No. I'm afraid my expiration date on that may have passed some time ago. But I have definitely grown quite a bit in my views as a result of my time interacting with you all (and certain ones of you in particular -- you know who you are). So to that end . . .


You just won't get my vote for administrator. I like the company.

More to the point, are you paying attention to FrH? He's right on his points to you, you know. God's essence is incommunicable, so whatever you take deification or participating in God's nature to mean, it can't be that.

On a related note, it's a shame the East and the West haven't been able to be in better conversation over these sorts of things. I think their essence/energies distinctions is very helpful here. As commonly stated, it clearly violates divine simplicity, but in my own readings on the subjects (which is more than just cursory), I tend to think the gap here is not entirely unbridgeable. May be a solution in search of a problem, but, again, when you want to talk about deification, the resources from their side are a little more intuitive.

You said, “...in that way,”

In what way? Through our act of existing? I’d have to think about that more but I was saying we share in His Essence by a created likeness - grace, not by our act of existence.

Isn’t sanctifying grace a created “likeness” of God?

If yes, and if God is His Essence, then sanctifying grace is a created “likeness” of His Essence, and so of course, sanctifying grace is not something uncreated and is not His Essence.

The East differs here. These energies they maintain are uncreated but are distinct from His Essence which makes no sense. Anything that exists and is uncreated is God Who is His Essence

I’ll get back to this tomorrow.

Is it? I've never heard that.

Fr. so in this last paragraph from the pickle, grace (sanctifying in this context) here is said to be a created participated likeness of the Divine Nature.

Banned for quoting the pickle.

Your language still needs precision. God exists in a way that is incomparably different from the way we exist--He doesn't just exist more or better, but in a different way. His existence is grounded on nothing else, while ours is grounded on Him.

Someone should write a script that does this automatically. It would also conveniently function as a self-ban if you need a few days away.

Can we also create a pickle emoji getting squashed by a hammer or foot?

Of course you can't imagine it, neither can I. No one can. You can't imagine the soul either, yet I'm guessing you do not deny that souls exist. As gherkin notes, conceiving and imagining are not the same thing.

Those, however, are not acts of creation. If I make, say, a toy horse out of clay, I am not 'creating' a toy horse, I am making or shaping it.

No, we do not. As Wisdom 14:21 notes, the name of God, and coincidentally His being, is incommunicable. Aquinas explains our participation in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) not as a share in the divine being itself but in as God "bestowing a partaking of the Divine Nature by a participated likeness" (Summa Theologiae I-II, q.112, a.1, corpus).

Yup, He makes us God-Like. Or like, little gods:) I think it's time you step out and fly the Gold and Yellow, CC.

Psalm 33:6 ESV
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.