On a quick skim this jumped out...
12: “While Catholics would say that the “end of man is to serve God in this life to be reasonably happy in this life and completely happy in the next...””
It looks like something a kid made up.
Catholic Catechism:
460 - The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”
1129 - “The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation. “Sacramental grace” is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament. The Spirit heals and transforms those who receive him by conforming them to the Son of God. **The fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior.**”
“The consequences of such a view are rich, unfathomable, and rarely studied by Catholic Christians.”
That’s news to me...
HOLY MASS:
The Offertory at Mass, in both the old and the new Roman rite, contains the prayer:
“By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”
If we did not share in his divinity, then there would be only actual grace. But from Baptism onwards we receive Supernatural Graces—graces above our human nature.
If we did not share in his divinity, then we would be capable of only human faith, hope and charity as a result of our own strength of character. But we receive Supernatural Virtues— Faith, Hope and Charity by the power of God.
If we did not share in his divinity, then we would receive only his humanity in Holy Communion. But we receive the whole Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.
It looks like something a kid made up.
Actually, it was Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.
I did clarify that on another post on the thread.
Thank you for the quote from the CCC. I don't think that it denies my assertion though. Whether the Orthodox say it, or we say it, the truth of the matter is that we don't reflect on what this "partaking of the divine nature" means as much as we ought to.
-Theo