| | I recently wrote a paper on Athanasius, one of the foremost theologians of the Council at Nicea in 325 AD. He is responsible for doing some careful thinking and articulation of what it means that God incarnated Himself in man. Specifically, his work, On the Incarnation (De Incarnatione Verbi Dei), details in about 50 pages the essence of his understanding of Jesus as the God-Man. For me personally, this two natured characteristic of Jesus has always been hard to grasp. Athanasius has been very helpful to me.
I wanted to include the conclusion to my paper because it talks about the uniqueness of Christ in our post-modern context. Let me know what ya think!
"For ten years I worked in campus ministry. One of the popular objections to Christianity from skeptical students is the idea that if God is so powerful, why can’t he just forgive, without the cross? Couldn’t he just speak a word of forgiveness? Athanasius’ treatise speaks very relevantly to this question. He argues poignantly for the necessity of the incarnation when he says in chapter 44,
'God, if He wished to reform and to save mankind, ought to have done so by a mere fiat,
without his word taking a body… a reasonable answer would be: that formerly, nothing being in existence at all, what was needed to make everything was a fiat and the bare will to do so. But when man had once been made, and necessity demanded a cure, not for things that were not, but for things that had come to be, it was naturally consequent that the Physician and Savior should appear in what had come to be, in order also to cure the things that were. For this cause, then, He has become man, and used His body as a human instrument.'
The brilliance of this statement is how it speaks to all of the cries of the post-modern heart. There is a post-modern search for authenticity, for meaning, and for empathy. First the post-modern would concur that there is a problem: something demands a cure. Athanasius acknowledges this reality and explains that now we are in a different situation than at the beginning. Creation from nothing has happened, but now it is scarred. Thus something like creation needs to occur but different in its methodology: re-creation or restoration. I love how the reality of our brokenness is validated.
But what is so striking is the method of this re-creation. This is the part that would appeal to the post-modern: we are not glossed over with a mere word from a distant king or an absent Father. The essence of the Father King becomes incarnated in the God-Man, Son. He experiences all of the brokenness, limitation, and heartache that we experience and then ‘cures the things that were.’ And so I say to my skeptic friends, you don’t want religion of fiat. The amazing, blessed uniqueness of Christianity is that it is the very antithesis of fiat. It is flesh, emotion, passion, empathy, justice, and love. It is a solution that satisfies your deepest questions and quenches your deepest longings. He has come and done a new thing and it is glorious to behold.
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| | Posted 1/20/2005 7:19 AM - 50 Views - 4 eProps - 2 comments
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