THEOSIS-The true porpouse of human life

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Theosis and the Church


What a great blessing that we commune through the immaculate Mysteries! Christ be-comes ours; the life of Christ becomes ours; His blood becomes our blood. St. John Chrysostom says that God has nothing more to give man than what he gives him in Holy Communion. Man cannot ask anything more of God than what he receives from Christ in Holy Communion.So, being baptised, chrismated, confessing, we commune through the Body and Blood of the Lord, and we too become gods by Grace; we unite with God; we are no longer strangers, for we have become familiar with God.Inside the Church in which we unite with God, we live this new reality which Christ brought to the world: the new creation. This is the life of the Church, of Christ, which becomes ours as a gift from the Holy Spirit.Everything in the Church leads to Theosis; the Holy Liturgy, the Mysteries, divine Wor-ship, the Gospel sermon, the fasting; all of these lead to this one thing. The Church alone is the place of Theosis.
The Church is not a social, cultural, or historical organisation, and does not resemble other organisations in the world. It is not like the different establishments of the world. The world has fine institutions, fine organisations, fine establishments and other fine things, but our Orthodox Church is the unrepeatable, the sole place for the communion of God with man, for the Theosis of man. Only within the Church can man become a god,and nowhere else: not in universities; not in social services; not in any of the fine and good things that the world has. None of these are able to offer what the Church offers, however good they may be.No matter how much worldly institutions and systems progress, they can never replace the Church.It is possible that we weak and sinful men go through crises and difficulties from time to time within the Church. It is possible for scandals to happen in the bosom of the Church. All these happen in the Church because we are as yet on the way to Theosis, and it is very natural that human weaknesses still exist. We are becoming gods, but not yet. So no matter how often these things occur, we will not leave the Church, because within the Church we have the only possibility to unite with God.For example, when we go to Church to attend the service, we may meet people there who do not pay attention to the holy service; who hold conversations and distract our attention. Then along comes a seemingly reasonable thought which says: “What do you gain by coming to Church? Might it not be better to sit at home and pray in greater peace and comfort?”How ever,we must contradict this evil thought with discretion: “Yes, perhaps I will have more outward peace at home, but I will not have God’s Grace to deify and sanctify me. I will not have Christ, Who is present in His Church. I will not have His Holy Body and His precious Blood, which are on the holy Altar in His holy Church. I will not partake in the Last Supper of the Holy Liturgy. I will be cut off from my fellow brethren in Christ, together with whom we form Christ’s body.”So, whatever may happen, we will not leave the Church, because only within it do we find the path to Theosis.

 
Delija said:
The Church: The Place of Man’s Theosis

Those who wish to unite with Jesus Christ, and, through Christ, with God the Father, recognise that this union is realised in the body of Christ, which is our Holy Orthodox Church. Of course, this Union is not with the Divine essence but with the deified human nature of Christ. But this union with Christ is not external, nor is it simply moral.We are not followers of Christ in the way that one might perhaps follow a philosopher or

a teacher. We are members of Christ’s body, theChurch. The Church is the body of Christ, the real body, not a moral one, as some mistaken theologians have written, not having looked deeply enough into the spirit of the Holy Church. Despite our unworthiness and sinfulness, Christ

takes us Christians and incorporates us into His body. He makes us members of Himself. We become real members of Christ, not just followers of a code of morality. As the Apostle Paul puts it, “We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” (Ephesians 5:30).
Certainly, depending on the spiritual state of Christians, they are sometimes living members of Christ’s body, at other times they are dead. Even as dead members, we still do not cease to be members of Christ’s body. For example, someone who is baptised has become a member of Christ’s body. If he does not confess, does not take Communion, does not live a spiritual life, he is a dead member of Christ’s body, but when he repents, he immediately receives di-vine life. This permeates him and he becomes a living member of Christ’s body. Someone like this does not need to be re-baptised. Someone who has never been baptised, however, is not a member of Christ’s body even if he lives a moral life according to human standards. In order to become a member of Christ’s body, in order to be incorporated into Christ, he needs to be baptised.Since we are members of Christ’s body, Christ’s life is offered to us and becomes our life. So we are enlivened, saved, and deified, yet we could not be deified if Christ did not make us members of His body; we could not be saved if the Holy Mysteries of the Church did not exist. These make us one body with Christ, and as, according to the Church Fathers, we share the same body and the same blood as Christ... we are in fact one body and one blood with Christ.
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You can copy and paste other people's writings all day long.
By the way, when you do that without citing the author/source,
which you have repeatedly, it's called plagiarism, which is stealing.

Your religion is works-based voodoo-like mysticism.
For every page you copy and paste to explain it,
I could copy and paste one that refutes it.
You can't use the Bible alone to justify it, because it's not in there.
 
Huckleberry said:
You can copy and paste other people's writings all day long.
By the way, when you do that without citing the author/source,
which you have repeatedly, it's called plagiarism, which is stealing.

Your religion is works-based voodoo-like mysticism.
For every page you copy and paste to explain it,
I could copy and paste one that refutes it.
You can't use the Bible alone to justify it, because it's not in there.
Click to expand...

I understand your concerns over this what am posting here.But u must understand me.Me as a person which is deeply in sin,do not know how Holy Fathers of the Church understood Faith.That is why i must copy and past.But let this be useful for everyone,you and me.
On the other side,maybe it would be much better if u could find those pages and give response on the teaching of Holy Fathers on Theosis,that we all could see how deeply are they,or they are just wasting of time which we will spent reading them.
It would be much better then to give such response which have no sense.It spiritual level is so low that it do not need any response.
 
Delija said:
On the other side,maybe it would be much better if u could find those pages and give response on the teaching of Holy Fathers on Theosis,that we all could see how deeply are they,or they are just wasting of time which we will spent reading them.
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Here's one of your problems right here.
There are no "Holy Fathers".
You may call them that, but they are not worthy such a title.

That phrase is used once in the entire Bible,
when Christ was praying in the garden of Gethsemane.
For any man on this Earth to assume that title is, in my opinion, blasphemy.

John 17:
[SUP]1[/SUP] These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
[SUP]2[/SUP] As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
[SUP]3[/SUP] And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
[SUP]4[/SUP] I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
[SUP]5[/SUP] And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
[SUP]6[/SUP] I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.
[SUP]7[/SUP] Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
[SUP]8[/SUP] For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
[SUP]9[/SUP] I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
[SUP]10[/SUP] And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.
[SUP]11[/SUP] And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
[SUP]12[/SUP] While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
[SUP]13[/SUP] And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
[SUP]14[/SUP] I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
[SUP]15[/SUP] I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
[SUP]16[/SUP] They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
[SUP]17[/SUP] Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
[SUP]18[/SUP] As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
[SUP]19[/SUP] And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
[SUP]20[/SUP] Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
[SUP]21[/SUP] That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
[SUP]22[/SUP] And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
[SUP]23[/SUP] I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
[SUP]24[/SUP] Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
[SUP]25[/SUP] O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
[SUP]26[/SUP] And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
 
About what do u speaking of man and why u acting as a child?I think that everyone here understand and know who are Holy Fathers and that they do not represent God.
Am telling u,start with serious conversation.
 
Theosis is possible through the uncreated energies of God

According to the teachings of the Holy Bible and the Fathers of the Church, man is able to achieve Theosis because within the Orthodox Church of Christ the Grace of God is uncreated. God is not only essence, as the West thinks; He is also energy. If God was only essence, we could not unite with Him, could not commune with Him, because the essence of God is awesome and unapproachable for man,

as was written: “Never will man see My face and live” (Exodus 33:20).
Let us give a relevant example from things human. If we grasp a bare electric wire, we will die. However, if we connect a lamp to the same wire, we are illuminated. We see, enjoy, and are assisted by, the energy of electric current, but we are not able to grasp its essence. Let us say that something similar happens with the uncreated energy of God.If we were able to unite with the essence of God, we would become gods in essence. Then everything would become a god, and there would be confusion so that, essentially, nothing would be a god. In a few words, this is what they believe in the Oriental religions, e.g. in Hinduism, where the god is not a personal existence but an indistinct power dispersed through all the world, in men, in animals, and in objects (Pantheism).


Again, if God had only the divine essence of which we cannot partake– and did not have His energies, He would remain a self-sufficient god, closed within himself and unable to communicate with his creatures.

God, according to the Orthodox theological view, is One in a Trinity and a Trinity in One. As St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and other holy Fathers repeatedly say, God is filled with a divine eros, a divine love for His creatures. Because of this infinite and ecstatic love of His, He comes out of Himself and seeks to unite with them. This is expressed and realised as His energy, or better, His energies.

With these, His uncreated energies, Godcreated the world and continues to preserve it. He gives essence and substance to our world through His essence-creating energies. He is present in nature and preserves the universe with His preserving energies; He illuminates man with His illuminating energies; He sanctifies him with His sanctifying energies. Finally, He deifies him with His deifying energies. Thus, through his uncreated energies, holy God enters nature, the world, history, and human life.The energies of God are divine energies. They too are God, but without being His essence. They are God, and therefore they can deify man. If the energies of God were not divine and uncreated, they would not be God and so they would be unable to deify us, to unite us with God. There would be an unbridgeable distance between God and men. But as God has the divine energies, and unites with us by these energies, we are able to commune with Him and to unite with His Grace without becoming identical with God, as would happen if we united with His essence.So we unite with God through His uncreated energies, and not through His essence. This is the mystery of our Orthodox faith and life.
Western heretics cannot accept this. Being rationalists, they do not discern between the essence; and the energy of God, so they say that they cannot speak about man’s Theosis because God is only essence, for on this basis, how can man be deified when they do not accept that the divine energies are uncreated, but regard them as created? How can something created deify man, i.e. how can something outside God deify man?

 
In order not to fall into pantheism, they do not talk about Theosis at all. What then, according to them, remains as the purpose of human life? Simply moral improvement. If man cannot be deified with divine Grace and divine energies, what purpose does his life have? Only that he becomes morally better. But moral perfection is not enough for man. It is not enough for us simply to become better than before, simply to perform moral deeds. We have as our final aim to unite with holy God Himself. This is the purpose of the creation of the universe. This is what we desire. This is our joy, our happiness, and our fulfillment.
The psyche of man, who is created in the image and likeness of God, yearns for God and desires union with Him. No matter how moral,how good man may be, no matter how many good deeds he may perform, if he does not find God, if he does not unite with Him, he finds no rest. For holy God placed within him this holy thirst, the divine eros, the desire for union with Him, for Theosis, so he has in himself the erotic power, which he receives from his Creator, in order to love truly, strongly, selflessly... just as his holy Creator falls in love with His world, with His creatures. This is so that with this holy erotic impetus and loving power, he falls in love with God. If man did not have the image of God in himself, he would not be able to seek its prototype. Each of us is an image of God and God is our prototype. The image seeks the prototype, and only when it finds it does it find rest.
 
St. Gregory Palamas and the energies of God

In the fourteenth century, there was a great upheaval in the Church which was provoked by a Western monk, Barlaam. He heard that Athonite monks talked about Theosis. He was informed that, after much struggle, cleansing of the passions, and much prayer, they became worthy to unite with God, to have experience of God, to see God. He heard that they saw the uncreated light which the holy Apostles had seen during the Transfiguration of our Saviour Christ on Mount Tabor.But Barlaam, having the Western, hereti-cal, rationalistic spirit, was unable to perceive the authenticity of these divine experiences of the humble monks, so he began to accuse theAthonite monks as though it was they who were deluded, heretical; as though they were the idolaters. Because he knew nothing about the difference between the essence and the uncreated energy of God, he said that it is impossible for someone to see the Grace of God.Then, God’s Grace revealed a great and enlightened teacher of our Church, the Athonite St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessa-loniki. With much wisdom and enlightenment from God, but also from his personal experience, he said and wrote much which taught, in agreement with the holy Scriptures and the Holy Tradition of the Church, that the light of God’s Grace is uncreated; that it is a divine energy, so that in fact deified men see this light as the ultimate, the highest experience of Theosis; and they are seen within this light of God. This is the glory of God, His splendour, the light of Mount Tabor, the light of Christ’s Resurrection and of Pentecost, and the bright cloud of the Old Testament. It is the real uncreated light of God, and not symbolic, as Barlaam and others who thought like him believed in their delusion.


To continue, in three great Synods at Constantinople the whole Church justified St. Gregory Palamas, declaring that life in Christ is not simply the moral edification of man, but his Theosis, and that this means participation in God’s glory, a vision of God, of His Grace and His uncreated light.We owe great gratitude to St. Gregory Palamas because, with the illumination he received from God, with his experience and his theology, he expressed the eternal experience of the Church, and so gave us the teaching concerning the Theosis of man. A Christian is not a Christian simply because he is able to talk about God. He is a Christian because he is able to have experience of God. And just as, when you really love someone and converse with him,you feel his presence, and you enjoy his presence, so it happens in man’s communion with God: there exists not a simple external relationship, but a mystical union of God and man in the Holy Spirit.Until now, Westerners have considered that divine Grace, or the energy of God, is something created. Unfortunately, this is one of the many differences which must be seriously taken into consideration in theological dialogues with the Roman Catholics. It is not only the filioque, the primacy of power, and the “infallibility” of the Pope which are basic differences between the Orthodox Church and the Papists. It is also the above. If the Roman Catholics do not accept that the Grace of God is uncreated, we cannot unite with them even if they accept all the other points. For who is able to effect Theosis if divine Grace is a creation and not an uncreated energy of the All-Holy Spirit?
 
Qualifications for Theosis

The holy Fathers certainly say that within the Church we can attain Theosis. But at the same time they say Theosis is a gift from God, it is not something we can attain on our own. Of course, we must desire, struggle, and prepare ourselves so that we are worthy, capable, and receptive enough to accept and guard this great gift from God, since God does not wish to do anything to us without our freedom, but at the same time, Theosis is a gift of God; so therefore the holy Fathers say, on the one hand, that we undergo Theosis, and on the other hand, that God acts in Theosis.From this we discern certain qualifications that are necessary on the path of man to Theosis. These are:

1) Humility

According to the holy Fathers, the first necessary qualification is humility. Without blessed humility, man cannot be put on the right course for Theosis, cannot accept the divine Grace and so unite with God. Simply to acknowledge that Theosis is the purpose of our life demands humility, because without humility, how will you acknowledge that the purpose of your life is outside yourself; that it is in God?So long as man lives egocentrically, anthropocentrically, autonomously, he places himself the centre and purpose of his own life. He believes that he can be perfected by his own efforts; defined by his own efforts; deified by his own efforts. This is the spirit of contemporary civilisation, contemporary philosophy,contemporary politics: to create an even better world, even more just, but to do this autonomously, by oneself; to create a world which will have man at its centre with no reference to God; with no acknowledgement that God is the source of all good. This is the fault that Adam committed, believing that, with only his own powers, he could become God, could complete himself. The fault of Adam is one that all humanistic creeds make throughout all the ages. They do not consider that communion with God is indispensable for the completion of man.Everything Orthodox is theanthropically centred; its centre is the God-Man Christ. Everything that is not Orthodox has this common denominator: its centre is man, whether it is Protestantism, Papism, Freemasonry, Millenarianism (Jehovah’s Witness), atheism, or whatever else is outside Orthodoxy. For us, the centre is the God-Man Christ. This means it is easy for someone to become a heretic, a Millenarianist (Jehovah’s Witness), a Mason or whatever else, but it is difficult to become an Orthodox Christian. To become an Orthodox Christian, you must first accept that the centre of the world is not yourself but Christ.Thus, the beginning of the path towards Theosis is humility, i.e. that we acknowledge that the purpose of our life is outside us; that it is with our Father, our Maker and Creator.Humility is needed to see that we are sick, that we are full of weaknesses and passions.Again, to persist on this path, someone who begins the path of Theosis must have constant humility, for if he accepts the thought that he manages perfectly well just by using his own powers, then pride enters him; he loses what he has gained and must start again from the beginning;to become humble, to see his weakness, his human sickness, and learn not to rely on himself. In order to find himself continuously on the path of Theosis, he needs to depend on the Grace of God.
Therefore, in the lives of the saints, their great humility impresses us. While they were near God, they shone within the light of God; they were miracle-workers; they gave off myrrh; yet at the same time they believed about themselves that they were very lowly, very far from God, that they were the worst of men. It was this humility of theirs that made them gods by Grace.


 
2) Asceticism

The holy Fathers also tell us that Theosis hasstages. It begins from the lowest and progresses to the highest. Once we have humility, in order to become cleansed from the passions we start our asceticism by applying the holy command-ments of Christ, beginning our daily struggle in

with repentance and much patience. The holy Fathers say that within His commandments God himself lies hidden. When a Christian observes them out of love and faith in Christ, then he unites with Him.According to the holy Fathers, this first stage of Theosis is also called “praxis.” This is practical guidance given at the start of the path towards Theosis.

Naturally, this is not at all easy, because the struggle to uproot the passions from within us is great. Much effort is required, so that gradually our inner wasteland is cleansed from the thorns and stones of the passions so that it can be cultivated spiritually, and so that the seed of God’s logos may fall and bear fruit. Great and continuous effort towards ourselves is necessary for all this. Therefore the Lord said that “the Kingdom of God suffers violence, so the violent seize it” (Matthew 11:12). And again, the holy Fathers teach us: “give blood and receive Spirit,” i.e. you cannot receive the Holy Spirit if you do not give the blood of your heart to the struggle to cleanse yourself from the passions, in order to repent really and in depth, and in order to acquire the virtues.
All the virtues are aspects of the one great virtue, the virtue of love. When a Christian acquires love, he has all the virtues. It is love that expels the prime cause of all the evils and all the passions from the psyche of man. This cause, according to the holy Fathers, is selfishness. All the evils within us spring from selfishness, which is a diseased love for one’s own self. This is the reason why our Church has asceticism. Without asceticism, there is no spiritual life, no struggle, and no progress. We obey, fast, keep vigil, labour with prostrations, and stand upright, all so that we may be cleansed of our passions. If the Orthodox Church ceases to be ascetical, it ceases to be Orthodox, because then it ceases to help man rid himself of his passions in order to become gods by Grace.
The Church Fathers developed a great and profound anthropological teaching on the psyche and the passions of man. According to them, in the psyche you can distinguish intelligent and passible parts. The passible, again, comprises passionate and desiring parts. The intelligent part contains the reasoning powers of the psyche; the thoughts and cognitive powers. The passionate parts are the positive and negative emotions; love and hate. The desiring part contains the good desires of the virtues and the bad desires for pleasure; for enjoyment, avarice, gluttony, the worship of the flesh and the carnal passions. Unless these three parts of the psyche, the intelligent, the passionate, and the desiring, are cleansed, man cannot receive the Grace of God within himself,and cannot be deified. The intelligent part is cleansed by watchfulnes swhich is the continuous guarding of the nousfrom thoughts, keeping the good thoughts and rejecting the bad. The passionate part, again, is cleansed by love. Finally, the desiring part is cleansed by self-control. All these parts are both cleansed and sanctified by prayer.

 
The Holy Mysteries and Prayer

Christ installs Himself in the heart of manthrough the Holy Mysteries: Holy Baptism, Chrismation, Holy Confession and the Divine Eucharist. Those Orthodox Christians who are in communion with Christ have God and His Grace within them, in their hearts, because they have been baptised, chrismated, have confessed and have received Holy Communion.The passions cover Divine Grace as ashes bury a spark. Through asceticism and prayer, the heart is cleansed of the passions, the spark of Divine Grace is rekindled, and the faithful Christian feels Christ in his heart; the centre of his existence.Every prayer of the Church helps to cleanse the heart, but the so-called prayer of a single-phrase, also known as noetic prayer or prayer of the heart, is particularly helpful: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This prayer,which has always been handed down on the Holy Mountain, has the following advantage: because it is only one sentence it helps us to concentrate our nous more easily. Concentrating our nous, we immerse it in our heart, and then pay attention to make sure it is not busy there with other things and ideas, good or bad; that it is busy only with God.The practice in this prayer of the heart, which with God’s Grace may in time become continuous, is a whole science, a holy art which the Saints of our Faith describe in detail in their holy writings, and also in a large collection of Patristic texts called the “Philokalia.”Thisprayer helps and gladdens man, and when the Christian progresses in this prayer and at the same time his life follows the holy commandments of Christ and His Church, then he is worthy to receive the experience of Divine Grace. He starts to taste the sweetness of comunion with God, to know from experience “O taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8). For us Orthodox, God is not an idea,something that we think about, that we discuss or read about, but a Person with Whom we come into living and personal communion. It is something we live, and somebody from Whom we receive experience.
Then we see what a great, unspeakable andinexpressible joy it is to have Christ within us and to be Orthodox Christians.Within their different concerns and every day occupations, it helps Christians who are in the world so much to find at least a few minutes of silence to exercise themselves in this prayer.Certainly, when fulfilled with humility and love, all labours and obligations directed to God sanctify us, but prayer is also required. In a quiet room (perhaps after some spiritual reading, or after lighting a small oil lamp in front of the icons and burning incense), as far as possible away from noise and activity, and after other considerations and thoughts have fallen quiet, they should sink their nous into the heart by saying the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.” How much peace and strength the psyches draw from the silence of God!How much this strengthens them during the day so that they can keep themselves peaceful without nervous tension and anxiety, but have all their forces united in harmony!Some people in other places seek silence of the psyche by using artificial means that are deluded and demonic, as in the so-called Oriental religions. They try to find a certain silence by using external exercises, meditation etc., to achieve a certain balance of psyche and body. The fault in all these is that properly speaking, even when man tries to forget the various considerations of the material world he does not have a dialogue with God, but only a monologue with himself, so that once again he ends up in anthropocentrism, and in this way he fails.

 
Theosis is the eastern church term for God.
He is right in his own way. (Why must you strain?)
Don't be narrowed by terms.
 
Divination? Yea, God does that also,......I guess you must be of the liberal eastern orthodox theology.
- God knows.......(that's all, God knows)
 
Delija said:
No,u say it so.
Man have to became a god.
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Man can't become a God. if they could. they could take care of themselves and not need the one true God anymore.

God created us because he wanted to serve us. Not have us serve ourselves. that is what Got us in trouble in the first place!
 
eternally-gratefull said:
Man can't become a God. if they could. they could take care of themselves and not need the one true God anymore.

God created us because he wanted to serve us. Not have us serve ourselves. that is what Got us in trouble in the first place!
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Where have i said that Man can became a God?I think that u do not read it well.
 
Delija said:
Theosis is a name for process of Divinization of man.
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The divinization of man is being married to GOD through the body of Christ. Just as man and woman become one flesh, so do man and GOD become one spirit. But men do not become gods; they are still men who become one with GOD who became a man. Divinity has been brought down to men; man does not ascend to become like GOD. It is becoming one with GOD through covenant and marriage, not becoming gods through method and process.
 
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