The Debate Concerning The Trinity

Following the creation of new doctrines came the need to counteract against them and maintain the stable outlook on Christianity. Various debates went on to resolve this issue. “The critical concern was the Son’s essence and his relationship to the Father.”4 The debate Arius vs. Alexander’s point of views had become too critical to leave alone. The ending result was

Arius was highly criticized for his belief of Jesus Christ divinity. In this writing Arius argues that there is a level difference between the Son and the Father. However, like everything else, the Son derives from the same source that other creatures derive from (God). Unlike other creates he makes it clear that there is a distinction of rank between the Son and other creatures, including human beings.

In this paper I will argue about the struggles John Donne, Emily Dicks, and Michael Obi with the idea of believing and follow God. The speaker in Holy Sonnet 14 struggles with not deserving to have a relationship with God. Emily Dickson fights with if there is an afterlife and if it is real (Poem 501). Michael Obi struggles with whole ideas of religion and looking to the past since he is all about the looking forward (Death Men’s Path). The themes that are underlines is the desire to reconnect with God, believing in a God, but with some doubts, and completely not wanting a relationship with God at all.

Outline the development of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity from the New Testament Church to the Nicene Creed.

The Arian Controversy started around the fourth century, with its main “father” being Arius who “was a popular Presbyter in the Church of Alexandria”(262). The Arian view was seen as against the church to most people out of the movement, this is because the Arian’s seemed to have a very different view point of Jesus. “Arianism is an absolute monotheism, so that the Son cannot be an emanation of the Father, or a part of his substance or another being similar to the Father, for any of these possibilities would deny either the unity or the immaterial nature of God”(262). To put it in lament terms Jesus is not of the same substance as God. Arian’s seem to use the argument that “the son cannot be without a beginning, for then he would be a ‘brother’ of the Father and not a Son”(262). The Arian’s also seemed to believe that Jesus was a “creature”(263) created by God.

The Gospel of John tells us that Jesus is the Son of God. Many miraculous signs that Jesus performed in the Book of John prove it. In today’s scripture, the miracles of the loaves and fishes and of walking on the Sea of Galilee also show us that Jesus is the Son of God. Many theologians match today’s scripture to the Old Testament, Moses’ story. For example, as we know that God gave the Israelites manna and quail in the wilderness, Jesus fed a large crowd who followed him. Also, as God allowed the Israelites to go across the Red Sea by dividing the water, Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee and controlled the rough wave and the strong wind. We can see that Jesus is the son of God through the Gospel of John. Now, let us see and keep focusing on who Jesus is, today.

According to Irenaeus, the Son had a second existence and was inferior to the Father. However, he did not discuss the mode of the Son’s generation because he considered it

The Father: I AM that I AM. The first person of the Trinity: holy and eternal. He is the front of Deity (autotheos). He has no source but Himself, He is utterly transcendent and unknowable: “No man can come to the Father…” The Father is the ultimate source of the Godhead and of all things. The Son: The Word of the Father. He is the second Person (hypostasis) of the Trinity. He is eternally begotten of the Father, He is not made, “Begotten, not made.” His source is the Father’s Person (hypostasis), so he is not Deity (autotheos), but Divine. His divinity is inherited from the Father, despite having a source, He has always been. He never not existed. He was brought to the earth and carried by the Virgin Mary after she was filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ was fully human and fully God, two natures in one person: a hypostatic union. He was killed and resurrected, conquering Death forever. He sits at the right hand of the Father, awaiting the day of final judgment. Humans can only approach the Father through the Son. Holy Spirit: The Lord, the giver of life. He is the third Person (hypostasis) of the Trinity. Despite having a source, he has always existed.

Alyssa Oliviero Professor Chris King History of Christianity 24 September 2014 Reading Response Two The Nicene Creed says that Jesus is the “only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds…begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father…” This idea presented conflict within the Christian community, between followers and also leaders of the church.

The Libyan born Presbyter and theologian, Arius (d. 336), believed that Jesus was created by god and therefore not eternal. He taught many things in his church in Alexandria and he attempted to address complexities such as the divinity of Christ in relation to God according to monotheism. Perhaps God had a reason for the work of Arius in the Empire. Until now the church hadn’t resolved an issue of this magnitude and Arius brought it to the main stage. Perhaps Arius was meant to argue for the sake of change within the church according to God’s ultimate design, saving the dissolution of the Roman Empire. In this paper I will describe the beliefs held by Arius on eternity and the divinity of Jesus, as well as the issue of Monotheism in both points of view and the controversy that enveloped. I will then talk about the views and response of the church to Arius’ teachings and the reasoning behind the formation of the Council of Nicaea, as well as attempt to prove that Arius was wrong in his belief. Lastly I will discuss the influence of Emperor Constantine in the formation of the council and the politics within the church in regards to the growing issue that Arius started, as well as explain the role of argumentation that Arius had (knowingly or unknowingly) in the preservation of the church according to God’s ultimate plan for Christianity.

Jesus is said to posses the full nature of man and its attributes and the full nature of God and its attributes. It is logical for the creator to understand his creation very well and very hard for the created creature to fully, understand his creator due to the disadvantage of being a creature and so being limited (J.P.Moreland and W. L. Craig 2003). This is the explanation

“That the Son is not unbegotten (αγεννητος) nor in any way a part of an Unbegotten, nor derived from some (alien) substratum (υποκειμενου τινος), but that he exists by will and counsel before times and before ages, full of truth, and grace, God, Only-begotten, unaltering (αναλλοιωτος). And before he was begotten, or created or determined or established, he did not exist. For he was not unbegotten (or unoriginated). We are persecuted, because we said that the Son has a beginning, while God is without beginning.”

Since the Nicene Council church patriarchs and theologians have toiled to communicate the principle of the Trinity as a doctrine in the Christian church. Our class readings from Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, and Elizabeth Tanner reveal the necessity for discussion about the trinity to evolve throughout the last 1500 years of Christian theology in order for the doctrine to be modernized to the lexical and social understanding of contemporary Christians. Although Augustine may be one of the Fathers of Trinitarian Theology, his fifth century Trinitarian theology has not progressed compatibly in regards to twenty-first century linguistics, rhetoric, and philosophy. In order to understand the limitations of Augustine’s doctrine of the trinities, we will study Augustine’s teachings lexically, allegorically, and relationally.

Beginning around the fourth century, Christian councils were forced to respond to the heresies of Arianism and Sabellianism, whose views on the Trinity were unacceptable to many Christians. As a response, the councils composed creeds such as the Nicene Creed and Athanasian Creed. In current times, philosophers Jeff Brower and Michael Rea try to explain the doctrine of the Trinity through analogies. I will discuss the two heresies and creeds, as well as the analogies presented.

According to Justin, the Son was the God who appeared to the patriarchs and was an agent in creation. All the theophanies, the visible appearance of God, in the Old Testament “belong to the Logos, or Christ, not to the Supreme God, whose visible personal appearance upon earth he [Justin] regarded as impossible and absurd” (p. 86).