The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
The Son's Descent 103 such a "synagogue" by way of Christ's gathered church.52 Further, at Expositions of the Psalms 94 by way of those who become "gods" not by nature but through grace, he cites the Pauline sanction that such "gods" have been transformed into holy, living temples (cf. 1 Cor. 3:17).53 We thereby see how Augustine can move fluidly between the metaphors of becoming "gods" and of becoming "children of God," stressing the commonality of a new divine life lived in a creaturely way in and through Christ, while also distinguishing between different scriptural images of this new life.
So, as one image of salvation among the many Augustine willingly uses to explain the Christian life, deification language appears interchangeably with biblically-sanctioned images, with no need to highlight or defend the term. That is, at times life in Christ may be expressed explicitly as a deified life, but at other times as becoming "gods," while in other instances a more biblically palpable image of divine adoption is given. This is why it would now be fitting to turn to the next place deification appears. In so doing, we deepen our understanding of this metaphor in the Augustinian taxonomy of salvation as we explore how human persons become children of God.
Augustine's Soteriology
Of Divine Adoption
Augustine's next two uses of deificare both involve his discussion of becoming children of God, thus affording us the opportunity to deepen our understanding of his use of scripture's language of adoption [huiothesia]. We see him, first, linking it explicitly to a process of deification and, second, explaining the result of such adoption as humanity's becoming "gods."
52. en. Ps. 81.1: "ergo synagoga filiorum Altissimi"; CCL 39.1135–36. 53. en. Ps. 94:6: "deos dixit participatione, non natura; gratia, qua uoluit facere deos"; CCL 39.1335.