Deification and Grace Paper back - 2007

Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, July 2007. Paper Back. New. Writing from a Roman Catholic perspective, Daniel Keating offers a fine summary of the biblical basis for the doctrine of deification (<i>theosis</i>), and its development not only by the Eastern Fathers but also by Ambrose, Augustine, Leo, and Aquinas in the West. He is insistent that the massive common ground that exists here should relativize, to some degree, the important divergences that do exist between Orthodox and Catholic views on the nature of grace, whether created or uncreated, and the manner in which grace enables our participation in the divine nature (in other words, the divergence between the approaches of Aquinas and Palamas). While more detailed studies of various aspects of <i>theosis</i> obviously exist-Norman Russell's <i>Doctrine of Deification</i> and A.N. Williams' <i>Ground of Union</i> come to mind-the strength of Keating's synthetic work is in its balance, concision, and clarity, and the way deification is consistently located in the biblical revelation, in the Atonement as well as the Incarnation, in the sacraments as well as in ascesis. Keating's chapter on the pervasive presence of the phrase in many of the early Fathers that is often assigned only to Athanasius-'God became man in order that man might become God'-is worth owning the book. Carefully documented and indexed, with a useful bibliography, <i>Deification and Grace</i> is a valuable resource for those interested in authentic theological encounter between East and West. 142 pp.