There is a difference between eating an apple (it is now in you), and becoming an apple. 
We are to become Christlike, we do not become Christ.
2 Likes
What about the rest of Galatians 2:20?
Given that, your literalistic inferences are no longer justified.
1 Like
Thanks to you Randy, for the interest in this discussion!
I try to clarify:
“God became human so that we might become God” is a quotation from St. Athanasius of Alexandria (also called the Great, one of the four great Eastern Fathers and Doctors of the Church) in his Work “On the Incarnation of the Word”, chapter 54.
You find this statement also quoted by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Actually, St. Athanasius develops the teaching of another great Greek Father, St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies, Book V, Preface):
“the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.
As you rightly say, C.S. Lewis refers to this teaching of Irenaeus as well.
This teaching of the Eastern Fathers is most relevant to understanding the origins of humanity and thereby evolution: “In reality, it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear”.
St. Paul tells us that the human race takes its origin from two men: Adam (the first Adam) and Christ (the last Adam). But the first Adam was made by the last Adam, as the last Adam stamped his image on the first Adam when he created him. So that the last Adam is indeed the first; as he himself says: “I am the first and the last.”
Christ is indeed the common ancestor of all humans, to whom the words apply: “from one ancestor (God) made all nations to inhabit the whole earth”. The teaching of St. Paul is basically about theological ancestry! Genetic ancestry matters only in the light of theological ancestry. If you keep to genetic ancestry alone, then your distant grandfather is a fish. If you keep to theological ancestry , then the common ancestor of all humans in the image of God is Jesus Christ. The human race forms a unity, because of its common origin in Christ.
thanks. from reading the link, it is pretty clear that most Christian groups acknowledge that doesn’t mean that we are gods 
A quick glance at my own practice as a dad, husband and physician demonstrates that I’m not all knowing, as kind as God, or as powerful. so it must be that we are intended to become better people, as befits our servant intent from creation. Thanks.
I think that the first Adam was symbolic, and did not exist. However, this seems a huge jump to saying we are gods. I don’t know much of Athanasius, but it seems that veneration of God recognizes that we are not Him (thank God!).
If we are to copy God in his servanthood in Christ, that makes more what I understand of Lewis’ account. Would you agree? Thanks.
The comparison with “eating an apple” is excellent!
John 6:57:
“The one who eats Me will live because of Me.”
If you eat an apple, the apple becomes you.
If you eat Christ, you become Christ!
The Word became flesh, so that we can feed on it and become God.
And the flesh we are and the Word became, did result from Evolution, to the end that humankind can become the body of Christ!
This is the reason why humankind has a dignity that animals and machines do not have.
But the ongoing delusions about humanity are so fundamental that “they will call the very term ‘human’ into question.”
So it is important to call:
Humans of all countries unite!
In name of God’s Incarnation and Evolution.
I will not have been physically crucified nor will I physically become him.
Nay, but we do become adopted into God’s family becoming Jesus’ siblings and joint heirs.
1 Like
“To copy God in his servanthood in Christ” is precisely what it means to become God!
We are taught by Christ on the Cross:
To become God does not mean to grasp God’s power and glory, but to love as God loves: God is love.
If you want to “become God”, come with me on the Cross!
This is what St. Athanasius states, very much in the same sense you state:
Strictly speaking, “the first Adam” is Jesus Christ, the theological ancestor of all humans in the image of God.
But there was also a first human person God created and called to share God’s life, i.e.: to love like God loves. This person is referred to by the biblical personal Adam, and can also be considered to be the theological ancestor of all humans in the image of God, “the first Adam”, in St. Paul’s wording.
If you dispose of theological ancestry and keep only to genetic ancestry, then there is no “first Adam”, no first human being in the image of God.
But then “your distant grandfather is a fish”, and you have no more dignity and value than a fish.
We are using the language differently. You say ‘become’ without any qualifiers as if we could become omniscient and omnipotent. We (my part of we, anyway) say ‘become like’ in some particulars, such as servanthood.
1 Like
Hm.If that’s the way God made me! Maybe I don’t understand. Thanks.
1 Like
According to you, which is “the way God made you”?
Thanks in advance for elaborating.
Your answer may be useful to find common ground.
1 Like
“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” (1 John 4:16)
That says God lives in them, not that they become God.
1 Like
It says that “whoever lives in love” becomes a unity of love with God (“lives in God, and God in them”), and thus becomes God, since “God is love”.
The important point is that humankind is called to become a unity of love in Jesus Christ, and thereby every human being can become God, even if he is weak, poor, ill, unskilled, illiterate.
Of all visible creatures only humans are called to share by love in God’s own life, and this is the fundamental reason for the dignity of humankind.
If God did not become human, then you are not worthier than a fish!
Hm. Please explain. Thanks. Biologically, it seems the difference is great, yet quantifiable. Does the ability to conceive of and communicate with God not count? It seems to me that that is a quantifiable, biological difference; we can celebrate our similarities with fish, too.
What of pre Christian folks? Thanks
No, that is not what it says. You are reading into it your preconception, I’m afraid. If you would look at the larger context of scripture, this summarizes pretty well:
…so that through them you may participate in the divine nature…
2 Peter 1:4
Participate in is not synonymous with become.
1 Like
Have you or will you become omnipotent or omniscient?
1 Like
Had God not become human, would we not be able of conceiving of and communicating with God, let alone of loving like God!
Undoubtedly, but these biological similarities do not make us worthier than fish!
If you keep to the axiom that we are worthier than fish, then you can’t help acknowledging that God became human to make humankind in the image of God.
In fact, the truth of God’s incarnation is strongly darkening today and, as a consequence, the very term ‘human’ is called into question: The mindset that humans are not worthier than animals or machines is becoming a major intellectual pandemic.
“For God chose us in Jesus Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” (Ephesians 1:4).
All folks are post-Christian ones!
I am sorry, but I don’t see this in the Bible. “We love Him because He first loved us,” yes, but that is not the same thing, to my reading.
I’m not sure God has made anything inferior to the other. Fish are our forebears. We are more intelligent. God doesn’t make junk.
I am concerned we are looking at a mystic difference that can be misconstrued. However, I’m not sure it really matters. The fact that God became man, and we are to worship Him in all we say and do, is an axiom that we share. Thanks.