Repentance is Not Enough

Athanasius on the Ontological Effect of the Fall

Today I'm again revisiting my "theology of everything" series from last October.

You'll recall in that series how I described the human predicament as both ontological and hamartiological. (Hamartiology is the fancy word for our theology of sin.) Protestant soteriologies have tended to focus upon hamartiology (sin). Patristic theology has tended to focus upon ontology (death). Both, though, are critical, two sides of the same coin.

This contrast between hamartiology and ontology was brought to my attention again when I revisited Athanasius' On the Incarnation during Christmastide.

Again, as I described in my "theology of everything" series, when created being severed its ontological connection with God it began to slide into non-existence. I called this "the ontological drop," how created being suffers finitude and contingency. Separated from God we move toward non-being and begin to pass out of existence. Here is Athanasius describing this drift:

Man, who was created in God’s image and in his possession of reason reflected the very Word Himself, was disappearing, and the work of God was being undone. The law of death, which followed from the Transgression, prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape. The thing that was happening was in truth both monstrous and unfitting. It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man, having transgressed, should not die; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption.

Created being was "disappearing" and turning "back again into non-existence." Seeing our slide into non-being, God acts to rescue creation. And here, in describing God's response, Athanasius makes a contrast between hamartiology and ontology. Specifically, Athanasius makes the point that while human repentance might address our hamartiological predicament, in getting us to stop sinning, it would do nothing to address our suffering of non-being. Here is Athanasius making the point, that repentance cannot address our ontological crisis:

What, then, was God to do? Was He to demand repentance from men for their transgression? You might say that that was worthy of God, and argue further that, as through the Transgression they became subject to corruption, so through repentance they might return to incorruption again. But repentance would not guard the Divine consistency, for, if death did not hold dominion over men, God would still remain untrue. Nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature; all that it does is to make them cease from sinning. Had it been a case of a trespass only, and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough; but when once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the Image of God. No, repentance could not meet the case.

Repentance would cause us to "cease sinning." And if our situation was wholly hamartiological this would "have been well enough." But since our predicament is also ontological, repentance "could not meet the case" of our slide into non-existence.

Given this situation, God must establish an ontological connection with created being. And God does this through the Incarnation. Notice here a point I underlined in my "theology of everything" series, how everything that exists has an ontological relation with the Word. Everything that exists is held in being by the Word. As Athanasius says, "no part of creation had ever been without him" because the Word "fills all things that are." What happens in the Incarnation is a connection that happens "in a new way," a way that connects corruptible, finite, and contingent being with God's vivifying power and life. I've described the Incarnation as "the ontological bridge," the path created being must cross if it is to be saved from the encroachment of non-being. Here is Athanasius on the ontological aspects of the Incarnation:

For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God entered our world. In one sense, indeed, He was not far from it before, for no part of creation had ever been without Him Who, while ever abiding in union with the Father, yet fills all things that are. But now He entered the world in a new way, stooping to our level in His love and Self-revealing to us...Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of His resurrection. Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.

Drawing attention back to the point I made in my "theology of everything" series. Our separation from God is both both ontological and hamartiological. And given the dual nature of our fall, repentance is not enough. Repentance can stop us from sinning, but repentance does nothing to address our vulnerability to death.

More simply stated: Salvation cannot be reduced to ethics.