Becoming Real

ATHANASIUS

A journal entry from my seventh-grade self:

“Yesterday was SO much fun. I saw *Shane and *Timmy at lunch, and *Shane said that I was one of the top 5 girls that he likes! Timmy said he likes Kellie more than me, but that’s okay because Shane is way cuter. And then when I was walking to band, *Drew pretended to run in to me. Maybe Shane will ask me to slow dance this Friday at the Halloween Dance!”

(*Names have been changed for self-protective purposes).

Conversation subject with young adults, especially between the ages of 12 and 14, may be stereotyped “shallow”. Now I am not saying that all junior high conversation is shallow, I am fundamentally pointing out that shallowness objectively exists. Further, if you talk to the same individual five or ten years later, it is likely that they will converse with you on a more adult level. Hopefully their worlds will not still be revolving around the next school dance, the next interaction with their crush, and shopping. Hopefully their education, work and social experience will have shed light on real life.

Once a person better understands the world around them, I would propose that he/she will live a fuller life—one that is not constantly looking forward to the parties on the weekends. Entertainment and self-indulgence will not need to be the highs of happiness; rather the now 24 adult may take pleasure in deepening friendships and exploring hobbies. His or her disposition towards the menial might shift from bored to content.

Summary: There are objective levels of “realness” in people. It seems that the broader knowledge and experience a person has, the more real he/she will become – and the more he/she will flourish as a human.

Now on to the next level.
It seems that these realities about people signify a deeper reality, one which is more philosophical. In other words, there is a reason that the above scenario intuitively feels and evidentially is true.
Here is the philosophy/theology, laid out in scripture, explored by Athanasius, and mediated to you by…well, me.

God, the Creator, made man with the purpose to know Him. He made us so that the extent to which we flourish (or are most “real”) is dependent on how much we know Him. However, because He is invisible, with out some self-revelation on his part we could not know him and so would be purposeless.

Therefore, he gave us a picture of Himself in us: “Upon men…He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked – namely the impress of His own image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself” (3). God made us in His image so that we would know who He is, and flourish as humans.

When man disobeyed, he was ignoring this image of God in him, refusing to know God as He is. However, rather than giving up on man, God continued to manifest His invisible presence in the sensible world. He gave us creation, dictated a moral law, and spoke to us through the prophets: “[Men] could look up into the immensity of heaven, and by pondering the harmony of creation come to know its Ruler…or, if this was beyond them, they could converse with holy men, and through them learn to know God…or else, in the third place, they could cease from lukewarmness and lead a good life merely by knowing the law” (12You see, God provided further opportunity for us to know Him and so flourish.

Yet again men did not notice or know God. Though God had given them images of Himself, they refused to look up to heaven and acknowledge Him. Instead they looked down at the earth, forming idols, images in the shape of men. What else could God do to make Himself known?

He manifests himself in the form they are seeking; “He deals with them as a good teacher with his pupils, coming down to their level and using simple means” (15). In the person of Christ, God “moved as Man among men, meeting their senses, so to speak, half way. He became Himself an object for the senses, so that those who were seeking God in sensible things might apprehend the Father through the works which He, the Word of God, did in the body” (15).

Now if the persistence and wisdom of God isn’t enough here, consider this: The person of Christ manifested the image of God to our senses, but the person of Christ also restores the image of God inside of us and frees us to imitate God, thus displaying his image for others to see.

Okay, so recap:
We want to be “real”, and we were created to be “real” by knowing God, yet we need an image of God to know him. God continues to manifest his image outside of us, yet we continue to miss it. When he sends his image in human form, he is providing an image we cannot miss. Christ reveals and reinstills God’s image in men, so that now we know God through imitation. We not only see him in nature or in scripture, we see Him in our friends, in ourselves. We become more “real” not only by knowing God externally, but by knowing him internally and through imitation.