the soteriology of saint athanasius of alexandria the conformation of ...

THE SOTERIOLOGY OF SAINT ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA 243
God offers us the possibility of becoming children of God
in the Son so that we can participate in his own divine life. This
new modus salutis continues to be essentially intellectual, that is,
our divine call is to contemplate the Godhead. However, the way
that it is done has been radically altered. Man has been raised
above the angelic type of knowledge available to him in Adam so
that he can know the Father as the Son knows him. We now
have a filial knowledge of God the Father.
The price for this type of redemption is incalculable, the
Word Incarnate assumes our flesh in order to die as a man and
give us the Spirit that formed it:
«The Word was made flesh in order to offer up his body
for all, and that we, partaking of his Spirit, might be
divinized [8eo7toiTia»jvai], a gift which we could not otherwise
have gained than by his clothing himself in our
created body» 149 .
Union with Christ requires a grace and a divinizing principle
that cleanse us of sin. Before the process of divinization can
begin, the soul is cleansed by receiving the Holy Spirit, and then
the Word obliterates original and personal sin from the soul.
Athanasius speaks of Christ's «advance in wisdom» as the more
patent manifestation of the Logos in Our Lord's humanity: «what
moreover is this advance that is spoken of, but, as I said before,
the divinizing (0eo7totr)0etaa) and grace (x«pi?) imparted from
Wisdom to man, sin being obliterated in them and their inward
corruption, according to their likeness and relationship to the
Word?» 150 . Sin is destroyed in man upon receiving the Spirit and
becoming related to the Son of God in Christ. The union of our
flesh to the Word allows the Logos to re-create us in himself, he
purges sin from the soul 151 .
We have described how Athanasius understood divinization
as an essential part of redemption, and that it was impossible
before the Incarnation. But, he does not speculate on how Adam
and Eve —along with all their descendents— would have reached
heaven if they had not sinned. This is in keeping with
Athanasius' very practical and Scriptural mentality. The fact of
the matter is that Adam did sin, and the Incarnation of the Word
made it possible for all men to become like God, not only