Month: April 2024

Nicene Trinitarian Theology: True God from True God; Of One Substance (Homoousios) with the Father

Nicene Trinitarian Theology: True God from True God; Of One Substance (Homoousios) with the Father

Kairos Podcast 6: Biblical-Nicene Trinitarianism vs Early Heresies. Part 5/6

Theology of the Nicene Creed (325 AD)
Note how the four clauses of the Nicene Creed specifically rebut Arianism.

1. TRUE GOD FROM TRUE GOD – He is also ‘true God’, i.e. not God in a secondary degree.

2. THAT IS, FROM THE SUBSTANCE OF THE FATHER added to give a more precise interpretation to BEGOTTEN FROM THE FATHER – “What we have here is a deliberately formulated counterblast to the principal tenet of Arianism, that the Son had been created out of nothing and had a beginning.”

3. BEGOTTEN NOT MADE – “The Arians were “eager enough to employ such language as BEGOTTEN, but the meaning they put upon it was indistinguishable from MADE… [The Nicene Creed affirms that] The Godhead had never been without His Word or His Wisdom: so the Father had never been other than the Father, and had never been without His Son. The Son and the Father must therefore have coexisted from all eternity, the Father eternally begetting the Son.” (ECD 237-238).

4. OF ONE SUBSTANCE WITH THE FATHER – “This asserts the full deity of the Son. “The Son, it implied, shared the very being or essence of the Father. He was therefore fully divine. Whatever belonged to or characterized the Godhead belonged to and characterized Him.” (ECD 238)

To ensure total condemnation of Arian theology, the anathemas were added to condemn phrases typically used in Arian catchwords or slogans. Continue reading “Nicene Trinitarian Theology: True God from True God; Of One Substance (Homoousios) with the Father”

Genesis 1:1 – The Correct Translation: “In the beginning, God Created the Heavens and the Earth” (KJV, ESV, NIV) vs “In the Beginning when God Created the Heavens and the Earth (NRSV, JPS).”

The standard translation takes Gen.1:1 to be an independent clause which refers to the absolute beginning of the universe: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The word bərēʾšît (beginning) denotes the start of a whole sequence of events, that is, the absolute beginning of “the heavens and the earth.” The phrase is a rhetorical device (merism) which combines two extremes in order to refer to everything in between them. The translation is consistent with the idea that God created the whole universe ex nihilo.

The NET Bible supports the traditional scholarship in its translators’ notes on Gen. 1:1 – “the translation assumes that the form translated “beginning” is in the absolute state rather than the construct (“in the beginning of,” or “when God created”). In other words, the clause in v. 1 is a main clause, v. 2 has three clauses that are descriptive and supply background information, and v. 3 begins the narrative sequence proper.”

This traditional interpretation has been dominant for centuries. However, it has recently been seriously challenged by scholars who are informed by historical criticism of the Pentateuch which began in the 19th century. Continue reading “Genesis 1:1 – The Correct Translation: “In the beginning, God Created the Heavens and the Earth” (KJV, ESV, NIV) vs “In the Beginning when God Created the Heavens and the Earth (NRSV, JPS).””

The Arian Heresy and the Council of Nicaea (AD 325)

Kairos Podcast 6: Biblical-Nicene Trinitarianism vs Early Heresies. Part 4/6
Video Link – The Arian Heresy and the Council of Nicaea (AD 325)

Essence of Arianism: God the Father is absolutely unique and transcendent. Since the being or essence (ousia) of the Godhead is unique, transcendent and indivisible it cannot be shared or communicated. Therefore, whatever else exists must have come into existence by an act of God’s creation.

Deductions: 1) The Son must be a creature, 2) As a creature the Son must have a beginning, 3) The Son can have no communion with, and indeed no direct knowledge of His Father, 4) The Son must be liable to change and even sin.

Conclusion: The Son of God was not eternal, was not always with God, but was made by the Father before all time. Key phrase of Arianism: “there was [a time] when he was not.”

For Arianism, the Son of God is of similar substance/essence (homoiousios) with the Father.

Refutation by the Nicene Creed (325 AD): the Son of God is of the same substance/essence (homoousios) with the Father – “We believe…the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father.”

Book of Genesis vs Babylonian Creation (Enuma Elish) and Babylonian Flood (Epic of Gilgamesh)

Genesis vs Ancient Near East Polytheistic Myths: Plagiarism or Polemics? Part 2

A. Genesis and Babylonian Creation & Flood Accounts: Similar but Independent Accounts

The chart below lists several parallels between the Creation and Flood accounts of Genesis and the Mesopotamia Enuma Elish. [Source: Currid, p. 37-38]

Enuma Elish (Mesopotamia)	Genesis
Divine spirit and cosmic matter are coexistent and coeternal	Divine spirit creates cosmic matter and exists independently of it
Primeval chaos; Tiamat enveloped in darkness	The earth a desolate waste, with darkness covering the deep (tehom)
Light emanating from the gods	Light created
The creation of the firmament	The creation of the firmament
The creation of dry land	The creation of dry land
The creation of the luminaries	The creation of the luminaries
The creation of man	The creation of man
The gods rest and celebrate	God rests and sanctifies the seventh day

How does one account for these similarities? Continue reading “Book of Genesis vs Babylonian Creation (Enuma Elish) and Babylonian Flood (Epic of Gilgamesh)”

Logos Christology vs Modalistic Monarchianism; Tertullian Trinity, Origen Eternal Generation of Son

Kairos Podcast 6: Biblical-Nicene Trinitarianism vs Early Heresies. Part 3/6

Video Link – Logos Christology vs Modalistic Monarchianism; Tertullian Trinity, Origen Eternal Generation of Son

Problem facing the early church in the 2nd century: How to maintain the unity of God while insisting on the deity of the one who was distinct from God the Father.
Answer by Logos theologians: Christ as the pre-existing Logos, was the Father’s thought and mind, and that as manifested in creation and revelation, He was its extrapolation or expression.”

Logos Christology was rejected by Modalistic Monarchianism (Sabellianism) which claimed that God is a monad (a monarchy above everything) which expresses itself in three operations. “Father, Son and Spirit are only different designations of the same revelation. The one God is known as a Trinity because of his three modes of action.

Modalistic Monarchianism was decisively refuted by Tertullian who utilised the systematic theory of the economy of salvation, with emphasis on the gradation and forms of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Tertullian was the first theologian to use the word “trinitas” and the formula, “one substance in three persons.”

Origen formulated the idea of the “eternal generation of the Son.”

Video Link – Logos Christology vs Modalistic Monarchianism; Tertullian Trinity, Origen Eternal Generation of Son