After the death of Christ, the world was left with a difficult question: who is he? Jesus did say that he was the Son of God, but even those that did believe this to be true still had to decipher what it actually meant. It was not initially clear if Jesus meant to say that he was some sort of literal son or if this was meant entirely as metaphor. Many theologians at the time set to answer this question, though it was difficult to form a consensus. After much argumentation, an Alexandrian bishop by the name of Athanasius laid down much foundational theology for the ideas of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation. This essay will lay out what views Athanasius was arguing against and why his views were more theologically sound.
In the first century …show more content…
This is when the Nicene Creed was commissioned, and God the Father and God the Son were announced to be equally divine. Soon after this council meeting though, many of the priests who denounced Arius, began to follow his view. There were three dominant and not theologically invalid reasons that this was. As stated previously, homoousios was a prominent word used in the Creed, and a large part of the Creed hinged upon this word. What this word meant and how it was used was to say that God the Father and God the Son were made of the same substance, or “consubstantial” (72). Although this word was useful in deeming the Father and Son as divinely equal, it was not biblically founded (77). Due to this, bishops had good reason to question how much faith they could place in an unbiblical word. Homoousios was also a word to be questioned due to the nature of its usage in the past. For instance, it was a word used by Paul of Samosata to suggest that there was no distinction between the Father and Son at all (78). Paul was also a man of suspicion due to his connections to the aforementioned adoptionism, a view not taken seriously (Lecture notes, April 5th). The last and most important problem was that homoousios was too ambiguous of a word, able to say that the Father and Son are one in the same or that they simply are made of the same substance (78). It is …show more content…
He also has to clarify what his view was, and why it was any better. During his time as bishop, Athanasius was often put in exile, and it was through his time in exile that Athanasius developed and wrote down much of his theology, titled On the Incarnation (Lecture notes, April 5th). One of his primary focus points on why the Son had to be equally divine was found in the salvation of humanity. Humanity was deemed sinful, and the cost of that sin was death. The only way to escape this death would be to become like God, divine (Lecture notes, April 10th). For humanity to be like God, though, would require one to have the ability to “divinize” a human. The only one capable of divinizing humanity would be God. If a being less divine than God were to divinize a human, that human still would not be divine enough for salvation. Therefore, for humanity to obtain salvation through Christ, God the Son, Christ had to have been just as divine as the Father. This made Jesus the literal incarnation of God as human. As Athanasius put it, “God became human that in him humans might become god”
In the first century …show more content…
This is when the Nicene Creed was commissioned, and God the Father and God the Son were announced to be equally divine. Soon after this council meeting though, many of the priests who denounced Arius, began to follow his view. There were three dominant and not theologically invalid reasons that this was. As stated previously, homoousios was a prominent word used in the Creed, and a large part of the Creed hinged upon this word. What this word meant and how it was used was to say that God the Father and God the Son were made of the same substance, or “consubstantial” (72). Although this word was useful in deeming the Father and Son as divinely equal, it was not biblically founded (77). Due to this, bishops had good reason to question how much faith they could place in an unbiblical word. Homoousios was also a word to be questioned due to the nature of its usage in the past. For instance, it was a word used by Paul of Samosata to suggest that there was no distinction between the Father and Son at all (78). Paul was also a man of suspicion due to his connections to the aforementioned adoptionism, a view not taken seriously (Lecture notes, April 5th). The last and most important problem was that homoousios was too ambiguous of a word, able to say that the Father and Son are one in the same or that they simply are made of the same substance (78). It is …show more content…
He also has to clarify what his view was, and why it was any better. During his time as bishop, Athanasius was often put in exile, and it was through his time in exile that Athanasius developed and wrote down much of his theology, titled On the Incarnation (Lecture notes, April 5th). One of his primary focus points on why the Son had to be equally divine was found in the salvation of humanity. Humanity was deemed sinful, and the cost of that sin was death. The only way to escape this death would be to become like God, divine (Lecture notes, April 10th). For humanity to be like God, though, would require one to have the ability to “divinize” a human. The only one capable of divinizing humanity would be God. If a being less divine than God were to divinize a human, that human still would not be divine enough for salvation. Therefore, for humanity to obtain salvation through Christ, God the Son, Christ had to have been just as divine as the Father. This made Jesus the literal incarnation of God as human. As Athanasius put it, “God became human that in him humans might become god”