The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
128 The Son's Descent body of Christ: only in the Son's descent and enfleshment are we able to become deified. In this way Augustine continues a commonplace among the Fathers, that God has become human so that men and women could become divine.
The second purpose deificare serves in Augustine's thought is to intensify other related images for the Christian life. Dissatisfied with relying on deificare in isolation, he chooses rather to intertwine it with other terms for the new life Christians enjoy in God. In this chapter we saw how the deified life is explained in terms (1) of God's recapitulating all of creation in Christ, bestowing not only life but also a participated-indivinity, (2) of divine adoption, a "Christification" of the human creature's sharing the Son's same filiality, (3) of Christ's exchanging his humanity for humanity's divinity, and (4) of a "new" humanity's exalted powers in Christ, human persons enjoying a new type of self in God (for example, deified eyes), a new way of interacting with others (for example, a new patience), and a new identification with God (for example, human dispositions in line with his own).
Given these goals, the explanation of dii and the exhortation to a new life in Christ, we can agree with Professor Chadwick (beatae memoriae) that participation in God is at the heart of Christian redemption for Augustine.103 It is just as true, however, that Augustine does at times seem hesitant to push this language of deification or participation in God's nature. For, as Chadwick also points out, the Bishop of Hippo knew that among his hearers and readers, many could be found who had strong reservations about any Christian use of the language of deification.104 While it may be impossible to provide any definitive reasons why Augustine limits his use of
103. Henry Chadwick, "Note sur la Divinisation chez saint Augustin," Revue des sciences religieuses 76.2 (2002): 247.
104. Chadwick argues that despite such known reservations, Augustine nonetheless allowed the scriptures—Psalm 81 in particular—to legitimize such rhetoric; cf. "Note sur la Divinisation," 248.