so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving
divine sonship, might become a son of God.’ ‘For the Son of God became man
so that we might become God.’ ‘The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to
make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man,
might make men gods.’”
In Protestantism
In confessional Protestant denominations, the concept of theosis is generally not
reflected, with the exception of the “Inner Light” doctrine among Quakers and
the teaching on “Christian Perfection” (entire sanctification) among Methodists,
as well as in denominations that branched off from them — the Holiness
Movement, “three-blessing” Pentecostals, and the Church of the Nazarene.
C.S. Lewis, writing from the perspective of High Church Anglicanism (which is
close to Orthodoxy), outlines the goal of Christian life in terms of Divinization
in his book Mere Christianity:
The command “Be ye perfect” is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the
impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command.
He said (in the Bible) that we were “gods” and He is going to make good His words.
If we let Him — for we can prevent Him, if we choose — He will make the feeblest
and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature,
pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we
cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God His own
boundless power and delight and goodness in a perfect though a smaller shape.
The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for.
Nothing less. He meant what He said.
At the same time, the presence of the idea of divinization is noted among
Anabaptists and 17th-century English Nonconformists as a feature that
distinguished them from the Magisterial Reformation: “Among Nonconformists,
some unexpected points of contact with the Eastern Church appear. Today there
is sufficient evidence to prove that the theological teachings of the Anabaptists