Abstract: What is theosis? Why does the doctrine of theosis matter? Why did God become man so that man might become God? In his book To Become Like God, Andrew C. Skinner answers these questions with compelling clarity. He provides ample convincing evidence that, far from being a deviation from original Christian beliefs, the doctrine of theosis, or the belief that human beings have the potential to become like God, is central to the Christian faith.

Review of Andrew C. Skinner, To Become Like God: Witnesses of Our Divine Potential (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016). 164 pp. $18.99 (hardback).

Andrew C. Skinner's To Become Like God is a life-changing book. It is rigorously researched and eloquently written, but more importantly, it communicates sublime truths in simple language. It expands the reader's vision of time and eternity, and it inspires the humble seeker of truth to reform his or her life in light of the ennobling doctrine of deification. "It is true intelligence," President John Taylor observed, "for a man to take a subject that is mysterious and great in itself and to unfold and simplify it so that a child can understand it."1 No subject is as mysterious and great in itself as the doctrine of theosis, and in To Become Like God, Skinner unfolds and simplifies this subject in a marvelous way.

Skinner couches the Latter-day Saint doctrine of deification in its scriptural and historical context. He emphasizes the strength of the Latter-day Saints' doctrinal position: "It is my hope that readers will see that belief in the possibility that human beings can become like God is not a deviation from original Christian beliefs" (ix–x). Thus, Skinner's explicit [Page 44]intention is both descriptive and apologetic. But his aim is higher still; it is "to elevate our perspective and instill in us a desire to rejoice again over the restoration of ancient doctrine, specifically the doctrine of deification or, as it is called in classical Christian theology, theosis — the teaching that mortals can become gods" (x).

Skinner sets the stage for his masterful explanation of the doctrine of theosis with introductory chapters on the nature of God and Heavenly Father's perfect plan. This introduction inoculates the reader from the danger of emphasizing one particular doctrine of the Gospel to the detriment of the beauty of the whole. Skinner's study of the doctrine of theosis is deep and penetrating, but it is also broad and balanced. It squares well with Neal A. Maxwell's insight:

The doctrines of Jesus Christ by themselves are dangerous, as G.K. Chesterton observed. Any principle of the Gospel, isolated, spun off, and practiced in solitude, can go wild. The incomplete insight is not insight at all! … Just as the people of the Church need each other "that all may be edified together," the doctrines of the Church need each other.2

Skinner avoids the trap of isolating, spinning off, or practicing the doctrine of theosis in solitude by unfolding it within the context of the plan of salvation, which was prepared in Heavenly Father's perfect love and actualized through the Atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ. In this context, the ancient prophetic witnesses of the doctrine of theosis, along with the witness of Peter, the chief apostle, and the witnesses of the post-apostolic writers, Greek orthodoxy, the Protestant tradition, and the restored Gospel, become clearer. By carefully establishing the connection between the doctrine of theosis and the undergirding and overarching truths of Hea...