The prevalent relativistic culture is looking for a saving hope. The famous ideologies of the past collapsed as history naturally evolved.

However, Christianity can offer this hope, which, in Saint Paul’s words, “does not disappoint” (Rom 5, 5). This live-giving hope is faith in the divinity of Christ!

Saint Athanasius (295-373), bishop of Alexandria, was so convinced of his faith concerning Christ’s divinity that he suffered exile seven times. The Alexandrian pastor knowingly and bravely showed that his dogmatic belief was the constant faith of the Church. What was new was the heresy doing the rounds!

In 325 AD, the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea defined that Christ is “One in being with the Father” (homoousios), and “begotten not made” (genitus, non factus). Saint Athanasius took it on himself to defend this doctrinal achievement in Nicea. In order to prove that Christ is indeed God, he employed what is known as the soteriological argument. The latter runs as follows: “Quod non est assumptum non est sanatum”, meaning, “What is not assumed is not saved”. Thus, Saint Athanasius argued that “what is not assumed by God is not saved”, obviously highlighting the phrase “by God”. The Christian conception of salvation demands that man can never be assumed by any intermediary, save by God himself. Athanasius writes: “Man would not be divinised, if the Word that became flesh were not of the same nature of the Father.” Far before Martin Heidegger who said: “nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten”, Athanasius, strongly supported by the Church’s longstanding tradition, could boldly affirm that “only a God can save us,” namely Jesus Christ!

There are two soteriological ramifications stemming from Athanasius’s presentation of the homoousios of Nicea’s First Council. First, to illustrate the Son as “consubstantial” with the Father means to insert him within the same sphere of existence of the Father. In addition, it means establishing the significance of Christ on the same basis in which Christ’s being is established, that is, in the Father.

According to Athanasius: “Good as he is, the Father, with his Word that is also God, guides and sustains the whole world, because creation, illuminated by his guidance, by his Providence and by his order, is able to persist in being … The omnipotent and Most Holy Word of the Father, penetrating all things and reaching everywhere with his strength, gives light to every reality and contains everything and embraces it in himself. There is no being whatsoever that can subtract itself from his dominion. All things receive life entirely from him and are maintained in it by him: single creatures in their individuality and the created universe in its totality.”

Faith in Christ’s divinity consolidates the belief in the two main mysteries of the Christian faith, namely the Trinity and the Incarnation. If Christ is not God does not the Trinity lose its entire purpose? Saint Athanasius condemned this stance when writing against the Arians: “If the Word does not exist together with the Father from all eternity, then an eternal Trinity does not exist, but first there was unity and then, with the passing of time, by addition, the Trinity began to be.”

Furthermore, Jesus Christ is the very presence of the Father. As Jesus said in Saint John’s Gospel: “I and the Father are one. He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 10, 30; 14, 9). Do I really believe it?

Since the salvation of humanity is intrinsically founded on Christ’s divinity one can only accept this foundational dogma if s/he has experienced God’s salvific interventions in her/her daily life. God’s salvation is offered to us on a golden plate when reading God’s Word, administering and receiving the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, that privileged banquet of the Risen One’s presence, praying, using the different charisms, keeping in touch with the life of the believing community. Christ’s divine and incarnate presence is still with us through God’s Word and the Church’s sacraments and community.

We give Tertullian’s cry to those who nowadays deny Christ’s divinity: “Parce unicae spei totius orbis,” meaning “Do not take away from the world its only hope!”

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap

SAN GWANN