This is part 7 of the series blogging through the book On the Incarnation by Athanasius. You might want to start with part 1 and work your way through the series.
When we read passages in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5 we find that death entered the world when Adam sinned. That gives us an interesting question to ponder. Was mankind created in an immortal body before the Fall?
For Athanasius the answer is no. But before you throw the heretic card down, let’s look at what his view entailed.
After alluding to his prior work, Athanasius is ready to “relate also the things concerning the Incarnation of the Word and expound his divine manifestation to us.” In order to understand why the Word, who by nature is without a body, chose to appear to us in a body, one, Athanasius argues, must go back to the beginning.
Perhaps you are wondering for what reason, having proposed to talk about the Incarnation of the Word, we are now expounding the origin of human beings. Yet this too is not distinct from the aim of our exposition. For speaking of the manifestation of the Savior to us, it is necessary also to speak of the origin of human beings, in order that you might know that our own cause was the occasion of his descent and that our own transgression evoked the Word’s love for human beings, so that the Lord both came to us and appeared among human beings. (On the Incarnation ch 4) 1
Athanasius treated the topic of creation in much more detail in his earlier work. We have already explored that in this series. We will pick up Athanasius’ description of the Fall in broad strokes, a topic that spans several early chapters.
Since the Word will come in a human body, Athanasius reminds us of what it means to be human. Unlike the other creatures, human beings have not just been given the gift of existence, but have been made in the image of God. Theologians have long pondered what that might mean. For Athanasius being an image bearer involved our being made as rational agents that have “the free choice [that] could turn either way.” Used correctly, this rationality would allow humans to live in paradise.
For bringing them into his own paradise, he gave them a law, so that if they guarded the grace and remained good, they might have the life of paradise—without sorrow, pain, or care—besides having the promise of their incorruptibility in heaven; but if they were to transgress and turning away become wicked, they would know themselves enduring the corruption of death according to nature, and no longer live in paradise (On the Incarnation ch 3) 2
In describing creation, Athanasius doesn’t refer to the first people as Adam and Eve, nor does he articulate that the law given was the command not to eat from one of the trees. There is also no discussion about the Tree of Life. There are one or two quotes from Scripture that allude to these things, but given his lengthy exploration of the topic it is surprising that these features are not included in his treatise. It is unclear from this how Athanasius interpreted the Genesis creation account itself. What is clear is that he held to all of the major principles, including creation ex nihilo, people made in God’s image and moral failure that led to death.
Athanasius lived and wrote before the theories and doctrines of original sin, which are arguably attributed to Augustine. Therefore we must be careful in how we interpret Athanasius’ use of terms such as “corruption” and “nature”.
For Athanasius “death according to nature” is referring to mankind being created with a mortal body. Nature is not some term referring to the internal disposition of man that inclines him to act in one way or another. Rather for Athanasius it is ascribing the ontology of mankind – beings that came into a state of existence from a state of non-being. To argue that we are “by nature corruptible” is to assert that humans are subject to death and both physical and spiritual decay. We are mortal.
Athanasius will argue that although mankind was mortal in his natural state, God desired that they exist as incorruptible and immortal beings. While one may argue that even for Athanasius people started off immortal, we find that it was only because the natural state was “blunted” by their participation in the Word. We don’t get a full picture of what he meant by “participation in the Word” but it had at its core the contemplation of the Word through which the knowledge of God and divine realities were available (see the 2nd entry).
[mankind was intended to] continuously contemplate by his purity the image of the Father, the God Word, […cleaving], by the power of his mind, to the divine and intelligible realities in heaven (Against the Gentiles ch 2) 3
It was only through participation with the Word and his presence that the natural state was restrained. When mankind turned from contemplation of eternal things and no longer comprehended or possessed the knowledge of God, they no longer participated with the Word and the natural state was again unrestrained resulting in death and corruption (see the 3rd entry).
The following excerpts from On the Incarnation capture these ideas:
God created the human being and willed that he should abide in incorruptibility; but when humans … received the previously threatened condemnation of death, and thereafter no longer remained as they had been created, but were corrupted … death reigned. For the transgression of the commandment returned them to the natural state, so that, just as they, not being, came to be, so also they might rightly endure in time the corruption unto non-being. For if, having a nature that did not once exist, they were called into existence by the Word’s advent and love for human beings, it followed that when human beings were bereft of the knowledge of God and had turned to [evil] … then they were bereft also of eternal being. But this, being decomposed, is to remain in death and corruption. For the human being is by nature mortal, having come into being from nothing. But because of his likeness to the One who Is, which, if he had guarded through his comprehension of him, would have blunted his natural corruption, he would have remained incorruptible, just as Wisdom says, “Attention to the laws is the confirmation of incorruptibility” (Wis 6.18). And being incorruptible, he would have lived thereafter like God, as somewhere the Divine Scripture also signals, saying “I said you are gods, and all sons of the Most High; but you die like human beings and fall like any prince” (Ps 81.6–7). (On the Incarnation ch 4) 4
In the next chapter he again affirms that humans were corruptible by nature and that only through participation with the Word was death avoided.
For God has not only created us from nothing, but also granted us by the grace of the Word to live a life according to God. But human beings, turning away from things eternal and by the counsel of the devil turning us towards things of corruption, were themselves the cause of corruption in death, being, as we already said, corruptible by nature but escaping their natural state by the grace of participation in the Word, had they remained good. Because of the Word present in them, even natural corruption did not come near them, just as Wisdom says, “God created the human being for incorruptibility and an image of his own eternity; but by the envy of the devil, death entered into the world” (Wis 2.23–4). (ch 5) 5
When we reflect on mankind in paradise, we may wonder what might have happened if the Fall never occurred. What if, as Athanasius understands it, mankind was able to “guard the grace and remain good” keeping his contemplative efforts on things above. Athanasius hinted at that in chapter 3 suggesting that there was a promise of future incorruptibility in heaven. He also quotes psalm 81, which states that “you are gods”. This idea of people being “gods” does not assert that we were or would become divine beings. Instead it was understood that through participation with God we are able to share in His divine life and possess eternal life. This was called theosis or deification, a common view in the early church. It was the basis of the immortality that mankind had before the Fall and will also be the basis for how we can receive eternal life through the Incarnation of the Word.
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