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.