De Incarnatione Verbi Dei (On the Incarnation).

I've had Athansius' On the Incarnation sitting on my shelves since my freshman year in college, but have never gotten to reading it. It's a relatively short book, it only took me a day to read it (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press edition). The main point of the treatise is to show that God had to be incarnated in human form to redeem mankind--this being in broad a broad sense, including being saved from the curse as well as to be sanctified and restore creation. The work is a historical milestone of Trinitarian orthodoxy as Athanasius stood against Arius. On a side note, he was Egyptian. Very early on, he clearly states a position in support of the doctrine of penal substitution:

Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death in place of all, and offered it to the Father.

But, like many other statements he makes, this seems to need some parsing out and qualification. Indeed our bodies are liable to corruption, but does this refer to merely the physical deaths of our bodies and thus the coming resurrection of which Christ is the first-fruits? Or is he implying the sin that is the ultimate cause of death? There are many such statements that have truth in them to some degree, but at the same time need to be qualified, should not be as emphasized, or is mere speculative theology. Athanasius also foists interpretations onto the narrative of Christ's life, death, and resurrection; for example:

...even in death He preserved His body whole and undivided, so that there should be no excuse hereafter for those who would divide the Church.

And,

Here, again, we see the fitness of his death and of those outstretched arms: it was that He might draw His ancient people with the one and the Gentiles with the other, and join both together in Himself.

Despite these several deviations from what modern day evangelicals would interpret or present the incarnation of Christ--of which some are quite problematic--it is encouraging to also see the broad swaths of ground that we could agree with this patristic father on. He clearly understands the gospel, but just had different categories than we would normally find helpful. It is a good teaching point to see how the patristic fathers can be read without fearing that we will discover evangelicalism as a 16th century development without any historical moorings, while simultaneously acknowledging that the Holy Spirit continues to bless His Church with increasing knowledge and understanding of His Word.

On a thought-detour...Athansius spends a good deal of time refuting Jews first, then Gentiles (pagans) second, in regards to their objections to the intellectual acceptability of God being incarnate as a man. In arguing against these two groups, he uses their own religio-cultural backgrounds to find precedent for the idea of the incarnation. Make of it as you will; I found it not to be a very wise apologetic method, especially since the incarnation eventually reduces to mystery in the idea of two natures in one person. But at the same time, patristic polemics is fascinating.

General Updates:

• Tabling at the freshmen orientation student organizations fair today for Campus Outreach went well. Met one girl who signed onto our listserv who admitted to be agnostic and just trying to explore religion and figure out what she actually believes. Pretty awesome stuff. We were placed as neighbors with the College Republicans, who had a cut-out board of Ronald Reagan. I wanted to grab a photo with Ronald, but didn't happen.
• Was able to have lunch with the CO folks, Matt Hill (male staff workers) was able to fly up for the fair and to have lunch as well. It was awesome seeing him again!
• Was having dinner in Union Station and randomly met the Assistant Director of the Periodical Press Office at the House; chatted for about half an hour, and he gave me his business card and told me to shoot him an email to go grab drinks. I might just do that!

Reading Updates:

• Finished Copleston's History of Philosophy, Vol. I this afternoon and started Herbert Bix's Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. It's been really interesting so far.