This post simply pulls together some quotes from my last post so that the parallels can be seen more clearly and so that people don’t get lost in the ardor or the argument and fail to notice the obvious.
I have arranged the key quotes by category, placing one or two theologians directly alongside Lee. I’ll largely let the quotations speak for themselves, although I do make a few clarifications in the endnotes.
The point of both posts is that Lee’s language about deification is neither bald nor unprincipled; rather, his reasoning about deification and divine begetting has parallels at the levels of patristic precedent (1), metaphysics (2), exegesis (3), and analogy (4).
1. The Theological Claim in the Exchange Formula
Athanasius: “He became man so that we might become God.”1
Lee: “He became a man that we as men may become God in life and nature (but not in the Godhead).”2
2. The Metaphysical Principle that Like Begets Like
Aristotle: “The begetter is of the same kind as the begotten.”3
Maximus the Confessor: “Melchizedek became by grace what the Giver of grace is by nature… and was begotten of God… so that he now bears within himself… the likeness of God the begetter, for birth creates identity between the begetter and the begotten [John 3:6].”4
Lee: “That which is begotten must be the same as its begetter.”5
3. The Scriptural Grounding: Being Born of God and Becoming gods (John 1:12–13)
Augustine: “The grace of God came to you and ‘gave you the power to become the sons of God’ (John 1:12)… If they are the sons of God… then indeed they are children of God. And so thereby are gods.”6
Andrew Byers: “Filiation involves deification in the Prologue [1:12-13] because membership in this new family includes a divine re-origination ἐκ θεοῦ (‘out of God’).”7
Lee: “In regeneration God begets gods, who are His children in His life and nature but not in His Godhead (John 1:12-13).”8
4. The Biological Analogy: God Begets Gods Just as Sheep Beget Sheep or Beavers Beget Beavers
Augustine: “A human being doesn’t beget an ox, a sheep doesn’t beget a dog, or a dog a sheep. Whatever the begetter is, that is what it begets… A mortal begets what he is, the immortal begets what he is; corruptible begets corruptible, incorruptible begets incorruptible.”9
C. S. Lewis: “When you beget something, you beget something that is the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, and a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs that turn into little birds…. What God begets is God… He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself…. He said (in the Bible) that we were ‘gods’ and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him… He will make the feeblest and fishiest of us into a god.”10
Lee: “An ox begets oxen, and a sheep begets sheep. A sheep can never beget an ox. Likewise, a human being begets human beings, and God begets gods.”11
- Athanasius, On the Incarnation 54. ↩︎
- Lee, Life-study of First and Second Samuel, 122. ↩︎
- Aristotle, Metaphysics VII.8, 1033b, trans. W.D. Ross. Aristotle and John use forms of the same Greek verb, γεννάω (“beget, give birth”). Aristotle uses participial forms (γεννῶν, “begetting,” and γεννώμενον, “being begotten”), while John uses the aorist passive ἐγεννήθησαν, “were begotten.” ↩︎
- Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum 10.20a. It’s important to note that Maximus here is applying Aristotle’s metaphysical principle to human beings in being begotten of God such that they are deified. I quoted Gregory Nazianzus in the last post saying something similar, but he was referring to the relationship between the Father and the Son in the Trinity. ↩︎
- Lee, CWWL 1994–1997, 3:376. ↩︎
- Augustine, Sermon 81.6. ↩︎
- Byers, Ecclesiology and Theosis in the Gospel of John, 185. ↩︎
- Lee, CWWL 1994–1997, 5:98 ↩︎
- Augustine, Sermon 398: On the Creed to the Catechumens 3. ↩︎
- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 138, 164, 176. One thing to note here: Lewis’s first statement occurs in his discussion of the generation of the Son; the latter statements concern the transformation of human beings. His argument nevertheless deliberately connects the two through the distinction between “begetting” and “making.” ↩︎
- Lee, CWWL 1994–1997, 2:253. ↩︎
conversant faith 