Athanasius, On the Incarnation by Fr Lawrence Ogundipe sdv

(A Summary on

Edward Hardy, ed., Christology of the Later Fathers, pp. 43-110)

 Against the Epicurean denial of universal providence in favor of chance, and against Plato’s affirmation that God made the world out of pre-existent matter, and against the Sectaries who impute the existence of things to a different artificer other than the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Athanasius upholds creatio ex nihilo. For Athanasius, the Epicureans hold a faulty position because, if all things sprang up independently without a cause or an artificer, they would most probably look alike and indistinct. But our experience of reality shows diversity arrangement of things. Hence, Epicureans are mistaken. For Athanasius, Plato’s god is a weak God since it has to depend on pre-existence materials to form the world. By contrast, the Christian God is all perfect because he creates everything out of nothing. God made the universe through his word.

It was God’s will at creation that man should abide in incorruption, but men having rejected the contemplation of God, and devised and contrived evil for themselves received the condemnation of death with which they had been threatened, and from thenceforth no longer remained as they were made, but were being corrupted according to their devices; and death had the mastery over them as king. God did not neglect man in this fallen state, for neglect would mean weakness and evil. So, out of his loving kindness upon man the word of God through whom the world was made condescends to our nature for two reasons: (1) that the law involving the ruin of men might be undone (2) and that men might be turned back again towards incorruption. In other words, the coming of Christ brought about the destruction of death and the resurrection of life.

Christ won the victory over sin and death by his crucifixion and death on the cross. Christ death for our sake, therefore, means that man would no longer die the death as before, agreeably to the warning of the law; for this condemnation has ceased. By the grace of his resurrection, corruption ceases, so that henceforth, we are only dissolved, agreeably to our bodies mortal nature, at the time God has fixed for each, that we may be able to gain a better resurrection. It is in the light of this that Paul says, Athis corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality; but when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (I Cor. 15:53-55).

For Athanasius, the Jewish disbelief on the incarnation could be rebuked from the scriptures which they themselves read. Christ coming into the world was foretold in Matt 1:23; Isa. 7:14 (the virgin shall be with child), in Num. 24:17, 5-7 (a man shall come forth out of his seed, and shall be Lord over many people’s). Christ death is equally mentioned in the scriptures: in Isa. 53:3-10 (from the wickedness of the people was he brought to death). Against the objections of the Greek, Athanasius constructs his polemics on rational ground. Against the Greek objection to the necessity of incarnation, Athanasius argues that Christ took on human nature because Christ intended to reveal the Father to man and men would be able to know the Father more quickly and directly by a body of like nature and by the divine works wrought through it, judging by comparison that they are not human works but works of God which are done by him.