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Athanasius Essay doc x - info
Survey of History of Christianity (Liberty
University)
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UNION SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
WHAT ATHANASIUS BELIEVED WAS AT STAKE
IN THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY
SUBMITTED TO MICHAEL
REEVES IN PARTIAL
FULFILLMENT OF
TH7825 THE THEOLOGY OF THE EARLY CHURCH
FATHERS
BY
MARTIN BIGGS
MARCH 8, 2018
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WHAT ATHANASIUS BELIEVED WAS AT STAKE
IN THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY
The Church Father Athanaisus is rightly known for his dogged determination in
resolutely and relentlessly defending and preserving the formulations of the first Nicene
ecumenical council against the challenges posed by the doctrinal formulations and
proposals of various more or less Arian persons and groups, often at the cost of imperial
persecution, threats to his life, and multiple exiles, thus earning the epithet “Athanasius
contra mundum,” or “Athanaisus against the world.” He eventually prevailed, but whence
came his unyielding resolution? What, in his mind, was at stake in the Arian controversy?
Anyone familiar with the history knows that Arius and his followers had denied the
absolute deity of the Word, who became flesh in Christ, and that Athanasius affirmed and
defended Christ’s true divinity as equal to the Father’s. But what will hopefully become
clear in the subsequent discussion is that there was much more at stake in the mind of
Athanasius than the simple confirmation of Christ’s deity.
It is perhaps best to begin by dispensing with a theory posited by some patristic
scholars that Athanasius’s principal goal was the attainment of political power. R.P.C.
Hanson summarizes one example of this thusly,
The eminent German scholar Eduard Schwartz maintained that Athanasius was
motivated purely by political considerations and that his theological opinions and
pretensions were no more than pretexts to cover his desire for power. Certainly
Athanasius had a desire for power; he suppressed ruthlessly whenever he could
any opposition to him within his diocese; he aroused the sharp suspicion of the
Emperor Constantius as one who in effect challenged his imperial authority in
Egypt, and towards the end of his life he had reached a position in which his
power, not only ecclesiastical but also political, was virtually beyond challenge,
no matter what measures the Emperor (of whatever theological complexion)
might take.1
1R.P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318-381 AD
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988), 421-422.
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In an article exploring this question, Brendan Jones, after reviewing and assessing
evidence for and against Athanasius’s use of questionable political tactics and alleged
political motivations and for the political impetus behind his opponents’ activity,
concludes that, in contrast to his Arian opponents, whose methods of establishing their
doctrines were “hopelessly political,”2
St. Athanasius’ life reflects that of a man fighting for a doctrine that he believed
was central for salvation. For him it was a religious crisis involving the reality of
revelation and redemption. His actions do not appear to be those of a political
“gangster” bent on gaining power through any means. He may have resorted to
less than decent methods at times, but they do not characterize his general
behavior. His interests were primarily theological, but he often trod down the
political path to attain these ends.3
Hanson himself agrees with this assessment, writing,
Schwartz was as mistaken in presenting Athanasius as a kind of Medici prince as
was Jacob Burckhardt in presenting Constantine as a kind of Bismarck,
cynically playing off against each other people of different convictions in the
game of power-politics. In the fourth century everybody took theology seriously,
difficult though it may be for modern scholars to realize this…Athanasius,
though an unscrupulous politician, was also a genuine theologian. It is
impossible for anyone who has read his works with an open mind to miss the
passion and conviction which inform them.4
Reflecting a view presumably more favorable to Athanasius, but still setting
forth a political aspect to the controversy, and thus perhaps to the Church Father’s
approach to the controversy, R.J. Rushdoony writes,
Unity and particularity are equally important. Arius restored the pagan emphasis
on unity, and that unity was the empire. Everywhere, pagan statism found
Arianism to be an ideal doctrine, and for a few centuries Arianism flourished in
Europe as the established faith. In the name of Christianity, Arianism established
2 Brendan Jones, “The Arian Controversy: A Purely Theological Dispute or a Political Controversy,”
Phronema 12 (1977): 66.
3 Ibid.
4 Hanson, 422
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anti-Christianity. By professing Arian “Christianity,” rulers could outlaw or
oppose orthodox Christianity as subversive…Arianism was humanism and
statism. It was a popular faith with rulers, in that it made possible the
continuation of the pagan exaltation of the state as the divine-human order and
politics as the way of salvation. The emperor, Constantine the Great, with his
essentially Roman concern for religion, turned soon to Arianism for support…For
the empire, the door was open to Jesus as the great creature of god, but also open
to many other divine creatures, all serving to unify the Roman Empire as the
divine-human order. The Arian bishops were thus inescapably statist in their
orientation and faith. For them, the empire was God’s true order, and the emperor
God’s present manifestation and power on earth.5
Yet a perusal of the scope of Athanasius’s writings reveals no hint of such a concern.
Although this was undoubtedly part of what was at stake in the Arian controversy, for
Athanasius it seems to have been off the radar screen.
Theology, then, and more particularly theological rectitude, was Athanasius’s
concern, generally speaking. From a survey of his works, particularly with reference to
the Arian controversy, his theological concerns can be divided into three categories:
epistemological, doxological, and soteriological. Each of these will now be examined in
turn.
Athanasius’s Epistemological Concerns with the Arians
Athanasius critiques Arian theology with respect to the twin classic
epistemological questions as they relate to God: if God can be known, and if so, how He
is known. The Arian position is quoted by Athanasius in De Synodis as asserting that the
Son, as a creature of God the Father, cannot know the Father, who is “invisible” and
unknowable in His essence both to the Son and to all creatures.6 According to Arius, the
Son does not even know his own essence because He existed at the will of the Father.
5R. J. Rushdoony, The Foundations of Social Order: Studies in the Creeds and Councils of the Early
Church (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1968), 13-14.
6 Athanasius, De Synodis, II.15.
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God the Father is ineffable to His Son because He is “by Himself.”7 As Rushdoony points
out, “This statement not only eliminates Christ but God as well. God is unknowable even
to Christ, who is the greatest of all creatures. A god who is so unknowable and who
cannot reveal himself is thus an irrelevant god because of his radical incoherence.”8 The
significance of this for Athanasius is summarized by Hanson, “Athanasius’s point is that
only paternal begetting can make the Son him who wholly reveals the Father. His
insistence upon the ontological unity of Father and Son rests upon his conviction about
the Son’s function as revealer.”9 In other words, unless the Son is truly God, of the
essence of the Father, He cannot know the Father, nor can anyone else, because it is the
Son alone who can and does reveal the Father.
Next there is the question of how the Son reveals the Father. Athanasius teaches
that the image of the Word, who is the image of the Father, was imprinted upon the whole
creation because the Word was the agent of creation, but especially upon human beings,
since they were uniquely created in God’s image. Yet because of the corruption of sin,
mankind has lost the ability to perceive this image naturally.10 It is here that the Scriptures
come into play, because they are the Word of the Word, pointing us back to the Father.
Through contemplation on the words of Scripture, the nature of the Father can once again
be revealed to human beings.11 This highlights one of the main aspects of Athanasius’s
concern with the Arians: the beginning point of knowledge concerning God. He believes
that the Arians approach the knowledge of God through human philosophy as a starting
point, since their absolute defining criterion for the nature of God is that He is
7 Ibid.
8 Rushdoony, 13.
9 Hanson, 428.
10 Athanasius, De Incarnatione, 13.
11 Athanasius, De Incarnatione,14.
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“unoriginate,” an unscriptural term (albeit not an unscriptural concept). T. F. Torrance
has well expressed the problem of approaching God as the ancient Greeks did, via
negationis, defining Him in contrast to His creation with such terms. He points out that
truly accurate, precise understanding and knowledge of God comes through His positive
revelation in the Scriptures. There He reveals Himself as Father, defining Himself in
terms of His own internal nature, and giving His people a revealed, intimate knowledge
of Himself.12 The constant appeal to Scripture in Athanasius’s works as the basis for his
view of orthodoxy testifies to this as a major point at stake for Athanasius in the
controversy: the supremacy of the Scriptures. Arius and his sympathizers, being
essentially rationalists, “started from a priori ideas of divine transcendence and creation.
The Word, they held, could not be divine because His being originated from the Father;
since the divine nature was incommunicable, He must be a creature.”13 In contrast,
Athanaius began with Scripture’s reference to God as Father. As Torrance puts it in
another place,
If we turn to Athanasius we find that from the very start he thought of God the
Creator of the universe as “beyond all created being,” whom he identifies with
“the all-holy Father of Christ beyond all created being.” That is to say, Athanasius
did not operate with a preconceived idea or definition of being in speaking of
God’s Being, but drew his understanding of the Being of God from the ever-
living God himself as he speaks to us personally in his Word and reveals himself
in his creative and saving activity.14
The issue here, epistemologically speaking, is rationalism versus God’s self-revelation
through His Word, in both respects—eternal and written. Despite the fact that Athanasius
used philosophical terminology—often redefining it in Scriptural terms—according to
Thomas Weinandy, “To the mind of Athanasius it was the Arians who dissolved the
12 T.F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith (London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2016), 47-51
13 J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: A & C Black, 1989), 243
14 T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God (London: Bloomsbury T& T Clark, 2016), 116.
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Christian mystery in the acid of rationalism…For Athanasius, God in himself is ineffable
and thus the begetting of the Son from the Father is ineffable. The Arians, confronted by
the perplexity of God being the Father of the Son, came to disbelieve.” He then quotes
Athanasius in reference to a simple faith in what Scripture reveals, “It is better to be
silent in perplexity and believe, than to disbelieve on account of the perplexity.”15
Hanson summarizes the point well, anticipating the issues at stake to be discussed hence,
Athanasius…was deeply preoccupied with the self-revelation of God. The Arians
were not prepared to allow that God could or would communicate himself.
Athanasius was quite certain that he had communicated himself in Christ. Arian
theology tended to see the Son as a safeguard against God the Father coming
into dangerously close contact with the world, and they had behind them a long
and respectable tradition of Logos-theology, borrowing from contemporary
philosophy. Athanasius believed that the Son was, on the contrary, a guarantee
that God had come into the closest contact with the world and with humankind.
Athanasius’ theology was one of revelation (emphasis added).16
One last aspect of the epistemological concerns of Athanasius with the Arians
concerns the interpretation of Scripture as God’s revelation. The a priori use of
philosophy did not preclude the Arians from abundantly quoting Scripture. Athanasius
devoted the larger part of his Contra Arianos to refuting their use of the passages and
expounding what, in his judgment, was the proper way to handle Scripture. Although his
exegesis is at times forced and his interpretations can at times tendentiously flow from his
theological commitments, he does set forth important guidelines that sometimes seem
anticipatory of modern hermeneutical methods.17 Peter Leithart discusses a number of
these, including the Church Father’s use of biblical images or “paradigms,” to illustrate
theological truths, an appeal to the skopos, or whole range of Scriptural revelation,
particularly with regard to Christ, in interpreting any particular revelation about Him, the
15 Athanasius, Contra Arianos, 2.36.
16 Hanson, 426.
17 Peter J. Leithart, Athanasius (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2011), 38.
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proper and improper use of extra-biblical terms (which both sides employed), continuity
and discontinuity in the interpretation of types, Christ as the hermeneutical crux and
center of Scripture, and attention to accurate theology proper when handling and
applying Scriptural imagery.18 Hanson amplifies the point about theology proper when he
writes, “It is worth noting that one of the lessons which all pro-Nicene writers eventually
learnt from the Arian Controversy was the analogous nature of all language used about
God. We have already seen Athanasius insisting more than once that human examples
and instances when used in relation to God must not be pushed too far.”19 But perhaps the
most crucial hermeneutical principle to the Church Father was the importance of
considering the skopos, as Weinandy elucidates, quoting the Father, “For Athanasius, the
heart of the issue is that the Arians were ‘ignorant’ of the ‘scope of faith which we
Christians hold, and using it as a rule, apply ourselves…to reading the inspired word.’”20
This entire “scope” of Scripture revealed a duality with respect to the revelation of
Christ, particularly in His life as recorded in the Gospels, which had to be taken onto
account in any formulation of the teaching of the Bible as to His person. To quote
Athanasius again,
Now the scope and character of Scripture, as we have often said, is this: it
contains a double account of the Saviour, that he is ever God and is the Son, the
Father’s Word and Radiance and Wisdom; and that afterwards he took flesh for
us of the Virgin, Mary the Bearer of God, and was made man. This scope is to be
found throughout the God-inspired Scripture.21
Whatever one thinks of Athanasius’s hermeneutics, it is clear that the proper handling of
the Scriptures was part of what was at stake for him in the controversy.
Athanasius’s Doxological Concerns with the Arians
18 Leithart, 27-55.
19 Hanson, 435.
20 Weinandy, 88.
21 Athanasius, De Senentia Dionysii, 9.
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Particularly in his writings specifically directed toward the Arians, Athanasius
relates his apology for the true divinity of the Son to the offense that Arian theology
presents to the honor of God, indicating that this issue was prominent in his mind as also
part of what was at stake. There are countless examples of this, most of which fall into
the categories of idolatry, polytheism, and caricature. First, the Arian God is in fact an
idol, according to Athanasius, because the heretics have distorted and misrepresented his
essential character. Michael Reeves explains, beginning with a quote from Athanasius,
“…it is more pious and more accurate to signify God from the Son and call Him
Father, than to name Him from His works only and call Him Unoriginate.”22 That
is, Christians pray to the Father, not to “the Unoriginate,” for Father he is, not
merely some abstractly defined “Unoriginate” being. And it is possible to know
God as Father only “from the Son.” However, if we first define God by
something such as being the Creator, we will define God abstractly (as something
like “Unoriginate” or “ungenerate”) and so define the Son out of his deity. And
when we do that, we find ourselves worshiping a God who is not a real Father
and who does not really have a Son. We have become idolaters. This, Athanasius
holds, is the essential Arian problem: by trying to know God other than through
the Son, they had come to know an entirely different God. And this is why
Athanasius held the deity of the Son to be nonnegotiable, for it is only by
knowing the Son that anyone can ever know the God who is.23
Second, Athanasius “argued that Arianism undermined the Christian doctrine of God by
presupposing that the divine Triad is not eternal and by virtually reintroducing
polytheism.”24 In Leithart’s words, “If the Son is not eternal God, he is either a creature
or a second God. If the latter, then the Arians are starting down a slippery slope, because
if there is a second God, why not a third, fourth, tenth, millionth?”25 Or, to quote
Athanasius,
22 Athanasius, Contra Arianos ,1.23.
23 Michael Reeves, Theologians You Should Know: An Introduction: From the Apostolic Fathers
to the 21st Century (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2016), 73.
24 Kelly, 233.
25 Leithart, 24.
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If it be not so, but the Word is a creature and a work out of nothing, either He is
not True God because He is Himself one of the creatures, or if they name Him
God from regard for the Scriptures, they must of necessity say that there are two
Gods, one Creator, the other creature, and must serve two Lords, one Unoriginate,
and the other originate and a creature; and must have two faiths, one in the True
God, and the other in one who is made and fashioned by themselves and called
God. And it follows of necessity in so great blindness, that, when they worship
the Unoriginate, they renounce the originate, and when they come to the creature,
they turn from the Creator. For they cannot see the One in the Other, because their
nature and operations are foreign and distinct. And with such sentiments, they
will certainly be going on to more gods, for this will be the essay of those who
revolt from the One God.26
Third, by denying that the Son was truly God from eternity, Arianism produced
caricatures of God in the Persons of both Father and Son. These caricatures robbed God
of his honor by presenting a god who was not worthy of worship or who could not be
sincerely worshiped. Several examples will demonstrate how Athanasius viewed this
problem.
First, since Arians argued that God had to use a mediating creator because His
transcendence rendered both Him unwilling to come into direct contact with created
reality and the creation unable to “bear [his] unmediated hand, Athanasius replies that
this idea makes out God to be incompetent and in need of an assistant….”27 Second, as
Leithart points out, “Arianism is a heresy about the Son, but Athanasius recognizes that it
is equally about the Father. He takes Jesus’s words quite literally: ‘He who does not
honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (John 5:23).’” On this basis
Athanasius speaks of the importance of the Father’s being Father not as an acquired role,
but as an essential aspect of His being, and consequently from eternity:
For the Son is such as the Father is, because He has all that is the Father’s.
Wherefore also is He implied together with the Father. For, a son not being, one
26 Athanasius, Contra Arianos, 3.16.
27 Hanson, 424; Contra Arianos II.25, 26.
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cannot say father; whereas when we call God a Maker, we do not of necessity
intimate the things which have come to be; for a maker is before his works. But
when we call God Father, at once with the Father we signify the Son’s existence.
Therefore he who believes in the Son, believes also in the Father: for he believes
in what is proper to the Father’s Essence; and thus the faith is one in one God.28
This carries with it many implications. For one thing, if God is not essentially Father,
then He is not by nature relational; He is not defined by interpersonality, but by
something else, and that means that He cannot be love. This fact renders such a god
difficult, if not impossible, to love, much less to worship. For another, this would make it
impossible for God to be the Creator, because His essence would lack an intrinsic
fecundity. Says Athanasius, “If the divine essence is not fruitful in itself but barren, as
they hold, as a light that does not lighten or a dry fountain,” how is it that it can give
being and life to others?29 Weinandy masterfully summarizes the significance of this for
the great Church Father:
For Athanasius, only if God is eternally the fruitful Father who, by the very nature
of who he is, eternally begets his Son, is it possible for the Father, by his will, to
create through his Son…If God was simply a singular existing being—a monad,
something after the manner of Aristotle’s “self-thinking thought,” then God could
never conceive of anything other than himself. Being simply One, it would be
metaphysically impossible for him to conceive of two, or of three, or of an
infinite multitude, for One is all there is…God would just be and nothing more
could be conceived, imagined, or said. As Athanasius rightly perceives, only if
God is, by his very nature, the Father begetting the Son, could that God conceive
of bringing into existence other beings that are not God.30
Third, conceiving of God in the first place as “unoriginate” defines Him from His created
works, rather than in terms of Himself in His essential and independent being, linking
His being (that is, His name) to the creation and making His name dependent upon the
28 Discourses 3.6.
29 Athanasius, Contra Arianos, 2.2.
30 Weinandy, 78-80.
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Creation.31 Athanasius avers, “The Unoriginate is specified not by contrast to the Son, but
to the things which through the Son come to be”32 and “As the word ‘Unoriginate’ is
specified relatively to things originated, so the word ‘Father’ is indicative of the Son…he
who names God Maker and Framer and Unoriginate, regards and apprehends things
created and made; and he who calls God Father, thereby conceives and contemplates the
Son.”33 Thus the Arians insult God by caricaturing Him. Athanasius concludes, “If they
had any concern at all for reverent speaking and the honor due to the Father, it became
them rather, and this were better and higher, to acknowledge and call God Father, than to
give Him this name.”34 Fourth, as Leithart remarks, “The Arian position also insults the
Father by implying that he is selfish with his gifts. If the power to create can be taught
why did the Father not bestow this power on all his creatures? Why limit it to the Son?”35
For all of these reasons, to Athanasius, Arianism is intolerable because it dishonors God,
both Father and Son.
Athanasius’s Soteriological Concerns with the Arians
As obviously important as these concerns were to Athanasius, they do not
constitute the heart of what was at stake for him in the Arian controversy. The most
obvious indication of this is that in his polemic writings against the Arians he is simply
elaborating on and applying the theology set forth in the prior works Contra Gentes and
especially De Incarnatione, which together set forth Athanasius’s theology of salvation
as mediated through the triune God, with particular focus on the relationship between the
Father and the Son, and between the divine and human natures of Christ. These twin
31 Leithart, 64.
32 Athanasius, Conra Gentes, 1.33.
33 Athanasius, Conra Gentes, 1.33.
34 Athanasius, Conra Gentes, 1.33.
35 Leithart, 65.
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works make it clear that both the theology proper and the Christology of the man are
conceptualized soteriologically. This is to say that, for Athanasius, what was primarily at
stake in the Arian controversy was an understanding of the person of Christ, and thus of
the nature and purpose of the Incarnation, that provided an adequate theological basis for
the salvation of mankind. Mark Noll well summarizes this architectonic concern in the
corpus of Athanasius’s works,
What might be called the logic of salvation, to match Arius’s logic of
monotheism, was the main theme in the decades-long effort of Athanasius to
define and defend the orthodox position. Athanasius…did not consider Arius’s
arguments as philosophical curiosities. Rather, he viewed them as daggers aimed
at the very heart of the Christian message. His memorable treatise De
Incarnatione (Of the Incarnation) was written early in the dispute with Arius. It
summarized as follows the case he would continue to make for the rest of his life:
If Christ were not truly God, then he could not bestow life upon the repentant and
free them from sin and death. Yet this work of salvation is at the heart of the
biblical picture of Christ, and it has anchored the church’s life since the
beginning. What Athanasius saw clearly was that, unless Christ was truly God,
humanity would lose the hope that Paul expressed in II Corinthians 5:21, “that in
[Christ] we might become the righteousness of God.36
Why this theological basis was so important will be considered in the conclusion of this
essay. First, however, some exposition of the specific concerns of Athanasius with respect
to the soteriological aspects of the controversy is in order.
One way to approach the soteriology of Athanasius is to begin with its telos. For
Athanasius, God’s purpose for mankind was always deification, which he did not mean
to refer to an elimination of the creator/creature distinction, but to a participatory union
with the life of God that established and stabilized the image of God, the attributes of
God to the degree that they are communicable to created man. This was necessary
because mankind, though created in God’s image originally, fell from that estate by
becoming
36 Mark Noll, Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity (Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1997), 55.
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idolators, enthralled and preoccupied with created things and thus losing sight of the
beatitude of the enjoyment of God Himself. Adam was capable of this because his created
estate, like all created things, was by nature unstable and subject to a return to non-being,
having been created from nothing. Thus, the salvific end of mankind is and was always
meant to be not simply a restoration to the estate that Adam enjoyed, but an exaltation to
participation in the divine nature, and that indissolubly. As Meyendorff puts it, “God
‘became man in order that man might become God in him,’ said Athanasius,37 and the
whole of his anti-Arian polemic rests on this fundamental soteriological assertion, which
would lose all its sense if the Word were nothing but a creature.”38
The necessity both of Christ’s true deity and of His true humanity for the
accomplishment of this end is the substance of Athanasius’s whole theology. The true
humanity of Jesus was not what was in dispute in the Arian controversy; therefore, this
discussion will not deal with this aspect of Athanasius’s thought. However, it must be
kept in mind that, for Athanasius, that Christ was truly God and that He was truly man
were inseparably relevant if man was to be saved from sin and death, from the corruption
of God’s image imprinted upon Him by the Word at creation.39
Meyendorff asserts one aspect of Athanasius’s reasoning when he remarks that
“during the Arian controversy, St. Athanasius and the Cappadocians firmly established
that salvation was accomplished in the real meeting between God and man. The incarnate
Word was truly God, not a creature, for God alone could reconcile fallen mankind to
himself.”40 He continues later,
37 Athanasius, De Incarnatione, 54.
38 John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (Crestwood, New York: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1926), 113.
39 Meyendorff, 117.
40 Meyendorff, 14.
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The redemption of human nature accomplished by Christ the new Adam consisted
essentially in the fact that a sinless hypostasis, even that of the Logos, freely took
over human nature in the very state of corruption in which it was (and this implied
death) and by the resurrection re-established its original relationship with God. In
Christ, man participated again in the eternal life destined for him by God…the
death and resurrection of the Incarnate Word (the sacrifice for which Christ was
both the priest and the victim) understood by them as, first, the accomplishment in
Chirst of our common destiny, and then as a new creation that could not be
achieved unless the human nature of Christ had really become ours, in death
itself.41
He then quotes Athanasius:
The body of Christ was of the same substance as that of all men…and he died
according to the common lot of his equals….The death of all was being
accomplished in the body of the Lord, and on the other hand, death and corruption
were destroyed by the Word which dwelt in that body.42
Another way to put it is that it had to be God who became incarnate to make Christ’s
death and resurrection effectual. The Arians called the Word “a god,” but asserted that
His divinity was only by “participation” by grace in an ousia not “properly” belonging to
its essence, but only shared by the Father as a gift. Fairbairn summarizes the response of
Athanasius, “who argues that if the Son were divine only by participation, he would not
be able to give us life or deify us,”43 adding the following quote, “It is not possible for
one who possesses something merely by participation to impart of that participation to
others, since what he has is not his own, but the Giver’s. And the grace he has received
is barely sufficient for himself.”44
Central to Athanasius’s understanding of all this is his concept embodied in the
word “idios,” variously translated “proper” or “own.” The nature which the Father shares
41 Meyendorff, 117.
42 De Incarnatione 20.
43 Donald Fairbairn, Grace and Christology in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003), 71n.
44 Athanasiius, De Synodis, 51.
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with the Son through begetting is that which is “proper” (idios) to Him as God (i.e., truly
divine), but it is just as necessary that, in the incarnation of Christ, the human nature of
Christ was truly taken up into taken up into the truly divine nature, so that the human
nature became “proper” (idios) to it, in order to communicate to it the fullness of divine
life. Again, Fairbairn’s comments are apposite:
Athanasius insists that if the flesh were not the Logos’ own body, then his death
would not avail to save people from corruption and to give us participation in God
in a more stable way than Adam possessed. Louth points out that both the
intimacy between the Father and the Son and the intimacy of divine and human in
Christ are necessary for salvation, so Athanasius’ two uses of idios go together.45
Pulling this all together, Athanasius’s understanding is that only being united to
one who is truly God can deify human nature, thus overcoming death, imparting an
immortal life (which only God necessarily possesses and can impart), and restoring the
orientation of man God-ward. All this is first objectively accomplished in the
Incarnation, so that the human nature of Christ is first deified by its union with the divine
nature.
Then, through the impartation and work of the Holy Spirit, individual human beings are
united to the deified human nature of Christ and thus participate in all that his human
nature did. For all these reasons, the true divine nature of Christ is absolutely essential to
the salvation of man in the theology of Athanasius. Furthermore, it is these soteriological
concerns which must be considered to be what Athanasius believed was primarily at stake
in the Arian controversy. Thomas Weinandy agrees:
…Athanasius’ fundamental concern [was that] it was truly the divine Son of the
Father who became man and as man lived a human life, ultimately dying on the
cross and rising bodily from the dead. Athanasius wanted to get the Son’s divine
relationship to the Father right in order to get the Incarnation right; and he wanted
to get the Incarnation right because he wanted to ensure that the human salvific
deeds were done by none other than the divine Son. If it was not the Son who
45 Fairbairn, 85
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became man and as man achieved humankind’s salvation, then salvation would
not have been, in the least, secure. Incarnational soteriology, founded upon the
Son being God as the Father is God, lay at the heart, for Athanasius, of the Arian
crisis….46
Conclusion
Two final questions are relevant to an understanding of what was at stake for
Athanasius in his contentions with the Arians. First, one must ask, even though an
improper understanding of such matters as the deity of Christ might render one unable to
justify his understanding of how Christ accomplished salvation, is that understanding
itself necessary for his salvation? In other words, whether one understands how it was
accomplished or not, isn’t the crucial thing that it was in fact actually accomplished,
irrespective of anyone’s correct or incorrect understanding? Cannot one trust in Christ
and be saved without fully, or even completely accurately, understanding how He was
able to save him? This is a neglected but important question, because it bears on the
understanding of what Athanasius thought he was doing in defending orthodoxy, and of
what was at stake in his mind. Was it mere theological rectitude, or was it the actual
salvation of souls? Though Athanasius didn’t directly address this issue, a cogent answer
would most likely be that something was at least in the background of Athanasius’s mind
as he was arguing his points. All theological truth is not equally important or essential to
be sure. But Jesus Himself made faith in His deity essential to salvation when He told the
Jews, “Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24, writer’s
translation). Thus the very point at issue in the Arian controversy was one belief or
disbelief in which could decide one’s eternal destiny. This must be viewed as an aspect
of what was at stake, and presumably even in the mind of Athanasius.
46 Weinandy, 81
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Finally, then, was it primarily salvation, or a combination of all the particular
theological points discussed herein that Athanasius thought was at stake? The views of
John Frame speak appropriately to this question. In answer to the question, “What is the
gospel?” Frame asserts that, biblically speaking, the gospel in its broadest sense is the
whole Bible (meaning the whole content of God’s revelation).47 With this in mind,
perhaps it is best to assert that what was at issue for Athanasius was simply the Gospel,
fully and biblically conceived, no more, no less.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works Cited
Athanasius. On the Incarnation. Translated by John Behr. Yonkers, New York: St.
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T & T Clark, 1980.
Fairbairn, Donald. Grace and Christology in the Early Church. Oxford:
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47 John Frame, “The Gospel and the Scriptures,” in John Frame’s Selected Shorter Writings,
Volume One (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P & R Publishing Company, 2014), 26-33.
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Frame, John M. “The Gospel and the Scriptures.” In John Frame’s Selected
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Hanson, R.P.C. The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian
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Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines. London: A & C Black, 1989.
Leithart, Peter J. Athanasius. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic,
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Noll, Mark A. Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the history of Christianity. Grand
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. Retrieving Nicea: The Development and Meaning of
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Torrance, Thomas F. Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement.Edinburgh: T
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