Newton vs Athanasius Part II: Athanasius

In Part I we saw Newton's anti-Trinitarianism and his science as a single revolution, opposed to the idea that divine form can enter matter and restructure it from within. This week, the counter-argument. We turn to the man in the opposing corner: Athanasius of Alexandria. We introduce his magnum opus, On the Incarnation. First, the metaphysics — form, matter, ousia, the Image. We then interpret the main thesis, which is that the same Divine Logos who created the world became incarnate to save it. The closing questions consider the social consequences of scientism derived from Newton's vision, with its cosmos of inert matter governed at a distance, in which the Incarnation becomes unthinkable, and in which persons too become bundles of forms and properties tossed and turned by impersonal forces.