The natural order God has created
Can beings other than God take on other natures?
The short answer: This can only happen if God, the creator of all natures (human, animal, plant, light, bacteria, Covid-19 virus, chemical elements, rocks & minerals, angels & demons, heavenly things like stars, etc.), allows it to happen.
BUT, the answer seems to be NO:
- Both our best philosophical investigation (through God given reason) and our best scientific investigation (possible only because God seems to guarantee a certain stability of the nature of things once a thing acquires existence) say NO, since we never see other beings other than God take on nature by their own power.
- God did not positively reveal that "adding" nature is what God plans to do in creation. ("revelation" is, by definition, knowledge that we cannot know by our own unaided faculties)
- When we observe something "unnatural", in our Christian thought world we immediately think of either magic (facilitated by humans), miracle (caused by God or angels as His agents), demonic manifestations (caused by demons), or unexplainable power of nature. The Bible is explicit that humans should not practice magic, and that demonic manifestations are not God's design and can be countered by exorcists. Whether some magical / demonic phenomena can be interpreted as "adding on nature" is left to debate. Again, the point is what God allows to happen. For non-miracle phenomena, we are simply told that this is not part of his design for creation.
Removing corruption IS promised
What God DOES plan for us is either creating a brand new heaven & earth, or transforming the current heaven & earth into a place where there is no more death and corruption. This is more of a change of nature from mortal to eternal, from bodies that is dying "naturally" to ones that are glorious, like the resurrected bodies we will have.
Sharing in divine nature IS promised
2 Peter 1:3-4:
3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
The answer to the question "Can we at some point take on a Divine Nature" provides the right interpretation for the above promise, that it's a sharing, not an adding on divine nature. The nature of our substance as human being created in the image of God does not change substantially but restored (effect of the Fall removed), completed (some theologians like St. Irenaeus speculated that even the prelapsarian Adam was premature like a baby), and glorified (possessing a better body like Jesus after resurrection) after death.
Comment of the answerer:
We should note that the text never says we become anything. It merely says we are "sharers in the divine nature." Thus, the real question is "How are we sharers in the divine nature?" and certainly not "Do humans become God?" If God is spirit (in nature), and the Holy Spirit is indeed spirit, and God, don't we share/ participate in the divine nature when the Holy Spirit indwells us? See 2 Cor. 13:14: ἡ κοινωνία τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος.
The most important take away is that it is God's initiative and power to let us share His divine nature, and only through His method. All we can do is say "yes, I want it" and "I receive the gift". It's not like we have to discover and practice a certain technique to acquire/share the divine nature (such as those proposed by other religions or by magic practitioners or by cults that give us demonic powers).
God the Son assuming human nature is a special case
What about God adding on human nature? Remember, that this is our theologizing so that revelatory data can be understood philosophically. It is an approximating concept of the reality over which we have no power. Only God can do this, which is reasonable to believe because God is the author of all natures observable in creation. Just because Shakespeare can appear in his own play acting his own character, God can enter the world to fulfill his prophecies about Jesus. But a Shakespearean character cannot do anything that he is not scripted to do. Going back to philosophy of nature, a created being only has power accorded to its nature by God.
