Tuesday Night Book Group: C.S. Lewis and the Doctrine of Deification

During his September 2023 talk at Harvard University, Bishop Robert Barron was asked about the Christian process of divinization (or deification, and known in the Orthodox tradition as theosis), and told the crowd that his remarks could be summed up in the simple words of St. Irenaeus: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

Chris Jensen’s luminous essay “Shine As the Sun:  C.S. Lewis and the Doctrine of Deification”—which was first presented at the C.S. Lewis Summer Institute at Oxford University, and can be found online at cslewis.org—expands on Lewis’s insights into this inward process of transformation experienced within the life of the Church and leading to mystical union with God.

Note: Chris Jensen will be joining us for the October 24th meeting.

Join the Tuesday Night Book Group as they read and discuss Jensen’s essay and C.S. Lewis’s beliefs regarding deification and Lewis’s personal spiritual practices which included prayer (esp. the Psalms and daily lectio divina on the New Testament), fasting, receiving spiritual direction, and the sacraments—especially the Eucharist. Lewis wrote that our destiny in life is either to be like God—or to be miserable; there is no middle way: “If we will not learn to eat the only food that the universe grows…then we must starve eternally.”

Optional supplemental reading includes Paragraph 2014 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church; Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis; and With All the Fullness of God: Deification in Christian Tradition, edited by Jared Ortiz.

All are welcome. To receive the new Zoom link for this series, RSVP with the subject line “C.S. Lewis” to [email protected].