Tag Archives: Jesus Christ

On the Uniqueness of Christianity

Living in a culture that has been largely shaped by Christianity, we often miss just how radical its claims are. Even for those who are regularly engaged in the faith, the readings at Mass can become mere stories or wise teachings. Ultimately, Christ Himself can become another mythic figure. The goal can become to learn a lesson, and take this lesson into our day to day lives, much like we would by reading any other great work of literature. And this is okay as a starting point, before Christ came the law, and before we can go deeper in our faith there are “lessons” that we need to implement in our lives. The problem is that the lessons and teachings are not the central claim of Christianity. We must never forget that a man who came and lived among us some 2,000 years ago, suffered and died a brutal death, and rose from the dead. That same man, the Son of God, calls you to follow Him and to be like Him. If we forget this claim, then Christianity becomes just another religion. This is to say nothing of the truth of Christianity or any other religion, but it is fundamentally this claim that makes Christianity unique.

And the Word Became Flesh…

There is one word that sums up the uniqueness of Christianity: divinization, or as it is also called theosis. Rather tragically, this word may be unfamiliar to many Christians. Divinization is what lay at the heart of Christianity’s uniqueness. The claim that, as St. Athanasius says, “God became man so that man might become God” is a claim so wonderful and incredible that it seems unlikely any human mind would have ever thought it up. Indeed, this is what we see when we look at many other religions. The Pagan myths contain gods who were like man. They were superhuman, but all the traits they possessed were human. For the Pantheistic religions, man does not become like God, but is absorbed into God. Even the new religion of artificial intelligence promises that man will create God in man’s own image. But no other religion has a God who creates man so that man may share in his divine nature as the opening lines of the Catechism state,

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

Again, it is necessary for us to understand this idea. Christ came and died for us so that we could share in His own divine nature. God is not an idea, or force. He is not even someone we really find. God came and lived among us, so that we might know Him. This is one of the reasons for Christ’s Incarnation that St. Athanasius gives in On the Incarnation, that even though we can know the existence of God through our reason, Christ came to live among us that we might see and know God with intellects darkened by sin. After all, Christ says, “whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)

So What If It’s Not a True Story?

To conclude, it is important to point out the danger of losing sight of who Christ is, and what He did. It would seem that the man who says that it is not important that Christ actually did the things written about Him, and that only the lessons and morals are important is not far from a sort of Gnosticism, if he has not already fallen into it. If the physical world is evil, then it would follow that it does not matter if Christ actually came in the flesh or actually rose from the dead. What would matter is the teachings or knowledge that can free us from the prison of this world. However, such a view cannot be considered compatible with Christianity which has recognized the goodness of God’s creation from the very beginning: “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.” (Genesis 1:31) Thus, we must hold firm to the fundamental truth of Christianity: that Jesus became man, suffered, died, and rose again on the third day, and in doing so ensured that man could share in the Divine Life. If Christ did not do these things, then following Athanasius’ reasoning man cannot become God. Christianity then becomes another exercise in man trying to find God, rather God, like in the parable of the lost sheep, searching for man.

Happiness and the Good Life

Happiness is one of the most enduring ideas in the history of the world. One could go all the way back to the ancient Greeks and their idea of happiness as human flourishing, or eudaimonia. In our time, happiness is still a fundamental idea in the lives of ordinary people. You would be hard pressed to find a person who does not want to be happy. In fact, since the human will is inclined to work towards the good that it perceives, a man cannot help but act towards his own happiness. Or, at the very least, his perceived happiness. Herein lies the issue in many of our modern day conversations about happiness, for as much as it is talked about it is almost never defined. Postmodernists did away with the idea that there was any uniting narrative for humanity, and it seems that as a consequence the idea that happiness had any objective basis was thrown out as well. The prevailing notion in our age is that the question of what makes a person happy is up to each individual to decide for him or herself. So what is happiness? And how should we go about obtaining it?

Happiness as an Activity

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines happiness as an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. Thus, happiness is not merely a feeling or something that can be subjectively defined. It is an activity which we participate in. A person is happy insofar as they are virtuous. This view is more robust than our modern conception of happiness. Our modern conception of happiness is based around how a man feels about his life, or the external circumstances of his life, but if we view happiness as an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue then it is not dependent on the external circumstances of one’s life. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, makes the case that meaning and happiness are not found in one’s external circumstances. He observes that those who were able to survive the concentration camps were not necessarily the most physically fit, but the ones who had a strong interior life. This fits with Aristotle’s further commentary on happiness in Book X of Nicomachean Ethics. He writes, “If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best thing in us… That this activity is contemplative we have already said.” So for Aristotle, happiness is a contemplative activity. This does not mean that in order to be happy we need to withdraw from society and go live a life of contemplation in the wilderness. We are social creatures, we need relationships to flourish, and have obligations to our families and society. However, true happiness cannot be found unless we take intentional time to spend in contemplation and reflection. The man who lives only for his shallow external circumstances will find that his happiness is not enduring and can be stripped away in a moment’s notice.

Man’s Final End

Aristotle’s vision of happiness is a natural happiness. It is a happiness that we can achieve by our own nature. However, there is a happiness promised to us as Christians that we cannot achieve by our nature: supernatural happiness. For Aquinas, this supernatural happiness finds its completion in the Beatific Vision which is the vision of God enjoyed by those in Heaven. Christ speaks of this happiness when He says, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete” (Jn 15: 10-11). Natural happiness is not a complete picture of human happiness. We were not created for this life alone. The beginning of the Baltimore Catechism sums this up well: “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.” Supernatural happiness cannot be achieved separate from natural happiness. Grace perfects nature and does not destroy it as Aquinas famously stated. We ought to seek virtue in this life, and by cooperation with God’s grace and the sacraments obtain everlasting happiness in the next. Any other view of happiness will be incomplete.

Aristotle correctly posits that in order for happiness to be our final end it must be self-sufficient and not lacking. However, if we restrict our happiness to things of this life we will run into the problem of desire which C.S. Lewis speaks of in Mere Christianity when he says, “I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy.” Therefore, seek virtue and happiness in this life, but never despair of our ultimate happiness in the next. Let us always keep in mind the closing lines of the serenity prayer: “Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever.”