Athanasius on Christ's omnipresence during his earthly life

[Mr. Bultitude]

This is a paradox that has long perplexed me, so my ears perked up (figuratively speaking) when I heard Athanasius address it.

The Word was not hedged in by His body, nor did His presence in the body prevent His being present elsewhere as well. When He moved His body He did not cease also to direct the universe by His Mind and might. No. The marvelous truth is, that being the Word, so far from being Himself contained by anything, He actually contained all things Himself. In creation He is present everywhere, yet is distinct in being from it; ordering, directing, giving life to all, containing all, yet is He Himself the Uncontained, existing solely in His Father. As with the whole, so also is it with the part. Existing in a human body, to which He Himself gives life, He is still Source of life to all the universe, present in every part of it, yet outside the whole; and He is revealed both through the works of His body and through His activity in the world. It is, indeed, the function of soul to behold things that are outside the body, but it cannot energize or move them. A man cannot transport things from one place to another, for instance, merely by thinking about them; nor can you or I move the sun and the stars just by sitting at home and looking at them. With the Word of God in His human nature, however, it was otherwise. His body was for Him not a limitation, but an instrument, so that He was both in it and in all things, and outside all things, resting in the Father alone. At one and the same time—this is the wonder— as Man He was living a human life, and as Word He was sustaining the life of the universe, and as Son He was in constant union with the Father. Not even His birth from a virgin, therefore, changed Him in any way, nor was He defiled by being in the body. Rather, He sanctified the body by being in it. For His being in everything does not mean that He shares the nature of everything, only that He gives all things their being and sustains them in it.

What do you think?

 

[py3ak]

It's great stuff.

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

Joh 3:13    And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

I think he is in agreement with this scripture.

 

[earl40]

Joh 3:13    And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

I think he is in agreement with this scripture.

I'll go a step further and say I know he is in line.

 

[Pergamum]

How is this related to the doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's physical body advanced by Lutherans?

 

[RamistThomist]

How is this related to the doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's physical body advanced by Lutherans?

Two things:

1) Christ had not yet bodily ascended to heaven.
2) Athanasius is not saying that Christ's human nature is ubiquitous.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

In reading Athanasius there, he seemed to me to say just what Calvin and his ilk have and continue to declare: finitum non capax infinitum (note Athanasius' term "Uncontained").

That is, the instrument of the Word's flesh was for the working of our redemption, while it did not confine him according to his divine nature. He moved his body, while he also directed the movement of the whole universe. He was present in his body, but also omnipresent. And to my reading, this is exactly the sort of distinction the Reformed make, in denying ubiquity to the flesh of our Lord. That body was not everywhere; nor could it be so, yet remain human and localized, an essential quality of the human nature.

The Lutheran understanding of the communicatio idiomatum makes all the real properties of each nature coextensive with the properties of the other, not simply that the properties of one nature are freely associated with or called by what is proper to the other nature (locus classicus Act.20:28). The Reformed understanding of the communication is referred to the Person, which identification is above (or encompasses) both natures. Think of the Lutheran conception as two distinct spheres (attribute collection) cohabiting exactly the same space or triple axis coordinates, which is called Person. Think of the Reformed conception as the same two distinct spheres, not cohabiting at identical coordinates, but engaged indissolubly within the identity of the Person which--in the case of one possessing two natures--is not simply reducible to the sum of attributes. The point of communication is the Personal identity, distinct from each set of attributes, but embracing them both (and nothing more, so far as we know).

The Reformed concept seems to me the more obvious way of defending and maintaining the Chalcedonian formula concerning Christ's two natures (as incorporated into the WCF) "...without conversion, composition, or confusion" (8.2) The Lutheran view appears to me to do no more nor less than what they deny it does, namely confuse the rule that each nature exists, exhibits, and experiences that which is proper to itself (8.7). What is more confusing (and composed and converted) than to say that a human nature is omnipresent? Or so say that the divine nature (being of one substance with the Father!) experienced death? If invoking "Mystery!" alone was sufficient response to heresy, then there was never any need to confess against "conversion, composition, or confusion." Accordingly, Christ might simply have done whatever he wanted without any natural constraints; limitation according to human nature was illusory, a mere effect of his will and his state of humiliation. For Lutherans, Christ's state of glorification abolishes those willfully maintained limits, and he does with his body whatever he pleases. The Lutherans sometimes accuse the Reformed of crypto-Nestorianism (too much stress on Christ's dual natures); and we sometimes accuse them of crypto-Eutycianism (too much stress on the union of natures, such that it is really a "third thing").

Here's what we as Reformed wish to maintain. Scripture teaches us that Christ continues forever to be united with our human nature. As a Man, he is still just like me, praise the Lord. He is still and forever theanthropos, the God-Man. Act.3:21 teaches us that Christ is physically separated from us (as his bodily Ascension proved, and the angels' words afterward, Act.1.11) for "the heaven must receive [him] until the times of restoration of all things." As Hebrews explains so fully, he is the Mediator in the heavenly Temple, bearing our nature and his blood of it, before his Father. He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. He had the same body when he rose again that he had when he was laid in the tomb (albeit more glorified afterward). And we are promised to be "like him" in his resurrection. Unless the allegation is that we too will be unbounded by time or space in our resurrection bodies, then despite new abilities suitable to glorified bodies, locality seems unavoidable. Locality certainly seems in Scripture to have been (and continue to be) the case with Jesus' resurrection life.

The Second Person of the Trinity still and forever does for us all that we need him for, according to the properties of each of his indefectible and immutable natures. Christ's divinity--omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent--assures us that he will never be unable perfectly to assist us, and better than we can ask. Christ's humanity does not limit him as a Person, but suits him in heaven to remain for us a merciful and faithful high priest, until he brings us together forever to the glory of the Father. Meanwhile, Christ is not at all separate from us, but stays with us through the ministry of Holy Spirit, yea closer than he was when he walked side by side with his disciples through this world.

 

[Pergamum]

Rev. Bruce,

That is, the instrument of the Word's flesh was for the working of our redemption, while it did not confine him according to his divine nature. He moved his body, while he also directed the movement of the whole universe. He was present in his body, but also omnipresent. And to my reading, this is exactly the sort of distinction the Reformed make, in denying ubiquity to the flesh of our Lord. That body was not everywhere; nor could it be so, yet remain human and localized, an essential quality of the human nature.

Yes, this is what I believe.

I had someone respond to my Calvinistic beliefs on Christ's physical body with the reply, "Well, he could float up to heaven and walk through walls...that means his physical body is not limited in any way." I sort of feebly responded something about "He still did those physical things in his physical body" and that his body did not explode into omnipresence all over the universe but that he stayed in his body as he "floated" and as he seemingly walked through a door.

What would have been a better response on my part?

 

[Tirian]

This is a paradox that has long perplexed me, so my ears perked up (figuratively speaking) when I heard Athanasius address it.

Likewise - this has also been something of a perplexing truth to get my head around, so thanks for sharing the quote. I found it really helpful.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Pergy,
It is the other guy who is speculating on the qualities of the resurrected human body of Christ, not us. When we stick with just the facts as recorded in Scripture, the question of "how" Jesus did/does his activity is of no consequence to our faith in who he is. [Perhaps CSLewis was on to something when he imagined heaven as a place that is "more real" (more substantial) than where we are now, so that this present reality is the more ghostly one (and the damned even more so), and our familiar walls and doors are too insubstantial to keep out a heavenly man having more reality--I'm not saying the Bible teaches this, but that speculations don't have to favor one notion over another].

Jesus invited inspection of his body by living, breathing men with working senses located in a real upper room. They were able to touch him, and to see that he presented himself to them as human in every way. He ate fish, in order to prove he wasn't a floating ghost. How was it that the walls and closed door did not stop him from appearing in their midst? I have no idea, and I also don't know how Philip the evangelist vanished from the presence of the Ethiopian eunuch, and appeared at Azotus (and he wasn't a glorified man).

The action associated with Christ's Ascension is clearly intended by the very nature of it to convey not "limitlessness" but a real, physical departure. Did Christ "expand" away until he grew so immense and vaporous that he disappeared to the sight? No, with all constituent bodily integrity he left the ground; he went up into the air, and we may presume grew smaller to the disciples' vision as the distance between him and the group increased; until a cloud received him out of their sight entirely. It was an event meant to indelibly impress upon the mind a physical departure, very much like an earthbound and horizontal one. Only Christ's direction of travel is vertical and unique (the invention of the airplane notwithstanding).

The nearest biblical similarity would be the departure of Elijah, who was swept away in a fiery chariot. He definitely did not ascend by his own leave. But in either case, the message is unmistakable: the body departs. That flesh is gone away. Locality has a double implication. Not only is it predicated of Christ, but also of us. We are someplace different, and therefore are not where he is.

Lutheran faithful are taught to seek the local Christ in the Eucharist. He is locally present there for them. He is bodily present, and they are urged to take great comfort in that kind of "real presence." By partaking, they are promised the most intimate fellowship, flesh to flesh. As one of them has written, it is heaven on earth.

For the Reformed, the cosmic intersection between heaven and earth is the nature of true Spirit-and-Truth worship. However, in contrast to the Lutheran understanding that the body of Christ comes down, again and again in the Eucharist; the Reformed conception of the meeting is travel in the opposite direction. "Ye are come to Mt. Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel" Heb.12:22-24. In our communion meal, Jesus sits with us at table--virtually the same as he did at the inaugural meal with disciples in the Upper Room--and serves us his bread and cup, and tells us again just what he told us the first time in his words of institution.

As Calvin put it, genuine worship takes place in heaven, where Jesus' humanity is to be found, and he ministers for us, and to us. We go to heaven (in the Spirit) to worship. We are the ones who are transported away, by faith, for a time, only to be brought by necessity to the end of that foretaste of glory divine, reminded that we aren't in heaven yet. But then we are blessed to be called once again to worship, and the moment is reset.