The scripture in 1 John 3:1-3 has also played a prominent role in discussions of deification. Next to John 17, it is the scripture most often cited in the “Lectures on Faith” to support its view of deification. It states: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now we are the sons of God (τεκνα θεου) and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him (ομοιοι αυτω); for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”
. . .
[T]he believer in robust
deification asserts that we are children of God in an additional sense that
moderate deification rejects. The believer in robust deification asserts that there
is scriptural support for the belief that we are, in some sense, literally
begotten as God’s children. Both the biblical and Mormon scriptures speak of
two different types of filial relation between God as Father and us as humans.
We are children of God by shared genus or kind and also by adoption.
Mormons reads Acts 17:28-29 to
state that we are the same genus as progeny of God in some literal sense—because
that is literally what it says γενος ουν υπαρχοντες του θεου, “Forasmuch
as we are the offspring of God.” The word γενος (genos)
is not the same as the terms used for “sons of God” when John speaks of being
sons (and daughters) of God (τεκνα θεου, tekna
theou) in Romans 8;14 and 19. The term used by Acts, genos, is
specific—we are of the same genus as God. It means that, in some sense, we are
literally begotten in the sense of being the same kind or the same sort as God
is. The term used in 1 John 3:1-2, tekna theou, can also mean that we
are literally offspring or begotten as children of God, but it has a wider
semantic range that includes fellowship among very close friends.
The term used by Paul, huios,
has an even broader semantic field and ranges between being literally the
offspring or genetic son of another to being esteemed or honored by a patron in
the patron/client relationship. It also denotes the legal relationship of
adoption. The use of genos in Acts must be seen as intentional and is
intended to clearly convey the view that we are literally begotten as God’s offspring
to be the same kind that he is. The statement in 1 John 3:1-3 that we are sons
of God in the precise sense that we are like him (ομοιοι αυτω, homoioi
auto) appears to include both connotations: both literally begotten sons of
God and also sons who abide in close and abiding love. The phrase that we are “like
God” means that we are similar to him in the sense that we have characteristics
in common. John specifies that we are like God in the sense that we are pure
just as he is pure. However, we are also like him in the sense that we see him
as he is. The notion is that we can see and know only what we are.
However, we are also adopted
as sons and daughters of God through entering into communion with God and
sharing Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection as well. How can we be both
natural children and also adopted? It is clear that natural parents don’t need
to adopt their children. However, Mormons believe that we were once in God’s
presence just as Adam was. We all made the same decision as Adam to leave God’s
presence despite the inevitable alienation entailed by that decision. In the
premortal life, we were, in some way, unknown to us, literally begotten as
children of Heaven Father.
However, because the purpose
of life is to give us a chance to freely choose to enter into a relationship with
God, we also have a different kind of filial relationship that is a matter of
choice. When we choose to open our hearts and let the Spirit of God enter into
us, we are reborn and become children of God by adoption. That is, because the
new life in us is begotten by choosing to respond to God’s prevenient offer of
a loving relationship, the divine nature is actuated in us and vivified by
entering into close and abiding communion with God. In this relationship, the
light of God penetrates us and enters into us. Because the relationship is a
matter of choosing to accept God’s love, the nature of our sonship is one that
doesn’t just happen as a matter of natural growth simply because we have the
uncreated nature that we do.
In this sense, human nature is
unlike the divine nature. The divine nature differs from human (mortal) nature
in the sense that divine nature is necessarily relational. As a human, I will
grow into what my father is simply by living long enough to biologically mature
as a human. However, the divine life does not grow simply because I am the
offspring of God and times passes; rather, it grows and matures only as a
matter of choosing to accept the gracious invitation to enter the relationship
of indwelling unity enjoyed by the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The divine
nature is an emergent reality that exists “in-between” us and an “I” that
cannot be an “I” in this sense without the relationship with the divine Thou.
There is no such thing as a divine person who is self-sufficient or a se,
for to be fully divine is to be internally and maximally related.
Thus, we are not God’s
natural children in he same sense that we are adopted as God’s children. We are
adopted as God’s children because we choose to enter into relationship with him
and through the enabling grace of the Atonement. Thus, the relationship that is
freely accepted is more like adoption than biological birth in which we have no
choice. As eternal spirits or intelligences, we are God’s genus or kin;
however, we do not just grow into deified individuals simply because God is our
Father in this genetic sense. Rather, we grow in the grace of deification because
we accept the atonement of Christ and are united in the indwelling spirit in
which God’s life begins to grow in us as we enter into him.
Further, it is essential that
we are divine by nature or as offspring so that we are the same king as God as
a condition to the very possibility of deification, for we must be capable of
receiving that which is imparted to us—yet unless we already possess the
potential to receive divinity and to be actualized when it dwells within us, we
could not be divine. If we did not already possess the divine nature in
potentiality because we are God’s children, the imparting of the divine spirit
could not actuate the divinity in our nature. Divinity would be imparted, but
we would be incapable of receiving it.
Robust deification also
asserts that we are created in the image of God in a sense that believers in
moderate deification would probably reject. The believer in robust deification accepts
that we are created in the image of God in a physical sense in addition to the
sense that we are rational and morally responsible. Being created in the image
of God is a “both-and” rather than an “either-or” in the sense that we are like
Christ both in our rational and our physical resemblance. This view is strongly
supported by the scriptural and archaeological evidence. First, Genesis 5:4
states that Adam “begat a son in his own image and likeness, after his image:
and called his name Seth.” The same terms for image and likeness (צֶלֶם, selem
or image) and דְּמוּת (demut or likeness), are used in both this
passage and also in Genesis 1:26 where it is asserted that man is created in
the image and likeness of the gods. It means that Seth resembles Adam in his
physical appearance and also in his dominion as a result of his genetic
inheritance. Second, belief that we are physically in the image and likeness of
God is strongly supported by a statue of a king bearing an Aramaic inscription at
Tell Fakhariyeh. This statue is physical and representational, and it states
that it is the demut or likeness of the king. In this context, the term “likeness”
means “look like.” (W. Randall Garr, “’Image’ and ‘Likeness’ in the Inscription
from Tell Fakhariyeh,” 227-34; Garr, In His Own Image and Likeness:
Humanity, Divinity, and Monotheism, 121-22)
. . .
We are glorified as Christ is
because we share fellowship with him. . . . each person bears a genetic endowment
ensuring that, when we are fully mature in our humanity, we will share as heirs
all that he has and be in the process of being conformed to all that he is—glory
for glory. Thus, deification is a recognition that humans are theomorphic or
made in God’s image on many levels.
. . .
[S]alvation is a continual
process of being conformed to the image of God in Christ. It is never completed
because divine life is always growing in dynamic union. Irenaeus expressed a
similar view of eternal human progression toward deity: “And to those whom He
says, ‘[C]ome, you blessed of my Father, receive the Kingdom prepared for you
for eternity,’ will receive the Kingdom and progress in it forever.” Irenaeus
also says that in this kingdom God will be “always teaching and man always
learning from God.” (Irenaeus, quoted in Jordan Vajda, “Partakers of the
Divine Nature”: A Comparative Analysis of Patristic and Mormon Doctrines of
Divinization, 17) Similarly, Gregory of Nyssa believed that “the place of
[God] is so great that the one running in it is never able to cease from his
progress.” (Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, 117)
Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: Of Gods and
Gods (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008), 408, 414-17, 418, 419
