SUPERNATURAL ADOPTION. - Among the hagiographers of the New Testament only St. Paul uses the juridical term a. (υἱοθεσία), raising its meaning to the supernatural order. To the Christians of Rome he wrote (Rom. 8:15 ff.): "You have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Father! For the Spirit himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are sons of God. And if sons, then heirs also, heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ."
In this text are summed up all the characteristics of supernatural adoption that the Fathers and theologians would take care to illustrate and develop. Such adoption is not resolved into a juridical fiction, like human adoption, but into a living reality, deriving from a mysterious rebirth, from a true regeneration of man by God. St. John speaks of it repeatedly with a striking realism: "The Word — he says in the prologue of his Gospel — to those who received him and believed in him gave the power to become sons of God, born of God, not of flesh and blood." And in ch. 3 he reports the words that Jesus addressed to Nicodemus: "A man must be born a second time of water and the Holy Spirit" (baptism). In I Jn. 3:1 he writes finally: "See what love the Father has shown us, that we should be called and truly be sons of God."
Evidently here and in the parallel texts it is not a question of a physical, natural generation, nor even of creation, but of a regeneration of the human spirit made a partaker of the light and life of God, indeed of the very divine nature according to the vigorous expression of St. Peter (II Pt. 1:4). This rebirth, which St. Paul calls (II Cor. 5:17) καινὴ κτίσις, that is, a new creation in Christ, is brought about by means of Grace, which establishes a vital communion with God (Jn. 6:57), who comes to dwell in the sanctified soul (ibid., 14:23).
The Fathers, especially the Eastern ones, translate these lofty concepts into an expression that seems bold: deification. Through it man enters the sphere of the Divinity, into the bosom of the divine family, and therefore acquires the right to inherit the divine riches. And all this is accomplished by virtue of the Incarnation and Redemption of the Word. This profound thought recurs often in the writings of the Fathers: "The Word, natural Son of God, becomes the son of man, so that man may become the adopted son of God, the brother of Christ." Thus Sts. Irenaeus, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Augustine, the last of whom gathers up the tradition in a beautiful page of the De Civit. Dei, 21, 15.
In conclusion, supernatural adoption, according to Catholic doctrine, is an imitation of the natural sonship of the Word: He is the Son of God by nature, man becomes the son of God by Grace. Regeneration and spiritual rebirth through the power of Christ the Redeemer; the fatherhood of God, who stoops to embrace again his creature made a daughter, placing in her heart the certainty of an infinite inheritance: these are the elements of supernatural adoption, which also constitute the intimate fabric of the evangelical message.
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Pietro Parente