Hey y'all, I have a dog in this fight, so to speak ... skin in this game.
Okay, we don't have a explicit doctrine of theosis in scripture. In fact, I talked to my local New Testament Greek expert, and we found that, the word theosis doesn't show up in the NT anywhere.
No matter. We have hints of it, and few verses that imply it. So it took 350 years and along comes :
Anthanasius ; speaking from back in the days when Christianity officially became a government sponsored corporation, in 4th century. 350 years for theosis to be discovered? That alone should cause us pause.
Then we have the EOC, that claims succession back thru the apostles to Jesus himself. They claim theosis too, but can't trace it back to Jesus.
Then we have johnny-come-lately, Witness Lee, with his 'becoming God in life and nature.' (He can't claim to recovery that, except for his extra-Biblical terminology).
Then in scripture we have sanctification. But more often than not that happens when we receive the Holy Spirit. So all born-againers are theosisized.
I'm happy about it. It's my skin in the game. That means, sitting here in my living room, on my computer, I'm theosisized, at the moment. And if theosis is real it's been going on from the beginning, and Witness Lee's small movement, has no corner on it.
In fact, there's lots of evidence in the Bible that God wanted/wants to make humanity God. And he wants it for all of humanity. If our population growth is an indicator, that, we're more good than bad, He seems to be coming along very well.
(The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.)
First, God made us in His image. That's got to be some kind of divinization.
Then we ate the forbidden fruit and became 'as one of us." That was a quantum leap into divinization. That was when the devil came upon the scene, so claimed. Apparently, God had failed once, pre Adam, in heaven, when a archangel broke ranks. And now he, that archangel, that took the name 'devil or Satan' has been muddling up God's plan to make humanity God ever since. He's doing a grand job at it too, it more than appears ... in the news.
Let's not mention an example of physical divinization. That of the sons of God in Gen. 6. Look what that produced. Zowie !!!. Scary !!!.
But after becoming 'as one of us,' we had something that "us" didn't have : a physical body. And we all know that that is sinful just by the odors it emits if we don't, or can't, keep it clean. Plus, the physical body is clearly not God.
That is what needs to be divinized. So, as I've been told since little, God took on flesh, to die for humanity, to settle the score with God because of our sinful body, once and for all.
. . . And to also become 'a life giving spirit,' that we can receive. That's theosis that's been enjoyed by countless, down thru the ages.
Just one more thing, and if there's no new breakthru on this matter, I'll lay low.
Down thru the years I've see preachers that were harping on some sin, only for it to be discovered that they were committing that sin. Jimmy Swaggart is just one example among many. As a result, I've concluded that, the louder the moralist, the deeper the closet.
That makes me wonder if that's why Lee harped on theosis; if he had doubts about his metanoia, and was therefore harping on theosis, thinking it would save him. Who knows? But clearly Lee wasn't deified. Sorry.
But I get it. It's fun kicking around theosis in this sandbox. It's a fun notion. I certainly enjoy it. Like Lee, it's my only hope.
Still ... What I see from this discussion so far is that we've concentrated on what the Bible says, or doesn't say, at the expense of reality.
No one, that we know of, or recorded in history, since Jesus, has ever become deified. Sorry.