Tag Archives: God

Blogging thru On the Incarnation: Was Adam created as an immortal being?

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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.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent

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.

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Blogging thru On the Incarnation: 5 things we learn about Providence

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This is part 6 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 the opening chapter of On the Incarnation, Athanasius referred to his prequel noting that he had “sufficiently treated a few points regarding the error of the Gentiles concerning idols”. We have been examining those points in the last few posts. These were important because it sets the stage for the more popular work that followed.

The next thing Athanasius tells us in the introduction is that in the prequel he covered a “few points regarding the divinity of the Word of the Father and his providence and power in all things”. 1

Athanasius goes on to list three things we learn about God’s providence.

  • through [the Word] the good Father arranges all things
  • by him all things are moved
  • and in him are given life
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Blogging thru On the Incarnation: Athanasius’ Teleological Argument (part 5)

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This is part 5 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 this post we are going to jump right in, picking up where we left off in part 4. We will be looking at the second major argument Athanasius presents in Against the Gentiles related to how creation points to a Creator. And yes, we will eventually get back to On the Incarnation.

Why do we find a Universe that has Order and Harmony?

In the second major argument advanced by Athanasius, we find him making a teleological argument. A teleological argument is one that makes an appeal to what is known of the universe and then moves to argue that it shows evidence of design and purpose. It then asserts that this is evidence for a Designer.

The Fine-Tuning Argument

A popular and modern version of a teleological argument would be the fine tuning argument.

The laws of physics, the shape of the universe and the values of numerous constants appear to be so finely tuned that a slight change in any one of them could radically change how the universe looks and whether it could support life.1 These observations leave physicists, and all of us, to grapple with whether our universe was designed to support life or whether it was something else that brought about the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

In A Brief History of Time, the famous physicist Stephen Hawking writes:

The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. We cannot, at the moment at least, predict the values of these numbers from theory – we have to find them by observation. It may be that one day we shall discover a complete unified theory that predicts them all, but it is also possible that some or all of them vary from universe to universe or within a single universe. The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life. … it seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers that would allow the development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes, that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty. One can take this either as evidence of a divine purpose in Creation and the choice of the laws of science or as support for the strong anthropic principle. (emphasis added) 2

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