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Wisdom Saying
Then the soul knows that all the states of self-pleasing visions, openings, ecstasies, and raptures, are rather obstacles, that they do not serve this state that is far above them, because the state that has supports has pain to lose them, yet cannot arrive at this without such loss. In this the words of an experienced saint are verified: "When I would," says he, "possess nothing through self-love, everything was given me without going after it." Oh, happy dying of the grain of wheat, which makes it produce a hundredfold! (See John 12.24).
*Madame Guyon, Jeanne Guyon: An Autobiography
Scripture
3His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to[or, by] his own glory and excellence,[or, virtue] 4by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 5For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue,[or, excellence] and virtue [or, excellence] with knowledge, 6and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
*II Peter 1.3-7, ESV
Comments
The goal of divine self-transcendence, or absorption of the will into the Will of God, is divinization, or theosis. St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-c. 215) was the first Christian theologian to speak extensively of transmutation into godness, of the human person being en-goded. Here, you become like-to-God, but this likeness is through your particular, being-converted personhood.
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Says St. Clement: "I say, the Logos of God became man so that you may learn from man how man may become God." By the incarnation of the timeless, eternal Word, Jesus Christ, we are invited to learn how to enter the process of transmutation of self-will into the living God-Will, thereby, our whole self into a Christic state of being: a be-ing like Christ, through the Holy Spirit.
Christian mystical theologians, especially theologians of the Eastern Church, but with John Wesley~though not a mystical theologian~being an example in the Western Church, have referred to II Peter 1.4 [see above] to appeal to us to seek this divinization, or theosis.
I illustrate this process. Imagine one Sun. Turning to the Sun, as daily acesis~spiritual discipline~, the total self is transformed gradually into the likeness, or image, of the Sun. This is by penetration of the Sun into and through the total self. The self is not unbecoming the self; the self is becoming the Sun in likeness. The self is being translated into the Divine Image by the Sun of the Image: this Image consist in potentialities of godlikeness~mostly unrealized and unknown to most persons~ and only conferred through increasing participation in the Exemplar Itself. This process continues for the Sun is Infinite Nature, and the self cannot become fully Infinite, for the self cannot become all of God, for God is Infinity and, thus, remains alone Infinite. Still, the self increases in the likeness of Infinity, which entails the potentialities inhering in the Infinite as Infinite.
The key is turning to the Sun. Every person chooses the extent to which she turns to the Sun. This is reliant on desire, which is a manner of speaking of will. The Sun is always turned to each of us, for the Divine wills, desires, to share Itself with us, wholly. But the Spirit of Christ does not penetrate and, thereby, transmute us, sharing with us the Divine Nature, without our acesis of turning.
Key in this Grace is acesis, but, also, passiveness. We are taught to get what we want: the culture of consumerism. We cannot be spiritual consumers and be being transformed into the Divine Nature, or Divine Likeness.
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