to
be saved in the eternal, eternal life itself. And that
I teach the seven days of Creation and even the
(48:39):
meaning of the Seventh Day in light of deification, because
because the tradition of all the Church fathers, the tradition
has always been man was made in view of being deified.
That was always God's plan in Christ, per the first
chapter of Ephesians and per the first chapter of Colossi.
(49:00):
It's super clear. And it's also clear that the Church,
in the Patristic tradition and even the composition of John's Gospel,
the Church itself is always the new creation that God
was working towards in the first Creation. That the first
(49:23):
creation existed to bring us into the new creation, which
is the Church, the true Jerusalem, the true Israel of God.
And so I try to show this movement not just
of the seamless development of individual human from nature to
grace to beatific vision. But the whole human race from
(49:46):
its prehistory two modern times is a movement of God
trying to develop us into the great mystery of Jesus Christ.
And so it's absolutely something I bring in and even
with parishes, even parishes that I don't know how much
(50:08):
background people have it, I'll go in and I'll use
the luminous mysteries, which which to some degree are centered
on the Transfiguration and the Eucharist. Ultimately, I would argue
towards those points, showing that we understand deification, especially through
the mystery of the Transfiguration.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
And have you found that the what kind of response
do you get either from your students or from when
you think in parishes.
Speaker 6 (50:41):
It's difficult because living in American culture, which is heavily Protestant,
our culture, whether or not, I mean, we're a lot
of devout Catholics, but we forget how heavily the culture music, TV, Internet,
and if you don't know it, the vast majority of kids,
(51:04):
young kids preteen into their thirties or playing video games
more than watching movies because the video games are like movies.
Every aspect of culture you can define is a Western
postmodern culture that's still built on an American Enlightenment culture,
(51:27):
a heavily Masonic and Protestant culture, bringing in the mystical,
bringing in deification. Our culture is built a nominalism, an
opposition between God's law and human development. Breaking through all
(51:49):
of that takes time, and we're so dependent on the
Holy Spirit. So we got to pray for ourselves to
teach it, pray for the people to receive it, and
pray for the people afterwards that the seeds God permitted
us to plant will grow and develop, because the only
immunity to this culture of death is planting those seeds
(52:09):
and helping them grow and nourishing them and getting people
to pray with the expectation of God developing and sharing
more fully his life within him, which develops as we
grow in the virtues, when we grow in the virtues
through the infused virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and
so as you can imagine, depending on where people are
(52:31):
in their knowledge of the Church Fathers, I've met with
groups of people reading the book who are just like,
oh my gosh, I'm nervous. I know that this is
right or true, but I'm really nervous if I'm allowed
to kind of accept this teaching because I never hear
it in my own parish, and I kind of think
to myself, I know people are afraid to teach it
(52:53):
because it can be misunderstood. But if you don't teach it,
are people ever going to have enough foundation to have
a proper worldview? That the whole point of our existence,
which has always been the great philosophical question, all the
way back to Socrates, all the way to the dialogues
(53:14):
of Plato and the timaeis how does God bring time
into eternity? Well, Genesis was answering that already with Moses
in the Seven Days of Creation. We're always about the
question of how time is brought into eternity. The Covenant
with Moses, building on the promises to Abraham, are about
how does God bring time into eternity. If we don't
(53:36):
re establish a firmer philosophical grounding and a better worldview,
we're going to remain postmodern divided tribes. This is biblically
what unites the whole Bible, and philosophically, which unites the
whole wisdom tradition and philosophical tradition of the whole world.
Deification is the framework for pretty much everything. And I'm
(53:57):
not saying that just because I write about it. I
write about it because it's true.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
Yeah, I would think that.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
It would because especially if someone's trying to preach about
it who doesn't have the background that you do. I mean,
I don't know to what extent in seminaries is it emphasized,
do you know?
Speaker 6 (54:23):
I think because a lot of this work gets popularized,
and because it's appearing in journals and it's appearing likewise
in reaching pastors and reaching educators and seminaries. I do
think thanks to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, thanks
(54:44):
to the Neopatristic Revival exposing us more fully to the
Greek Fathers, and especially the encyclicals of John Paul the
Great of Benedict the sixteenth, even Pope Francis efforts to
reach the UH the Eastern Churches, both the Catholic and
Orthodox Eastern Churches. I think there's been a lot of
(55:07):
progress made. I have to believe Leo is really well educated.
As an Augustinian, he's gonna get the Patristics, and as
an Augustinian, he understands himself as the foundation for ptomism.
The found the Dominican Order is based on the rule
of Saint Augustine. I think there's a lot of great
hope for all of this right now. We just need
(55:31):
we need all the tribalism to especially seek the Holy
Spirit and what the Holy Spirit wants us to do
to build Jesus Christ into the souls of everyone we meet,
that Jesus Christ may be better known and loved. And
that's why I believe Mary's the answer. And I try
(55:52):
to ground all of this teaching when meditating on the
luminous Mysteries of the Rosary.
Speaker 5 (55:57):
So I'm gonna plug the book again, and that.
Speaker 6 (55:59):
Is a catechisis on deification, transfiguration and the luminous mysteries.
That the luminous mysteries are a gift by John Paul
the Great that really helps re establish overall when we
meditate on it, the mystery of our deification, because you
can't meditate on that transfiguration without understanding that's the Kingdom
(56:22):
of God. The Kingdom of God is put in our souls.
It's not first an external kingdom of rules. It's the
rule of Jesus Christ living in our soul. Because according
to Thomas Aquinas. Again, the new law is the grace
of the Holy Spirit. It's only secondarily a written law. Again,
that's Thomas Aquinas. The new Law is the grace of
(56:44):
the Holy Spirit. It's only secondarily a written law.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
There's been alone talk lately about the.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Modern West either needing enchantment or seeking in.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
And I'm sure you're familiar with a lot of it
is all over the map. I mean, some of it
is new AA.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
So it is right question of one sort or another,
not always well focused or well informed. It strikes me
that what you were saying about dentification fit's right into this.
Speaker 6 (57:19):
It does, but this is the danger sometimes with it.
And I saw a good article on Catholic culture about
this as well. I think Thomas Maris address seeing a
lot of traditionalists to some degree. He was saying that
for some reason, I was seeing a lot of a
lot of these writers falling into a neo paganism enchantment
(57:44):
with ritual and he was shocked by some of this.
And I'll avoid making some of the criticisms he made
because I'm not as prepared to make statements about it.
And this is where the importance of what I'm.
Speaker 5 (57:58):
Saying is.
Speaker 6 (58:01):
I'm trying to recover Neopatristic to supplement the right way
to read Thomas Aquinas, who is basically doing a neo
patristic resourcement in his time in a synthesis with Aristotle,
(58:21):
because he's rebuilding after the Crusades and the knowledge of
Aristotle coming back into the West. He's taking Augustine and
the greatness of Augustine, who's the greatest church father of
the West, and he's resynthesizing the philosophers, particularly Aristotle, with
(58:45):
the church fathers in faithfulness to sacred Scripture. And what's
absolutely essential is keeping that distinction between nature and grace.
And too many people do not keep the proper distinction
between nature and grace, where they're trying to a re
enchantment with the wonder and mysticism of the ancient world
(59:06):
which truly actually culminated because it was purified by Jesus
Christ and establishing the truth of monotheism. And there's a
real distinction between the supernatural and the natural. That our
rituals are not superstition, Our rituals are not what accomplishes everything.
(59:26):
It is faith in Jesus Christ that gives power to
the ritual. Now, certainly I understand ex opra operata, but
that's dealing with the configuration of the soul having received
the character of the ministerial priesthood by which sacraments work,
(59:47):
by the work worked. But our rituals don't work because
the rituals, but because they are instruments Jesus Christ through
which He works in the minister of the sacrament. And
so there's an issue there about enchantment, and so I
(01:00:10):
just wanted to add some of that background to it.
And I'm not sure how familiar some people are with
some of what's happening with our attempts at re enchantment,
but I do agree deification is absolutely the part of
waking up in people's minds. Your destiny is not just
about following Christ's rules, but understanding that Christ is communicating
(01:00:31):
and sharing here and now a real divinity in your
soul from which your works now have value, because without that,
your works have no value. So that's what Protestants misunderstand,
and that's where Catholics who speak about works need to
speak rightly about their works, their works in Christ, which
(01:00:51):
is why they have value, which is why there's a
movement from image to likeness because in the exercise of
the grace, our talents develop through the grace.
Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
This is I think maybe maybe another another show just.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Devoted to this enchantment issue, Andrew Christopher, where our time
is almost up? Do you have anything you want to
bring up?
Speaker 5 (01:01:16):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
But I do think, I do think that you're right
about the dangers of enchantment because it gives a false
surms of mysticism. I'm somewhat familiar. I've been reading a
little bit about it lately, and it's it's kind of
shocking some of the ways that we don't even read
an article that claims that we have no holy water
in our church is because we're not using the traditional
(01:01:39):
form of blessing. And I mean completely misunderstanding that. It's
it's the sacramentals work by the you know, the intercession
of the church. Right, But it's those words, those Latin words.
There's no there's no exorcism now, so therefore it can't
be holy water.
Speaker 6 (01:02:00):
Right, that's so important, Meaning I do find people in
other words, there's a beauty to the Latin. But there's
become this aspect where if it's not in Latin, somehow
something is invalid and so instead of remembering that our
rights and rituals are are are and again there's so
(01:02:21):
many distinctions that would need to be made. But I
see people making these claims in exorcisms that that that
they're less effective because they're not being done in Latin
as though in other words, sacramentals are are dependent on
the faith of the church. Sacramentals are dependent and forgive me,
I'm not trying. I mean to understand, I need a
lot of correction and even nuance in what I'm saying
(01:02:42):
in it because I'm saying it so quickly. But the
point being, it's also dependent on terrorisms and the faith
of the person who is doing such things. That's why
Saint Catherine Sienna was one of the greatest exorcists of
her time. Where other exorcists were failing, they'd bring them
to Saint. She wasn't a priest for all I know,
she was just praying an Italian. I'd have to research that.
(01:03:06):
But we're dealing with terrorisms and issues of holiness and
faith when it comes to sacramentos, it's not the language
that you use. So yeah, I think that's an important
thing amongst what might be called a traditionalist or traditionalism movement.
Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
Well, thank you, thank you very much. As a techniquas
for period day. I think it was a very interesting
discussion and maybe we could have a further discussion at
some point about the enchantment question, which I think is aguary.
Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
Christopher is very interesting, in parts of it very disturbing.
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Why don't we end up with a Mari to our
blessed mother and the mothers and the most spirited men,
Mari full of bridge. The Lord is with thee listen,
are dealing among women, and blessed is the furtherly, wom Jesus.
Speaker 5 (01:04:00):
All the Mother of God pray for.
Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
Thank you very much, appreciate today.
Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Hello, God's beloved. I'm Annabel Moseley, author, professor of theology,
and host of then Sings My Soul and Destination Sainthood
on WCAT Radio. I invite you to listen in and
find inspiration along this sacred journey. We're traveling together to
make our lives a masterpiece and with God's grace, become saints.
(01:04:37):
Join me Annabel Moseley for then Sings My Soul and
Destination Sainthood on WCAT Radio. God bless you. Remember you
are never alone. God is always with you.
Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
Thank you for listening to a production of WCAT Radio Plea.
Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Please join us in our mission of evangelization, and don't
forget Love lifts up where knowledge takes flight.
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