The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
96 The Son's Descent divine by their very nature, but are made so through adoption and grace. Furthermore, the truly elect can be called "gods" not because they have been fabricated into deities by some pagan craftsman, but because they have been made so by the one who alone has such power [et deos qui fiunt, sed non a fabro]. Commenting on deus deificator at sermo 23B.2 (line 35), Dolbeau makes this same point; namely that Augustine relies on deification language to explain how a Christian monotheist is to understand scripture's use of "gods."37
Obviously Augustine had to develop some standard line of defense when explaining how to understand the plural dii or deos. He does so by next distinguishing between the one true God who can make "gods" and those self-seeking, counterfeit "gods" who attempt to appropriate divinity wrongly. Notice how the more Augustine uses the language of "becoming gods," the more we see how it becomes necessary for him to clarify his thought on the use of this potentially misleading term. He therefore sees it necessary to distinguish between the exclusively Christian being-made-gods [dii fiant] and the pagan making-gods [faciant deos]: "People who make [a] false god offend the true one, and by making what cannot be gods they fail to become themselves what they can. . . . For they, if they wish, can become gods, not of the sort which they worship, but of the sort which the one whom they worship makes. . . . So what do people want? . . . To become gods or to make gods? . . . They indeed consider it a greater show of power if they make gods than if they become gods."38 Humanity's being-made-gods is realizable only when it comes from God's hand and not from human hubris. Fallen men and women
37. Dolbeau, Sermons, 458. 38. s. 23B, section 3; Dolbeau, Sermons, 460; Hill, Sermons (III/11), 38; slightly adjusted; "Deum qui facit falsum, offendit uerum, et faciendo quod non potest, non fit ipse quod potest. Ipse enim, si uelit, fit deus, non qualem ille colit, sed qualem facit ille quem colit. Quid ergo uolunt homines: dii fieri, an deos facere? Potentius quidem illis uidetur si faciant deos, quam si dii fiant."