The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
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.
The Son's Descent 129 deification language, I would like to venture the three following observations.
The first answer actually strengthens my overall thesis. Augustine limits his use of deificare because he finds the same reality in other soteriological models. Simply put, he does not use explicit deification language more than he does because he does not need to. At his disposal are more scriptural terms of salvation: becoming children of God, becoming members of the body of Christ, imitating Jesus in his humility and charity, and so on. In Augustine's mind, these more commonplace Christian images are instances of the deified life.
The second reason Augustine may limit his use of explicit deification language is that the main Latin predecessors from whom he draws (for example, Hilary, Ambrose, Victorinus), likewise veered away from any use of the term deificare. Given the preference of such theologians in this regard, Augustine too may have hesitated to use a term which those in his tradition found avoidable or even misleading.
Third, we find that it is a term already promoted by Augustine's opponents. Augustine is very suspicious of those who think that they can become equal to God without qualification, either in this life or in the next. Stressing the language of "becoming gods," therefore, may have led the faithful astray and promised them something which most are not able to understand rightly. Above we saw how two of his most renowned opponents, the Manichees and Donatists, were not at all shy in granting approval to some piece of theology by their use of deificus. If Augustine hesitates in using deificare because of how the connotations of such a term were being used by his rivals, we can also argue here that this is precisely why he never relies on 2 Pet. 1:4 and humanity's participation in the divine nature.
This locus classicus in the history of Christian deification would have provided Augustine with biblical sanction for his