As I said in my last post, time has a strange habit. The discussion of the next life here occurs whilst thousands have died in Japan, and Libya, particularly, in two very different sets of circumstances- overwhelmed by nature, fighting against countrymen, whatever. To speak of God's wrath kindled against sinful humanity may sound fine in abstract, context-less theologyland, but how is it presented to a world that is ever-wracked by grief and disaster? So far, I have not seen a voice from the 'hellfire and perdition' brigade attempt to bridge the theology-pastoral gap that their doctrines really can create, and I would be interested to hear the account they give.
For my own part, I cannot deny there is a serious problem in the God that willingly lets at the very least, the honest and humble seekers and doubters, or the sincere and good believers of other faiths find are expected to find themselves sharing in the punishment of truly heinous people- should I somehow be fortunate enough to make it to paradise (whatever it is) how can my joy be complete knowing that those prayed for, those I forgave and thought worthy of forgiveness and non-judgement following the example of Christ, those I laughed and wept and lived with are out there suffering, perpetually and unrelentingly and more besides? Who in those circumstances would not like Paul or Moses, cry out to be cut off or blotted out in the place of others? How could anyone who has tried to follow God and goodness possibly resign themselves to such suffering?
Fortunately, I think, I hope, God may not do so, and what started this thought process is the reading of the Church Fathers- in particular Athanasius, who really set the ball rolling for me, and it is his understanding of salvation that has me cautiously shifting towards the idea that actually, there may be something substantial, rather than just my hope (or fear, perhaps) that means God may really have the final victory over all.
I rely quite heavily on his work De Incarnatione for this particular fragment of my recent thoughts- I intend to outline a brief sketch here of some key ideas and what they have challenged me to consider. Chiefly among the considerations are a serious engagement with what it means for creation to be good, and what it is for humans to be in the 'image' and 'likeness' of God, and just what an Incarnational faith might mean- after all, why do we make so much of the last week of his life; were those 33 prior years just by the by, even though they were 33 years of God being with us?
Like all Christian Theologians, Athanasius begins his account of salvation by going back to creation and the fall. There was a time yes, when humankind was better than it was before- but not perfect it seems, Athanasius insists that physical death is a biological fact of life, part of the created order- Adam's immortality springs from his contemplation of God- "For man is by nature mortal in that he was created from nothing. But because of his likeness to him who exists, if he had kept this through contemplating God, he would have blunted his natural corruption and would have remained incorruptable..." (DI 4). The Fall then represents humankind as turning away from the contemplation of eternal things to earthly things, that is things which tend to non-existence, and in Athansius (as in Augustine) evil is non-existence (existence being the product of God, and therefore good), for which we suffer the 'corruption' of death, physical and spiritual entropy - the collapse of our self effectively into dust. Hardly a befitting end for something created to share in the relationship of God in incorruptibility.
Humanity therefore started life living under grace, contemplating the word, but with the rupture of that link we turned to earthly things and became unable to escape this lower form of life. What is interesting to note is that this has very little at it's root to do with Sin. Death is not the decreed punishment for disobedience and death is not the merit of our misdeeds. Rather it is about our being, our nature being damaged, and an incapability to respond to the divine. Athanasius in fact specifically mentions this in chapter 7 "...what should God have done? Demand repentance from men for the transgression? ... Repentance gives no exemption form the consequences of nature, but merely looses sins. If therefore, there had been only sin and not its consequence of corruption, repentance would have been very well". It's not about satisfying the demands of justice or honour it seems - rather salvation is therapeutic in nature; making humanity right again. What I'm delighted to hear is that contemporary Orthodox also take this view of 'salvation as healing' as can be seen here and here for instance.
So what is going on in the plan of salvation? Well, with mankind now unable to see beyond earthly things, it becomes eminently necessary for the Son to take on flesh so that they might again turn to God. But there is something yet more important. Athanaisus of course is most famous for establishing the fully divine status of the Son against Arius, and the reason for this seems to stem in part from soteriological considerations- how could something not truly God fully do the will of God, and conversely how can someone not truly human act on behalf of all humans? Yet what I want to highlight here is that the important implication is that God actually, voluntarily particpates in human life, and being God thus transforms it. Since the fall, many things happen to man that are unknown to God, pain, fear, suffering, bodily desire and so on, and God remarkable rather despising these things, embraces them and so makes them proper to him. God acts as a re-creative agent- Christ transforms what was simply earthly into heavenly things, as Athanasius himself succinctly puts it- 'For what the human body of the Word suffered, this the Word, united to it, attributed it to himself, in order that we might be enabled to participate in the divinity of the Word” (Epistle to Epictetus)" The final thing to overcome of course being death itself.
This to me makes eminent sense, it identifies there is something deeper than sin going on; after all, God forgives sins in the Old Testament and Christ forgives sins before his death, furthermore its highly affirming of human existence and presents to us a God who doesn't expect us to transcend ourselves in order to reach him, try to hide our weaknesses (my mind turns to the Westboro Baptist Church as Louis Theroux presented them the other week) but instead really met us where we were and whom we can turn literally everything over to in the knowledge that he understands and can even see it in a holy light. Finally it also means that the whole life of Jesus in the gospels is not contingent- everything is important and grace begins upon arrival and not merely at the exit.
Now Athanasius supposedly wrote all this when he was in his early twenties, a staggering achievement if true. I myself can offer no such grand sweeping opus, but when I read all this it did spark one little thought: If the last word in Salvation is not 'justice' but 'restoration', if the work Christ is to transform humans back from disorder to order- how can the work be said to be finished if there exists in perpetuity a place of thorough disorder and baseness, namely hell - how can that place be proper to God? Can the work be really finished until all are redeemed? Particularly if we live in circumstances where our humanity is not so far from Divinity?
That last point though takes us closer to a real Universalist in Gregory of Nyssa, and I plan to stop with Athanasius.
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