148 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacythe two being that the former is by generation and the latter is made. Thus, all human
beings are sons of God inasmuch as they were created by God, but if they follow right
teaching and remain in filial obedience to God, they become sons of God in a deeper
sense. Through disobedience, however, this sonship can be lost and the sons of God
can become sons of the Devil. It is only through conversion and repentance that the
unfaithful son can return to the status of son of God. Adoptive sonship, then, entails
filial obedience. The love of the believer for God may well have something to do with
this—Irenaeus makes it clear that moral discipline enables the believer to increase in
love for God.^44
There are, however, two passages in Haer. that suggest that adoption as sons as the
basis for the knowledge of God as Father may not be the end of the story for Irenaeus.
In them, he makes comments that raise questions about how and, indeed, whether, he
thought that the adopted sons will continue to know God as Father in heaven. In Hae r.
IV.20.5, he indicates that there is a progression in how God is seen both in this life and
from this life to the next. To those who love him, God grants the power “to see” him.
God was first seen prophetically through the Spirit, then adoptively through the Son,
and he shall be seen “paternally [paternaliter] in the kingdom of heaven,” the Spirit
preparing the believer in the Son of God, and the Son leading them to the Father, who
confers incorruption and eternal life on them, which, as Irenaeus explains, results from
seeing God.^45 What is involved in “paternal” seeing is not clear, but Irenaeus appears
to be suggesting that this seeing is superior to the seeing that the believer has through
adoption.
Perhaps Irenaeus intends us to understand that adoption as sons is something that
pertains only to this life and not to the next, where the knowledge of God as Father
will be unmediated. But is he also implying that to know God as Father is the highest
reach in the believer’s knowledge of God? Perhaps, but his comments in the second
passage, in Haer. V.8.1, seem to point in the opposite direction. There Irenaeus explains
that while the faithful await the resurrection, they are given a “part” (pars) of the Spirit,
which Paul also terms a “pledge” (pignus), to help prepare them in this life for the life
of incorruption. This pledge is what allows Christians to cry “Abba, Father.” But, in a
statement that suggests the possibility that he thought both that the ability to call God
Father is extraordinary and that it will give way to something better, Irenaeus con-
cludes that if we can cry “Abba, Father” having only the “pledge,” imagine what we shall
be able to do when, seeing God face to face, we shall be given the “entire” (universus)
grace of the Spirit and are made into the image and likeness of God. Then everyone
who is raised “shall burst out into a continuous hymn of triumph, glorifying him who
raised them from the dead and gave the gift of eternal life.”^46 Quite what this means
is not certain, but the apparent implication is that there will be an addressing of God
in heaven that is superior to the addressing of God as Father that the Christian now
makes to God. In the writings of later theologians such as Origen and Athanasius, we
do not find even a hint that the calling of God “Father” might ultimately be left behind.
The question did not arise for them. Salvation for Origen lay in the recognition that
God is Father.