The Church’s doctrine of justification is based upon the presupposition that man is not only called to a natural end, to the fulfillment of his natural being, to the development of his natural powers and aptitudes, but also beyond that, to a supernatural elevation of his being which entirely surpasses all created aptitudes and powers, to sonship with God, to participation in the divine life itself. Such is the central fact of the glad tidings of Christianity: “To as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God” (Jn. i, 12). “Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. But we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him” (1 Jn. iii, 2). This likeness consists, according to the Second Epistle of St. Peter, in an enrichment by grace, in a fulfilling and permeation of our being by divine and holy forces. We shall be made “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter i, 4). We win a “share in His sanctity” (Hebr. xii, 10). Therefore man’s end lies, not in mere humanity, but in a new sort of superhumanity, in an elevation and enhancement of his being, which essentially surpasses all created powers and raises him into an absolutely new sphere of existence and life, into the fullness of the life of God. God shows Himself most luminously as the absolute Personality, sufficient for Himself and independent of the world, in the fact that He reveals Himself personally to us, as one person to another. And He shows that He is absolute Goodness in the fact that He reveals Himself to us as our Friend, nay, as our Father, so that by the power of His love we become His sons and may cry “Abba, Father.” Wherefore the Church, in her educative effort, cannot be contented with developing any mere humanity, or perfection of humanity. That is not the object of her work. On the contrary her ideal is to supernaturalize men, to make them like to God. It is of the essence of the Church’s character that she should press on towards that which is better and pursue the best and highest that is to be found in heaven and on earth, that she should move in the unsearchable depths of the divine mystery and therefore love the heroic, the incomprehensible and inconceivable, the wide spaces of infinity. That which was uniquely realized in Christ when the Triune God united a human nature with His divine nature in the unity of His person, that mystery of the raising of man to God is constantly repeated by grace in the life of the individual Christian.