On the 1700-year anniversary of the Council of Nicaea: the background
The triune God—today a given for Christians. But this concept was once in dispute. It was the Council of Nicaea that finally started to bring some clarity to the matter—1,700 years ago this year. Following is the first in a series of articles that revolves around this special anniversary.
The Christian communities had been persecuted to a greater or lesser extent by the Roman authorities for almost three centuries. Christians were killed, denounced, and socially disadvantaged for their faith.
This changed under Emperor Constantine, who ruled from ad 306 to 337 and proclaimed religious freedom in ad 313. Over the ensuing years, Christianity not only came to be tolerated, but even favoured and massively promoted over other religions. Constantine viewed the Christian church as an obvious power base.
In this respect, the emperor, who was not a Christian and was not baptised until shortly before his death, had an interest in maintaining the Christian church as a reliable force within the empire. So it was that he observed with interest the development of the Christian community, the appeal of which increased significantly as it came to be increasingly accepted, and ultimately privileged. And that was the point when important things began to happen.
In pursuit of a mystery
By the beginning of the third century, the theological debate over whether the Father and the Son were equally true God had intensified. The argument over whether the Son was a created being or co-eternal with the Father threatened to put the unity of the Christian Church within the Roman Empire into jeopardy.
The New Testament contains many statements about the nature and work of Jesus that emphasise his divinity and point to the divine aspects of his activity and nature. However, no further explanations are provided. Over the ensuing years, Christians therefore felt the need to reconsider this problem theologically and endeavour to grasp it in doctrinal terms.
Perhaps the two most important approaches that attempt to explain the mystery of the triune God—that is, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are subordinationism and modalism.
Creator and created beings
Subordinationism (derived from “subordination”) holds that the Logos, or Son, is a being create by God, only similar in essence to the Father, but by no means equal to Him. Its advocates believed that the Son and the Holy Spirit were created by God before all time. Therefore, the Son and Spirit are subordinate to the true God.
This position had the most adherents in the second and early third centuries. However, subordinationism runs the risk of modifying monotheism and assigning secondary or subordinate deities to the true God.
Facets of a single entity
Modalism (from modality = manner, type, possibility) holds that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are mere manifestations or revelations of the one God, while God is inherently one. Accordingly, God can be experienced as the Father, then as the Son, and then as the Holy Spirit throughout salvation history, while inwardly He is always only one.
Modalism strives to emphasise the inner unity of God in order to prevent belief in the one God from being relativised. However, the danger with this approach is that the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ might only appear to occur and therefore be devoid of any real character in and of itself.
It was only the Council of Nicaea that was to reveal which of these theological perspectives would prevail. That will be the subject of the next issue in this series.
The background: what the Bible says about the Trinity
The divinity of the Son is attested in the New Testament. For example, in the gospel of John it is said of the Logos, the divine Word, that God became human in Jesus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1: 1). The designation “God” for the incarnate Logos can be found several times in the gospel of John (John 1: 17; 20: 28). The New Testament also makes it clear that the Son of God was with God before His incarnation—in other words, that He is pre-existent. Philippians 2: 6 describes Jesus Christ as being “in the form of God” in heaven (Philippians 2: 6–7). This divine figure became human and thereby humbled Himself.
The most frequent and emphatic indication that God is present in Jesus is the designation Kyrios (“Lord”). In the Septuagint, the pre-Christian translation of the holy writings of the Old Testament into Greek, the term Kyrios is used to designate God. In the writings of the New Testament, this designation is also applied to Jesus (for example, Matthew 9: 28; Luke 5: 8). In Acts 10: 36b Jesus is called the “Lord over all”, and Paul makes a statement that can already be read as a reference to the unity of the three divine persons: “And no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12: 3).
While the Old Testament does not understand the Spirit of God as a person, but as a divine life force, the New Testament does speak of the Holy Spirit as a person. In the gospel of John, the Holy Spirit is the one who reminds the disciples and the church about Jesus’ words and deeds (John 14: 26). The Holy Spirit is the other “Helper”, who represents Jesus in the era of the church and imparts knowledge, just as Jesus always did (John 16: 8–11). It is also mentioned that the Holy Spirit “teaches” (Luke 12: 12), speaks and commands (Acts 13: 2), appoints Bishops (Acts 20: 28), and issues missionary mandates (Acts 8: 29). Furthermore, the Holy Spirit teaches the proper way to pray (Romans 8: 26). The unconditional unity of God and the Spirit is emphasised in 1 Corinthians 2: 11. And in 2 Corinthians 3: 17, the Holy Spirit—just like Jesus Christ and the Father—is called “Lord”. This serves to underscore His divinity and personhood.
At the baptism of Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit also reveal themselves. The Father acknowledges the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the constant companion of the man Jesus. The close connection between Jesus Christ and the Paraclete—in other words, the Helper and Comforter—who manifests the exalted and ascended Lord in the church, can also be understood as a reference to the mystery of the Trinity: Son and Spirit exist in unity with the Father, such that the word and will of the Father are also always the word and will of the Son and of the Spirit (John 16: 13–15).
Beyond that the tripartite statements in 1 Corinthians 12: 4–6 and the benediction found in 2 Corinthians 13: 14 can also be understood as important references to the trinity of God.
Photo: Hyejin Kang – stock.adobe.com