Athanasius

He became man so that man might become God.

A Patristic Treasury: Early Church Wisdom for Today, edited by James R. Payton, Jr

That line really used to bug me.  Who can become God?  Some thoughts that have helped me overcome my concerns:

We are to grow ever more in sanctification; as we grow, we come closer to being like God.  But Athanasius didn’t say we might become like God, he said we might become God.

Reading the Sermon on the Mount, a teaching meant for every Christian.  Live that teaching, and that’s living quite like God.  But still, not God.  Yet, while I am willing to accept Athanasius’s teaching, I am still not there.

What has moved me much closer: this idea of a distinction between God’s essence and His energies.  Now I write this not wanting to get into a debate or details; I know some controversies come with this idea – some concern about what this does to the Trinity.  Way too deep for me.

In Eastern Orthodox theology God's essence is called ousia, "all that subsists by itself and which has not its being in another", and is distinct from his energies (energeia in Greek, actus in Latin) or activities as actualized in the world.

I can never become God in His essence, as in no way do I or can I subsist by myself, nor can I avoid having my being in another.

But I might become God in His energies, His activities in the world.  I have seen these activities – they are present in the Son, Jesus Christ, present in His teaching, present in the lives of apostles and saints.  All Christians, despite using different words to describe it, are called to live as Jesus Christ lived.  In this way – this energy, these activities – man might become God.

The Father

He structured creation so that, although He is invisible by nature, He may nonetheless be known by His works. … Although He cannot be seen with the eyes, nevertheless from the order and harmony of all things it is possible to perceive their Ruler, Arranger, and King.

There is an order and harmony.  We see it in realist, as opposed to nominalist, thought.  There are objective truths, from which natural law can be derived – natural law, God’s created order.

The Son & The Word

The renewal of creation has been the work of the very same Word that made it at the beginning.

…just as all things were made by Him [John 1:3], so in Him all things might be renewed.

Only God could renew that which God created in the first place.  God, through His Word, did just this.

Out of nothing, and without its having any previous existence, God made the universe to exist through His Word. 

I keep coming back to this idea of the Word of God as the Second Person of the Trinity.  Logos, reason; the spoken word.  I won’t say anything more; better to leave all of this to Athanasius.

Since He was the Word of the Father and exalted above all, He alone had the ability to recreate all things, and He alone was worthy to suffer for all and be ambassador for all with the Father.

No created being could be so worthy.  A created being owed honor to God; only Jesus fulfilled this owed honor perfectly.  But if He was only man, then He would have accomplished nothing more than that which He owed God.  Hence, His sacrifice would have done nothing “extra” for the rest of us.

So, since it was impossible for Him to die [as God] … He took Himself a body which could die… The Lord was especially concerned for the Resurrection of the body, which He was set to accomplish.

How could death have been shown as destroyed unless the Lord’s body has risen?

The Lord was sacrificed, that by His blood He might abolish death.

For since He rose gloriously, it is clear that the resurrection of all of us will take place; and since His body remained without corruption, there can be no doubt about our incorruption.

Only God could justify, as only God could renew; this He accomplished on the cross.  But as resurrected man He could offer incorruption to man.  I don’t see any way around the Incarnation to get to a satisfactory view of how Jesus’s death and resurrection makes us right with God.

The Word of God came in His own person, that, as He was the image of the Father, He might be able to create humankind afresh after the image.

Here I will just copy my words from one of my posts covering Athanasius’s work, On the Incarnation:

For this reason, the Word of God came, being the image of the Father such that the human being made in the image might be recreated.  One merely made in the image cannot recreate that which was created by the image – by the Word.

Returning to Athanasius:

By His suffering, He gave us rest; by His hungering, He nourished us; and by His descent into Hades, He brought us back from it.

Man

The soul is made not merely to move, but to move in the right direction.

We are made with a purpose, a telos.  Our purpose is to be found in this right direction – a purpose for which we were made, not a purpose which we get to invent.

Without a pure mind and a life modeled after the saints, though, no one can comprehend the words of the saints.

Yes, I get it.  I am clearly, then, barely scratching the surface.

Live as though dying daily.

There are many ways to unpack this.  Certainly, it doesn’t mean what modern man takes it to mean – have fun however you want to; it’s your last chance.  If I am dying daily, I should remain focused on living according to the purpose for which I am here, every single day.  That purpose is to love God and love my neighbor.

He made them according to His own image…so that…they might be able to live everlastingly.

Sin

[At the sin of Adam and Eve,] death gained from that time onwards a legal hold over us.

While justification may not mean only a forensic declaration of righteousness, it seems it means at least this.

He satisfied the debt by His death.

Another aspect of justification, of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. 

Other

What was God in His goodness to do?  Allow corruption to prevail against them and death to hold them fast?  If so, what would have been the profit of their having been made in the first place? …this would be unfitting, and unworthy of God’s goodness.

He didn’t create us in order to torment us.  Yet, if that’s all we have – what we see in the pain and suffering of this world – then we are lost; a meaningless life.

The death which they thought to inflict as a disgrace was actually a monument of victory against death itself.

It is truly a remarkable story.  Who could have dreamt up this idea that a man would die on a cross – the most humiliating death at the time – and then conquer the world.

All those who invent heresies refer to the Scripture, to be sure, but they do not accept the teachings handed down by the saints.

There is such an arrogance to this, that somehow our conversation and knowledge is to be found only in today, that those who came from a time and place much closer to and similar to that of the apostles offer us nothing from which we can learn.

Although it is impossible to comprehend what God is, yet it is possible to say what he is not…It is the same with the Son of God; although we are by nature far from being able to comprehend Him, yet it is possible and easy to condemn what the heretics assert about Him, and to say that the Son of God is not as they teach.

The faith there [at the Council of Nicea, 325] confessed by the Fathers according to the divine Scriptures is enough by itself as once to overthrow all impiety and establish religious faith in Christ.

Back to my constant refrain: why do we divide over things we cannot comprehend?  We cannot comprehend how God created from nothing, yet we divide over this.  We cannot comprehend how, precisely, God and man are both in Jesus Christ, yet we divide over this.  I could go on and on.

Biographies / Sources

Athanasius (296 – 372) played a leading role at the Council of Nicea.  He was a great defender against the heresy of Arius, affirming the full deity of the Son of God.  His steadfastness often resulted in his banishment from Alexandria by imperial order.  Athanasius contra mundum – Athanasius against the world.