The criticisms levied by Protestants here with respect to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 460, are in fact, an implicit heresy with respect to failing to completely grasp the implications of the Incarnation. The Incarnation in readers digest language is the orthodox doctrine that the eternal son of God assumed a complete human nature and was born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, as Our Sunday’s Visitors Catholic Encyclopedia (p. 530) states “The union of the divine and human natures in Christ is a permanent and abiding one. In addition, a fundamental soteriological conviction is at stake in the doctrine: Whatever is not assumed is not saved. According to the scriptures, the Incarnation has the salvific purpose that embraces both the restoration of the image of God in us through the cross of Christ and the foretaste of the perfect union with God that is our destiny in Christ.”
Catholics meditate on the Incarnation constantly, as evidenced by the Annunciation being part of the Rosary and the Church requirement that the Faithful are obliged to attend the Christmas Liturgy regardless of which day it falls. More importantly, and I think this gets more into the crux of the matter, while Protestants accept the doctrine of the Incarnation, the implications for Protestants with respect to the Incarnation creates problems for their doctrines of justification. Lets take the mere fact that Christ loved our bodies (i.e. Human nature) enough to take a body himself). Since all the Creeds confess the orthodox doctrine of the “resurrection of the body” (Apostles Creed) and “We look for resurrection of the dead” (Nicene Creed), the Doctrine of the Incarnation is important and related to these statements as we will continue to have our bodies in heaven.
It is in the context of the Incarnation that paragraph CCC 460 is to be understood and again, here is where Protestants are implicitly embracing Gnosticism as many Protestant confessions have an anti-physical bias. Protestant doctrines about justification which say that God imputes his Grace, which amounts to a covering of the human person, is in opposition of the Catholic position with as I noted earlier, “God’s Grace restores us unto God’s image and is a foretaste of the perfect union with the Trinity.” The failure to contemplate the full implications of the Incarnation impacts how most Protestants view the Sacraments, as the Protestant understanding of Sacraments has the anti-physical bias which thus prevents them from understanding the orthodox understanding of the Eucharist and Baptism as they are taught in Scripture.
Earlier, Petronski linked a paper about “Theosis”, which is rooted in Incarnational Theology, and shows that this doctrine was taught as far back as St. Irenaeus of Lyons (AD 170-175), who I might add again, was writing against “The Gnostics”, hmmm, hmmm. As I noted earlier, Catholic soteriology is grounded in the orthodox doctrine of Christ’s Incarnation. Thomas Howard, in Evangelical is Not Enough (p. 36) writes: “The Incarnation took all that properly belongs to our humanity and delivered it back to us, redeemed. All of our inclinations and appetites and capacities and yearnings and proclivities are purified and gathered up and glorified by Christ.”
In addition to 2 Peter: 4, there are other passages that refer to human persons partaking God’s nature. St. Paul writes: “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself” (c.f. Phil 3:20-21). Similar to St. Paul and St. Peter, St. John makes a reference to being like God. For example, St. John writes: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure as he is pure” (c.f. 1 John 3:2-3). If one thinks about logically, the fact that through the resurrection of Christ, we who die with Christ and our raised with him is in fact a participation in the Divine life and thus we are like God in that we will live for eternity. Thus, the doctrine in the CCC para. 460 is entirely orthodox. I have provided an Orthodox Church link which explains “theosis” in more detail for those who are interested in “learning and not polemics”
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Theosis
Regards
I linked and discussed Theosis too.
But this is NOT about discussing Theosis, CCC460 and 2nd Peter 1:4.
This is about trashing Catholics and Catholicism with half-truths and smears.