Folia Theologica et Canonica 1. 23/15 (2012)
SACRA THEOLOGIA - László Perendy, Athenagoras on the Triune God of Christians
90 PERENDY LASZLO of God. In the chapter about the doctrine of God he recounts the following characteristics attributed by Athenagoras to God: uncreated, eternal, imperishable/ indestructible, able to be contemplated by thought/mind and reason alone, Father and Creator, true being, good, providential. Rankin concludes the chapter on the doctrine of God ( What do we know about God? First principles) with this summary (which, I think, is a fitting conclusion also for our present study): The God of the Christian is, like that of the philosophers (certainly the Platonists and the Stoics), a God whose transcendence cannot be questioned. Neither can the fact, also important to the major philosophical traditions, that he alone is God. But he is a God who is not only the Creator of all there is, and alone uncreated; he is also a God who maintains his interest in and care for that which he has created - unlike the Epicurean God - and a God who touches, especially through his Word, that which he has created. Yet Athenagoras, notwithstanding his allegiance to the Platonist school and to the Middle Platonist conversation, and despite his failure to make much of the fact of the Incarnation (which he acknowledges but briefly), makes clear that he holds to the particular Christian understanding of God as One and Three: as One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son and the Spirit are united to the Father through and indivisible bond and they are, like the Father, also God.97 97 Rankin, DAthenagoras. Philosopher and theologian, 127.
