This is part 9 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.

In reading through On the Incarnation, we have been exposed to a great deal of Athanasius’ theology. As we start to explore the first dilemma that necessitated the Incarnation of the Word, we will do a quick recap of the main theological points Athanasius has made.

• God created humans with a mortal nature
• Humans enjoyed immortality through participation with the Word before the Fall
• Participation with the Word was through contemplation of the Word
• Humans turned their focus away from the Word to worldly pleasures and sunk deeper and deeper into evil
• Humans were sentenced to death on account of the transgression. Without a connection with the Word to blunt their mortal nature they would die and return to non-being

Athanasius considers all of this and writes that “what happened was truly both absurd and improper.” The absurd and the improper each represent one of two horns of what Athanasius considers a dilemma for God to solve.

On the first horn Athanasius finds it “absurd that God, the Father of truth, should appear a liar for our profit and preservation.” Since God issued the law that humans would die if they transgressed He could not just dissolve the sentence. “If humans sentenced to death did not die then that would make God a liar. For God would not be true if, after saying that we would die, the human being did not die.” ¹

On the second horn, it would be “improper that what had once been made rational and partakers of his Word should perish, and once again return to non-being through corruption” even if it was due to their negligence. Athanasius muses that should He do nothing and leave humans to their fate of being obliterated that it would be “unworthy of the goodness of God.” He will postulate that if humans were all going to be destroyed then “what need was there for their coming into being at the beginning” in the first place.

Therefore, since the rational creatures were being corrupted and such works were perishing, what should God, being good, do? (chap 6)²

The first solution that Athanasius considers is whether God could have just demanded repentance from humans. This would imply, Athanasius argues, that by a transgression a person was corrupted but by repentance they could be made incorruptible. He concludes that this was not possible as the first horn would still pose a problem. Under this approach God would still not be true to His word regarding the sentence of death. Athanasius suggests that it would be “absurd for the law [ie the sentence of death] to be dissolved before being fulfilled.”³ Athanasius further argues that repentance can “halt sin” and “offense” but it has no ability to halt natural corruption (ie death). To blunt the decline of humankind into nothingness would require a “recreation”.

As we have seen in the idea of theosis, only through union with the Word could the “corruption of death” be halted. When theosis is coupled with the need to fully carry out the sentence of death to preserve God’s consistency we can understand why the only solution is found in the Incarnation of the Word..

Athanasius lays out his thoughts as to how the Word “comes into our realm” to solve the dilemma.

For seeing the rational race perishing, and death reigning over them through corruption, and seeing also the threat of the transgression giving firm hold to the corruption which was upon us, and that it was absurd for the law [sentence of death] to be dissolved before being fulfilled, and seeing the impropriety in what had happened, that the very things of which he himself was the Creator were disappearing, and seeing the excessive wickedness of human beings, that they gradually increased it to an intolerable pitch against themselves, and seeing the liability of all human beings to death—having mercy upon our race, and having pity upon our weakness, and condescending to our corruption, and not enduring the dominion of death, lest what had been created should perish and the work of the Father himself for human beings should be in vain, he takes for himself a body and that not foreign to our own. …

… delivering it over to death on behalf of all, he offered it to the Father, doing this in his love for human beings, so that, on the one hand, with all dying in him the law concerning corruption in human beings might be undone …

and, on the other hand, that as human beings had turned towards corruption he might turn them again to incorruptibility and give them life from death. (chap 8)⁴

For Athanasius, the Incarnation of the Word is the only way God could solve both horns of this dilemma. In taking on a mortal body the immortal Word was capable of death. This body was “an offering holy and free of all spot” while also still “participating in the Word”. This unique aspect made His death “sufficient for death on behalf of all.”

This is a different view of the atonement than we might be used to. And being exposed to new ideas and ways of thinking is why C.S. Lewis, in the introduction, urges us to read old books. Here we find Athanasius arguing that Jesus as the Word incarnate died to satisfy the first horn of the dilemma. He “tasted death on behalf of all” in order to avoid making God a liar. Only by dying in the place of each and every person could the sentence of death be fulfilled so that this was true. With the sentence of death dealt with, God’s integrity remains intact when He offers incorruptibility (ie life) to people.

the Word of God consequently, by offering his own temple and his bodily instrument as a substitute for all, fulfilled in death that which was required (chap 9)⁵

We find this idea repeated throughout the work.

he now offered the sacrifice on behalf of all, delivering his own temple to death in the stead of all, in order to make all not liable to and free from the ancient transgression, and to show himself superior to death, displaying his own body as incorruptible, the first-fruits of the universal resurrection (chap 20) ⁶

and

He it is who is the Life of all, and who like a sheep delivered his own body to death as a substitute for the salvation of all… (chap 37) ⁷

Athanasius will turn to several verses to support this including 2 Cor 5:14-15, where we read that “if one died for all, then all died” and Hebrews 2:9, where we read that “by the grace of God he might taste death on behalf of all.”

The challenge of the second horn was dealt with as well. The “incorruptible Son of God consequently clothed all with incorruptibility in the promise concerning the resurrection”. The body that was offered to die for all also housed the Word. This special union of the corruptible and incorruptible not only allowed the the sentence of death to be fulfilled for all through the one death but also created the possibility of humans receiving incorruptibility (ie immorality) again.

… And thus it happened that both things occurred together in a paradoxical manner: the death of all was completed in the lordly body, and also death and corruption were destroyed by the Word in it. For there was need of death, and death on behalf of all had to take place, so that what was required by all might occur. (chap 20)⁸

This union of the moral and immortal is expounded on later to explain the resurrection:

[the body which the Word took on] was unable not to die, since it was mortal and offered to death on behalf of all, for which purpose the Savior had prepared it for himself. But it could not remain dead, because it had become the temple of life. So, it died as mortal, but came again to life because of the life which is in it… (chap 31)⁹

However it is only the faithful in Christ that will receive the benefit of incorruptibility via union with the Word.

[who is it that can’t understand] that it is Christ, to whom human beings are bearing witness, who provides and grants the victory over death to each, rendering it fully weakened in each of those having his faith and wearing the sign of the cross? (chap 29)¹⁰

Part 10

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1. Athanasius, Saint, Patriarch of Alexandria. On the Incarnation: Saint Athanasius (Popular Patristics Series Book 44) (p. 53). St Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Kindle Edition. ↩︎
2. Ibid (p 53) ↩︎
3. Ibid (p 54) ↩︎
4. Ibid (p 54-55) ↩︎
5. Ibid (p 55) ↩︎
6. Ibid (p 69-70) ↩︎
7. Ibid (p 90) ↩︎
8. Ibid (p 69-70) ↩︎
9. Ibid (p 83) ↩︎
10. Ibid (p 80) ↩︎