Deification as the meaning of human life. The meaning of the word deification in the Orthodox encyclopedia tree Deification according to the teachings of the Orthodox Church

DEIFICATION

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Deification (gr. θέωσις), a concept fundamental to the theology of holiness, according to which a person can be imbued with Divine energies and unite with God. This connection constitutes the essence of holiness.

The doctrine of deification in its initial forms took shape in Byzantine theology already in the period between the First and Second Ecumenical Councils in the writings of St. Athanasius the Great and the Cappadocian Fathers (St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Gregory of Nyssa). In the polemic with the Arians, the meaning of the Incarnation and its significance in the salvation of man are clarified. Incarnation, i.e. the inseparable and unmerged union in one Person of the Divine and human natures opens for man the path to God, union with God: due to the fact that Christ became man, man can become God by grace, i.e. become a partaker of the Divine.

This participation is carried out at the expense of Divine energies. “Divine energies descend to us,” writes St. Basil the Great, while the Divine “essence remains unapproachable” (PG, 32, 869AB). “God, invisible by nature, becomes visible thanks to energies,” teaches St. Gregory of Nyssa (PG, 44, 1269A). The possibility of perception of these energies by created nature and, above all, by human nature was the next problem posed by Byzantine theology. Essential for the solution of this theological issue was the teaching of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite about the good will of God, i.e. about the Providence of God, which destined the creation for transformation, salvation and union with the Divine as the beginning that invested good existence into it.

The doctrine of deification received decisive development in the works of St. Maximus the Confessor. Rev. Maxim writes about the original destiny of human nature for deification. He says: “Let us become gods through the Lord, because it is for this that man came into existence - God and Master by nature” (PG, 90, 953B). This purpose is contained in the natural beginning of man, in his natural logos (λόγος της φύσεως), this is the image and likeness of God, according to which God creates man. Meanwhile, a person’s way of existence may conflict with his natural logos; original sin was the formation of this contradiction. This contradiction is overcome in the incarnation of God the Word thanks to the interpenetration (περιχώρησις) of the Divine and human natures in Christ. By following Christ and coordinating his will with the natural logos, a person becomes a partaker of the Divine. The final moment of this movement is deification, when “people all participate entirely in God, so that, in the image of the union of soul and body, God becomes accessible to the participation of the soul in Him, and through the mediation of soul and body, so that the soul receives permanence, and the body immortality.” and so that man wholly becomes God, deified by the grace of God who became man, remaining completely (soul and body) human by nature and completely (soul and body) becoming God by grace” (PG, 91, 1088C). This ultimate goal is achieved in the historical life of the church - in the Eucharist as an anticipation of the coming Kingdom of Heaven and in holiness.

This doctrine of deification underlies the understanding of holiness that St. John of Damascus both in his polemics with the iconoclasts and in the “Exact Exposition”. Speaking about the need to venerate the saints, he writes: “I call them gods, kings, and lords not by nature, but because they reigned over the passions and overcame them, and preserved unchanged the Divine image and likeness in which they were created.” ... They united with God, receiving Him into themselves, and through communion and grace they became the same as He is by nature” (Exact exposition, book IV, chapter 15). This teaching is part of the Orthodox tradition and is the theological basis for the veneration of saints.

Why do we live on earth? Unfortunately, even church people cannot always answer this question. At best, they answer like this: to get rid of sins, become better, go to heaven after death, etc.

But no! It turns out that this is not the meaning of our life. Our earthly life should be much more serious and deeper. About ́ life– that’s our goal. What does it mean?

It means that man can become god by grace. Man is the only creature in all creation that is capable of becoming a god. It would seem that such a thought is daring. " And yet, neither the Holy Scriptures nor the Fathers of the Church hide this goal from us“,” Archimandrite George, abbot of the monastery of St. George on Mount Athos, instructs us. God does not say anywhere that while living on earth we must simply become a little better, overcome some of our temptations. If a person understands the goal: to become a god by Grace - as not just real, but also obligatory for himself, then, striving towards this ideal, he will be able to correctly resolve all other everyday questions: how to organize a state, how to raise children, what kind of relationships should be in the family, with friends, etc. If God had not become incarnate, man would not have been able to become deified. This is precisely the Great Meaning of the Divine-Human Incarnation. " The Fathers of the Church say that God became man so that man could become god.»

In this main issue there is a great difference between philosophical movements and Faith, for not a single philosophical teaching raises a person so high. If during our life on earth we only had to improve ourselves, then there would be no need for the Savior to come into the world. There would be no need for the Cross, Golgotha, Crucifixion, Death and Resurrection. To become a little better and overcome in your life, well, for example, the sin of overeating - all this does not require such a Great Sacrifice. The Great Sacrifice is not balanced by simple self-improvement of a person.

Adam and Eve wanted to become gods not by the Grace of God, but by relying on their strength, will, and knowledge. They considered themselves self-sufficient and separated from God. And instead of deification they found death. After all, God is life. He who rejects God is one who rejects life. Hence - not only the death of the body, but also spiritual death, namely: spiritual inaction. This is one of the most bitter fruits of human selfhood, from which we suffer while living earthly life. How many people have gone to the carnal, animal, and even demonic life! In the fall, man lost those properties that were necessary to move towards deification.

The Word of God, incarnate on earth, gave a new leaven to man, instead of the old one. Both natures of the God-man Christ – Divine and human – are perfect. And they are connected “unfused, unchanging, inseparable, inseparable.” United in one Person of God the Word of Christ. Now human nature, through the Person of Christ, is forever united with God: “unfused, unchangeable, indivisible, inseparable” - this is the wording of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. Now we humans, sinful humans, can return to God if we want. “We can return to union with Him, become gods by Grace.” After all, Christ is eternally God-man. He is the New Adam, correcting the error of the old one. The First Adam separated himself and us from God by disobedience; the New Adam returns us to God by obedience to the Father “until death on the cross.” He corrects our free will.

But correcting the error of the old Adam requires correcting the error of the old Eve. The new Eve is the Mother of God. She is the first of the human race to achieve deification. God created man free. If the Mother of God had not answered “Yes” through obedience to God, the incarnation of Christ would have been impossible. God does not abuse His creation. God does not trample on His own Gifts. And He did not take away the Gift of freedom given to man. The Mother of God was placed by the teachers of theology, Gregory Palamas, in the place immediately following the Most Holy Trinity. It became the boundary between the created and uncreated world. The incarnation of the Word and the deification of man is “the living, everyday reality of our Church.” Our saints are, following the Mother of God, deified men and wives; they are the fruit of God’s Incarnation. The icons of saints in the church are not for beauty, and not even just so that we, sinners, pray and cry in front of them and beg for help. Icons in Orthodox church- this is a sign for us: so that we see the meaning of life on earth and the real fruit of Faith - the deification of man.

We “are united not with the Divine essence, but with Christ’s deified human nature.” But this is not just an alliance on some moral level. Christ accepts us, Christians, into His Own Body, despite our unworthiness and sinfulness. “He makes us parts of Himself.” Christians, depending on their personal spiritual condition, can be living or dead members of the Body of Christ. However, anyone who is baptized is already forever part of the Body of Christ. But without confession and communion, without spiritual life, he is, for now, a dead member of the Body. But he can become alive at any moment! An unbaptized person is not co-corporeal with Christ. Church sacraments make us of the same flesh and the same blood as Christ.

Hence the conclusion... The Church is not a cultural, social institution. This is a place of unity with God, a place of deification of man. A person will no longer become a god by Grace, in any place in the world - not in the kindest school, not in the best university, not in any of the most beautiful and kindest places in the world. Nothing in the world can offer a person what the Church gives.

Our human weakness is manifested even in the Church. After all, we are not gods yet, but we are only following the path of deification. Some are successful, some are not. Sometimes, even in church, partaking of the Mysteries of Christ or baptizing a child, we do not fully understand why we are doing this, what the ultimate goal of our actions is. We can be distracted by the personality of the priest, argue whether the priest himself is a sinner and whether it is worth going to him... Not knowing that we are not going to visit a priest. We go to a place where, in addition to the priest, deacon, and parishioners, there is God Himself. We often say: “You can pray at home.” Yes, you can pray at home - who can argue? And any Christian is obliged to pray at home too. But to deify and unite with God, to become a god by Grace, is impossible at home. The Most Pure Body and the priceless Blood of Christ are not at home.

God's Grace is uncreated. God is not only an essence, but also an Energy. If He were only an Essence, it would be impossible to unite with Him. “With His uncreated energies, God created the world and continues to create it.” The meaning of the Creation of the whole world, the desired goal, our joy and our happiness is in the possibility of unity with the Holy God. The image strives for the Prototype and rests only when it finds Him and rests in Him. “It is not what makes a person a Christian just to reason correctly about God, but rather to... draw closer to Him” in order to become a god himself.

Review article on the work of Archimandrite George, abbot of the monastery of St. George on Mount Athos
Orthodox magazine "Lessons of Faith"

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Archimandrite Georgy,
Abbot of the monastery of St. George on Mount Athos
Excerpts from the article

* The question of the purpose of human life is very serious, since it affects the most essential thing for a person: the purpose of his earthly existence. Having correctly determined this, having understood our true purpose, we will be able to take a sober look at the smaller issues that we have to solve every day in communicating with people, studying, working, in the family and in the most difficult task of raising children. And so, if we are mistaken in this fundamental question, we will not achieve the goal in all our other life tasks: for how can someone for whom life as a whole is not filled with meaning correctly comprehend them?

* The meaning of human life is revealed from the very first pages of Holy Scripture, where the writer of everyday life says that God created man in His image and likeness. In this we recognize the great love of the Triune God for man. He did not want man to be just a creature, endowed with certain gifts, certain qualities, a certain superiority over the rest of creation, and nothing more; He willed that man should be god by grace.

* Outwardly, a person seems only to be a biological creature, similar to everything living on earth, akin to animals. And he, of course, is an animal - but at the same time, according to St. Gregory the Theologian, "set apart from all creation, being the only creature that is capable of becoming a god."

* Creation in His own image was a gift that God bestowed only on man, and on no one else in all visible creation, so that he became the image of God Himself. This gift included: reason, conscience, free will, creativity, love and desire for perfection and God, personal self-consciousness and everything that puts a person above the rest of the visible creation, making him a person. In other words, everything that makes a person a person is given to him in the image of God.

* Having received the image, a person is called to acquire the likeness, to achieve deification. Creator, God by nature calls him to become god by grace. God, in His image, endowed him with all the gifts so that he could ascend to heights and with their help achieve the likeness of his Creator and God: to be with Him not in external relationships, understood only in the categories of morality, but in deep personal unity.

* Even the thought that the purpose of our lives is to become gods by grace may seem presumptuous. And yet neither Holy Scripture nor the Fathers of the Church hide this goal from us. But many - outside the Church and even inside it - remain indifferent. They believe their goal, at best, is moral reform, to become better people. But this is not the goal that the Gospel, Church Tradition and the Holy Fathers show us. It’s not enough just to improve yourself, to become more conscientious, fairer, more chaste, wiser. All this, of course, is necessary, but this is not the deepest meaning of our life, the ultimate goal for which our Creator created us. And what? In unity with God, in deification, as true unity; not morally external and not sentimentally contrived.

* Since man is called to realize the likeness of God in himself, literally created in order to become god, then, deviating from the path of deification, he naturally feels emptiness inside, as if something is wrong. He does not enjoy deep happiness, even if he manages to fill this inner emptiness with something else. He can “freeze” himself by plunging into the world of his own illusions, but even then he will remain just as small and limited; and his petty little world will enslave him and become his prison. In this prison, he will arrange everything so that he almost never has silence, is never left alone with himself. With the help of noise, emotional stress, television and radio, information about anything - and sometimes with the help of drugs - a person desperately tries to forget, not to think, not to worry, not to remember: that he has lost his way, gone far from the goal.

* But nothing can give complete peace to the unfortunate to modern man, until he finds something different, more in his life, something truly full of beauty and creative power.

* The Church Fathers say that God became man so that man could become god. Man would not have achieved deification if God had not become incarnate. And before Christ’s Incarnation there were wise and virtuous people.

* The great theologian of our Church, Saint John of Damascus, theologizes that through the Incarnation of the Word, the second unity of God with man entered the world. The first, which was in Paradise, was lost when man fell away from God. The all-covering love of God now arranges another, second unity between God and man, a unity that can no longer be dissolved - since it was realized in the Person of Christ.

* The God-man Jesus Christ, the Son and Word of God the Father, has two perfect natures: divine and human. Both of these perfect natures are united inseparably, unchangeably, inseparably and inseparably in one Person of God the Word of Christ. Henceforth, human nature is accepted into the very life of the Most Holy Trinity. Nothing can separate her from God. That is why now, after the Incarnation of the Lord - no matter how much we sin as people, no matter how much we move away from God - if we want to return to Him by repentance, it is possible. We can return to union with Him, become gods by Grace.

* The soul of man, created in the image and likeness of God, strives for Him, yearns for unity with Him. And there is no rest for her until a person finds God and unites with Him, no matter how high his life may be and his good deeds are numerous - because the Holy God Himself has put in him this holy thirst, this divine eros is the sacred desire for deification, unity with God. The power of lust is planted inside a person, given by the Creator in order to love truly, strongly, selflessly - like the Holy Creator Himself, in love with creation, with His world.

* Man is given the power to fall in love with God, to desire Him with all the strength of holy lust. If he did not have the image of God in himself, his search for the Prototype would be fruitless. Each of us is clothed with the image of God, has the Prototype of God. The image strives for the Prototype, and only when it finds Him does it rest in It.

* The experience of deification is directly proportional to the degree of purification. The more a person is cleansed of passions, the more he accepts the experience of Communion with God, in vain of God in accordance with the promise: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8).

* We - parents, teachers, clergy and all representatives of the Church, in Sunday schools, sermons and elsewhere - We should, instead of fruitless talk about “Christian morality,” lead our children to deification, in accordance with the true spirit and experience of our Church. In the end, all virtues, no matter how great they may be, do not represent the goal of our Christian life, but are only means and methods that prepare us to accept deification, to acquire - in the words of St. Seraphim of Sarov - the Grace of the Holy Spirit.

* Great joy enters our lives when we realize the height of our calling, when we realize what bliss awaits us. This sweetens the bitterness of all everyday sorrow and the pain of suffering with the hope of deification. When the hope of deification leads us through life, and likewise we see each other as called to become gods, then we relate to our neighbors completely differently. How much deeper and more serious nourishment we can then give to our children! What kind of God-pleasing love and respect will parents be filled with for their children if they realize their sacred duty and calling to help them achieve deification - that for which, by God’s grace, they were born into the world! And how can parents help their children with this until they themselves have taken the path of deification? But how much genuine human dignity, without egocentrism and the pride of godlessness, will appear in us upon the realization that we were created for such an amazing purpose.

* The Holy Fathers and teachers of the Church theologize that in this way, overcoming the everyday anthropocentricity of fallen human consciousness, we truly become individuals, we become truly human. We meet God with respect and love. With the deepest respect, we give everyone his true dignity - as one who has the inheritance of deification, looking at him as the image of God, and not as an object that can be used.

* Until we come out of the self-centered limitations of our "I", we are only individuals - not persons. When we follow the path of deification - with the help of Grace, promoting It and our efforts - at the moment when we break out of the isolation of our individual existence and begin to love, giving ourselves more and more to God and our neighbors, then a personality is born. In other words, we find ourselves where our “I” meets the “Thou” of God and the “Thou” of our neighbor - because it is in the communion of deification, for which we were created, that only we can open up completely, open up and enjoy each other pure, not selfish.

* Awareness of such a high purpose as deification can give true consolation and fulfillment to the human personality. Having been emasculated and torn away from their true purpose - to unite a person with the Holy God - moral principles have lost all meaning.

Reader question:
: “The only source of authority for me is the Bible. I did not see any statements in it that God planned everyone adore. I will say more - the doctrine of theosis is a dangerous spiritual poison. This doctrine attempts to place the creature on an equal footing with the Creator (at least potentially), and this is a sin of pride.”

Answer:

In the very first verses of the Bible we read that man, unlike other creatures, was created in the image of God:

“And God said: Let us make man in our image [and] after our likeness...

And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him...” (Gen. 1.26-27).

Human created in the image God, and called to likeness God. This is exactly what the Church means when it speaks of deification.

The word “God” means Rich. There's plenty of everything here. God is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. “God is love” and an inexhaustible spring of “universal energy of love” (in the words of Archbishop Luke, in the world - Professor Voino-Yasenetsky). God is an inexhaustible spring of Grace. And His Kingdom is the Kingdom of this Grace of Love.

Love “does not seek its own” (see 1 Cor 13.5), it is altruistic in nature. Therefore, God wants to make us, people, His creation, partakers of this grace. And not partial, not “half-,” but full-fledged heirs of His:

“This very Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ…” (Rom. 8.16–17).

Christ is “God manifested in the flesh” (see 1 Tim. 3.16). What do you call a joint heir with God? How to name the co-heir of the Rich One? Rich in everything too! Rich in all the riches bequeathed to him by the Father. Rich in the Grace He has given. This is where it comes from: “I said: you are gods!..” Deification is the entry into the rights of inheritance, the affirmation “at the right hand of the Father,” next to Christ:

“I am in them, and You are in Me... Father! whom You have given Me, I want them to be with Me where I am” (John 17.23–24);

“Be holy, for I am holy...” (1 Peter 1.15).

“I said: you are gods (here - potentially rich, heirs of the promises of God, sons of the kingdom), sons of the Most High you are all (for all searching and knocking, for all hungry and thirsty, for everyone who wants this wealth, this “deification”);

but you will die like humans(you will die spiritually without wanting to open the door to the Knocking One), and you will fall like every prince(the mighty of this world: “The princes of the nations rule over them, and the nobles rule over them; but let it not be so among you...” You will fall without having chewed this: “Love!” You will fall, because you did not desire this Light: “... light came into the world; but people loved darkness more”; “They do not know, they do not understand, they walk in darkness...”; “And to those who received Him He gave the power to become children of God...” (Psalm 81, verses 6-7).

But unlike the joint heir of Christ, who is the only begotten Son of God, we are “sons of God by the grace of Christ" And therefore we cannot, and we do not strive to become equal with the Creator either in this life or “potentially” in eternity. He is God. We, created in His image, according to His will, strive to acquire only His likeness. Not to become God, but to be deified. Not to become the Wisdom of God, but to become wise - messengers of this Wisdom. Not to become Love itself, but to become lovers – bearers of God’s love. Not to become Beings, but to freely choose the path to the Light. Not to become the Creators of all things, but to be truly creators of beauty in the existence around us.

Just as iron placed in fire does not become fire itself, but acquires all its qualities - light, heat, the ability to ignite - so a person who has reached the Heavenly heights of deification does not become God, but a fiery seraphim - an angel of the Lord, and in this sense “god” with a small letter. To rise to this spiritual height - the height of acquiring the likeness of God, the height of the Kingdom of God, the height of unity with God, the height of deification - is the main task of Man. Rise, or rather let God lift us up...

And now the most important thing. Without deification - that is, without acquiring the likeness of God, without unity with God with the Creator of eternity - we cannot find eternal life, we cannot become eternal! Today we have lost this knowledge, but God alone is eternal by His nature! Therefore, He, in fact, is the Existing One - that is, the One Who has the essence in Himself - the eternal essence. Who does not expect anything from anyone, but gives everything to everyone (and first of all, life.). God is by nature beginningless and infinite. Everything else - His creation itself - is mortal by nature, for whatever has a beginning has an end!

The creature does not have eternal life in itself, but acquires it as a gift of the Lord’s mercy by grace, in the sacrament of unity with God. As it is said in the life of the Venerable Elder Silouan: “The Commandment of Christ (the commandment of HUMILITY AND LOVE is the essence of the law of God, the eternal teaching of God) (at its core, Christianity is not a certain confession, not just a religious denomination - it is supra-confessional. Christianity is a state of mind and a way of life; it is the path of Humility leading to Love). A natural man does not have this life in his created being, and therefore man cannot do the will of God, that is, live according to the commandment of God, by his own strength; but it is natural for him to strive for God, for a blessed eternal life(the desire for unity with God, for the search for God is programmed, genetically embedded in us). [But] the aspirations of a natural person would remain only aspirations without the possibility of their real implementation, if Divine power did not come to meet them - grace - which in itself is what is sought, i.e. eternal divine life(“For God is working in you both desire and action according to His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13))…

Man is created in the image of God the Creator. There is nothing uncreated in the being of created man. This created image of God [thus] cannot(by myself) to participate in the Divine essence (due to absolutely different levels of being), but he is endowed with the ability to enter into communication with the uncreated Deity through the sacrament of His grace. And although man is not involved in the Divine essence, however, through grace he becomes a sharer of Divine life.

Grace, as the uncreated energy of God, according to the Orthodox understanding, there is – “Deity" When the Divine deigns to unite with a human being, then a person sees and feels in himself the action of Divine power, transforming him, making him God-like not only potentially, “in the image,” but also actually, “in the likeness” of existence. Grace-Divinity sanctifies man, adores him, that is, creates him as a god...”

“I am a man, but I have a command to become a god...” - said St. Basil the Great at one time. “A majestic goal, but achieved with difficulty,” noted his friend, Saint Gregory the Theologian.

Beginning the report, it should immediately be noted that there are significant differences between the Orthodox and Baptist understanding of the terms: “deification” and “sanctification.” Let us examine in detail the Orthodox understanding of deification-holiness.

Holiness is one of the fundamental concepts of Christian teaching. Its main meaning is man's participation in God - his deification, his transformation under the influence of God's grace. In the transformed person, the union with God as a “child of God” is restored.

Deification is the basic concept of holiness for Orthodox theology, according to which a person can be imbued with uncreated Divine energies and unite with God. This connection constitutes the essence of holiness, and as a result, between these two concepts, like deification and holiness, in our report we can put a sign of identity.

The differences between deification and holiness can be described as follows: holiness is the fullness of deification, and deification is the path indicated by God to holiness (the goal of any Christian).

Here are the main points of the Orthodox understanding of deification:
1) Deification is an ontological category (the doctrine of beings) and moral, and not just moral, it is not reduced only to the moral actions of a person, but a completely real state that can be seen and felt throughout a person’s life.

3) Deification is the result of synergy - the joint actions of God and man, and not just the created energies of man. At the same time, ascetic methods (such as fasting and prayer, etc.) help a person concentrate on achieving deification, otherwise he will waste his strength, and achieving holiness implies complete dedication of oneself to this matter. In other words, asceticism (askeo - I train, Greek). - this is the contribution that a person can make to this difficult matter of salvation.

The doctrine of deification is based on the Orthodox doctrine of uncreated grace. Examples of uncreated grace include the Uncreated Divine Light on Mount Tabor and the miraculous power of the saints, with which they performed miracles. In its potency it is characteristic of all baptized Christians - they can feel it through the sacraments. Grace is an uncreated power, since otherwise it would not be Divine and would become a simple phenomenon nature.

The first example that can help us understand the process of deification is the example of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Humanity and Divinity were united in the hypostasis of Christ, the Son of God, and as a result, sanctifying and adoring grace actually descends on us due to the “interpenetration of properties,” proceeding from the humanity of Christ, the “source of deification,” and not only from His Divinity. In one sentence, this can be said like this: “God became Man, so that man would become God (by grace, i.e., deified).” The Incarnation is Christ’s perception of human nature, and since in Christ human nature was deified, this opened the way to God for all humanity: Christians, following Christ, participate in his Divinity by grace and become saints. But what happens to an ordinary person during deification is a similarity in comparison to this greatest mystery. Incarnation, i.e. the inseparable and unmerged union in one Person of the Divine and human natures opened up for man the path to God, union with God: thanks to the fact that Christ became Man, man can become God by grace, i.e. become a partaker of the Divine.

This participation is carried out at the expense of Divine energies. “Divine energies descend upon us,” while the Divine “essence remains unapproachable”; “God, invisible by nature, is made visible by energies.”
The term “deification” is absent in the Bible. However, there are certain hints in it: “I said: you are gods, and the sons of the Most High are all of you. (Ps.81:6)"; “That they all may be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, [so] may they also be one in Us. (John 17:21).” “Deification” is not a static concept, but an objective reality. Deification is a term formed in Orthodoxy, characterizing the ultimate goal of Christian life. A goal that opens up the possibility of being with God in eternal life. In the sacrament of baptism, grace gains access to a person... which we see in the example of the lives of the Saints, those who were able to achieve deification. Those. deification-holiness is a real action of both God and man at the same time, because for one person without God, this is in principle impossible!

Clive Lewis, from the position of High Church Anglicanism close to Orthodoxy, in his book Mere Christianity, sets out the goal of Christian life in terms of Deification: “The commandment “Be ye perfect” is not just an idealistically pompous call. This is not an order to do the impossible. The fact is that He is going to transform us into beings who can handle this command. He said (in the Bible) that we are “gods” and He will prove His words right. If we only let Him - we can stop Him if we want - He will turn the weakest, the most unworthy of us into a god or goddess, into a dazzling, luminous, immortal being, pulsating with such energy, such joy, wisdom and love, which we are We can’t imagine now. He will turn us into a pure, sparkling mirror, capable of perfectly reflecting (albeit, of course, on a smaller scale) His limitless power, joy and kindness. This is a long and sometimes painful process. But it is precisely to pass it that is our purpose. We shouldn't expect anything less. What the Lord said, He said seriously.” That is, in other words, if we do not believe that God can deify us, that is, make us saints, then this will not happen to us, because of our unbelief, we will simply prevent God from uniting us with Him.

To clarify the concept of deification, we must briefly analyze the concept of the entire work of Christ, which constitutes the focus of all human history. The doctrine of deification is a direct consequence of the historical work of Christ - outside of Him, Divine life remains inaccessible to man. By causing the old Adam to die on the cross and communicating His own life to man in Jesus, God restores His rightful authority and destroys the deadly usurpation of power by Satan - the Trinity again becomes available to man directly and immediately.

2) Deification is included in the process of salvation and is an integral part of it.

Baptism and the Eucharist have a direct connection with deification, since it is in them that the entire economy of God is revealed. Baptism, freeing us from original corruption, becomes “the resurrection of our soul” and “confers upon us the power to be conformed to the body of glory of Christ” (Phil. 3:21). Through baptism we receive the disposition to do good and enter into a covenant with God, but it is up to us whether or not to give this grace real meaning. “If one who is called obeys the call and is baptized to be called a Christian, but does not conduct himself worthy of that name and does not fulfill his baptismal vows, he is called but not chosen.” In this case, the vows are not only completely useless for him, but, on the contrary, they condemn him. “The renewal and re-creation of the character of the soul is effected by grace in the font of regeneration; they grow and reach perfection through righteous deeds, in accordance with faith.” Baptism restores the “likeness” of God lost through sin. It is impossible to connect deification with a person’s own merits and understand it as a “feat”, the fair reward of which is grace. On the contrary, Divine life becomes available to man as an unmerited gift common to all the baptized. An example from 1 Cor: “Those who received more were arrogant, but those who acquired less were cowardly,” St. Paul attributed equal dignity to them all, “showing that they are all one body, the body of Christ, and individually members (1 Cor. 12:27), because they have received one and the same Spirit.”

Saving, sanctifying and adoring grace is associated with baptism and the Eucharist and is objectively present in the Church in all its fullness. Christians who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27) according to the word of the apostle. Paul, although they remain children of other people by nature, more natures come from Christ, Who so conquered nature that He was incarnated without seed from the Holy Spirit and the Ever-Virgin Mary, giving the power to be children of God (John 1:12). Every Christian is called to conscious intimacy of his entire being with God, who voluntarily emerged from his inaccessibility in order to become “in all things except sin, like us” (Heb. 4:15). Those. deification is not a morally compulsory category of approaching God, which can be expressed in legal language: “God cannot do evil, and man should not, following the moral law,” but deification is a free action, sanctified by the grace of God. Then, this expression can be modified in the right direction and say that: “God cannot do evil, and man, having become a part of Him, will not want to, that is, he will not be able to do evil out of love for Him.”

Speaking about the meaning of the Eucharist in the deification of man, we should talk about the “co-corporeality” of Christians and Christ. Calling the flock to communion, Ap. Paul reminds us that they are to “be with Christ not only in one Spirit, but also in one Body,” that they are “flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone,” and that this is “the union given by this Bread.”

Deification is accomplished through grace, which is a supernatural phenomenon. Regarding the term “grace” (carij), it is known that in Greek it has different meanings. The gift of a given thing is called grace, and sometimes the act of giving itself; therefore, there is a “grace of nature” distinct from “God-creating grace.”

It is necessary to distinguish between created and uncreated grace. People, not themselves, but by the grace of God received what they received, for only God does not possess this by grace; the term "grace" here means that it was given to them. Not everything that God gives us is the same... The Prophet Ezekiel says: “And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:26) and: behold. , I will put the Spirit into you, and you will live (Ezek. 37:5). The difference in gifts is visible here. The new spirit and the new heart are created things, what the Apostle also calls “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15), for it was recreated and renewed by the coming in the flesh of Him who originally created it; As for the Spirit of God given to the new heart, it is the Holy Spirit.”

3) Deification is the result of synergy - the joint actions of God and man, and not just the created energies of man.

Deification requires synergy, i.e. collaboration. Throughout the entire path leading man from his fallen state to union with God, the grace of God helps him to overcome corruption, then to surpass himself and finally reveals God to him. This “synergy” of grace and human effort moves the inner forces of soul and body. The mind must be transformed by grace, but not only it receives grace, but the whole person as a whole - all his abilities and powers of soul and body. A Divine state occurs in a person’s soul, in which he truly begins to have God within himself; and the true Divine state is love for God, which comes through the holy doing of the Divine commandments.

This “Divine state” is a constant advancement, since it presupposes co-working in this age, since a person cannot by his own efforts achieve full compliance with the “new man” that arose in us by the grace of baptism. However, “keeping the commandments” is not so much a condition of grace as a necessary and free synergy of man and the redemptive action of God: once received, the grace of baptism must become a living reality in order to become effective, and only the good will of man can make it so. The doctrine of “synergy” combines the indispensable necessity of grace with man’s full responsibility for his salvation. Baptism is a “deposit” that we receive in order to increase it. The ultimate goal facing a Christian is deification. There is a very close connection between grace and man’s free effort to draw closer to God, and this effort can never be adequate to the total sum of God’s gifts revealed to man by life in Christ. “What a person receives is only a part of what is given: the one who receives Divine energy cannot contain it all.” From the First Epistle to the Corinthians about the gifts of the Spirit it follows: “Those who prophesy, those who heal, those who discern, and those who generally receive the grace of the Divine Spirit, each have a greater or lesser gift in their area. Therefore, Paul thanks God for the fact that he speaks tongues above all others (1 Cor. 14:18), but he who has the least also has the gift of God. Be zealous, says the same apostle, for greater gifts (1 Cor. 12:31): this means that there are also lesser ones. Indeed, in fact... star differs from star in glory (1 Cor. 15:41),... but not one of them is completely deprived of its light. The diversity of gifts of grace does not violate the unity of salvation, which consists essentially in the restoration of communion with the living God, who is wholly and completely present in every gift of grace. Saving grace is indivisible, it is Christ Himself, giving Himself entirely to people, this is the Unity of God.

A person who has received the “firstfruits” of the Kingdom of God in baptism receives not just external justification, but joins a new reality, the Divine and eternal life of Christ, and this is communion with the Uncreated. real communication man with God is a necessary condition for true knowledge. From the moment of the Redemption, man no longer faces God alone: ​​God himself descended to his level in order to accompany man in his ascent to the Creator. This very Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16). and because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying: “Abba, Father!” (Gal. 4:6).

The doctrine of deification does not equate “theology” with “vision” and “contemplation”: Theology is as far from seeing God in the light, as different from bodily communication with God, as knowledge is different from possession; saying something about God does not mean meeting God. So, true knowledge is different from any external assimilation of truth; Some knowledge of God can be achieved through the Holy Scriptures, just as one can accept doctrinal truth and profess Orthodoxy, but these are only means for achieving direct knowledge, intimacy with God, given to us in baptism. Strictly speaking, this is not even knowledge, such a connection is above all knowledge, although metaphorically it is called knowledge.

Union with God presupposes renunciation, but this renunciation is not an end in itself. But this is not inaction, as it might seem at first glance - having united with God, the human personality is restored in all its potential, and becomes truly free from passions.

In conclusion, it should be noted that the salvation of a Christian, according to Orthodox teaching, is impossible without deification. The process of deification does not begin after the salvation of a person, but it leads to it, that is, God saves us - not without us (with the consent of our will). At Baptism, the seed of salvation is sown, and a person must help cultivate it (as, for example, a son helped his father, a farmer, take care of the crops). Not every person can receive the fate of a prudent thief (go straight to heaven), but only a few people, so everyone else “has” to go through their life path in this world and at the same time doing God’s work, not only so as not to do evil, but out of love for the Creator, in gratitude to Him, working for good and for the sake of increasing the number of saved ones.
Deification is a kind of universal mechanism given by God for a person to unite with Him - spiritually and physically, ultimately leading to salvation. Deification helps a person with a fallen nature here on earth to be transformed for a new life with God in eternity.
The Orthodox understanding of deification is not the Old Testament understanding of the separation of the righteous from evil and their service to God in isolation from the rest, it is a much higher purpose of each person - to become truly a child and warrior of Christ - uniting with their Creator in collaboration.

Collaboration consists not only in performing external good deeds, but in the internal transformation of a person due to the uncreated Divine energy, which was revealed by God on Mount Tabor, since not even the strongest person will have the strength to accomplish the internal transformation on his own. The grace of God is given to a person as he can perceive it, otherwise he can “bury it” - as in the parable of the talents, or throw it to pigs in the mud, which is why God gives it gradually. A person can comprehend and assimilate deification through Divine grace (uncreated energy), which is taught to a person primarily through Church sacraments and prayer.

Bibliography:
Electronic resource
1) Meyendorff, Ivan Feofilovich Life and works of St. Gregory Palamas