{"id":5222,"date":"2017-04-23T10:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-04-23T14:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=5222"},"modified":"2017-04-19T15:29:10","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T19:29:10","slug":"learning-our-faith-from-the-greek-fathers-of-the-church-20170423","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=5222","title":{"rendered":"Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20170423"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Athanasius the Great<\/p><\/div>\n

Before Pascha, I had started sharing information about the argument between Arius, the heretic, and St. Athanasius. It is, actually, quite a fascinating bit of our Christian history. Athanasius argued that the fundamental error of Arius and his followers was in their limited thinking and speaking about God. They only seemed to think about God in human terms and from a human perspective. St. Athanasius, concedes that if the Scripture were describing a human man or relationship, the Arians would be correct. \u201cNow if they are discussing a man<\/em>, then they may argue about his word and his son on the human level. But if they are talking about God, man\u2019s creator, they must not think of him on a human level.\u201d<\/p>\n

This, Athanasius contends, is the Arian\u2019s fundamental mistake. Human procreation does take place in time and space. Human fathers are both older and separate from their children. Begetting does involve division and separation. Not so, however, with God. The Arians have forgotten who the subject of the discussion actually is: \u201cThe character of the parent determines the character of the offspring. Man is begotten in time and begets in time; he comes into being from non-existence. The same is true of human speech: \u201chis word ceases and does not remain…A human word is a combination of syllables, and has no independent life or activity; it merely signifies the speaker\u2019s meaning, and just issues and passes away and disappears, since it had no existence at all before it was uttered; <\/em>therefore a man\u2019s word has no independent life and activity; in short it is not a man.\u201d (This quote from Athanasius has to do with the fact that we say that Christ is the WORD of God). <\/em><\/p>\n

The Arians are guilty of a serious category error. They have applied human categories to God in an inappropriate and illogical fashion. \u201cGod,\u201d Athanasius insists, \u201cis not like man.\u201d Rather, \u201che is \u2018he who exists\u2019 and exists forever.\u201d Furthermore, \u201chis Word is \u2018that which exists eternally with the Father, as radiance from a light.\u201d <\/em>But God\u2019s word is not merely \u2018emitted,\u2019 as one might say, nor is it just an articulate noise; nor is \u2018the Son of God\u2019 just a synonym for \u2018the command of God,\u2019 but he is the perfect offspring of the perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

God\u2019s divine Word is, indeed, utterly unique. A human word is spoken, communicates and disappears into the air. In itself it has no capability \u201cto affect anything.\u201d Not so with God and his Word. God, as Athanasius puts it, does not speak his Word so that a subordinate might hear God\u2019s command and then carry it out. No, \u201cthis is what happens in human affairs. But the Word of God is creator and maker, and he is <\/em>the Father\u2019s will.<\/p>\n

Sorting out who Jesus is was a long, hard-fought struggle for the Church. It is inappropriate to think of God in human terms. More to follow!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before Pascha, I had started sharing information about the argument between Arius, the heretic, and St. Athanasius. It is, actually, quite a fascinating bit of our Christian history. Athanasius argued that the fundamental error of Arius and his followers was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athanasius-of-alexandria","category-learning-our-faith-form-the-church-fathers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5223,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5222\/revisions\/5223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}