What is the Divine Dilemma, and how does the Incarnation resolve it?
By CopticBot.ai (Coptic Space Inc.) · Last reviewed 2026-10-10
The concept of the "Divine Dilemma" and its resolution through the Incarnation (, timetromi — native Coptic term for the assumption of humanity) is masterfully articulated by St. Athanasius the Apostolic, the 20th Pope of Alexandria, in his foundational treatise On the Incarnation of the Word (De Incarnatione).
1. The Nature of the Dilemma
Following the transgression of Adam in paradise, humanity fell from grace into sin and corruption. This created what St. Athanasius describes as a profound paradox regarding the divine nature:
- The Truth and Justice of God:
God had decreed: "For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:17). God cannot lie, nor can His divine word fail. For God to simply overlook the transgression without the consequence of death would make God untruthful and contradict His divine justice and holiness.
- The Goodness and Love of God:
Conversely, it was utterly unworthy of the goodness of Phnouti* — native Coptic for God that beings created in His own image and likeness, endowed with reason, should perish, waste away, and return to non-existence through corruption. If creation were simply abandoned to destruction, it would seem as though God lacked the power to preserve what He had made, or that the deceit of the devil had triumphed over the divine will.
Thus, the dilemma was established: humanity was bound to death by divine law, yet letting humanity perish was contrary to divine love and goodness.
2. Why Repentance Alone Was Insufficient
A common misconception—frequently held by non-Orthodox groups—is that God could have solved this problem merely through human repentance or a unilateral decree of forgiveness. St. Athanasius explicitly refutes this:
- Repentance cannot reverse ontological corruption: Repentance changes the will, but it cannot undo the physical and spiritual decay that had infected human nature. Humanity had fallen into the grip of corruption (mortality) and needed regeneration, not merely moral remorse.
- Repentance does not satisfy divine truth: Had God merely pardoned man upon repentance, His original decree of death would have been voided, compromising His truthfulness.
Therefore, repentance was completely inadequate to bridge the gulf between fallen man and the living God.
3. The Resolution: The Incarnation of the Word
The dilemma could only be resolved by the One who created humanity in the first place: the eternal Word, Pilogos* — Greek loanword in Coptic.
As St. Athanasius explains, the Word took a human body capable of dying, uniting it hypostatically to Himself:
- Defeating Death through Death:
Because the Word assumed a true human body of the same nature as ours, He offered that body unto death as a sacrifice and substitute on behalf of all. In doing so, the legal sentence of death pronounced against mankind was fully carried out and satisfied in His own body.
- Abolishing Corruption through Resurrection:
Because the body belonged to the immortal and life-giving Word of God, death could not hold it. By His resurrection, He destroyed the power of corruption from within human nature itself. The corruptible put on incorruption, and mortality was swallowed up by life.
- Restoring the Divine Image:
Humanity was originally made according to the Image of God (Christ). When a portrait on a wooden panel is soiled and erased by dirt, the subject must sit again so the artist can retrace the likeness. In the same way, the Image Himself—God the Son—had to come in the flesh to restore the corrupted likeness in humanity.
Summary
The Incarnation was not an afterthought or an arbitrary legal transaction; it was the only means by which:
- God’s truth was vindicated (death was suffered on behalf of all).
- God’s goodness was manifested (humanity was rescued from annihilation).
- Human nature was deified and renewed by being united inseparably with the divine nature in the One Incarnate Nature of God the Word.