REFLECTIONS FOR THE SOUL
Chapter 3: DEIFICATION VERSUS SALVATION
He was made man that we might become god (Athanasius of Alexandria, De Inc, 54.3).
Through Christ, the Word made flesh, man has access to the Father in the Holy Spirit and comes to share in the divine nature (Paul VI, 1965).
Many, especially in Western Christianity, tend to commingle the terms deification and salvation as though they have the same meaning. However, this manifests poor understanding of the two terms as originally meant by the Fathers of the Church. In fact, when the language and context of deification and theosis are replaced with the language and context of salvation, Patristic theology becomes, in effect, displaced by Reformation language (Kharlamov, 2010), with the consequent loss of the original meanings. Salvation is part of deification, but the latter transcends the former as it does not simply constitute the forgiveness of sins through the Spirit descending into…
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