The mistaken concept some people say about participation in the divine nature

Main idea
His Holiness Pope Shenouda III explains that there is a fundamental difference between sharing in God’s apparent attributes such as wisdom and mercy and sharing in the divine nature itself (theosis and the essence). Humans and angels may receive graces and attributes from God, but they do not become partners in His essence nor in those eternal attributes that no one shares with Him.

Clarification about works and grace
Participation with God is possible in work through grace: man works by the aid of the Holy Spirit and attains holiness as a gift, but the divine works proper (the redemption, His resurrection from the dead by His divine power, creation) are works proper to God alone and man does not participate in them essentially.

Resurrection and immortality
Christ’s resurrection is His resurrection by the power of His divinity, whereas the raising of the dead for humans is a gift and an act of God, not a participation in His divinity. Immortality and eternal life are gifts from God and not part of the nature of the mortal human.

Holiness as a gift not an essential nature
The holiness that man attains is a gift from God: man may hold to it or fall from it. But holiness as an inseparable part of nature belongs to God alone and does not become for man a participation in the divine essence.

Indwelling of the Holy Spirit and hypostatic union
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in man prepares, aids, and sanctifies but it is not equivalent to a hypostatic union. The hypostatic union of divinity is the state of Christ alone united hypostatically with the Son; what occurs in us is indwelling and activity of the Spirit, not a change into divine essence.

The Eucharist
Partaking of the body united with divinity does not make the communicant a god; we partake of Christ united with divinity but we do not eat divinity. The Eucharist is a gift and a spiritual union in love, not participation in the essence of divinity.

Practical and spiritual summary
Therefore one must distinguish between: privileges and graces God grants (holiness, wisdom, spiritual life) and participation in the essence of divinity which belongs to God alone. Defending the divinity of Christ requires that we neither lower Him to the level of humanity nor raise humanity to the level of divinity.

Holiness

Theosis

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