“Anthropology” is a fairly simple and straightforward word to define by simply breaking down the basic parts of the word. “Anthropos” is simply Greek for “man” in both its general (“mankind”) and specific (“male”) sense. “Logos” (meaning “word” or “reason” or “logic”) as the suffix for a word essentially indicates the study of the topic. When we study “anthropology,” then, we study the doctrine of man. In its more common use today, due to the basic secularization of hard and soft sciences, anthropology generally studies man in the purely “observable” sense, focusing on such things as culture, behavior, and natural structure. Thus, Christian theology has labeled its study of man “Theological Anthropology” to indicate the specific task we are about and the methods by which we engage in that task.
First, we are engaged in the task with the understanding that man, as a creature, has a particular relation to God. Since all of creation is related to God, and since man is a particular focus of creation, we follow Scripture’s focus on man as a particular instance of creaturely relation to God. This brings us to the second item, namely the method by which we engage in the task of explicating anthropology, or “giving a word about man.” We do so under the rubric of Scripture, guided by its testimony, following its logic, and submitting to its conclusions. We want to speak of man the way God speaks of man in Scripture. Certainly, as man is a creature, and as things are known about the Creator and creatures by the mediation of general revelation, there are things we can say about man and his relation to God by virtue of general revelation. Nevertheless, what we say is governed and instructed by that clear teaching of the infallible Word.
With some of those items in the background, we hope to progress through a few of the items that have appeared in theological anthropology throughout the church’s history. There is not a set number of articles that will be written on this topic. Since our understanding of man is in particularly dire straits right now, not only outside the church but within as well, we will be providing various voices from the past on the doctrine of man that may be of interest to our readers.
We begin with Basil the Great. You may remember that Basil is the church father who labored alongside his brother (Gregory of Nyssa) and friend (Gregory of Nazianus)—collectively called “The Cappadocians”—and he defended the deity of the Holy Spirit. He has a little work entitled “On the Origin of Humanity,” and in “Discourse 1,” he makes a particularly interesting statement.
Basil reflects on the statement, “Let us make man in our likeness and image” in Genesis 1:26. Christians have regularly seen this as an “adumbration,” or “shadowing forth” of the Trinity in the Old Testament that is more clearly understood in the fulness of time. Basil says, “You have learned that there are two persons, the one who speaks and the one to whom the speech is addressed.” Basil is distinguishing between the simple statements, “Let there be” or “let such and such happen” and the difference here in that there seems to be an internal discussion. He assumes that his reader knows this is the Trinity, but he probes into the question of why the creation of man is recounted this way.
Basil’s answer is that it requires man to worship the Triune God. To the question, “why?” he says, “That you may know the sovereignty, that in acknowledging the Father you may not reject the Son; that you may learn that the Father created through the Son, and the Son created by the Father’s will; that you may glorify the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Holy Spirit.” Whom do you honor for the creation of man? The one Triune God who works inseparably. He continues, “Thus you have been made a common work, that you may be a worshiper of both together, not dividing the worship but uniting the Godhead.” When you worship God for his creation of man, let it be the one, undivided Trinity whom you worship.
Does this unity follow in the text? It does. Basil continues, “It did not say, ‘And they made’ [in 1:27], so that you would not receive an occasion for polytheism. For if the person is introduced as a multiplicity, people would have become heedless in heaping up for themselves a great crowd of gods.” It was not as though there were three powers being joined in an act of social participation in the creation of man (“that you may unite not the hypostases but the power”). Rather, though it says, “Let us” (1:26), it nevertheless follows with “So God created…” (1:27). The “Let us” is stated so “that you may recognize Father and Son and Holy Spirit.”
Basil offers the question we continue to ask when we contemplate the Trinity: “Then why are there not three gods?” The answer is that “the Godhead is one. For that Godhead which I see in the Father, the same also is in the Son; and that which is in the Holy Spirit, the same also is in the Son.” It is the one God; the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the one God. This, though, means that there is a single causation. “Since there is one form in each of them, the causation from the Father is also the same in the Son.” We speak of the inseparable operations of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit not as three joined causes, but as one cause, the one being of God, yet the three Persons are true hypostases (or “subsistences” as we have used in Latin) of the one God.
In this passage, consider what Basil is driving at. He is pointing out the fact that the starting point for theological anthropology is in fact “Ho Theos” (Ὁ Θεος), that is, God. But there is more to what we see here. First, we see that it is grounded in Scripture. Basil could simply speak of the Trinity and the creation of man by utilizing the theological vocabulary he knows, but he goes to Scripture itself. Second, he considers Scripture in light of the fullness of revelation. Does Genesis 1:26–27 say that God is triune and that it is this one, triune God who created man? Yes, it does, but we can only see it for what it is in the fulness of revelation that comes in the missions of the Son and Spirit. Third, he considers the inseparability of the being and works of God to be inviolable. To introduce any denial of inseparable operations, Basil knows, is to open the door to polytheism. Fourth, and this is a particular reason for bringing up this passage from Basil, is the end/purpose of giving this introductory word on anthropology. It is for the sake of worship. “The prelude to our creation,” he says as he closes this passage, “is true theology.” And what is the “end” or “goal?” We saw that it is so “that you may have one glory not divided in the worship.” The works of God ought to evoke worship of God, and the creation of man, as a work of God, ought to evoke worship of the one God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, when we recite with the children the catechism questions that ask, “Who made you?” and “Why did God make you?,” there are quite deep wells from which the answers, “God” and “For his own glory” are drawn.
Quotes taken from Basil the Great, “On the Origin of Humanity, Discourse 1,” On the Human Condition (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Press, 2005), 33–34.