Friday, January 21, 2022

Notes on Athanasius's Christology from Khaled Anatolios, "Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought" (1998)

  

On the whole, then, Athanasius’s doctrine in the Contra Gentes—De Incarnatione is one that clearly distinguishes between the relation of the Word and the Father and that between both the Word and the Father, taken together and creation. The Word is other than creation and belongs in a unique fashion to the Father: ος αλλος μεν εστι των γενητων και πασης της κτισεως, ιδιος δε και μονος του αγαθου Πατρος υπαρχει (CG 40). Moreover . . . creation is described as related precisely to the relation of Word-Father. These aspects of Athanasius’s Trinitarian doctrine have a definite and significant bearing, it seems to me, on his particularly emphatic presentation of the inseparability, or even convergence, of the aspects of divine otherness and nearness. It is well to note, at this juncture, the way in which previous Christian apologists had articulated a conception of the Logos as mediator between God and creation. Within a framework that was more or less subordinationist, such a conception tended toward the implication that transcendence, conceived as otherness was more properly divine than a transcendence involved with creation. If the Word, who represents direct divine involvement was also not truly divine. On the other hand, in Athanasius too, the Word is represented as Mediator. But here there is no trace of subordinationism, and the Word who is active in the world is himself clearly other than the world and belongs wholly to the Father. With reference to divine transcendence and nearness, such a perspective naturally implies that divine transcendence is in no way mitigated by nearness. IN being more intimately involved in the world, God does not cease to be wholly other, as the Word is other than creation. Conversely, divine otherness does not entail distance from creation, as the Word is powerfully and intimately present to creation, yet belongs essentially to the transcendence of the Father: “Who could analyze the Father in order to discover the powers of his Word? For he is the Word and wisdom of the Father, and at the same time condescend to creatures (τοις γενητοις συγκαταβαινων ) to give them the knowledge and conception of his begetter” (CG 47).

 

However, if Athanasius rejects the attempt to delineate the distinction between divine otherness and nearness along the lines of an ontological prioritizing of the Father over the Son, he does not relinquish the project of actually making this distinction. But he does not locate the distinction within the Godhead itself. Rather, it is articulated in terms of God being “outside” creation by his essence and yet present within it by his power (As in DI 17: εν παση τη κτισει ων, εκτος μεν εστι του παντος κατ'’ουσιαν, εν πασι δε εστι ταις εαυτου, δυναμεσι. Cf. Irenaeus, AH IV, 20, 5. The distinction goes back at least to Philo). This essence-power distinction in Athanasius seems to be a distinction between the divine realm in se, encompassing both Father and Son (not to mention the Spirit), and ad extra. Its point is simply that God’s active agency within creation does not mitigate against his otherness as an agent; God does not become consubstantial with creation through his activity within it. However, in being outside creation by his essence, God does not become consubstantial with creation through his activity within it. However, in being outside creation by his essence, God does not cease to be effective within it and to effect creation’s participation in his own activity. The essence-power distinction is thus parallel with the more pervasive nature-works distinction, whereby it is articulated that God is invisible, incomprehensible, etc., according to his nature, and yet manifests himself in his works (CG 35; DI 32). In both cases, it is a matter of speaking in one breath of the otherness and nearness of God. (Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought [Routledge Early Church Monographs; London: Routledge, 1998], 45-46)

 

Athanasius’s Christology can only be interpreted correctly in view of both the irreducible distinction between God and humanity that is integral to his system and his conception of the incarnation as modifying while not annulling that distinction, in such a way that the relation between the Word and his human body is precisely not external, but one of “appropriation.” (Ibid., 212 n. 9)