Saint Athanasius

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Saint Athanasius Saint Athanasius

Introduction

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the theology of Athanasius as ordered by certain portions of the Nicene Creed. As such, this essay belongs to a series of essays in which I lay bare the underlying theological divide that now rends the contemporary church. I have described that fault line by two terms, "objective" and "ecstatic," each being an way of understanding God. In this essay I shall show that Athanasius belongs to the "objective" school of revelation, and further, that he sheds significant light on the implications of the objective approach.

Athanasius began writing theology when quite young. His earliest works, Against the Heathen and his Incarnation of the Word, were written when he was some twenty years old. These works show an appreciation of the presence of God the Word in the man Jesus. His later works continue his emphasis on God's full presence in Christ, while at the same time presenting a much stronger sense of Christ's humanity. In the body of this essay, however, I will not discuss the development of his thought. Rather, I will begin with his mature theology. Further, I will seek the underlying intelligibility of that theology, the simplest and most rational way to get out the underlying pattern of his thinking. In other words, my treatment will be theological rather than historical.

Athanasius has been called the "Father of the Nicene Creed." The Nicene Creed takes its name from the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. At that time a creed was adopted, in part motivated by a desire to deny the Arian heresy. Athanasius was the great defender of the faith against Arius and key elements of his defense are found in the Nicene Creed, especially the second paragraph. The original creed of Nicea was then modified and expanded at the Council of Constantinople in 381. This expanded Creed was accepted at that time by the universal church sitting in council. It was given the title "Nicene Creed" because it reflected the spirit and truth of the earlier creed of Nicea. It also included critical wording introduced by Athanasius. This creed is said every Sunday in most Christian churches under the title "Nicene Creed." It is the primary theological standard of the faith. J.N.D. Kelly describes it with the these words,

Of all existing creeds it is the only one for which ecumenicity, or universal acceptance, can be plausibly claimed. Unlike the purely Western Apostles' Creed, it was admitted as authoritative in East and West alike from 451 onwards, and it has retained that position, with one significant variation in its text, right down to the present day. So far from displacing it, the Reformation reaffirmed its binding character and gave it a new lease of life and an extended currency by translating it into the vernacular tongue(1)

Structure of the Creed

Before introducing Athanasius' theology, I will diagram aspects the Nicene Creed. This diagram will help to present Athanasius' theology in an orderly fashion.

The Creed is organized into three articles. The first article deals with the Father and creation, the second with the Son and incarnation, the third with the Holy Spirit and the life of the world to come.

1.                  The One Living God
                 /                 |                     \
                /                   |                       \
               /                    |                         \
2.     The Father       The Son               The Holy Spirit
3.   as pure origin   eternally begotten   proceeds from the
             |
             |                of the Father            Father and the Son
            |                      |                                       |
             |                     |                                       |
4.      makes            incarnate                             sent
             |                      |                                  /        \
             |                       |                                /           \
             |                      |                           forms        brings
            |                      |                              |                 |
5.     creation        Jesus Christ             (church)   world to come

Inside and Outside God

When thinking of God, Athanasius recognized that there was a correspondence between what occurs in God and what God did outside himself. He knew that God was one, but he also claimed that God was internally three persons as seen in lines 2 and 3. By correspondence, outside himself, the one God did three things as seen on lines 4 and 5. By contrast, Arius thought that God was essentially one, or to put it another way, he did not believe in the complexity of three persons within God. From this it followed that God did only one thing outside himself, create the world and sustain it as ground.

In the theological controversy between Athanasius and Arius, the real issue was columns 1 and 2, the relations between Father and Son, creation and incarnation. The divinity and work of the Spirit was not at the forefront of the conflict. Athanasius recognized the Holy Spirit, considered the Spirit to be God, but did not focus on the Spirit's work. He did, however, lay the foundation for understanding how a complexity of persons could exist in God. This complexity eventually led to the inner triune relations of Father, Son, and Spirit, each distinct from yet related to the others. At Nicea, the third article of the Creed simply read, "and in the Holy Spirit." As mentioned above, the elaborations of today's Nicene Creed occurred later.

In light of Athanasius' notion of inside and outside God, the diagram can be understood as follows: Lines 1, 2, and 3 refer to what happens in God. God is one, line 1, and inside the one God, there are three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, line 2. God the Father is pure origin, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from both as seen on line 3. The ways in which the Son comes from the Father, and the Spirit from both, are called "issues." There are two issues in God, the begetting of the Son by the Father and the procession of the Spirit from both. All this happens inside God, in the one God of three persons related by two issues.

Lines 4 and 5 describe God's acts outside himself. God acts in three different ways, line 4, by making the world as Father, becoming incarnate as Son, and by being sent as Spirit. This leads to three primary acts of God outside God the making of creation, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and the life of the world to come. These are listed on line 5. The church is included on line 5 in parentheses. It is in parenthesis since it is derivative from the other three primary divine acts.

The diagram doesn't show everything. For example, since God is one and triune, all God's acts must involve all three persons. Therefore, when the first article of the Creed states that God the Father created the world, the Creed will also state that it was made through the Son, second article. The Spirit was also active in creation since the Spirit gives life, article three, and life was first given in the making of creation. Similarly, in the second article concerning the Son, the Father eternally begets the Son, and the Son is born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. Therefore, both Father and Spirit are involved in the work of the Son. Similarly, in the third article. The Spirit proceeds from Father and the Son so both are involved in the Spirit's work. In short, each person of the Trinity is involved in the work of the others, although the Creed assigns each person within God to a specific act outside God.

Inside and Outside God Correspond
For Athanasius, what God does outside himself must correspond to God inside himself. If God inside himself is not who he is outside himself in his actions, then God has not truthfully revealed himself in his actions. The faith has always claimed that God is truthful, his acts reveal his person. Therefore, God in his actions is God in himself and conversely.

Since Father, Son, and Spirit are all distinct within God, creation, incarnation, and world to come must all be distinct outside God. Further, inside God, the three persons of the Trinity are related by the two issues. Therefore, creation, incarnation, and final day must have similar relations. For example, outside God, in eucharist, the Spirit takes the bread and wine of creation, consecrates it as the body of and blood of Jesus Christ, and uses it to feed the church and give a glimpse of the world to come. In this way the work of the Spirit proceeds from the Father (bread and wine of creation) and the Son (body and blood of incarnation), to feed the church and give a foretaste of the heavenly banquet (Spirit). In short, the structure of God inside himself must be reflected in his actions outside himself and conversely.

For this reason the horizontal lines reflect each other both up and down vertically. To confuse at one level is to confuse at another. For example, Arius blended the Father and the Son on line 2 by saying there was only the Father. Line five, however, reflects line 2. Therefore, on line 5, Arius was forced to blend creation and incarnation by saying God did only one thing, make creation and also make the spiritual being that became in incarnate in Jesus Christ. Or, suppose we blend creation and incarnation, line 5. Since line 2 reflects line 5, Father and Son must be blended on line 2. As a result, God is no longer triune. This latter example is probably the greatest theological failing of the church and is a form of the Arian heresy. I have analyzed this failing elsewhere. link link link

God is First Father, then Creator
The Creed begins with the phrase, "We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen." If Athanasius were reading this, he would notice that this article calls God "Father" rather than "Creator." Why not call God Creator rather than Father? That seems like a sensible thing to do since believers in God all know that he creates all things. If we did that, the Creed would then read, "We believe in God, the Creator, the maker of heaven and earth."

Athanasius, however, would have none of this. He knows that God is Creator and that he makes everything. But he wants to make a distinction, and that distinction is extremely important for Athanasius and the Christian faith. Athanasius made a distinction between God who makes creation and what we know of God in creation, and who God is in incarnation and what we know of God in Jesus Christ. Though related, the two are very different. They are different because creation and incarnation are different.

According to Athanasius, we can know that God is "almighty" by looking at creation. Anyone who believes that God created the universe with its billions of galaxies knows that God must possess astounding power. This amazing power to create is reflected in the ancient Christian claim that God creates out of nothing. How God can create from nothing is simply unimaginable. Not only is God almighty, he is also orderly. We know this by the fact that God created an orderly world. If there were no order, if everything were chaos, we could not have a world. The laws of science and common experience all attest to an orderly world. Athanasius states it as follows,

... that the God we worship and preach is the only true One, who is Lord of Creation and Maker of all existence. Who then is this, save the Father of Christ most holy and above all created existence, Who like an excellent pilot, by His own Wisdom and His own Word, our Lord and Saviour Christ, steers and preserves and orders all things, and does as seems to Him best?(2)

Athanasius saw all these things and concluded that we could know God's power and order in creation, but that was not the most important thing to know about God. For Athanasius, the most stunning thing about God was the revelation in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, Athanasius knew God as personal love, as a Father who loves his children. He is not like sinful earthly fathers, but the father as revealed in Jesus Christ. As John's gospel says, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love." Athanasius did not know God fully in creation because he did not see creation redeeming human life. In fact, due to sin and the fall, Athanasius believed evil, corruption, and death had entered the world and creation could do nothing about it. Something more was required. Only in Jesus Christ did he see God at work to restore, save, and redeem his children. As a result, Athanasius made a clear distinction between creation and incarnation.

The inability of creation to redeem was not the only reason Athanasius thought God was scarcely known in creation. He believed there was a profound difference between God and any created reality. How, he wondered, could we know God by looking at something he has made? For example, and this is an example that Athanasius uses, suppose someone built a house. Anyone could look at the house and see that its builder was intelligent enough to design it properly and possessed the resources to construct it. But no one could know the builder personally by observing the house. Such a claim would reduce the builder to the status of the building.

Similarly with creation. For Athanasius, God transcends the world. He is utterly different from his creation. This was important to Athanasius. He wanted a God who had originally created the world out of nothing, and therefore, was powerful enough to recreate it when it became corrupted by sin and death. Created objects do not create from nothing, and as a consequence, Athanasius held that there was no little similarity between God and created being.

What similarity is there, I ask, between the creature and the Creator? Can he who beholds the former, behold it in the nature of the latter? If they say they are alike, they will next affirm that the Creator is the express image of his creatures. The end of all this is to turn everything into confusion; to exalt the creature into an equality with the Creator, and to bring down the unmade being to the same level with the things which He has made; ...(3)

God as Personal Revealed in Incarnation
But suppose the builder had a son. Suppose the son lived in the builder's house. Suppose he was just like the builder, and that he told wonderful stories about the builder. Then one could know the builder personally, even though the builder had never been seen or heard. This is the analogy Athanasius uses in regard to knowledge of God in creation and knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. In creation we can know God as all powerful and orderly, but we know God personally as love in his only begotten Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Here are Athanasius' words.

A man, for instance, builds a house by exercising counsel and deliberation, but he begets a son by nature. Whatever is built comes to pass gradually, and there is no identity of substance between the materials and the person of the builder. But the son is the proper offspring of the father's substance, and is not external to him; wherefore, neither does he exercise counsel about him, lest he should appear to counsel and deliberate about his own being. Wherefore, as a natural product us much more excellent than a mere voluntary one, so the nature and the generation of the Son is far superior to the nature and formation of the creature.(4)

When Athanasius says the "nature and the generation of the Son is far superior to the nature and formation of the creature," he means that the revelation in the Son Jesus Christ is far superior to that in creation. This is because the Son is a "proper offspring," not simply something made out of materials which are external to a builder.

This does not deny that one can know something of the builder by looking at the building. One can. Both the Creed and Athanasius, however, name God the Father who creates, rather than the Creator who later becomes a father of Jesus by incarnation. God is first Father, and then secondly, the maker of heaven and earth. Everyone knows, and Athanasius repeatedly uses this example, that children are far more important than anything a parent could make with their hands. Similarly, God's Son reveals God the Father as a person, something creation cannot do. Therefore, Athanasius calls God Father rather than Maker or Unoriginate.

Therefore it seems more in accordance with religious feeling and truth to call God the Father from His relationship to the Son, than to name Him only from His works, and to call Him the "Unmade."(5)

As a result, Athanasius sees God the Father doing two distinct but related things. First, God the Father sends his Son, and in Jesus Christ reveals himself as a personal, loving Father. Secondly, this Father is also the "maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible."

An Idolatry -- Creation Reveals God as Personal
One way to deny that God's personal nature is revealed in the Son and not in creation is to attribute to creation personal qualities that belong only to the Son. In Athanasius' day, this confusion was expressed as the worship of idols. Idols were and are the forces of creation given personal form. For example, love is a part of creation. When love is personified as Athena and worshipped, that is idolatry. One can give personal allegiance to almost anything, the sun, the moon, the power within, the American way of life, success, anything. In fact, that is the essence of life in our time. Athanasius did everything in his power to convince people that the forces and powers of created nature were not personal, were not divine, and should not be worshipped.(6) He did this because he relied on Scripture. He took with utmost seriousness the first two commandments: "Thou shalt have no other gods but me," and "Thou shalt not make any graven image." These two commandments forbid the worship creation in any form.

But Athanasius was willing to worship God in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, God took a personal form. That is because Athanasius understood incarnation as different from creation. In creation God did something outside himself, something external. Incarnation, on the other hand, was the incarnation of God's very self, the incarnation of God the Son who is the second person of the Trinity. The Son has the same character, the same nature, the same personality, as the Father who sent him. Creation doesn't. It only shows that God can create and design, that he has infinite power and wisdom. But it doesn't reveal God's true nature.

For now, we may summarize with four ideas: God the Father who creates out of nothing transcends the world. 2. By creation, God the Father can be seen as "almighty," as orderly and as a supreme designer, but his personal nature is not found there. 3. The personal nature of God requires a second distinct act of God, the sending of his Son Jesus Christ who personally reveals God. 4. Creation and incarnation are two different things. They are related since God is one. The Father who sends the Son to be incarnate is also the one who makes the creation. We may now consider the second article of the Creed, the personal revelation of God.

The Eternally Begotten Inside God

The second article of the Creed begins as follows,

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.

These lines refer to what happens inside God and they seen unduly repetitious. These repetitious lines were a direct result of Athanasius' fight against Arius, and in that light, we may investigate them a bit further.

One way Athanasius understood the inner life of God is by way of analogy. God's internal life could be compared to the sun, sunlight, and brightness.(7) The sun is the source of light. Sunlight pours forth from the sun, and wherever that sunlight strikes, it produces a brightness that lights up everything. The sun is like God the Father. The Father is the source, the origin of all. The sunlight is like God the Son who forever comes forth from God, and the brightness is God the Holy Spirit shining forth in things upon which the sunlight falls. All three, the sun, the sunlight, and the brightness are light.

Our sun, of course, will someday pass away. For Athanasius, however, the Son comes forth from God forever, as does the Holy Spirit who comes from both. The Creed expresses this by saying that the Son is "eternally begotten of the Father," rather than being begotten only temporarily. Further, the Son that eternally comes forth from the Father is God, just as sunlight and the sun itself are both light. This was absolutely critical to Athanasius, and this is what Arius denied. That is why the Creed is repetitious. The Creed says that the eternally begotten Son is "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made." All these phrases mean that, inside God, the Son that comes forth eternally from God the Father is fully God and not something less than God.

The Arian Heresy
Arius denied this. For him, there was no "eternally begotten" Son inside God. There was only God, one simple undifferentiated God who did nothing but make the world. Therefore, if there was some special almost divine being that became incarnate in Jesus Christ, that being also had to be made. Therefore, Jesus Christ was made. He was created, a creature. But if Jesus Christ was a creature and not God, then we do not know God in him, nor can Jesus Christ save us since only God can finally save. For Athanasius, however, God did more than just make. God the Father made "heaven and earth" outside himself, and inside himself, the God the Father eternally begat the Son. The eternally begotten Son was then sent by the Father to be "incarnate from the Virgin Mary."

We may use a part of our original illustration to compare Athanasius with Arius. On the left we have the God of Arius. In the two right hand columns, we have the view of Athanasius in regard to the Father and the Son.

1.       God          Father            eternally begets the Son
             |                 |                                |

             |                 |                                |
2.     makes         makes              becomes incarnate in
             |                 |                                |
             |                 |                                |
3.     creation      creation                Jesus Christ

In this diagram, line 1 describes what happens in God. For Arius, nothing happens inside God. God exists eternally without change. He is like an unmoved mover. He sustains everything that is, but within himself, he is unmoved. For Athanasius, God the Father eternally begets the Son inside God and this Son is God, the second person of the Trinity. As we saw in the first diagram, other things happen in God, the proceeding of the Spirit, for example. But Athanasius's primary concern at this point was with the Father and Son.

The second and third lines describe what happens outside God. For Arius, God makes and nothing else. Since God only makes, he made whatever sort of being became incarnate in Jesus Christ. (Arius could never say what sort of being it was, something halfway between God and humanity.) Since horizontal lines reflect each other up and down vertically, the single undifferentiated God, line 1, can only do one thing, make the creation, line 3. For Athanasius, Father and Son are distinct in God, line 1. Outside God, creation and incarnation are also distinct, line 3. God the Father makes, God the Son became incarnate. The two are different though related. They are related because the Son who became incarnate came to redeem the creation made by the Father. This creation had become subject to corruption due to sin.

The same pattern can be found in the Creed. The Creed separates creation from incarnation by putting them in different articles. The first article assigns creation to the Father who makes, the second article to the Son who becomes incarnate. The Creed also separates the divine persons within God by introducing the Father in the first article and the Son in the second. The second article then relates the two persons, Father and Son, as seen in the phrases "eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one Being with the Father." These phrases drive the point home: within God there are two persons. Each is divine and the one eternally comes from the other, the Son from the Father. Since the Son is truly God, God was really present in Jesus Christ by incarnation. When Arius denied that the Son was God, he then denied that God was present in Jesus Christ. This was the end of the Christian faith since it implies that we do not have God in the person of Jesus.

Only the Son Incarnate
For Athanasius, only the Son, not the Father, becomes incarnate. Classical Christian faith has always claimed this. This implies that the Father's relation to creation is different from the Son's relation to creation. The Father is not incarnate in creation. He simply makes creation. The Son is not incarnate in creation in general, only in the man Jesus. As incarnate, the Son redeems what the Father made in creation. Creation and incarnation are both acts of the one God since the God who made the world also wishes to redeem it. Athanasius sees this quite clearly. He makes a very sharp distinction between the Father who makes, and the Son who is eternally begotten inside God, and then becomes incarnate outside God.

This distinction, then, Holy Scripture very plainly makes between begotten and made or created. It declares the Son of God to be the former, and that He has no beginning of existence, but is eternal. And, on the other hand, it asserts the creature to have had such a beginning, and that the being and substance of creatures are wholly external and foreign to the divine nature.(8)

The principle way in which Arius proved that God only created, and therefore created the Son who became incarnate, was by way of Scripture. In rebuttal, Athanasius was forced to analyze virtually the whole of the biblical revelation. He did so by interpreting each verse in light of the whole and the whole in light of each verse. It was a rigorous analysis. On the basis of his research, he claimed that the verses which seemed to indicate that Jesus Christ was created do not refer to him as the divine Son of God, but rather, to his ministry which began with his incarnation. It was his body, his earthly body, that was made, rather than the eternal divine Son who became incarnate. In other words, as in the previous diagram, "making" only refers to what happens on lines two and three, never at line one.

For the Second Person of the Trinity assumed our nature, and in that nature, by virtue of that union, He became as much more a glorious Administrator of His Father's will than any of the Angels, and accomplished a purpose of God as much more stupendous than that which any Angle could have done; as the condition of a Son is superior to a servant, and the nature of a Creator to that of a creature. Let them cease, therefore, from interpreting this word "made" of the nature of the Son, for He is not one of created things; but let them admit that it simply has reference to His ministry and the new dispensation of things which He introduced.(9)

Jesus Christ Redeems Creation
The Creed claims, "through whom all things were made." This refers to Jesus Christ. God the Father makes, but he creates according to a certain order, structure, or plan. At this point, Athanasius made use of a concept from Greek philosophy, the idea of the Logos, the order or structure of the universe. On the basis of John 1:1 14, the Logos became flesh. Therefore, Athanasius deduced that Christ is the order or structure of the universe. He noticed, for example, that sunlight and rain, days and nights, heavenly bodies and earthly ones, are in harmony with one another.(10) That order or harmony is given in Jesus Christ "through whom all things were made." When this harmony is broken, when it becomes disordered, Jesus Christ has the power to set creation aright since it was made through him in the first place. For Athanasius, Jesus could and did still the storm, he multiplied the loaves and fishes, he raised Lazarus from the dead. link Storms that kill, creation without food, and human life ending in death, were not a part of God's original creation as described in Genesis one and two. As the Redeemer, Jesus redeems creation. This power to redeem creation is not a part of creation, but only in incarnation, and therefore, it is placed in the second article of the Creed and not the first.
God the Son's Incarnate Acts in Jesus Christ
The next section of the Creed describes the incarnation. Here the Son, "Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man, and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried, and rose again ..." These phrases describe the earthly life of Jesus Christ ending with his resurrection. We begin with the phrase, "because of us men and because of our salvation."

In regards to salvation, Athanasius emphasized two things. First, after being created, Adam sinned, and with him, the whole of the human race fell into sin. As a result of sin humanity is subject to corruption and death. Here Athanasius is thinking of Genesis 1 3, God's creation of a good world, Adam's sin, and the resultant corruption of the human race leading to universal death.(11) Secondly, since God the Son was in Jesus Christ, God the Son did in him only what God could do. Only God could restore corrupted human nature. Only God could conquer death. Only God could forgive the sin that led to death. Athanasius claimed that the Son who became incarnate in Jesus was truly God because only God could do what Jesus did. Given that so much of contemporary theology and biblical exegesis fails to emphasize the healing, saving, living acts of Jesus Christ, both then and now, I must be specific and detailed, drawing directly from Athanasius.

First, Jesus's body did not suffer corruption in the tomb by virtue of its union with the eternal and omnipotent Son of God. Again, by virtue of that same union, Jesus was raised from the dead, body and soul. By virtue of that union, God bore the sins of humanity on the cross, abolished them, and thereby brought believers into the presence of God. By virtue of the eternal Son's presence in him, Jesus' personal words and deeds revealed the personal and sublime nature of God whose personal nature cannot be known from creation. By virtue of the Word's presence in him, the human Jesus spoke the word and God raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus said, "Peace be still," and God stilled the storm. Jesus ordered the demons, "Come out of him," but it was God who sent the demons away. Jesus instructed his mother, and she the servants, but God the Son in union with the man Jesus turned the water into wine. Jesus told the paralytic, "your sins are forgiven," but God forgave the sins and healed the man who got up and walked. As God, Jesus reinterpreted the Old Testament Law, authorized disciples to heal, cast out demons, inaugurated the new age, healed the sick, forgave the guilty, blessed the innocent, redeemed the wretched, and proclaimed the end of all suffering, sorrow, and dismay. And Jesus did all of these things because the eternal all powerful divine Son of God was united to his human nature, and therefore, whatever God did in him he did as man, and the man Jesus did the deeds of God, and he did this "for us and our salvation." This is how Athanasius understands the union of God the Son with the man Jesus. This is why he fought so hard against Arius, because Arius denied that the Son who became incarnate in Jesus Christ was God. If this be true, then God did not act in Jesus to save and Christianity is a religion of death. I now quote Athanasius, a handful of the many, many relevant passages.

And thus when there was need to restore to health Peter's wife's mother who was sick of a fever, our Lord's hand touched her, but His Godhead cured her (S. Matt. viii. 14). It was not the spittle and the clay, but Christ's Almighty Power that gave sight to the man that had been blind from his birth (S. John ix. 11). The voice of man called Lazarus out of the grave, but it was the Word of God which raised him from the dead (S John xi. 43). And our Lord, by acting in this manner, gave evidence of His manhood, and prevented any suspicion if His being only an apparition or phantom.(12)

For his charging evil spirits, and their being driven forth, this deed is not of man, but of God. Or who that saw him healing the diseases to which the human race is subject, can still think him man and not God. For he cleansed lepers, made lame men to walk, opened the hearing of deaf men, made blind men to see again, and in a work drove away from men all diseases and infirmities: from which acts it was possible even for the most ordinary observer to see his Godhead.(13)

Or who, seeing the substance of water changed and transformed into wine, fails to perceive that he who did this is Lord and creator of the substance of all waters. For to this end he went upon the sea also as its master, and walked as on dry land, to afford evidence to them that saw it of his lordship over all things. And in feeding so vast a multitude on little, and of his own self yielding abundance where none was, so that from five loaves five thousand had enough, and left so much again over, did he show himself to be any other than the very Lord whose providence is over all things.(14)

But by virtue of the union of the Word with it [the body of Jesus], it was no longer subject to corruption according to its own nature, but by reason of the Word that was come to dwell in it, it was placed out of the reach of corruption. And so it was that two marvels came to pass at once, that the death of all was accomplished in the Lord's body, and that death and corruption were wholly done away by reason of the Word that was united to it. For there was need of death, and death must needs be suffered on behalf of all, that the debt owing from all might be paid.(15)

This, then, was the reason why the Saviour came among men, to bear witness to the truth of God, to die upon the Cross for our redemption, to raise us up from the dead, and to defeat all the machinations of the devil. Had it not been for these ends, He had never assumed our flesh; had not the resurrection of His body been necessary for ours, He had not died; and He could not have died unless He had taken upon Himself a mortal body.(16)

Our Lord united a human body to His infinite nature; that in it He might conduct us to the Kingdom of Heaven and the presence of his Father, saying 'I am the Way,' and 'the Door,' and 'By Me if any man enter in He shall be saved' (S. John xiv. 6; x. 9). He is not called the 'First born from the dead,' as being the first of us that died, for we were all in a state of death before Him. But that title belongs to Him, because He freely laid down His life for our sakes, abolished the kingdom and power of death, and arose from the dead on our behalf, and it is a guarantee of our resurrection. It was necessary that He should first rise, because He was to raise us from the dead, and His Resurrection was to be the means and pledge of ours.(17)

These Incarnate Acts Bring Salvation
In subsequent essays, I shall say more on the presence of the second person of the Trinity in Jesus Christ. For now, the most important thing is that God the Son united himself to the human nature of the man Jesus and thereby acted to save. For Athanasius, this occurred through an exchange. The divine Son exchanged his exalted status for the suffering and death that belongs to human nature, while the human nature exchanged its corrupted status for a life that overcomes death.

Those who believe in Jesus Christ, those who accept his Word and Sacrament, are united to him in his humanity, and from there are united to God the incarnate Son and through him to the Father. Through these relations sinful human beings receive the very life of God. That is what Athanasius believed, and that is what the Creed affirms in the present section.
The Critical Redemptive Exchange
Athanasius is extremely rigorous at this point. He refuses any suggestion that the person of Jesus Christ was not a personal union of a complete human nature joined to the fully divine Son. Given its importance, we may consider this further with a diagram.

               One Person Jesus Christ
                 /                         \
                /                           \
               /                             \
              /                               \
The Human Nature     The Divine Nature

             made               eternally begotten
            (sinful)                   sinless
         lost from God      one with the Father
          in conflict               reconciles
          corruptible           incorruptible
           suffers               does not suffer
        doomed to die        resurrection
     subject to demons     power over demons
     subject to sickness    power over sickness
      subject to nature       power over nature
     personally visible        transcendent Image
     personally audible      transcendent Word
       understandable        above understanding

According to Athanasius, in Jesus Christ the divine Son exchanged his exalted status for the corruption and death of the human nature, while the human nature exchanged its corrupted status for a life that overcomes death. This diagram describes how that happened.

For example, considering the left hand column, human beings are sinful, lost from God, in conflict with one another and with God, suffering, and subject to demons, sickness, and the disasters of nature such as earthquake and flood. By contrast, on the right, God the Son is sinless, not lost from God, not creating conflict with others, immune from suffering, and has authority over the demons, sickness and natural disasters. By incarnation, God the Son assumed human nature. As human, Jesus Christ did not sin, I put "sinful" in parentheses, but the human nature was subject to all the realities in the left hand column. By its union with the human nature, the divine nature conquered all these human weaknesses, and in return, gave humanity the properties of the right hand column. By faith in Jesus Christ, and in relation to him, believers are given these divine blessings.

Four Ways to Deny the Exchange
Athanasius saw several ways this exchange could be denied. I will describe them in four points.

1. There were those like Arius who said that the spiritual being united to the human nature of Jesus was not really God. If that is true, God did not really save in Jesus Christ. Against this, Athanasius countered by saying that the divine nature was eternally powerful in Jesus Christ, that it did not suffer, did not die, performed miracles, created virtue, raised the human nature from the dead, forgave sins, and did things that only God could do.

2. There were those who said that the spiritual being in Christ was God the Son, but the Son did not fully become incarnate. If this be true, then God did not really redeem the human nature since he never became incarnate in that nature. Against these, Athanasius claimed that God the Son became fully human, that God was born, talked, ate, forgave, suffered, died, and rose from the dead. This claim is not a claim about God or creation in general. Creation is not incarnation. God is not so united to creation that each time something dies, God dies. That is pantheism. Rather, this is only true of incarnation, when God the Son is in union with the human nature of Jesus Christ. These statements, simply as statements, contradict those of point 1. That apparent contradiction is found in Athanasius. I shall return to this.

3. There were those that claimed that God the Son did not become truly human because the man Jesus was not really human. He was simply a phantom. Against these claims, Athanasius claimed that God was united to a fully human Jesus from the moment of conception, and that the biblical witness to Jesus is filled with statements that affirm Jesus' complete human nature he ate, drank, talked with friends, suffered, wept, rejoiced, and prayed.

4. There were those who claimed that the human nature of Jesus did not take on the properties of the divine nature, but remained forever human, parallel to the divine nature, but not partaking of its infinite power and blessings. Against this, Athanasius asserted that the man Jesus received the properties of God. The man Jesus forgave sinners, healed the sick, cast out demons, stilled the storm, raised Lazarus from the dead, and entered into the eternal and incorruptible life by resurrection. Only God can do these things. For this reason, he was worshipped and called God by his disciples. (Jn. 20:28) These statements, simply as statements, contradict those of 3 which see Jesus as only human.

Jesus Christ Did Four Related Things
These four sets of statements about Jesus Christ: divine with divine properties, divine with human properties, human with human properties, and human with divine properties, were organized by Athanasius as follow: First, the four sets of statements refer to the person of Jesus Christ who is one person and only so with two natures, human and divine. For this reason, the second article of the Creed begins with the statement, "and one Lord, Jesus Christ ..." It does not begin with two natures, but one person.

This one person the Lord Jesus Christ was divine and did divine things, statements 1. The one person the Lord Jesus Christ was divine and did human things, statements 2. The one person the Lord Jesus Christ was human and did human things, statements 3. The one person the Lord Jesus Christ was human and did divine things, statements 4. These ideas express the communicatio idiomatum, that the human nature of Jesus Christ has divine properties, the divine nature human properties. This is only true of incarnation, not creation.

Considered in itself, simply as divine nature, the divine nature cannot do human things such as suffer and die. This is true of creation, but incarnation is not creation. In incarnation, in the one person Jesus Christ, God can be both divine, eternal, all powerful, and yet do human things such as suffer and die. Similarly, the human nature, strictly as human, cannot do divine things such as raise the dead. This is true of creation, but creation is not incarnation. In incarnation, in the one person, Jesus Christ, the human can do divine things, such as raise the dead, still the storm, and cast out demons.

When each nature took on properties of the other, it was not by being converted into the other nature. The divine nature did not convert itself into human nature like water into wine. It remained the divine nature, but assumed the human nature and did human things while remaining divine. Likewise, the human nature was not converted into the divine nature. It was assumed by the divine nature and did divine things while remaining human.

In developing these ideas, Athanasius will deny the following statements: the human and divine nature were not united, the union of the two natures became a third thing neither human nor divine, the human was converted into the divine or vice versa, there were two persons in Jesus Christ rather than one person of two natures, the divine did not assume human properties and do human things, the human did not receive divine properties and do divine things.

In the following statement, Athanasius begins with the person of Jesus Christ, and then, in that context, claims that the presence of one nature cannot deny the presence of the other.

We cannot fail to have a right notion and belief concerning the person of Christ, if we distinguish, as we should, between the two natures; and if, at the same time, that we attribute to each nature its proper faculties and functions, we look upon both as the powers and acts of one person. He whose contemplation of Christ's Divine powers and miraculous acts induces him to deny the propriety of His manhood, and he who suffers himself to be misled by the consideration of any weakness or defect in Christ's human nature, so as to deny the person union of His Divine with it, and to form unworthy conceptions and propagate dishonourable doctrines of this Divine Person; both the one and the other is equally in the unhappy condition of the Jew, who 'mixed his wine with water' (cf. Isa. 1. 22), and who makes the Cross a 'stumbling block,' or he is like the Gentile who accounts the Gospel of Christ 'foolishness' (cf. I Cor. i. 23). (18)

In the next three statements, Athanasius affirms the closest possible union between the divine and human natures. They form one person, not two persons, but one person of two natures with each nature still preserving its special properties. If the two natures are separated as two persons, then the divine was not incarnate as human, but merely accompanied the human.

Now, if these men confess the Divinity of the Word, and then separate the human nature from it, affirming that the Divine Person of the Word sent the human Person of Jesus Christ, then they are, without knowing it, contradicting themselves. For those who in this place separate the Divine Word from the Divine Incarnation, have, it seems, a base and low notion of the doctrine of the Incarnation.(19)

Why, then, after He has taken our nature into His own, and has made Himself the first fruits of our immortality by uniting Himself with us, must the two natures be thus divided into two persons?(20)

Therefore, Christ is God the Word, and is both God and Man, born of the Virgin Mary. He is not some other Christ, but the Word and the Man are one and the same Person. He was before invisible in heaven even to the celestial powers themselves, but now by the union of His invisible nature with the visible, made visible to all. He is visible, I say, not in His invisible Godhead, but by those manifestations of the Divinity, which are exhibited in the acts and operations of His human nature; and this human nature He has entirely renewed by receiving it into a personal union with Himself.(21)

In the next statement, Athanasius begins with the person of Jesus Christ and then affirms, first, that he was fully divine, and secondly, that the divine did human things.

And here our adversaries are taught very briefly, but plainly, to believe, that the Person who was God from everlasting, the Sanctifier of those to whom He came, and the great Agent of all His Father counsels, was made man for our sakes; and that as the Apostle says, in this man dwells 'all the fullness of the Godhead bodily' (Col. ii. 9), that is to say, that He, although He was God, had His proper human body, formed and organized exactly as ours, and made for our sakes and salvation. And on account of this, the properties of human nature are said to be His, He existed in that nature, and He hungered, thirsted, suffered, laboured, and was perfectly sensible of those infirmities, of which our flesh is capable. ... but if the flesh is the Word's, and S. John says definitely 'The Word became flesh,' then it follows of necessity that the affections also of the flesh are ascribed to Him, whose the flesh is. And thus the same person, who performed such mighty works, and effected our redemption and sanctification, is said to be judged and condemned, to be scourged, to thirst, to be nailed to a Cross, to die, in short, to labour under as many bodily pains and infirmities, as if He was another man.(22)

In the next statement, Athanasius begins with the person of Jesus Christ and then affirms, first that he was fully human, and secondly, that the fully human Jesus was God and did the works of God.

They cannot deny that it was one and the same person, who wrought these miracles, and underwent these inconveniences and sufferings. And, indeed, it was necessary that we should be quite sure and certain of the reality of these properties and affections of that human nature, which He held in common with us, such as weeping, hunger, and the like. For if men had not actually seen it, we should have found it difficult to believe, that an impassible and perfect being had really and positively assumed our passive, imperfect, and feeble nature. Again, His miracles were necessary to convince us, that the man we saw, beset with sorrows and infirmities like our own, was also God. And therefore for the proof of this, our Lord appeals to His miracles, saying, 'If I do the works of My Father, though ye believe not Me,' who to your sight and apprehension am no more than a man, 'believe the works, that ye may know, and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him. (S. John x. 37, 38)(23)

Finally, in Athanasius's own time, Jesus, by virtue of his resurrection, was doing the very things he did in his earthly body. This was important to Athanasius, for he wanted a God who saved, not just in the time of Christ, but now, in Athanasius' own time, in his life and in the life of his people. This claim needs to be emphasized since contemporary theology so often fails to make this claim in its fullness.

Now these arguments of ours do not amount merely to words, but have in actual experience a witness to their truth. For let him that will, go up and behold the proof of virtue in the virgins of Christ and in the young men that practice holy chastity, and the assurance of immortality in so great a band of his martyrs. And let him come who would test by experience what we have now said, and in the very presence of the deceit of demons and the imposture of oracles and the marvels of magic let him use the sign of that cross which is laughed at among them and he shall see how by its means demons fly, oracles cease, all magic and witchcraft is brought to nought. Who, then, and how great is this Christ, who by his own name and presence casts into the shade and brings to nought all things on every side, and is alone strong against all, and has filled the whole world with his teaching?(24)

But they who disbelieve in the resurrection afford a strong proof against themselves, if instead of all the spirits and the gods worshipped by them casting out Christ, who, they say, is dead, Christ on the contrary proves them all to be dead. For if it be true that one dead can exert no power, while the Saviour does daily so many works, drawing men to religion, persuading to virtue, teaching of immortality, leading on to a desire for heavenly things, revealing the knowledge of the Father, inspiring strength to meet death, showing himself to each one, and displacing the godlessness of idolatry, and the gods and spirits of the unbelievers can do none of these things, but rather show themselves dead at the presence of Christ, their pomp being reduced to impotence and vanity whereas by the sign of the cross all magic is stopped, and all witchcraft brought to nought, and all the idols are being deserted and left, and every unruly pleasure is checked, and everyone is looking up from earth to heaven whom is one to pronounce dead? Christ, that is doing so many works? but to work is not proper to one dead.(25)

In regard to a living God active upon earth, Saint Anthony was doubtless a major influence on Athanasius. He knew Anthony personally. When young, Athanasius spent time with Anthony, and therefore knew his life, his holiness, and the power of God in him. Here is one of his many statements on Anthony.

Through him the Lord healed the bodily ailments of many present, and cleansed others from evil spirits. And He gave grace to Antony in speaking, so that he consoled many that were sorrowful, and set those at variance at one, exhorting all to prefer the love of Christ before all that is in the world.(26)

If You Have Seen Me You Have Seen the Father
Returning to an earlier theme and the previous diagram, please notice the last three entries of the two columns where the divine nature is seen as transcendent and yet can be seen and heard by incarnation. Athanasius was especially taken with Jesus's words, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father."(27)

Within God, the Image and Word of God who is God the Son pour fourth continually from the Father like light from the sun. Apart from incarnation, the Image and Word of God within God is completely transcendent, wholly invisible to humanity upon earth. By incarnation, however, the divine Image and Word could assume human properties speak, be heard, and be understood. This was described above in point two where it was affirmed that the divine could take on human properties in Jesus Christ. Therefore, by incarnation, the appearance and words of the human Jesus were the divine Image and Word of God and one could thereby know God personally. In this way, what is forbidden in creation, ascribing divine properties to created realities, is commanded in Incarnation. By creation, one cannot say that the human force of love is divine and therefore the sight and the words of one we love is a revelation of divinity. That is idolatry. By incarnation, however, the words and image of the human Jesus are the Word and Image of God and thereby one can know God personally in Jesus' words, deeds, and image. The last line of Athanasius' Against Arius ends, to God's great glory and the everlasting joy of Athanasius, with the vision of God given in the finite human image of Jesus Christ the incarnate Word.

He was before invisible in heaven even to the celestial powers themselves, but now by the union of His invisible nature with the visible, made visible to all. He is visible, I say, not in His invisible Godhead, but by those manifestations of the Divinity, which are exhibited in the acts and operations of His human nature; and this human nature He has entirely renewed by receiving it into a personal union with Himself. All honour and adoration be therefore ascribed to Him, who was in the beginning, and is now, and ever shall be, world without end.(28)

Final Theological Considerations
In another essay, I discussed the objective and ecstatic ways of understanding God. The objective way was described with the words, "In the objective view, God is transcendent as Father but becomes objectively present as God the Word in the words and deeds of Jesus Christ." link Athanasius belongs to the objective school.

It is not always easy to grasp the intelligibility of the objective approach to God. We understand that objects can be seen, heard, and felt. It is hard, however, to see how God could have similar properties. Athanasius believed God was objective because he believed that God the Word in Jesus Christ did human things and the human Jesus did divine things. This was because God the Word became human, and we know human beings as the objects of seeing, hearing, and touch. Therefore, for Athanasius, when one saw, heard, and touched the person of Jesus, one saw, heard, and touched God because God was objectively present in the person of Jesus Christ.

This runs counter to intuition. In thinking of God, it is not unusual to visualize God as an infinite divine power which cannot be seen, heard, or felt. As a result, when the Infinite is manifest, it appears in the finite, but it does not become finite. Tillich, as usual, expresses it quite neatly.

The nature of finite reason is described in classical form by Nicolaus Cusanus and Immanuel Kant. The former speaks of the docta ignorantia, the 'learned ignorance,' which acknowledges the finitude of man's cognitive reason and its inability to grasp its own infinite ground. But in recognizing this situation, man is at the same time aware of the infinite which is present in everything finite, though infinitely transcending it. This presence of the inexhaustible ground in all beings is called by Cusanus the "coincidence of the opposites." In spite of its finitude, reason is aware of its infinite depth.(29)

For Tillich, the Infinite is the ground of all finite things, yet infinitely beyond the world since God is transcendent. Nevertheless, the Infinite appears in the finite. The finite itself, however, is composed of opposing elements such as dynamics and form, freedom and destiny, the individual and participation. These finite opposing finite elements originate in the infinite ground which is God, and when that God becomes manifest, the finite points to the divine One which is known in the "coincidence of the opposites."

Given that starting point, the person of Jesus was a finite element of experience in whom opposing elements came together as one. Therefore, his words and deeds pointed beyond himself to the divine ground. In contrast to Athanasius, the words and deeds of Jesus "point" to the divine One, but they are not the Words and Deeds of God in a direct sense. For Tillich, words and deeds are finite while God is infinite. Therefore, words and deeds are symbolic. They point beyond themselves to the "inexhaustible ground in all beings." As symbols, the words must have a meaning that isn't the words themselves, but something sublime that lies beyond them. This sublime ground is perceived mystically, since for Tillich, the infinite cannot be grasped by the finite mind due to its "inability to grasp its own infinite ground."

Athanasius would detest such an idea. For him, the words and deeds of the man Jesus were the Word and Deed of God. This needs to be rephrased as it is counter to all intuition. What Athanasius is saying is that God the Son became finite. The Infinite didn't simply appear in the finite, the infinite God, God the Son, became finite while still remaining God. This is like an infinite set becoming a finite set. It cannot be imagined.

As a example of this, I gave the witness of Carolyn. link God spoke to her. She did not have a mystical feeling of the "inexhaustible ground " which she then translated into words. No, God literally spoke, took finite form as Word and said something to her that she could understand. There was no "coincidence of the opposites," but a definite finite Word that made sense to her and changed her life. Athanasius would affirm this. Tillich would not. He would claim that Carolyn sensed God in ecstasy beyond words, and then formulated her "encounter" in words.

This can be rephrased. For Athanasius, there are two objectivites in the one person Jesus Christ. One is human, the other divine. The human Jesus is objective. He can be heard, seen, and touched. In him, God the Son is also objective since the divine nature takes on finite properties. For Tillich, there is only one objectivity, the human Jesus. The divine appears in him, but it is not objectively present. Rather, the divine is mystically perceived in the "coincidence of the opposites."

For Athanasius, God in his transcendent invisible self was God the Father. This eternal omnipotent Father shared the same essence with God the Son. Both were omnipotent and all knowing. Since God the Son shared the same essence or substance with the God the Father, when God the Son became flesh he did the deeds of God. He recreated the world with the power of the Father who created the world in the first place. This can never be minimized. Further, in the flesh, the one person Jesus Christ not only did what God does, but also did what flesh does, suffer and die. That is why there are contradictions in Athanasius. At times he will speak of God the Son as impassible, eternal, all powerful, and omniscient. At other times, he will speak of God the Son, not just the man Jesus, but God the Son, as suffering, finite, and limited. In describing how this could happen, it is necessary to recognize that the thinking applied to creation does not apply to incarnation. By creation, God does not take on finite properties. To make that claim is idolatry. But God the Word does take on finite properties in Jesus Christ.

This idea, the idea that the Infinite became finite, was further developed by the church in the concept of theotokus. Theotokus means "God bearer." Since God the Word became incarnate, the divine Son had human properties. Among those properties was the fact that he was carried in the womb. Therefore, Mary was God bearer. She gave birth to God, not just the human Jesus, but God in the person of Jesus Christ. This was proclaimed the orthodox faith in the Council of Chalcedon in 451. As it is, Theotokus is a special case of the communicatio idiomatum, namely, that in the one person Jesus Christ the divine nature has human properties and the human nature has divine properties. All of this is implicit in Athanasius.

Athanasius did not set out to develop these doctrines because he loved theological speculation. He developed his theology because he was intent upon ruthlessly tracking down and exposing any idea that diminished the power of God to save in Jesus Christ. If the divine did not have human properties, then God did not really affect the human condition. But Athanasius knew that God the Son really affected the world, really became flesh. The failure to affirm this is the terrible defect of so much contemporary theology and practice. The source, of course, is Friedrich Schleiermacher. link But it isn't Athanasius. He loved God in Jesus Christ because he knew, he saw, and he received eternal life, beginning in this life and ending in the life of the world to come.

Endnotes
1. J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, Third Edition. New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1972, p. 296.
2. Athanasius, Against the Heathen. A Select Library of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Volume IV. Schaff, Philip and Wace, Henry, editors. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1978, p. 252.
3. Athanasius. The Orations of S. Athanasius Against the Arians. London: Farran & Co. The Ancient and Modern Library of Theological Literature, I, 31.
4. Athanasius. Against the Arians, III, 62.
5. Athanasius, Against the Arians, I, 34.
6. This is a primary theme of Athanasius' Against the Heathen. A Select Library of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Volume IV. Schaff, Philip and Wace, Henry, editors. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1978.
7. This is probably the most common analogy Athanasius uses to describe the inner life of God. Athanasius, Against the Arians. London: Farran & Co. The Ancient and Modern Library of Theological Literature. See, among other places, II, 33; II, 41; III, 4; III, 14; III, 36; III, 66.
8. Athanasius, Against the Arians, II, 58.
9. Athanasius, Against the Arians, I, 62.
10. Athanasius. Against the Heathen, Part III, section 35, pp. 22f.
11. See the opening sections of Against the Heathen.
12. Athanasius, Against the Arians, III, 32.
13. Athanasius. On the Incarnation of the Word. The Library of Christian Classics. Volume III. Christology of the Later Fathers. Hardy, Edward Rochie, and Richardson, Cyril c., editors. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954, p. 72.
14. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, p. 73.
15. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, p. 74.
16. Athanasius, Against the Arians, II, 55.
17. Athanasius, Against the Arians, II, 61.
18. Athanasius, Against the Arians, III, 35.
19. Athanasius, Against the Arians, IV, 31.
20. Athanasius, Against the Arians, IV, 32.
21. Athanasius, Against the Arians, IV, 36.
22. Athanasius, Against the Arians, III, 31.
23. Athanasius, Against the Arians, III, 55.
24. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, p. 102.
25. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, p. 85.
26. A Select Library of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Second Series. Translated into English with Prolegomena and Explanatory Notes under the editorial supervision of Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Volume 4, St. Athasasius, Selected Works and Letters, p. 569.
27. "As the Son of God, He must be the express Image of His Father, and this He could not be if He were inferior to His Father in might and dominion. And therefore, He might well say, 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father' (St. John xiv. 9)." Against the Arians, II, 17.
28. Athanasius, Against the Arians, IV, 36.
29. Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology. Three Volumes in One. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967, p. 81.

The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
February, 2002.