Taking on All That We Are

St. Gregory of Nazianzus is considered in the highest place among theologians by both Eastern and Western Churches, including Oriental Orthodox Churches.  In this text, he is writing against the heresy of Apollinarius, that the humanity of God is without human mind.  Apollinarius denied the existence of a rational human soul in Christ's human nature. This view was condemned by the First Council of Constantinople in 381.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus writes:

But if it was that He might destroy the condemnation by sanctifying like by like, then as He needed flesh for the sake of the flesh which had incurred condemnation, and soul for the sake of our soul, so, too, He needed mind for the sake of mind, which not only fell in Adam, but was the first to be affected, as the doctors say of illnesses.

All of man had to be assumed because all of man required healing because all of man fell.

For that which received the command was that which failed to keep the command, and that which failed to keep it was that also which dared to transgress; and that which transgressed was that which stood most in need of salvation; and that which needed salvation was that which also He took upon Him. Therefore, Mind was taken upon Him.

Mind had to be taken, because it was Mind that first received the command – and failed.  Jesus had to take on the mind, body, and soul; He had to experience all that we experience in order to heal all that needed healing.  Continuing with St. Gregory:

If anyone has put his trust in Him as a Man without a human mind, he is really bereft of mind, and quite unworthy of salvation. For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved. If only half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole. Let them not, then, begrudge us our complete salvation, or clothe the Saviour only with bones and nerves and the portraiture of humanity.

He assumed all of human nature in order to make incorruptible all of the corrupted human nature.  From Hebrews:

Hebrews 4:15 15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Could God not have accomplished this some other way, other than through the God-man?  St. Anselm, through Boso’s questioning, explores why our salvation had to come through a man (as opposed to through an angel or simply a decree from God):

Boso: For if he could not save sinners in any other way than by condemning the just [Jesus], where is his omnipotence? 

Omnipotence does not mean that God can act in a manner other than being God; it does not mean God can do the impossible for God to do.  From C.S. Lewis (and forgive the length):

“His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say, ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,’ you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words, 'God can.'

It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”

God’s wisdom and justice must, if God is God, remain unchanging and unquestioned.  So, He could not merely wish away man’s transgression – this would transgress both His wisdom and His justice.  To say God has wisdom and justice and at the same time God does not have wisdom and justice does not say anything about God.  It’s just talking nonsense.

Boso: If, however, he could, but did not wish to, how shall we sustain his wisdom and justice?

He could not save sinners in any other way, so we need not question His wisdom and justice – these remain sustained. 

So why did God have to condemn one who was just?  Is this just?  St. Anselm offers that only one perfectly just is capable of restoring to God the honor due God.

However, this could not be accomplished via a perfect human (if such a thing was possible), because a perfect human was only giving God His due, nothing more.  Every human owes perfect obedience.  The restoration could only come through one that had no reason to give God His due, one who owed nothing to God – and that had to be God the Son.

This is why restoration had to come through the God-man.  God was required because only God, in the person of the Son, could restore the honor due; man was required because it was man that needed to be healed, to be created again in the image.

Salvation could not have come in any other way than God condemning the just by becoming the just man and suffering death – thereby restoring man through the resurrection of the Son’s physical, fully human, body.  St. Anselm will offer why this had to be necessarily so:

For the Father did not compel him to suffer death, or even allow him to be slain, against his will, but of his own accord he endured death for the salvation of men.

Of His own accord, Christ had to be obedient to this law of truth and justice because He created this law perfectly.  He was bound, if you will, to be obedient to the law of truth and justice that He created.  To do anything else would have meant a changing God – an impossibility.  A simple decree by God would make His law of no effect; an impossibility for God, given His nature of truth and justice. 

An angel could not offer this satisfaction as the angel owed God the same obedience that man did, nor could an angel restore to man that which the angel did not possess – the angel could not restore to man God’s image, because the angel did not have God’s image to restore.  Only God had God’s image; only the image-maker could restore the image.

Nor could a perfect human – one made in the image – restore the image of the image maker.  Only the image maker could restore God’s image in man.  Further still, had the man been anything but God (a perfect man, if there could be such a thing, or an angel), man would have been a servant to the other thing, not to God.  From St. Anselm:

Do you not perceive that, if any other being should rescue man from eternal death, man would rightly be adjudged as the servant of that being?

St. Athanasius explains why God took on the corruptible – this was done in order to make incorruptible that which was corruptible.   As offered by St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the entirety of man’s being was corrupted – his body, his soul, and his mind.  God had to take it all on in order to heal all of it.

Would not man’s repentance have been enough?  No, says St. Athanasius:

But repentance would neither have preserved the consistency of God, for he again would not have remained true if human beings were not held fast by death, nor does repentance recall human beings from what is natural, but merely halts sin. 

CS Lewis, paraphrasing St. Athanasius:

The resolution of this divine dilemma is that the Word of God takes a human body, as his “instrument,” in order to be able to offer it to death and in this way conquer death, rendering his body incorruptible.

In the aforementioned text, St. Gregory of Nazianzus offered his reasoning for this statement: “For that which He has not assumed He has not healed.”  In order to heal all of man’s corruption, Jesus had to assume all of man. 

St. Athanasius expands on this, citing from Hebrews 2, and offering a summary:

Saying this, [the author of Hebrews] means that it was for none other to bring human beings out from the corruption that had occurred except the God Word who had also created them in the beginning.

From the King James, Hebrews 2:

9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. 10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, 12 Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.

We are one with Christ – one as brothers.  We could not be brothers if He did not share in all of our humanity and our human experience.

13 And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me. 14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; 15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Jesus took on all of it, the “flesh and blood,” in order to destroy death.  And, per St. Gregory, absent destroying the death in the mind, where man experiences everything, the death in the flesh and blood could not be destroyed because it was the mind that led man to sin in flesh and blood.

16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. 17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.

He was made like unto His brethren.  He was tempted, in order to comfort us who are also tempted.  He conquered temptation just as we do through Him.  Had He not, we could not.

Conclusion

This is why our hope in Him is justified: He has endured our weakness and conquered it; therefore, we know that through Him (and only through Him, the God-man) do we have the same hope of conquering our weakness.

Appendix

This conversation has been ongoing for almost 2,000 years.  From CS Lewis:

If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight, you will often not see the real bearing of what is said.

[St. Athanasius affirms that] … while [the knowledge of religion and of the truth] can be discovered from the words of the Holy Scripture, “for the sacred and divinely inspired Scriptures are sufficient for the exposition of truth,” there are also many treatises of blessed teachers, which, “if one happens upon them he will gain some notion of the interpretation of the Scriptures and will be able to attain the knowledge he desires.”

As if St. Athanasius previewed the Westminster Confession of Faith:

“The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture” (WCF 1.6).

This means that we accept not just the explicit text but also those truths that unavoidably arise from the text.  These are also part of the meaning of God’s Word, and this is how to judge the writing of those who expand on Biblical text – including the earliest Church Fathers.

Hence, the value of St. Gregory, St. Athanasius, and St. Anselm in this conversation.