The Arguments Of Athanasius And Arius At The Council Of Nicaea

Even during numerous exiles, Athanasius continued to be a vigorous defender of Nicene Christianity against Arianism. Athanasius then famously said "Athanasius against the world". The Cappadocian Fathers also took up the torch; their Trinitarian discourse was influential in the council at Constantinople.Up until about 360, theological debates mainly dealt with the Divinity of Jesus, the 2nd person of the Trinity. However, because the Council of Nicaea had not clarified the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the 3rd person of the Trinity, it became a topic of debate.

The theological differences were some of the biggest reason why the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches split. The Eastern churches had theological roots in Greek philosophy and the Western churches had theologies that constructed on their Roman law (“Schism of 1054”, 2014, para. 3). A strong issue that the two churches had was the theological proposition of the placement and addition of “the Son” to the Roman creed. The Roman churches included the “Father and the Son” in the Nicene creed without consulting the Eastern church while the Eastern church only used the Father. The Orthodox Church believe it should have been written with “the Father” proceeded by the Holy Spirit.

In the 4th century there are different schools of thought that were developed in Antioch, were they try to literarily interpret the Scriptures with a great deal of emphasis on the historical context of Trinity. Arius who is also known as Nicene, came up with the Nicene Creed by arguing the fact that Jesus was not God, and the Father by itself is true God. Base on the fact that God created Jesus, Arius was able to support his argument with the books of (Proverbs 8:22 and John 14:28) “the Father is greater than I” as a proof.

The Christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries were debates regarding the nature of Christ, and in particular the issue of his humanity versus his divinity. Docetism is a position which undermines the integrity of the humanity of Jesus because it claims that Jesus is fully divine but not truly human, because he is God merely adopting the appearance of being human. Arianism is the belief that Jesus is superior to the rest of creation but not equal to God because Jesus was created by God and thus is not eternal unlike God. The Council of Nicaea in 325 was called to fight against Arianism. The Council

First of all increased the importance of the Virgin Mary for whom she felt a fierce admiration and to who she could be related, herself being the 'Virgin empress'. The judgment of Nestorious as a heretic following the third ecumenical council is therefore no mystery, since Heraclius challenged the importance of the Virgin Mary and consequently indirectly challenged the image and the beliefs of the queen. This once again reflects empirical power within ecumenical councils at the time. Moreover, the fourth Ecumenical council and Chalcedonian Creed was a way for the empress to deal with the Monophysite situation and restore some sense of order.

The previous description of the trinity does not occur in the bible. The specialized language describe the trinity was developed in the fourth century and expressed in various creeds issued by church councils of that time. I believe that many words were not found in the bible; even bible is not even stated in the bible. But, that doesn’t mean that we don’t use them to describe the attributes of God. We can’t say that because trinity is not stated in the bible, it can’t be

In 325, the Council of Nicea set out to formally characterize the relationship of the Son to the Father, in light of the dubious lessons of Arius. Driven by Bishop Athanasius, the gathering confirmed the precept of the Trinity as conventionality and censured Arius ' showing that Christ was the first making of God. The ideology received by the committee depicted Christ as "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father."

This was the question that popped up in my head after reading the first chapter of The Orthodox Way, God as Mystery. More ironically, before they answered my question did they tell me that Jesus Christ is God and Holy Spirit is God as well. Usually multi-identities are not an issue for me or for anyone, but this time is a little, or a lot, different when it comes to God. In the chapter, God as Trinity, “The Christian God is not just a unit but a union, not just unity but a community… He is Trinity: three equal persons, each one dwelling in the other two by virtue of an unceasing movement of mutual love” said Ware (P. 27). Ono thing that needs to be confirmed first is that there is only One God, and God is the one essence embracing three persons. Secondly, in the case of Trinity a person is not just an individual, as opposed to that three human persons always “retain their own will and own energy no matter how closely they co-operate together” (P. 30). This indicates the property of “distinction but never separation” within the three persons; they are distinct as in differentiation and they are never separate because of the relationship formed by the shared one will and one energy. As a consequence, we surely have to turn to the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit if we want to know God holistically, especially the Oneness of God (Jones,

The definition of the Trinity according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead according to Christian dogma.” The basis of the Trinity is that there is God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There are three separate parts, yet they make up one. While this is confusing to the naked ear, it actually makes logical sense on a deeper level. Scholars and philosophers struggled for years to give a valid explanation of the Trinity. It was not until Tertullian in the 2nd or 3rd century AD that a satisfactory explanation was given. Tertullian came up with the Trinitarian Doctrine, which basically

This fundamental problem raised much controversy between the Nesortorians and the Church. The church believed Mary, the "mother of god" was the link to the human form of Jesus with the divine nature of God. The church was able to establish a christological discourse that was able to explain this link. The discourse explained the communication idiomatum that the nestorians also rejected. In addition,

When the Nicene Creed was created and finalized in 381 A.D., there were many heresies under the umbrella of Christianity. The Nicene Creed seeked to address these heresies and remove them from mainstream worship. One of the many heresies in this time was Arianism.

Christ is part of the Trinity and is recognized as God in creation-John 1:3, judge of all things in the future-john 5:27, and he has omniscience-Matthew 9:4. Charles Ryre proves Christ's deity and involvement in the Trinity in Basic Theology, as he writes,

The study of Jesus Christ (Christology) is very important to us as Christians in our walk and our daily lives. In order to fully be able to follow Christ, we must be able to understand who He is. We must understand what his death, burial, and resurrection means to us. Without it, there would be no Christianity and our daily struggle to be like Christ would be for naught. To do that we must understand continue to learn and grow through faith, scripture and the application of the two. Hebrews 10:25 says, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching”. Christology compares to the Nicene orthodoxy because the Nicene Creed represents a part of our history when we were trying to get a greater understanding about Christ, his deity, the Trinity and Jesus as a man. Our thinking should be somewhat aligned to the Nicene Creed because it lays a good foundation of knowing who Jesus is. The Nicene Creed also translated well into many creeds of churches today as well as our vision and mission

God as Trinity, is a fact that all orthodox Christians can attest to with absolute certainty, however if we were to ask those same people “what does that mean for us, how does that affect the way we live our lives”? I suspect, most would not have an answer. For the majority of orthodox Christians, the Trinity is an abstract theological concept, that is best left for theologians to philosophise over, and has no place in the life of the average Christian. Karl Rahner, an Austrian philosopher and theologian, commenting on the “current neglect of the Trinity in the West” says:

It is important to begin by stating that there are many different doctrinal views of the Trinity. However I believe that the doctrine of Trinity defines one God who is eternally existent as three distinct Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “These definitions express three crucial truths: (1) The Father, Son, and