Deification
“Self-deification [through culture] is not life-giving but . . . death-bringing.” (Vigen Guroian)
“…the whole of our journey through life will be a continuous war between two persons. One wants to deify their feelings, to deify their nature, to justify the right of the strong to satisfy their desires, even if this is at the expense of other people, like the big fish eating smaller ones (where the ‘big fish’ is someone who’s in a sound position financially, socially and bodily, someone who associates and acts in concert with others of like mind and bends other people to their own wishes through power, authority or manipulation); and the other one invokes divine laws, commandments; not love, but formalism and proper behavior, in order to demonstrate their superiority and to feel that they deserves God’s favor. This warfare either distances us from heaven or makes us feel religiously self-reliant… in this war, there can be no peace without the person of Christ. Christ is the victor over death. We who had been defeated by the bodily and, especially, spiritual death of self-deification were thus reconciled to God; and He also did away with the smugness of those who observed the Mosaic law, those who thought that God was their own and denied His image in others, in foreigners and pagans.” (Protopresbyter Themistoklis Mourtzanos)
“Since human nature was altered by the fall, God the Word became man in order to heal mortal and corruptible human nature in himself by uniting it with immortality and incorruptibility. Through the incarnation, the infinite God has shown that an inseparable union between God and man is perfectly normal, natural, and fitting for a human being. In the God-man, God becomes man and man becomes God. Hence, the incarnation itself reveals that salvation is nothing less than deification in Christ or union with God. As the incarnation naturally points toward deification, it also gives meaning and purpose to every aspect of human existence.” (Bishop Alexis Trader)
“In repentance, through self-knowledge, we attain purification. Recognition of our sins brings us to a state of awareness, that is, to acknowledgement of the error of sin and leads us to condemn ourselves for deviating from the path of deification in the likeness of God. In this way, the heart is contrite and the progress of our human nature in God is naturally and easily restored. The remedy against sin is awareness of our own personal mistakes, at whatever level these have been committed. Given this, repentance acquires significance in its essential dimension, as the return from what is unnatural to the natural perfection in God. In other words, it is the path from the image to the likeness of God.” (Vasilios Grillas)
“…the wall between the sacred and profane has come down in and because of the incarnation of God the Word. The sacredness of all of God’s creation has been revealed in Christ the God incarnate – creation is capable of being united to God. Thus, a dualistic separation between sacred and secular no longer makes sense. The God-given holiness and goodness of creation is revealed in and through the sacraments. Consequently, all of God’s people participate in the priesthood of all believers. God is experienced as revealing Himself through creation, reuniting the cosmos with the Creator. The incarnation of God and the deification of humans is the same event – it is in fact, our salvation.” (Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Fr. Ted Bobosh)
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