[CynicalBear]

Well, let’s look at it again.

CCC 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."

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, of his boundless love, became what we are that he might make us what he himself is.” (Against Heresies 5, preface)

Clement of Alexandria
- “Yea, I say, the Word of God became a man so that you might learn from a man how to become a god.” Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks,

“He became man that we might be made divine.” Athanasius, On the Incarnation,

That we might be made divine? We become a god? We are made ”what he himself is? I don’t think you can spin those any other way than to understand that the Catholic Church teaches people will become gods.

[Mrs. Don-o]

It seems, CynicalBear, that when you're dealing with something in my religious faith which seems paradoxical or unclear to you, you don't say, "Hey, but how do you explain this? It seems paradoxical and unclear." --- but instead you tell me that I don't believe what I say I believe, or the Church does not define things as she says she defines them.

This leaves me with no basis for further discussion, since you have --- it seems to me --- assumed that I am arguing fraudulently, or adhering to a church which (like an imbecile) defines its terms by denying its own definitions.

If you'll try not to do that, then let me repeat:

• none of the Church Fathers are polytheists (people who hope to become divine Persons and comprise some kind of Pantheon of equals to the Trinity.)
• None of the Church Fathers are personal annihilationists (people who hope to "turn into" God by dissolving into God without a trace.)

Therefore --- since both the Bible and the Catechism speak of being "partakers in he divine nature," --- I propose this is what the "divinization" (theosis) language is all about: partaking in the divine nature.

It is not good for accurate mutual understanding if you read your own definitions into other people's statements, and then argue that they're wrong on the basis of those definitions which came from you, not from them.

Let's stipulate, then, that Catholics are not Mormons and not Brahmins. If that's the case, think: in what Judeo-Christian, Biblical sense could we understand this divination doctrine?

The answer to that, will be the true touchstone of the doctrine.

Do you see what I'm saying?