The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
Conclusion 237 becoming "more" than human. This second point is more readily understood when we moor Augustine's soteriological uses of deification in the wider context of his overall presentation of the Christian life as something new and relational, transformative and consummate. For when we read those passages where Augustine chooses to describe salvation in terms of deification, we come to see how each time (apart from the first "Neoplatonic" and the next six literary uses) deification language functions as an equivalent for a more common Christian image of salvation, thus opening up how the faithful can understand their new dignity: becoming the Father's adopted children, becoming co-heirs with Christ, becoming gods, and so on.
Possible Advantages
of This Study
By recognizing how these varied images of deification run throughout the theology of Augustine, we are able to offer a more robust and consistent reading of his understanding of the Christian life. We might, for example, reenvision how Augustinian "justification" is understood. It of course falls outside of the scope of this study to take up the debates of the 16th century on this pivotal Augustinian doctrine. Nonetheless, we must mention that redemption for Augustine is a matter of healing and the forgiveness of sins, but that this is not all he means by justification. To be justified is to become pious, devout, and dutiful before God: "Whoever believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, who makes a godly person out of the ungodly; so whoever believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, who makes just the one who was ungodly, his faith is counted as justice."2 Despite his ability to weave such concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation into the big-
2. s. 292.6; Hill, Sermons (III/8), 143; "Quisquis crediderit in eum qui iustificat impium, qui de impio facit pium: quisquis ergo crediderit in eum qui iustificat impium, qui iustum facit eum qui impius erat, deputatur fides eius ad iustitiam"; PL 38.1324.