My “loose talk” got me in trouble (as usual—pray for me on this score!)—so I retract the notion of contingent being participating in the Divine Being—the other examples were sufficient for the point I was trying to make in #108. Obviously, from my statement and qualifiers, I in no way adhere to pantheism or losing the distinction between that being which is created and He who IS—uncreated, absolute, infinite...
We’d have to start a whole new blog to talk about St. Paul’s statement, “In Him we live and move and have our being”. But that is not the same as participation in Divine Being.
Or St. Augustine’s statement, “God became man so that man might become God”. This participation in the divine nature is, of course, through the Incarnation (2 Cor. 8:9; 2 Peter 1:4) and we retain our created nature even when it is “divinized” in Christ.
All of the Liturgies of the East and West, to my knowledge, reflect this notion of participating in the divine nature through the Incarnate Logos; in the Roman Catholic Mass the priest, at the Offertory, says: “By the mingling of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled Himself to share in our humanity.”
I know the Maronites have a similar line which the Deacon chants:
“You have united, O Lord, your Divinity with our Humanity
and Our Humanity with your Divinity
Your Life with our mortality and our mortality with your Life
You have assumed what is ours and given what is yours
For the life and salvation of our souls
To you be glory forever.”
At any rate, ignore my “loose talk” and know that my whole aspiration is to be united with God in the Heart of Christ Jesus, all through His Immaculate Virgin Mother who was elevated and divinized most perfectly above all the angels and saints.
Peace...
With all due respect, Father, I think you'll find that it was +Athanasius the Great who said that in "On the Incarnation".
The Eastern Fathers, as +Gregory Palamas points out, were uniform in their teaching that we do not come into a union with the Ουσια of our Triune God. Indeed, they also held that although we were created in the image and likeness of God, we cannot even actually "see" God.
"It is my opinion that our intellect does not have a natural power to be moved to the divine vision of Divinity. And in this one deficiency we are the peers of all the celestial natures, for both in us and in them grace moves that which is alien by nature both to the human intellect and to the angelic. For divine vision concerning the Godhead is not to be numbered among the other kinds of divine vision. For we possess divine vision of the natures of things through participation in their twofold nature, because there is a portion of all things in us. But we do not have a portion of the nature of the Divine Essence, and so neither do we have by nature divine vision of it." +Isaac the Syrian
What we can experience is the uncreated energy of God as a divine light, as the Apostles saw the light on Mt. Tabor at the Theophany. This energy "is" God, though not His essence. The Holy Spirit, we know, can take up a dwelling in us. So it seems that the Fathers teach that God enters us and through His grace transforms us. This is quite different from the popular, but pagan notion that the deification the Fathers speak of involves some sort of absorbtion into God, a sort of divine oblivion. I think that's one of the dangers with the idea that we come to share in the "Divine Nature".
"'Can a man take fire into his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?' (Prov. 6:27) says the wise Solomon. And I say: can he, who has in his heart the Divine fire of the Holy Spirit burning naked, not be set on fire, not shine and glitter and not take on the radiance of the Deity in the degree of his purification and penetration by fire? For penetration by fire follows upon purification of the heart, and again purification of the heart follows upon penetration by fire, that is, inasmuch as the heart is purified, so it receives Divine grace, and again inasmuch as it receives grace, so it is purified. When this is completed (that is, purification of heart and acquisition of grace have attained their fullness and perfection), through grace a man becomes wholly a god." +Symeon the New Theologian
and
"Moses and David, and whoever else became vessels of divine energy by laying aside the properties of their fallen nature, were inspired by the power of God... They became living ions of Christ, being the same as He is, by grace rather than by assimilation..." +Gregory Palamas
and
"The grace of deification thus transcends nature, virtue and knowledge, and (as St. Maximus says) `all these things are inferior to it.' Every virtue and imitation of God on our part indeed prepares those who practice them for divine union, but the mysterious union itself is effected by grace. It is through grace that `the entire Divinity comes to dwell in fullness in those deemed worth,' and all the saints in their entire being dwell in God, receiving God in His wholeness, and gaining no other reward for their ascent to Him than "God Himself." +Gregory Palamas
Anyway, its an important topic since it is definitional of what Eastern Christianity means when it speaks of "salvation" (theosis). Its rather different from popular Western Christian (not at all necessarily Latin Christian) notions about what, ultimately, it means to be "saved".
I trust you had a spiritually fruitful day, Father. Please pray for me at the Liturgy tomorrow.