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 Old discussions from 2003 

Some Mormons argue that even assuming mainstream Christianity's definition of God's omnipotence and omniscience, not only can God exalt mortal man, but God must do so. 

I don't understand this sentence.  I don't know what the issue is supposed to be, to which Mormons are contributing their ""argument""; I don't know what it means that God ""must"" exalt mortal man.   20:54, 4 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. It is not clear what the writer meant. I have no idea who wrote it, but I'll change it.

Sorry for that very brief and very confusing statement. Where it reads, omniscience, it should have read, omnibenevolence. The idea is that the Mormon meaning of deification is supported even by mainstream Christianity's definition of God's omnipotence and omnibenevolence (in contrast to Mormonism's less literal definition of God's omnipotence). Namely, if God really is omnipotent, then God can deify mortal man...and if God really is also omnibenevolent, then not only can God deify man, but God's goodness compels God to deify man.  23:36, Nov 4, 2003 (UTC)

 Much more clear.  Thanks.  23:40, 4 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 This does raise a question for me; and since I argued with my wife today, and lost, concerning who should have the car this morning, I am in the mood to ask it.  Should ""omnipotence"" and ""omnibenevolence"" imply, as your argument holds, that making gods out of created beings is something that God must do, then why do you not expect that every person would be exalted?  For that matter, is God too small to exalt animals? vegetables? rocks or sand?

 Perhaps the argument assumes the same shallow and useless understanding of ""omnipotence"" and ""omnibenevolence"" as atheists do?  Argumentatively yourse,  21:52, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 I am curious.  Being Orthodox, we believe that God's benevolence includes allowing mankind to have free will to choose holy ways or not, to work toward theosis or not.  If it is mandantory that God exalt mortal man, what does that say for what Mormons believe about free will and why it does (or doesn't) exist?  

I changed the nature of God is to become the nature of Man to the nature of God is to become united with the nature of Man.  This is an important distinction. This union of the two natures first took place in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, when the two natures were joined in Christ's one person. God's divine nature is unfathomable, and will never be understood by us, much less become completely ours. Theosis is rather our participation in God's divine energies (as described/defined by Gregory Palamas) and union with His nature. We will still never be divine in quite the same way that God is divine; we will still always possess a human nature only, it's just that that human nature will be thoroughly healed and cleansed, and united with the divine nature. At least that's my current understanding. References available, and corrections remain most welcome. -)   06:23, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 excellent  18:17, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 Entire sanctification 

I'm pretty sure that it is tolerable to teach ""entire sanctification"" in the EOC; although I'm sure that it isn't a doctrine in the sense of being something necessarily believed.  Therefore, I would like to  remove the disclaimer sentence in the opening paragraph, which says ""but this is not a doctrine of Orthodoxy"".   16:09, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 The ""EOC"" abbreviation threw me for a minute; my first assumption was ""Evangelical Orthodox Church"", which my local parish used to be part of until not that long ago; then I realized you probably meant ""Eastern Orthodox Church"", right? Gotta love these TLA's, especially with regard to denominations. Anyway, ""entire sanctification"" is probably one of those teachings that isn't officially affirmed or denied by Eastern Orthodoxy, in large part because the doctrine of entire sanctification was formed in a different context and in response to different questions and answers than anything Eastern Orthodoxy has really needed to directly confront. In a similar vein, I haven't been able to get a straight answer from anyone as to what Orthodoxy thinks of semi-pelagianism; closest I've come is ""Orthodoxy deals with different questions"" or ""Orthdoxy would pose the question differently, and then answer that other question like this"". Coming back to entire sanctification, the closest thing to an ""official"" position I can think of is just a story of a monk telling his abbot that he had finally ""arrived"" and was no longer experiencing