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  • The Paradox of Athanasian Soteriology

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    The Paradox of Athanasian Soteriology

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    The Paradox of Athanasian Soteriology

    Droits d'auteur :

    © All Rights Reserved
    Téléchargez comme PDF ou lisez en ligne sur Scribd
    Signaler comme contenu inapproprié
    35 vues14 pages

    The Paradox of Athanasian Soteriology

    Transféré par

    piratehome1
    The Paradox of Athanasian Soteriology

    Droits d'auteur :

    © All Rights Reserved
    Téléchargez comme PDF ou lisez en ligne sur Scribd
    Signaler comme contenu inapproprié
    sur 14
    Chapter THE PARADOX OF ATHANASIAN SOTERIOLOGY Itdoes not require deep and protracted study in the Athanasian corpus to notice the paradox cal nature of his soteriology of écorotnas. Modern theological biases and habits have dis- posed Christians to be uneasy with, if not shocked by, such language, and the context of the emphasis which Athanasius placed on deification ‘makes it all the more striking; itis this concept of salvation which requires that the Son be fully divine: in the Nicene phrase, “very God.” For Athanasius, deification was the raison d'étre of Nicaea. We have learned to accept the “sublime paradox” of the Incarnation, that “God became ‘man? but Athanasius coupled the converse with it as its justficati (onvepsinnoev, iva fyeis BeonoinPiner).” This formula of Greek Patristic theology, of which the Bishop of Alexandria became the leading propo- nent, subsequently lapsed into desuetude in Western Christianity, which finally rejected it outright as heretical, n: “that man may become God ‘The Creator-Creature Dichotomy ‘As an outgrowth of Nicaea, but especially since Augustine, Christian orthodoxy has firmly held to a theology which stressed the transcen- dental nature of God. Subsequent theology has always tended to take refuge in the safety of the apophatic. Ultimately itis impossible for human nature to have any direct knowledge of God, or even of his attributes, for man is entirely different from his Maker and exists on a completely differ- ent plane of being. Existence in the full sense belongs to God alone, who has “necessary being,” while man has only “contingent being;” his exis- tence is totally dependent upon the will of Deity ‘Thus God is fotaliter alite, since a firm ontolog- ical gulf forever separates the Divine from the human, the Creator from the created.’ This theme, which was so central to ‘Augustine, has been reiterated throughout Christian history, from Aquinas to Calvin, from the Westminster Confession to Vatican I, and is expressed in extreme but logically consistent form by the neoorthodox theologian Emil Brunner: There is no greater sense of distance than that which lies in the words Creator Creation. Now this isthe first and the Funda- mental thing which can be said about man: 78 * Deifcation: The Content of Ath He isa creature, and as such he is separated by an abyss from the Divine manner of being. The greatest dissimilarity between two things which we can express at all—more dlssimilar than light and darkness, death and life, good and evil—is that between the Creator and that which is created. This theology, of course, did not spring into full maturity from the pen of Augustine, but was the culmination of a long doctrinal develop- ‘ment, to which Athanasius was a contributor. We have examined his anthropology in some detail in Chapter If, but have reserved until now a spe- Gific discussion of his doctrine of God. For Athanasius it was “an admitted truth about God” that he is self-sufficient and com. plete in himself Furthermore, God is immateri- al as well as incorporeal, invisible and untouch- able, and has power over all the universe, being transcendent to it.’ This transcendence is espe

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