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History Articles: Athanasius
Athanasius proffered a view of Jesus that seems to have diminished his true humanity. Whereas modern theologians recognize that Jesus had a truly human body and soul, Athanasius treated the Word as if it replaced the human soul of Jesus, merely occupying a human body. Such a view compromises the ability of Jesus to be tempted as a man, or to have incomplete knowledge about a subject (like the timing of his return), attributes of his humanity that are represented in the gospel testimonies about him.
Gnosticism is one of the oldest rivals of Christianity, which often tried to assimilate Christian ideas into an anti-material worldview. While Athanasius opposed the gnostics, his counterarguments agree with them in their devaluing of the material world, with anti-materialism serving a foundational role in his system of theology.
The impact of anti-materialism on Christian thought is one of the most enduring and destructive trends in the history of ideas, being seen to this day in the Christian’s focus on heavenly and spiritual pursuits, at the expense of earthly matters like politics, economics, human rights, and culture, etc.
Athanasius viewed the relationship of God to man in a way that deified mankind, making us “little gods” of a sort. For Athenasius, mankind is corrupt on account of his physicality, meaning that because we were formed out of nothing, we return back to nothing when we fail to contemplate the divine Word of God. This contemplation of God maintains the image of God in man, which in turn serves as our portion of God’s divinity.
Athanasius’s understanding of man is that we are created with a natural tendency toward corruption, i.e. nonexistence. Our contemplation of the Word is what stays this corruption, therefore fallen man degrades back into nothingness, given his focus on the material world. The resulting end of fallen man is thus to become nonexistent rather than suffer eternally in the fires of Hell, a doctrine known as annihilationism.
Pattern Christology
Jesus has two natures — an uncreated divine nature, and a created human nature.
Jesus is truly God, meaning that his divine nature predates the existence of the universe, and has all of the attributes of monotheistic, biblical divinity (omniscience, omnipotence etc.). He is not a lesser, created god, but rather exists eternally before and outside of time as the one true God.
Jesus is truly man, meaning that his human nature is truly descended from Adam. From the moment of conception onward, he has (and forever will have) a human body comprised of matter and energy, and a human soul with its own distinct intellect and will. He is not a mirage or apparition; he truly lived a real, human life among us, while simultaneously possessing and displaying his divinity through miraculous works and words of life.
Like the title “son of man,” the title “son of God” describes Jesus’ created, human nature. Adam, Jesus, and the Christian are all described as sons of God because we are in the form/image/likeness of God. Both divine and human activities are ascribed to Jesus through both titles, because of their contextual meaning (Jesus is a particular son of man who is divine; Jesus is a particular son of God who is divine). But the title “son of God” fundamentally describes his human nature and human relationship to God.
A few scriptures describe Jesus as having a father/son relationship with God prior to his incarnation as a man. If Jesus’ sonship is through his humanity, then this presents a challenge to pattern christology, because his human relationship with God predates his existence as a man.
Trinitarians turn to Jesus’ divinity to explain this preincarnate sonship. Patternists, on the other hand, maintain that he was the son of God through a “preincarnate hypostatic union” known as the angel of the Lord. Prior to the incarnation, Jesus was truly God, and truly angelic (or at least a true creature). This allows the person of the son to exist from the moment that God first created light, without compromising his true divinity.
Like trinitarians, patternists believe that Jesus has two natures that together form a single person. Unlike trinitarians, we also affirm that each nature is distinctly personal, and that Jesus can behave as a single unified person, or as two distinct persons (often identified as the Father and the Son). Scripture shows us that Jesus has a human mind and human will that are distinct from his divine mind and divine will. This implies that Jesus’ human and divine natures are distinctly personal.
Pattern christology therefore agrees with both orthodox christology (belief in a single person), and nestorianism (belief in two distinct persons). This is not a contradiction, because scripture supports the idea of two (or more) persons becoming and behaving as one person.
God dwells in Jesus as a human temple, similar to how he dwells in a Christian, but with a few differences. First, Jesus is described as God incarnate, and we are not. Second, God dwells in Christ through the divine person of the Word, whereas he dwells in the Christian through the divine person of the Holy Spirit.
These two temples correspond to the two persons in the godhead. God is a composite union of two persons who are one, the Word and the Spirit. The term “Father” is used to denote the godhead as a whole, the composite union of Word and Spirit. Thus it is accurate to say that the Father (God) dwells in Christ through the Word, and the Father (God) dwells in the Christian through the Spirit.