The Doctrine of the Creation of the World

As in the case of Origen, the key to the theology of St. Athanasius is his teaching on the creation of the world. In Origen's system, the act of creation takes place in eternity, and creation is a manifestation of the very essence of God. God by nature cannot but create, and therefore He creates always, eternally. The rational creatures created by Him are in eternal communion with the Creator: it is precisely in this negation of time that the main weakness of Origen's teaching lies. Inasmuch as God does not create the world freely, but by virtue of His "essence," the created world has no real independent existence; rational creatures are deprived of true freedom, they are, as it were, attached to their Creator, now falling away, then again inevitably returning to the contemplation of His divine essence. In such a system, our life, our human history, has no real meaning: the return of the fallen creature to the Creator is predestined from eternity, and in this cycle there is no place for true freedom, neither divine nor created.

St. Athanasius fundamentally rejects this approach. At the heart of his teaching is the distinction between the divine nature (f'isis) and the divine will (t'elima). By nature, God is the Father. He begat the Son; by nature He sends the Holy Spirit. Spirit. But the creation of the world does not take place by nature, but by the will of God:

It would be pious to say that created beings came into being by grace and will, and the Son is not a creature of the will that has come into being, like a creature, but is his own natural generation of essence, for being his own Father's Word, He does not allow us to think of any will that preceded Him, because He Himself is the Father's counsel, the power of the Father, and the Creator of that which is pleasing to the Father... So, if the creatures came about by will and favor... yet everything has come into being by the Word, then the Word consists outside of those who have received existence by will.

(On the Arians, Homily 3:63, 66)

Thus, it was not at all necessary for God to create the world. He could "do without" (if I may say so) without it. This is the difference between nature and will: God could not but begat the Son, for He is a parent by nature; He was not supposed to create the world, but He created it – such is His divine and all-good will. It is possible to imagine, at least theoretically, in a potential sense, that there was a time when God did not create and the world did not exist.

The world created by the divine will is essentially different from Origen's world, which is, as it were, a continuation of the divine nature, and therefore lacks true independence from the Creator. In the system of Athanasius, creation exists on the water of God, but by itself. God and creation have different natures. God created the world out of nothing by the movement of His free will, and although after that He continues to rule the world, "provides" for it, this free autonomous world is opposed to God. The reason for this is as follows. God created the world for a purpose. Every creature and the whole world were originally destined for union, for unity with the Creator. For God created out of love and expected reciprocal love. The center and crown of creation is man, who was called upon to unite all creation with his activity and through himself to realize the union of love between God and the world. This free aspiration of the creature to its Creator at some point deviated from the straight path. In biblical terms, the Fall took place. Speaking of the Fall and the death that followed it, St. Athanasius uses the term corruption, which he understands both in the physical and spiritual sense:

When death took possession more and more... people and corruption remained in them, then the human race was corrupted, but the verbal and created in the image man disappeared, and the work done by God perished: because... death prevailed over us by the power of the law, and it was impossible to escape the law, since it was ordained by God because of the crime. Something came out in the true sense incongruous and at the same time indecent. It was not in accordance with anything for God, having spoken a word, to lie... Then there would be no truth in God, if when God said that you would die, man did not die. But it was also unseemly that once created rational beings and those who partook of His Word should perish and through corruption should again turn into non-existence. It would be unworthy of God's goodness, that what God has created should be corrupted by the devil's deception of men. On the other hand, it was most unseemly for people, either through their own negligence or through demonic deception, to destroy God's art.

And so, when the verbal creatures were corrupted and such works of God perished, what was it necessary for God, who is good, to do? Shall we allow corruption to prevail over them and death to possess them? What was the need to create them in the beginning? It would be better not to create, than for the created to remain unvisible and to perish. If God, having created, ignores that His work is decaying, then from such negligence the impotence and not the goodness of God is known to a greater extent than if He had not created men in the beginning... Thus, it was necessary not to allow people to be swallowed up in corruption, because this would be unbecoming of God's goodness and unworthy of it.

("Homily on the Incarnation of God the Word", 6)

Athanasius, like all the Fathers of the Church, believes that death and corruption were not created by God, but came into the world as a result of the Fall. God created everything "good" (as the Bible says, "good"), but endowed with free will and capable of rebelling against Him. The result of the rebellion was death, a powerful cosmic reality that seized power and truly reigned in "this world."

The Doctrine of Salvation