Question 36 · Salvation

What does it mean to be made like God (theosis)?

What the sources show

Irenaeus of Lyons c. 180 · Clement of Alexandria c. 195 · Athanasius of Alexandria c. 318 · Gregory of Nazianzus c. 380Made god by grace

From Irenaeus on, the fathers state an exchange: the Word became what we are so that we might become what he is. Clement and Athanasius say it outright: man may "become god". ¹²³⁴

Augustine of Hippo c. 426 · Westminster Assembly 1646

Augustine puts it as sons by nature and sons by grace. Reformed confessions speak of union and adoption and rule out any share in God's substance, which the fathers also denied. ⁵⁷

The answers given:

ApostolicBefore NicaeaNicaea and afterMiddle AgesReformation to today

Scroll through the centuries, or tap a dot. J K move between witnesses.

Before Nicaea

150–325

180c. AD

Made god by graceIndirect: does not say it outright

Irenaeus of Lyons c. 130–c. 202 ADAgainst Heresies 3.19.1

For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God the Son of man: so that man, having received the Word and taken on adoption, might become a son of God.

The "exchange" form that later writers sharpened. The Greek survives in Theodoret's Eranistes.

Full English of this work is being translated · Source text

195c. AD

Made god by grace

Clement of Alexandria c. 150–c. 215 ADExhortation to the Greeks 1.8.4

Yes, I say, the Word of God became man, so that you too may learn from a man how a man may become god.

The first plain statement that a human being may "become god".

Full English of this work is being translated

318c. AD

Made god by grace

Athanasius of Alexandria c. 293/298–373 ADOn the Incarnation 54.3

For he became man so that we might be made god; and he showed himself through a body so that we might receive an idea of the unseen Father; and he endured insult from men so that we might inherit incorruption.

The most quoted line on deification. The Catechism of the Catholic Church cites it (460).

Full English of this work is being translated

Nicaea to Chalcedon

325–451

380c. AD

Made god by grace

Gregory of Nazianzus c. 329/330–390 ADOration 29 (Third Theological Oration) 19

He became man, God below ... so that I might become god as much as he became man.

Maximus the Confessor built on this line in the seventh century.

Full English of this work is being translated

426c. AD

Made god by graceIndirect: does not say it outright

Augustine of Hippo 354–430 ADCity of God 21.15

The only Son of God by nature became, for our sake and in mercy, a son of man, so that we, sons of man by nature, might through him become sons of God by grace.

The Western form: by grace, not by nature. Augustine also says God "makes gods" of those he justifies (Exposition of Psalm 49).

Full English of this work is being translated · Source text

Late antiquity and Byzantium

451–1054

640c. AD

Made god by grace

Maximus the ConfessorAmbigua to John 41 (PG 91, col. 1309)

And finally, beyond all this, he will unite created nature with the uncreated through love (O the wonder of God's love for mankind!), and show them one and the same in the state of grace, having passed wholly through God as a whole, and become everything that God is, except identity in essence, and having received God himself, whole, in exchange for himself.

Maximus's Ambigua unpack hard sayings in Gregory of Nazianzus. Here the subject is man in Christ at the end of the ages: deified wholly, by grace, while the difference of essence remains.

Full English of this work is being translated

Reformation

1500–1700

1646AD

Union, not substance

Westminster AssemblyWestminster Confession of Faith 26.3

This communion which the saints have with Christ, doth not make them in any wise partakers of the substance of his Godhead; or to be equal with Christ in any respect: either of which to affirm is impious and blasphemous.

Reformed teaching speaks of union with Christ and adoption, and guards against any sharing in God's substance. The fathers also denied that.

Read the full text →

Witnesses not in the library yet

These writers also matter for this question. Their texts will join the timeline above once they are translated.

1340
Gregory Palamas, Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts
We share God's energies, not his essence: the Orthodox definition, confirmed by councils in 1341 and 1351.
630
Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua 7 and 10
Ambiguum 41 is now quoted (see the quotes). Ambigua 7 and 10 themselves could not be pinned inside the library's PG 91 tomos chunking: the sections are not numbered by Ambiguum, and searches on the deification vocabulary surfaced Ambiguum 41 (PG 91, col. 1309) and the Quaestiones ad Thalassium instead.
415
Augustine of Hippo, Exposition of Psalm 49.2
"He who was God became man, to make gods of those who were men."

How this page was made

Every early quote was read in its Greek or Latin and translated for this page by Claude (Opus 5.5) on 13 October 2026. Each line names the printed edition it was read from. A quote marked indirect does not state the answer outright; read its note. A writer's silence is never counted as an answer.