In the closing years of the second century and during the course of the third, a number of debates were sparked off by various attempts to explain the place of Jesus Christ, long since worshipped as God, in a monotheistic religion.
The Way to Nicaea, John Behr
There remained many different teachings on this question – the question that was the focus of the Church from the time of the apostles: Just who is this Jesus? How do we understand Him? While there was the view in many that He was God, there remained many who believed otherwise; there are examples of excommunication and condemnation for teaching this even during this turn of the century and beyond.
Further, even among those who believed He was somehow God, their formulas or descriptions created new problems to address, or damaged other accepted theological dogmas. For example, some would teach that the Father became the Son in the Incarnation, with the Father dying on the Cross.
Origen would enter this discussion, asserting more emphatically the real and eternal distinct substance of the Son and the Spirit alongside the Father:
This affirmation does not stand alone, but emerged from Origen’s extensive engagement with Scripture and his profound reflection on how Christ, both God and man, is the Word of God.
His work was extensive, but also ambiguous (and will be examined in some detail in a later post). While he was able to hold this ambiguity together, both sides of the Christological conflict of the fourth century could draw from his work.
Then there is the case of Paul of Samosata, whose case is somewhat difficult to reconstruct, given that it is embroiled in political as much as theological divergences. The charges raised against him (also to be examined in more detail in a later post) revolve around the accusation that he taught that Christ was a mere man.
It seemed to his critics that Paul separated Jesus from the Word as two distinct entities, the eternal Word and the newly revealed Jesus.
Yet, in many of these third-century debates, the issue of the identity of Christ as the Son and Word of God was held in common. I guess not surprising, because this much is very plainly stated in Scripture and in the Gospels and letters.
As Son, Christ is distinct from the Father, rather than being a new form or manifestation of the one God, though it is the Father that the Son reveals, not simply himself and his own divinity.
So, how (and, reflecting one of my ongoing concerns in this entire conversation) precisely to conceive the divinity and identity of Christ? Further, why chase this down and not merely focus on His defining characteristics, as articulated in the gospel message: the proclamation of the crucified and risen Son of God, that He is professed as the Word of God? Why not leave the rest a mystery?
Behr does not answer this here (this is an introductory section to the third century discussions and arguments), but I have a thought or two. It couldn’t be left here. First of all, the Scripture offers much more about this Christ – both in the Old Testament and New. Some of this, on the surface, seemed contradictory and had to be reconciled – if not, in what would Christians believe of their Christ?
Further, on what basis could one who is crucified and resurrected somehow make things right for us with God (using C.S. Lewis’s language)? Could a man achieve this? An angel? If a God-man, how to speak of the nature of this being – one completely unknown and unique? In other words, a wrong belief in the nature of Christ will result in a death and resurrection that does nothing for man.
Conclusion
The third century by no means saw a resolution to these issues. If anything, it brought them to a crisis point, ready to explode in the following centuries.
At least some forbidden territory was defined: don’t confuse the Father and Son; don’t claim that the Son was merely an adopted and deified man; Christ unambiguously was not a man become God, but God become man.
More positive contributions would be made by the Alexandrians, especially the affirmation of the eternal substance of the Son.
Jesus is an enigma. A flesh and blood man, born of a woman, though clearly claims to be one with God the Father in numerous places in scripture (John 8:58; John 10:30; John 14:9), especially considering how the Pharisees reacted to His words.
And yet His will is separate and subordinate to that of the Father's (John 14:10, Luke 22:42, Matthew 24:36). One God, two unequal wills? And we haven't even discussed the Paraclete.
Jesus appears to experience dread on the eve before His passion (take this cup away from me) and despair on the cross (Father why have you forsaken me?). Yes, the second of these is supposed to draw our eyes to a prophecy fulfilled so we don't forget who Jesus was, so the wise theologians have told us, but still it is haunting to think of Christ, the one who helped bring the world into existence, in despair crying out to His Father, or in deep anxiety the night before it was to happen.
What He experienced must have been real. He wasn't just God LARPing as a man; He became Man. He must have felt what we would have felt in those moments, only with infinitely more awareness of what was being done to Him, how much He was going to suffer, and how much of an injustice it was for the most innocent man to die the most painful and ignominious death. And yet He did all that for us.
These questions in the Bible used to make me seriously question my faith. In my arrogance I could not tolerate mystery or apparent contradictions (Both Man and God? Son of God? Son of Man? Word of God?). But now these mysteries serve as an affirmation of my faith because of how authentic, complex, and beautiful they are, and as an invitation to walk deeper into it. If someone were making this story up, they'd have made it much more straightforward and ugly.
We owe an eternal debt of gratitude to the early Christians who sorted out the nature of the Trinity, leaving only tiny gaps between the various apostolic churches. Left to my own meager scholarship, I’d probably be part of the Watchtower.