Theanthropology

MC Steenberg’s Of God and Man: Theology As Anthropology from Irenaeus to Athanasius concludes with the claim that for Irenaeus, Cyril, Tertullian, and Athanasius, “it is in and through the human, the anthropos in which the eternal Son is known, that God is disclosed to the creature, and by which the creature comes to know his God . . . . A genuine engagement with the incarnation means that theology is anthropology, since the Theos reveals himself as anthropos , and it is in the human that man sees and knows God.”  Thus “the human creature forms . . . the framework for articulating theology – whether theology informing cosmology, behaviour, sacramentalism, dogmatic trinitarianism or any other area.”

For these fathers, theology, centered on the incarnate Christ, is about the “articulation of the God encountered in the human.”

Dear Reader,

Can I be direct with you?

War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.

First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.

But we can’t do it without readers like you.

Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.


Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.

Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.

GIVE NOW

If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

The Church in the Age of Therapy

Matthew Loftus

In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…

Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot

Anna Farrow

On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…

The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen

Mike Aquilina

Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…