Called to Be the Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification Paperback – April 19, 2016

This book is the most profound, enlightening, and beautiful book diving into the incredible truth about why we were created. And how and why God became man. Our destiny is to become transformed into Christ.....Who is God! Theosis, or divinization. God became man so that man could become God. God became flesh so that man could become engodded. This book dives into an abundance of writings, essays and theses on this subject and the absolute wonder if the Incarnation. If your mind and heart is in the right place you will be deeply moved by what you read and learn. To share intimately in the life of God is our destiny. Is this what you desire or do you wish to settle for less? This book opens up our minds to comprehend the truth of the doctrine of theosis, or divinization.

Outstanding series of essays on deification (or "union with God" might be more understandable to some). Written from Roman Catholic perspective and revealing as deep a history and understanding as the Orthodox Church has of this concept. Incredibly enriching to the notion of what it fully means to be "saved" and our ultimate destiny with God. Introduction by Scott Hahn gets it off to a great start.

This book was great on the Latin Catholic understanding of deification. What an insight book. Every Catholic Mass leads us closer to deification.

The title says it all -- thank you Mr Olson, Fr David, and Dr Hahn for helping to make this happen!

More detailed review to come. For now, suffice for me to say that this is an important contribution to a catechesis through Patristic theology for Catholics.

Item was pre-ordered. Shipped a bit later than expected, but otherwise fine. Item was as described.

Every child of God should read this

Excellent and reliable collection of essays

Beautiful, inspiring book. I originally thought theosis/divinization was a nice, interesting Eastern souvenir.. I was so wrong! The authors conclusively proved that the mindframe of theosis is present at the heart of the Church (though in varying languages and forms of expression) in figures as varied as Augustine and the Latin Church Fathers, St. Francis Assici, Aquinas, Newman, the Council of Trent, and Vatican II. In the words of one of the authors, the teaching of Theosis (our divinization and participation in the very life of God) is the antidote to the Nietzchean mentality that sees God as an opposing party with whom I must contend, instead of our ultimate fulfillment (which He is).

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The doctrine of theosis or deification, that the end of salvation is to become one with God, a partaker of the divine nature, is most associated with Eastern Orthodoxy. However, it has always been a part of the theology of the Roman Catholic Church and is clearly expressed in her catechism. This book traces the history of how Catholic theologians have expressed the doctrine of theosis. This collection of essays begins with the Scriptures, then moves across history, looking at such important figures as Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Blessed John Henry Newman. It concludes with an essay by David Fagerberg on the relationship between the liturgy and divinization. The author of this essay identifies Mary as the ultimate model for human deification.While the bulk of this book deals with the western theological tradition, one of the essays deals with theosis in the Eastern Church Fathers, the common heritage of both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. I did wonder if there had been no post-schism theological developments among the Eastern-rite Catholic churches. It would have been interesting to have had an essay discussing the doctrine of theosis within the theological and liturgical context of the Easten-rite Catholic churches, not just the Byzantine, but the Alexandrian, Armenian and Syrian rites. Given the emphasis on western theology, I do wonder if it was appropriate to have a Greek Orthodox icon on the cover. The essay on the Franciscan theological tradition was enjoyable. I think I am a fan of Franciscan theology. There is some overlap between some of the essays, for instance, Matthias Scheeben is discussed in several of the chapters.This is a really valuable exercise in historical theology and was very edifying.

Zu Unrecht geht man allgemein davon aus, dass das Thema "Theosis" ein rein orthodoxes Spezialthema ist. Dieses umfangreiche und ausgewogene Buch breitet das Thema "Vergöttlichung" aus verschiedenen Blickpunkten aus und zeigt seinen Platz in der katholischen Theologie und spirituellen Praxis. Klar ist allerdings, dass das Thema seit der Reformation etwas ins Hintertreffen geraten ist und eine Neuentdeckung nicht nur aus ökumenischen Gesichtspunkten dringend notwendig ist. Lesetipp!

Good book