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“Gloria enim Dei vivens homo, vita autem hominis visio Dei.”

For the glory of God is the living man, and the life of man is the vision of God.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus haereses, Book IV

In the Church, the above quotation, wrenched from context, is often invoked to equate human wellness with the life of grace. We are told that “the glory of God is man fully alive,” as if a full human life were the endpoint of God’s plan for the human race. Quite often statements such as these reveal an underlying theology that denies the distinction between nature and grace.

Some will speak of being an “anonymous Christian” in such a way that being a follower of Jesus Christ is nothing more than affirming universal human values. Creation and redemption need not be seen as conceptually distinct orders in the Divine Providence. On the contrary, we are told that God offers grace universally to all. When we look for one who belongs to Jesus, we may be no more likely to find such a one in the Church than we would if were to look among a group of Hindus, agnostics or even atheists. Formal adherence to the Creed is not so important as other-centeredness and openness to the holy mystery that Christians call “God.”

One does not have to know much Latin to see that the translation “the glory of God is man fully alive” is inadequate. Nowhere in the text do we encounter anything like a Latin word for full (plenus) or fully (plene). We simply see vivens homo , which literally translates “living man.”

Moreover, St. Irenaeus does not see human fulfillment as an enclosed reality, but one that points beyond itself. In order for man to be alive, man must see God. After the fall, there is a discontinuity between human flourishing and the vision of God, such that the orders of nature and grace can only be definitively reunited through sacrifice. Thus Irenaeus is quick to add, “and the life of man is the vision of God.”

In Jesus Christ the invisible God shows His face to the human race. Christ’s human life reveals something very important about God’s plan to share His glory with us. The human nature that Jesus possessed and through which He acted entered into glory in heaven only after His death on the Cross. If such is true of the sinless human nature of Christ, how much more will it be true of us, whose human nature is blemished not only by original sin but also numerous actual sinful actions? It is through embracing the Cross and only through embracing the Cross that human beings enter into true life. While such an embrace might take diverse forms in the lives of those who have not heard the preaching of the Gospel, any version of Christianity that does not robustly proclaim the Cross of Jesus Christ offers a vision of God that is, at best, unclear and, more likely, simply false.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: Theosis

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