Publisher's Synopsis
The fatherhood of God has had a central, if increasingly controversial, place in Christian thinking about God. Yet, although Christians referred to God as Father from the earliest days of the faith, it was not until Athanasius in the 4th century that the idea of God as Father became a topic of sustained analysis.;Looking at the genesis of Athanasius' understanding of divine fatherhood against the background of Alexandrian tradition, Dr Widdicombe demonstrates how the concept came to occupy such a prominent place in Christian theology. He argues that there is a continuity in the Alexandrian tradition which runs from Origen to Athanasius, and shows how, in the detail of their language and in the structure of their arguments, the 3rd- and 4th-century Alexandrians, Arius excepted, drew on Origen's portrayal of God as Father.;For Origen, the fatherhood of God lay at the heart of the Christian faith: to know God fully and thus to be saved is to know God as Father. For Athanasius, the fatherhood of God was integral to the defence of the divinity of the Son against the Arian challenge. Fatherhood identified God as the loving and fruitful source of all things, and as the one who has sought to meet us in his Son Jesus Christ.;The book makes a significant contribution to understanding the place of the Arian controversy in the development of early-Christian doctrine by showing that on this fundamental topic, Arius lies outside the mainstream of Alexandrian thought. Whilst for Arius it was logically possible to refer to God without calling him Father, this was not possible for either Origen or Athanasius. In the context of modern debates about describing God as Father, this examination of early-Christian thinking should help people to consider whether it is desirable or possible to call God Father if an intelligible doctrine of God is to be maintained.
