I was just thinking about how Athanasius describes sin as "dehumanizing of mankind," likening sinful humanity to "brute beasts" as contrasted with a likeness to the Word.
Sometimes when I talk to people about sin and Christ's reversal of the Fall, I talk about how Christ came fully human so that we could be fully human, whole people rather than the broken people we were before.
Sometimes it can be tempting to say "humanity = bad" and "God = good." Well, the second half of that is right, and humanity is certainly fallen (I believe in total depravity, meaning that no aspect of human life is left untouched by sin) -- but if we recognize the Lord's humanity we find hope for our own humanity.
This may be rather a tangent, but it's something I think about and it relates to some pastoral care situations I've been dealing with in my congregation. I look for ways to help people find hope that their lives can be changed through Christ, that they are not stuck in their old destructive patterns. I think looking at things this way -- how Christ enables us to be fully human -- may help give people that hope.
The calvinist "total depravity" doctrine is a wrong doctrine and St Athanasius doesnt support it, nor after the fall, nor after the redemption.
Let's see what St Athaniasius says:
§15:
Men had turned from the contemplation of God above, and were looking for Him in the opposite direction, down among created things and things of sense
Is clear that for St Athanasius the depravation is not total in deep: the man anyway retained something of the image of God even after the creation.
There is always in the man, even after the fall, the need to look for God. But the sin made the man to look in the wrong direction....
St Athanasius explains that the man after the fall is anyway looking for God, but because the corruption of the sin, the man dont look in the right direction and so worship false idols.
Also a muslim (an un-baptized) feels the desire of God, but due to the lack of the merits of Christ, his worship is not the correct one.
The
depravation after the original sin cannot arrive to touch the inner part of the man: the desire of God. This can has a deep pastoral result: we can start from the desire of God that is present in anyone (well..sometime it is shown as interest int he new-age) and move it
through Christ to arrive to worship properly God.
§25
He cleansed the air from all the evil influences of the enemy. "I beheld Satan as lightning falling," ( Luke 10. 18) He says; and thus He re-opened the road to heaven, saying again, "Lift up your gates, 0 ye princes, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors." ( Psalm 24. 7) For it was not the Word Himself Who needed an opening of the gates, He being Lord of all, nor was any of His works closed to their Maker. No, it was we who needed it, we whom He Himself upbore in His own body - that body which He first offered to death on behalf of all, and then made through it a path to heaven.
St Athanasius paints the original sin (well, any sin) as a
corruction of the original nature of the man, not like a change in the nature of the man: in fact the verb used to describe the work of Christ is to clean : to
clean the man from the influences of the evil.
And Christ prepared the path to the heaven: no more.
St Athanasius never says that Christ moves the man to the heaven: the man is always free to use his free will to follow (or not) the path prepared by Christ.
This is the reason beacuse St Athanasus divide always clearly in two steps the work of Christ (see my post
http://www.christianforums.com/showpost.php?p=33214854&postcount=5):
1) to restore the situation before the fall (§8-10): here to 'clean the air'
2) to gift the man a situation even better than the the one before the fall (§11-16): here to open the path to the heaven
Christ doesnt force the man into the heaven, but leaves the man to decide. He simply prepare everything for this to be possible: He clean the man from the influences of the sin and prepare the path.
