At the heart of the debate over the theology of Arius at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A. D. was “the concern to distinguish theology from mythology” (Alan Torrance, in Nicene Christianity: The Future for a New Ecumenism, 2001, 52). Arius argued that the Son was a created being, albeit the first created being, and that he, therefore, did not share a continuous divine identity with the Father. If this were true, of course, then whatever was mediated by the Son was not mediated by God himself, but by an operative that was inferior in being. The great theologian Athanasius clearly saw the dangers of this thought to biblical Christianity and championed the battle of Nicaea as well as the war against the resistance that waged for several decades afterward.

The lynchpin of the creed that emerged from this council, and which was further refined at Constantinople fifty years later, was the inclusion of the Greek word homoousious (one substance) in defining the relationship between the Father and the Son. By so incorporating this word into the creed, the council was affirming biblical revelation, the prior work of orthodox theologians, and the content of the liturgy and worship of the church for the previous two centuries. To declare that the Son was homoousious (one substance) with the Father was not to utter some Greek pagan novelty, but, once and for all, to confront and diffuse any notion of subordination of the Son to the Father in being or nature. It was to affirm the apostolic witness that Jesus Christ was indeed the eternal Son of God, distinct in person, yet fully included within the one divine identity. It was the Hiroshima of Christian theology. Although resistance would continue, surrender was just a matter of time. 

Athanasius realized that failure to safeguard and clarify the intent embodied in this idea would be to empty the faith of one of its central tenets: that in Jesus Christ, God had made himself known. If Jesus Christ were nothing more than an intermediate god-creature between the Father and his creation instead of the Father’s ontological equal, then true knowledge of God would be impossible, and Christianity would not be a revelatory faith, but just another pagan agnostic religion. Athansius contended that if God has not really walked among us, then we devolve into “creatures who are quite simply and literally agnosis (without knowledge) ─ ignorant of that to which [we] pretend to refer.” Hence, we are left not with theology, but mythology (Torrance, 54). 

Furthermore, Athanasius insisted not only that the being of God be identified with the incarnate Christ, but also that this identity be recognized. Therefore, for Athanasius, affirming the one divine substance shared by the Father and the Son provoked the necessity of identifying this same divine substance with the Holy Spirit whose transforming presence is “the necessary subjective condition for the recognition of Jesus as the incarnate Word” (Torrance, 55). For these reasons, as history shows, Athanasius willingly risked his own safety to protect the wording that would eventually be reconfirmed at Constantinople in 381 A. D., not because of the words themselves, but because of what they affirmed about the triune nature of the one true God. 

In conclusion, the testimony of the New Testament, the early church and post-apostolic fathers, and the Nicene fathers forms a seamless witness without distortion to our triune God. The evidence shows that the doctrine of the Trinity is not some eclectic pagan monstrosity foisted upon a hapless New Testament, but a faithful summary of what is revealed in these writings: that there is, as the Nicene Creed asserts, 

one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth…one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God…begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father…and the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver…who is worshiped with the Father and the Son.

Hermann Bavinck affirms that “in the confession of the Trinity throbs the heart of the Christian religion: every error results from or upon deeper reflection may be traced to, a wrong view of this doctrine” (quoted in Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 1994, 248). Nonetheless, we must be humble enough to realize that there are essential supernatural forces that define the Trinity and its inner workings and relationships the understanding of which lie beyond our grasp. As Louis Berkhoff asserts,

It is especially when we reflect on the relations of the three persons to the divine essence that all analogies fail us and we become deeply conscious of the fact that the Trinity is a mystery far beyond our comprehension. It is the incomprehensible glory of the Godhead” (quoted in Grudem, 256).

Blessings,

Arnie Gentile 

Return to the beginning of the series: The Doctrine of the Trinity, Part 1: Trinitarian Soundings in the Old Testament                                              

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