The first generations of Christians saw in their new lives in Jesus Christ a way to transcend all the limitations of sin and death and become new creatures. St. Peter expressed this as “participating in the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4), while St. Athanasius stated it succinctly 300 years later: “God became a human, so humans could become God.” This is the heart of the Christian faith and the pledge of the Christian promise: that those baptized in Christ become “divine” through their partaking in God’s own life and love. This is why Christians can live forever, this is the source of their charity and their holiness, this is why we do not need to live in a world ruled by fallen instinct and sinful desires. We have been made for more, for infinitely more.
A new book, Called to Be the Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification
, offers essays from more than a dozen Catholic scholars and theologians to examine what this process of “deification” means in their respective areas of study. Editors Fr. David Meconi, S.J. and Carl E. Olson have gathered fifteen chapters showing what “becoming God” meant for the early Church, for St. Thomas Aquinas and the greatest Dominicans, the significance it played in the thinking of St. Francis and the early Franciscans. It shows how such an understanding of salvation played out during the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent, as well as in French School of Spirituality, in various Thomist thinkers, in John Henry Newman and John Paul II, at the Vatican Councils, and where such thinking can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church today.
No other book has gathered such an array of scholars or provided such a deep study into how humanity’s divinized life in Christ has received many rich and various perspectives over the past two thousand years. This book therefore hopes to bring readers into the central mystery of Christianity by allowing the Church's greatest thinkers and texts to speak for themselves, showing how becoming Christ-like, becoming truly the Body of Christ on earth, is the only ultimate purpose of the Christian faith.
Dr. Scott Hahn, author of Rome Sweet Home and the author of the Forward of Called to Be the Children of God, writes, “Rescue from sin and death is indeed a wonderful thing—but the salvation won for us by Jesus Christ is incomparably greater. And that is the subject of this book. In all its parts, this book, like Christianity in all its parts, is about salvation. But that means it’s about everything that fills our lives, on earth and in heaven.”
“The richness of Catholicism is on full display in these marvelous essays as they show how Scripture’s revelation of theosis is both taught and embodied throughout the Church’s history. I loved reading, pondering, and praying with this marvelous book,” says Dr. Timothy Gray, President of the Augustine Institute and Senior Fellow at St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology.
Dr. Brant Pitre, Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary and Graduate School of Theology, says, “At last, we have an up-to-date, comprehensive, and readable introduction to the classical doctrine of divinization. Called to Be the Children of God is a must read for any serious student of Catholic theology.”
“In the explanations of the historical developments of this doctrine, the reader discovers openings into Christian literature that will enrich the spiritual life and theological understanding through deepening our understanding of the effects of God's grace and indwelling, particular through Baptism, the Holy Eucharist and other sacraments,” says Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J. of EWTN and Ignatius Productions.
Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., Professor Emeritus of Georgetown University, explains, “To follow the history and meaning of what it means that we exist to be adopted into the Trinitarian life of God is the exact purpose of this most welcome and well-presented text.”
About the Editors:
Fr. David Meconi, S.J., a professor of theology at Saint Louis University, is the editor of Homiletic and Pastoral Review. He has published widely in early Church theology and broader Catholic issues, most recently the Annotated Confessions of Saint Augustine, and The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification.
Carl E. Olson, MTS, is the editor of Catholic World Report and Ignatius Insight. He is the author of two best-selling books, Will Catholics Be “Left Behind”? and The Da Vinci Hoax, and the author of hundreds of articles on theology, Scripture, current events, and apologetics.
Fr. David Meconi, S.J., is available for interviews about this book.
To request a review copy or an interview with Fr. Meconi, please contact: Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press at (239) 867-4180 or [email protected]
Product Facts:
Title: CALLED TO BE THE CHILDREN OF GOD
The Catholic Theology of Human Deification
Editors: Carl E. Olson and Fr. David Vincent Meconi, S.J.
Release Date: April 2016
Length: 292 pages
Price: $22.95
ISBN: 978-1-58617-947-2 • Softcover
Order: 1-800-651-1531 • www.ignatius.com
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