Human body/man – called to divinization

Abstract

It is difficult to find within theology a vision of salvation history as detailed and as aptly formulated as the typology Adam I – Adam II – Adam III developed by the dogmatic theologian of the Catholic University of Lublin, Rev. Prof. Czesław S. Bartnik. At most, one might append the figure of the Cosmic Adam, though even this dimension Bartnik has in some measure elaborated in his treatise Teilhard’s Vision of History. In this way, dogmatics advances beyond the confines of biblical exegesis and constructs a rich historic-salvific vision of humanity’s vocation to divinization (theosis). It is therefore insufficient to speak merely of the “human body” destined for divinization; rather, one must speak of the whole human being. This perspective is expressed in the triad – or indeed the quartet – of Adam: creation, redemption, eschatology, and evolution. To speak of the “whole” Adam is to emphasize not simply the material body subject to divinization, but the entire personal reality of man, whose logos-structured being defines him as free, rational, and oriented toward creative love. Thus, man, as person, proceeds from the Logos – the Word and finds his fulfilment (divinization) in the divine Logos, who assumed human form and, in his sacrificial offering upon the Cross, definitively “inscribed” humanity into divine reality.