Called to Be Children of God
by Carl E. Olson

One beautiful summer day in 1995 I found myself standing in the theological section of a large bookstore, on the edge of making an inexpensive, but life-changing, purchase. The book I purchased that day was The Catechism of the Catholic Church (all numbers that follow refer to paragraphs in the Catechism, unless otherwise noted).

The section of the Catechism which I initially studied and returned to regularly was that on Grace and Justification (1987-2029). While it seemed obvious to me that the common portrayal of Catholicism as a system of “works-righteousness” was inaccurate, I still found many aspects of Catholic soteriology to be mysterious and complex. Clearly it was Christocentric, emphasizing God’s grace while strongly condemning sin. With time and study I gained some appreciation for the place and meaning of the sacraments. I excitedly noted a high regard in Catholic theology for covenant, which I believed to be an essential element of Biblical thought. But I was still hazy . . . something was missing in my understanding of the Catholic view of salvation.

Over the next year or so I read a large number of writings by many early Church Fathers and several works by distinguished Catholic theologians. I kept noticing terms and phrases such as “divine adoption,” “divine sonship” and “partakers of the divine nature.” They struck me as both solidly biblical and yet foreign to me, even though I’d been reading the Bible regularly since I was a little child. I returned to the Catechism regularly, slowly beginning to see the pieces of this “soteriological puzzle” fall into place. 

Emerging was a subtle yet clear theme: God the Father offers humans His divine, filial life to be infused into our humanity through the work of Christ, in the love of the Holy Spirit. This depiction of divine adoption burst into bold relief on the pages of the Catechism, as well as from the Scriptures and many of the documents of the Catholic Church.

It is not an exaggeration to say that many Catholics are unfamiliar with this familial, relational language; and with the central place it has in Tradition and Scripture. Far from being an obscure and minor theological idea, it is at the heart of Catholic doctrine as a close examination of the Catechism reveals. It is important because it places Catholic life in a relational framework which the ordinary person can understand and appreciate. 

The goal of this essay is to trace the theme of divine adoption through the four parts of the Catechism and arrange it in a chronological manner. We will see that the language of divine adoption permeates the Catechism and is intimately intertwined not only with the Church’s teaching about salvation, but also with her view of humanity, the sacraments, Jesus Christ, and the spiritual life.

The Divine Plan from the Very Beginning

The very first paragraph of the Catechism states:

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life . . . He calls together all men . . . into the unity of his family, the Church . . . In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

Here we see quite clearly the familial dimension of the Christian life, a reality too often ignored or trivialized in much contemporary theology. God, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is a completely perfect relationship “in himself.” Yet He creates in order to give not just physical life, but supernatural life. He has a family—the Church—and He offers all of mankind the opportunity to join it, not merely as blessed servants, but as actual children. 

This loving invitation forms the basis for Catholic anthropology: “The dignity of man rests above all on the fact he is called to communion with God” (27). Separated from the truth of God and His creative action man loses his dignity and becomes, in a real way, less than human (308, 1700). Man, by his natural abilities, can come “to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God” (35). He has a God-given desire for the supernatural and an inner longing for grace, even while he lacks an ability to grasp this on his own (35-38). He is a spiritual being possessing a soul and “from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and . . . beyond all [his soul] deserves to communion with God” (367). As we will see, the inner desire for the supernatural comes from a Creator who is love personified.

Trinity and Creation
And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him (1 John 4:16). 

Man’s longing for the supernatural has existed “from creation” and comes from a special revelation of God (50). Although man has a certain, natural awareness of this orientation, it is beyond mere human understanding. This orientation is rooted in the Trinitarian God who “is love” and whose “very being is love” (221). 

In contrast to the common and warped notion that God is a detached or angry being who demands joyless, blind obedience, the Catechism tells us that “God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange” (221). This act of love is part of a plan that pre-dates creation:

God is love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God freely wills to communicate the glory of his blessed life. Such is the “plan of his loving kindness,” conceived by the Father before the foundation of the world, in his beloved Son: “He destined us in love to be his sons” and “to be conformed to the image of his Son” through “the spirit of sonship.” This plan is a “grace [which] was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,” stemming immediately from Trinitarian love (257).

God as Creator cannot be separated from God as Love, although the distinction is important. Separating God as Creator from God as Love erases the reason behind our creation, perverts the goal of our existence and destroys the worth of our being. God creates in order to demonstrate His glory and “communicate it.” He is relational. Why? Because of “his love and goodness” (293). 

Humans, in their sinfulness, attempt to obtain power and glory by grasping, clawing and competing. But God, who needs nothing to satisfy Himself, gives His life and glory in order to perfect and manifest it in creation and especially in us. So He makes us “to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace” (294). As created beings we have to choose between either seeking our glory, which will only bring us disgrace (and hell), or seeking God’s glory, since all that we are is due to Him. God’s work will be fulfilled; we must choose how we will participate in it: “The ultimate purpose of creation is that God who is the creator of all things may at last become ‘all in all,’ thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude” (294).

The Fall and the Loss of Divine Life
God, Creator and Love, willed us to share in His life. So he created Adam and Eve, who “were constituted in an original state of holiness and justice,” an actual sharing in “divine life” (375). They were intimate with God. But something went wrong—they committed sin and what we know as the Fall took place. This original sin was committed when God allowed the freedom He had graciously given man to be put to the test and man failed (396). Man became convinced that he was capable of giving himself life, existence and meaning apart from God—the oldest and most popular of lies. Man was already enjoying divine life and “was destined to be fully ‘divinized’ by God in glory. Seduced by the devil he wanted to ‘be like God,’ but ‘without God, before God, and not in accordance with God’“ (398). When the gift of divine life was rejected, man was separated from that life and his human nature was wounded (405).

Pedagogy and Covenant
Because man’s nature was wounded (though not entirely depraved as the Reformers taught [406]), God worked through stages of Revelation in order to “communicate himself to man gradually” (53). He revealed the Law to show mankind what to do, yet the Law did not provide the grace to actually do those things. But it did point to Christ and the Kingdom, although only dimly and incompletely (1963). God established covenants as indications of His love for mankind and as promises of a future redemption (55). These covenants were sacred oaths that God swore, binding Himself with solemn events and signs to certain groups of people. He covenanted with Noah (56-58) and his family. He made a covenant with Abraham (59-61) and his tribe, then with Moses and his nation, and finally with David and his kingdom. With the Prophets He began to tell of a time when He would form a “new and everlasting Covenant intended for all, to be written on their hearts . . . a salvation which will include all the nations” (64).

The Word: The Only-Begotten Son
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. . . . For of His fulness we have all received, and grace upon grace (John 1:12-14, 16).

God perfectly revealed Himself through the Word, his Son, Jesus Christ (65). He desires that men should come to him, “the Father, through Christ, the Word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit, and thus become sharers in the divine nature” (51). There has been no change in the Father’s will for man since before creation. The goal is still intimate, supernatural union. This is now a reality again because of the work of the “New Adam” (411). God “wants to communicate his own divine life to the men he freely created, in order to adopt them as his sons in his only-begotten Son” (52). This is due to his undying and unequalled love which sees in man what man cannot give himself through natural means: the ability to have intimate union with the Trinity.

Next to the Trinity, the greatest mystery of the Christian faith is the Incarnation, the belief that God became man and dwelt among us (456-463). The Catechism teaches that a primary reason for the Incarnation was that we might become adopted sons of God:

The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods” (460).

These three quotes, from St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, and St. Thomas, are indicative of the teaching of the Church Fathers and Doctors. Much of their writing addressing divine sonship refers to a passage in Peter’s second epistle that the Catechism repeats many times: “For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature . . .” (2 Pet 1:4). The language of the Fathers may appear pantheistic, but in reality it points to the great mystery of the natural creature being filled with the supernatural life of the Creator, thus changing his character through union with the Triune God. It also follows that by being incorporated into the Incarnate Son of God believers become similar to God in the sense of being filled with the life of God, which is a true partaking of the divine nature. 

Resurrection and Justification
It is specifically in the Paschal mystery that the divine life is brought forth and offered to humanity once again. Christ’s death first frees us from sin and then “his Resurrection opens for us the way to a new life” (654). It is here that one of the most controversial and disputed of theological terms is used: justification. While classical Protestantism sees justification as a juridical term used in a sort of cosmic courtroom, the Catholic perspective continually refers to God as Creator and Love, as maker and giver of life. Certainly justice is demanded, but not merely because God is a judge whose wrath must be satisfied, but because He is also a righteous and holy Father (“a provident father and just judge” [Dei Verbum 3]) whose divine life cannot be freely shared with those who seek their own life. This self-seeking rejection of the Father’s divine life and love severs our relationship with God. It means that a mediator is required to close the chasm between us. Now, through the Son, we have this mediation and, consequently, new and supernatural life. “This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God’s grace, ‘so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life’“ (654). Justification is “a new participation in grace. It brings about filial adoption so that men become Christ’s brethren” (654). Here is the heart of the Gospel: while the Son has intimate communion and union with the Father by his nature, we have that relationship by and through grace. This means that our “adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in his Resurrection” (654, also see 1972).

The Spirit, Giver of Grace
There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift (Ephesians 4:4-7).

The Holy Spirit is central in all of these matters. He is the spark and fire of faith and the reason we can approach God as Father (683). The Holy Spirit is intimately associated with justification, sanctification, and grace. It is the work and grace of the Holy Spirit that justifies us and puts us in right standing with the Father through the Son (1987). Through the Holy Spirit we participate in Christ’s Resurrection and are “born to a new life” (1988). He is the vehicle of the Father’s divine nature and life. “For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized” states St. Athanasius (1988). In a very true sense justification is divinization. It includes sanctification (1989), detachment from sin (1990), the infusion of supernatural virtues (1991) and conformity to God’s righteousness (1992). It also restores the balance, lost in Eden, between God’s grace and man’s free will (1993). And as we’ve seen many times before, it comes from the love of God demonstrated by Christ and given by the Spirit; it is a Trinitarian invitation (1994).

Being a divine son means growing in holiness and perfection. The Holy Spirit is at the center of this work of sanctification (1995). Grace is that loving help the Father gives us so that we might accept “his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and eternal life” (1996). But grace is not merely external favor or aid, it is “a participation in the life of God” (1997). Grace brings us to the family and makes us family: “It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life” (1997). Sanctifying grace, which heals and cleanses our souls of sin, is also referred to as “deifying grace” (1999).

The Mystery of the Church
The Catechism, in paragraph 1997, encapsulates the familial reality of divine life in a couple of wonderful phrases. It teaches that Baptism is the entrance—the new birth—into the “grace of Christ, the head of his Body.” Our sonship is completely reliant upon the One Sonship of Jesus. And in a simple yet rich sentence the Catechism places the individual into the context of the divine family: “He [the believer] receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.” A few paragraphs later we read that grace enables us to participate “in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church” (2003). 

As an evangelical Protestant I was deeply impressed with the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church. I admired the emphasis placed on the centrality of the Church as Christ’s Body, especially as a visible body. Why this difference in emphasis between Evangelical Protestantism and Catholicism? There are many reasons, but it is partially due to distinct differences in anthropology and soteriology. In Catholic teaching humanity was meant to share in divine life from the start, but then came the Fall. But after the Fall the Father still purposed to create a holy family of sons and daughters:

‘The eternal Father...created the whole universe and chose to raise up men to share in his own divine life’, to which he calls all men in his Son. ‘The Father . . . determined to call together in a holy Church those who should believe in Christ.’ This ‘family of God’ is gradually formed and takes shape during the stages of human history, in keeping with the Father’s plan (759).

The Church is the culmination of God’s salvific actions and the means by which men are to enter into the divine life. “God created the world for the sake of communion with his divine life, a communion brought about by the ‘convocation’ of men in Christ, and this ‘convocation’ is the Church” (760). The Church is simply and truly God’s family (1655), a distinctive and remarkable belief. It is in the light of this understanding of the Church as a divine family that we can properly begin to understand the actions and life of her members. These include the sacraments, the spiritual life in Christ and prayer.

Sacraments: Signs of the Family
On the natural plane, we enter into this world through physical birth. We are fed physical, mental and emotional food and so we grow, mature and develop. In an analogous, yet absolutely real and efficacious manner, the sacraments bring us birth, give us nourishment and pour God’s life into us. We enter into the family of God through a new birth, the sacrament of baptism: “Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God . . .” (1213). It is a birth of both water and Spirit which places us into God’s kingdom (1215). It infuses sanctifying grace into the believer and makes him “a new creature, an adopted son of God, who has become a ‘partaker of the divine nature . . .” (1265). It is the means by which we enter the Church and become members of the Body of Christ (1267). As in the natural realm, we can only be born into this new life one time for it leaves an eternal, “indelible spiritual mark of [our] belonging to Christ” (1272). 

God provides His family with nourishment and sustenance in many ways, but the most profound means is the Eucharist, “the source and summit of the Christian life” (1324). It is the unifying principle and reality of the Family of God, “the sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being” (1325). The Eucharist is a multitude of different yet united elements and realities. It is meal, communion, and celebration. It is the offering of ourselves, as sons and daughters of God and as members of Christ’s Body, to the Father. It is the sacrifice of Christ made really and truly present (1362-1367). As Christ’s Body we unite with Him and give ourselves as sacrifice and intercession (1368). In the Eucharist we experience unity with one another and “an intimate union with Christ Jesus” (1391). 

This union is the goal of the sacramental life and it is the source of divine life. Each of the sacraments is oriented in certain and unified ways towards our salvation. By the sacraments we are conformed to Christ. “The fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior” (1129). Sacraments signify what has already happened (Christ’s Passion), show what is accomplished now by the Passion (grace), and foreshadow what awaits the divine children of God—”future glory” (1130). 

Life in Christ
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me (Galatians 2:20).

For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust (2 Peter 1:4).

Through the sacraments we are made “children of God, partakers of the divine nature” (1692) and now “participate in the life of the Risen Lord” (1694). Christ is the center and focus of our lives, “the first and last point of reference” (1698). He is the reason for living; He has given us everything that we have and is making us everything that we will be. Our lives are to be conformed and patterned to His life, the life of a Son. We are divine sons who follow the One Son: “He who believes in Christ becomes a son of God. This filial adoption transforms him by giving him the ability to follow the example of Christ” (1709). Part of this ordering of our new natures to the example of Christ involves the Beatitudes (see Mt. 5:3-12; 1716). They are central to Christ’s teaching (1716) and they focus on the Kingdom of heaven. They show us the reason for being and living (1719). This supernatural gift of beatitude “makes us partakers of the divine nature . . . With beatitude, man enters into the glory of Christ and into the joy of the Trinitarian life” (1721). 

The foundation of the moral life, the living out of the Christian calling, is found in the theological virtues: faith, hope and love. The theological virtues “adapt man’s faculties for participation in the divine nature” (1812). They direct us towards our proper relationship with the Trinity. They are gifts of the Father infused into our souls to enable us to act “as his children” and to merit eternal life (1813). The greatest of these virtues is charity, “the new commandment” (1823). It is in charity that we most fully imitate the Son. If we are guided and animated by charity we enjoy “the spiritual freedom of the children of God” (1828). 

Prayer to the Father
In prayer the New Covenant finds expression and is actively realized among God’s children. The Catechism defines Christian prayer as “a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ” (2564). Covenant is both a sacred oath and a filial bond that brings about communion between God and man. Within the covenant “prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father . . . with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit” (2565). Again we see the clear and insistent call to participation in the Trinitarian life.

Jesus, our model and example, fully reveals the essence of prayer. He shows us that we are to approach God with “filial prayer, which the Father awaits from his children” (2599). We are to pray in faith, which is a “filial adherence to God beyond what we feel and understand” (2609). In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus gave us the perfect expression of this filial prayer and left us with a “summary of the whole gospel” (2761). Jesus gives us both the words of this perfect prayer and the Spirit “by whom these words become in us ‘spirit and life’“ (2766). The first six words of the Lord’s Prayer (“Our Father who art in heaven”) clearly show forth the boldness with which we can approach the Father because of Christ’s work. He has “brought us into the Father’s presence” (2777), revealed the Father to us and given us divine sonship (2780). Our adoration of the Father is rooted in our new standing with him, because “he has caused us to be reborn to his life by adopting us as his children in his only Son” (2782). Our adoption into God’s family should bring about continual conversion. Praying to our “Father” should remind us that we “ought to behave as sons of God” (2784). It should also humble us, making us as “little children” who trust completely in him (2785).

Many Children in the One Family of the Triune God
It is an unfortunate reality of our time that this essential truth of divine adoption has been largely ignored or been handled poorly by so many theologians and catechists. Even while the documents of the Second Vatican Council are filled with this familial understanding there has been a perpetuation of shallow and contorted “interpretations” of this language and teaching. For myself, being exposed to the rich basis for this teaching, found in the Scriptures, the Fathers and the Councils, has been educational and exciting. As an Evangelical Protestant I could see the inadequacies in much of the soteriology, ecclesiology and spirituality I had been taught. Nearly all of those failings had direct ties to a failure to fully understand divine adoption. As “partakers of the divine nature” we are not merely “covered” by Christ’s righteousness; we are filled with the Son’s holiness. We are not just members of an “invisible” church bound by a few common teachings; we are a visible Family of God, bound together by the Sacraments, the Scripture and the Spirit. We are not utterly depraved servants raised to good servanthood; we are wounded and sinful servants who are healed, elevated and made true sons of the Father:

“Whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29). This conformity is nothing else than the adoption of sons. He who is adopted as a son of God is made conformable to His true Son: first, by the right of the inheritance shared . . . secondly, by participating in the Son’s brightness; for He is begotten by the Father as the brightness of His glory. And therefore, by enlightening the saints with the light of wisdom and glory, he made them conformable to Himself.

—St. Thomas Aquinas, Ad Rom., cap. 8, lect. 6.

Carl E. Olson writes from Oregon.