Well, out of the chute...
"Deiform Man. What graces were given to Adam in the state of original justice? The array of graces that made him supernatural man: the Indwelling Trinity – sanctifying grace – infused virtues – gifts of the Holy Spirit. What kind of man may we now call him? Sanctified, divinized, deified – but the term we like best, the one which many Fathers and St. Thomas have used, is deiform. Adam was God-like; two complementary “natures” were united, interwoven, into one deiform man. Adam was not God; he was not made ever into God. But he was made god-like, a deiform man, lifted up as it were into the realm of God. And it was sanctifying grace that gave him this deiform nature, infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit that gave him his deiform powers, the Indwelling Trinity that caused and conserved all these graces in him. We find in him also certain preternatural gifts: integrity, impassibility, immortality, infused knowledge. We call these graces, too. But while the graces mentioned above (sanctifying grace, etc.) are absolutely supernatural, since they are not due to any created nature, the preternatural gifts are relatively supernatural (supernatural relatively to human nature) since they are undue to human nature, but are due to angelic nature."
This is a fig newton of someone's imagination. Nowhere in Scripture does it represent Adam as anything like this. If James is correct, then a lust for independence existed in Adam (just as it did in Lucifer) which gave birth to sin and led to death. But, "deiform"? Please. This is part of the RCC's heady ambition to make men (mostly themselves) more than they are.
We are broken beings with natures like Adam. We need rescued by Christ. Some have been chosen before the foundation of the earth to be rescued...others have been fashioned for destruction. Grace, in abundance, is given to the former. Destruction will be dealt to the latter. With which part of this biblical position do you disagree?
No one who writes this can be entirely evil. Just sayin'
:-)
I'll try to give a more thoughtful answer tomorrow, D.V. I would say at first blush that "deiform" is an attempt to deal with "image and likeness," and that first time through I didn't find much to object to in what you wrote.