Deification is God's perfect and full penetration of man, granted that he can't reach perfection and full spiritualization in any other way.  To a great extent, sin has dulled and chained and put an evil spell on the powers of human nature.  We don't know the full scope of the powers which our nature is capable of.  Envy, care, hate, have clipped its wings.  The love which we have for another, or which someone has for us, the trust which people have in us or we have in them--any exit from sinful egotism--unchains unimaginable powers in us, like Prince Charming's kiss which roused Sleeping Beauty from her unnatural paralyzing sleep. ³ 

See -- http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:UEKYU-uLh_wJ:www.theology-centre.org/AngusVersion.doc+%22COMMON+GRACE%22+%22EASTERN+ORTHODOXY%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

QUOTE:

The Fathers saw sanctity as an ever increasing likeness of man to God, brought about by the purification of the passions, and by growth in virtues which culminate in boundless love… Through the virtues God first of all becomes man in man [the virtues are the attributes of God in their human expression in the incarnation], and then he causes man to become God. 8

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 4/9/2007 1:04:23 PM (GMT-5)

QUOTE:

This emphasis on fullness of life is important for the ensuing argument concerning the public nature of salvation and human well-being in Eastern Orthodoxy.  For as in many expressions of Christian theology (the Reformed tradition emphasizing salvation as shalom is a notable exception), the lion’s share of the work of salvation is an invisible formal transaction or reconciling the justice of a debt incurred, often inherited involuntarily from Adam.  These criticisms of Christianity by the Jewish scholar Gershom Sholem are relevant: 

In all its forms and manifestations, Judaism has always held firmly to a concept of redemption which understood it as a process which takes place under the public gaze, on the stage of history and in the medium of society, that is, which definitely takes place in the visible world…By contrast, the view of Christianity is one in which redemption is a process in the intellectual sphere and in the invisible, which takes place in the world of every individual, and brings about a hidden transformation, to which nothing external in the world need correspond. ¹⁰ 

Staniloae and the Orthodox are largely in agreement with this criticism and are not comfortable with the shrunken horizons of the forensic view of salvation and non-public nature of transformation.  “For what man experiences within this dialogue [with God] is no exterior formal peace but a power that grows within him in this peace and producing more and more fruit.”¹¹  A subtitle to one work of Staniloae’s is “The Icon of Man Renewed in God”.  The great Russian author Nicholas Gogol wrote “When souls start to break down, then faces also degenerate,”¹² a very Orthodox concept echoed by Bono of U2: “your face caught up with your psychology.”¹³   For Orthodoxy, the renewed image of man literally shines forth visually in the face and eyes of the transformed.  Staniloae however goes beyond this individual orientation for transformation, and includes structural socio-economic issues. 

Christians can make no fruitful contribution…if they are only concerned with service to individual men and therefore neglect to promote just and equitable relations on a broader and international scale…Christians must make the kind of contribution which will favor the continuous adaptation of these structures to meet contemporary aspirations for greater justice, equality, and fraternity in man’s relation to man.¹⁴ 

And this abundance of life, this power that grows within producing peace and more fruit, at least in principle, is to be visible to all of humanity as a pointer toward what is humanly possible in Christ.  As Staniloae writes,  

The theologians…must reveal…what the principle acts of divine revelation culminating in Christ—the incarnation of the Son of God, his sacrifice on the cross, his resurrection and ascension as man—what these contribute as a vision of Christian humanism…and helping the world, as it should, towards a genuine development of what constitutes true Christian humanity.¹⁵ 

from wikipedea on D.S.

Quotes

• "The glory to which man is called is that he should grow more godlike by growing ever more human."^[8]
• "Love for God, or more strictly, thought taken for God, represents a continuous contribution toward more and more authentic relations among humans."^[8]
• "Humans, must work and think in solidarity with regard to the transformation of the gifts of nature. Thus it is through the mediation of nature that solidarity is created among humans, and work, guided by thought, is a principle virtue creative of communion among humans."^[8]