When is someone going to cite John 1:12?
It is a interesting passage, where St. John refers to becomng “children of God”. Another passage that is consistent with the notion of “participation in the Divine Nature: (c.f. 2 Peter 2:4). I found and older Reflection of the Incarnation by Pope Benedict which refers to theosis and relates to CCC para. 460
http://www.zenit.org/article-19335?l=english
Pope Benedict’s Book “Jesus of Nazareth” in the Section “Vine and Wine” discusses the question about how we can “feed on God, live on God, in such a way that he himself becomes out bread...God becomes bread for us first of all in the Incarnation of the Logos: The Word takes flesh. The Logos becomes one of us and so comed down to our level, comes down to our level, comes into the sphere of what is accessible to us. Yet a further step is still needed beyond Incarnation of the Word. Jesus names this step..by stating his flesh is life for the world (Jn 6:51). Beyond the act of Incarnation, this points to the intrinsic goal and ultimate realization: Jesus’ act of giving himself up to death and the mystery of the Cross.” (pp.268-269)
Pope Benedict later links Incarnation and Cross together (p. 269) when discussing St. John’s Gospel by stating “In this Chapte the theology of Incarnation and the Theology of the Cross come together; the two cannot be separated. There are thus no grounds for setting up and opposition between Easter thelogy of the Synoptics and St. Paul, on one hand, and St. John’s supposedly purely incarnational theology, on the other. For the goal of the Word’s becoming-flesh spoken of by the prologue is precisely the offering of his body on the Cross, which the sacrament makes accessible to us”
As I alluded to earlier, many of the Protestants here seem to have the Calvinistic view of human nature (Total Depraved/evil), which is why the Calvinisms soteriology is purely legal, i.e. God covers the Totally Depraved person in Grace, but nothing changes. Catholicsm sees in Christ the truths about human nature that God intended in Creation before the Fall of Adam and Eve (i.e. Original sin) and thus through the Incarnation and the Cross and Resurrrection, God’s Grace restores and transforms us back to our True Human nature.
Regards