Arius is perhaps the most famous heretic of them all - not the least because of his formidible opponent, Athanasius! I belong to an Anglican diocese that has been accused of Arianism: of subordinating the Son to the Father. As always, a terminological difference is part of the problem, I think. I would be ready to drop the word 'subordinate' in exchange for 'ordered' so as to indicate to all that I believe the Son is vere Deus, vere homo... Of course one of the ugliest dynamics of being called a heretic, is that when you are called so by the vituperative and quote-twisting kind of person we were called it by, you start to believe that the heresy must be orthodox. It does your head in! (Of course, as Williams shows, it is doubtful if Arius himself was actual Arian, but never mind that...)
G.L.Prestige writes:
Christianity and monotheism alike were imperilled by the Arian attack on Athanasius and the doctrine of the Trinity; for if Christ were not truly God, salvation through His cross remained a purely human, subjective and imperfectly realised aspiration; and if He were in the strict sense a 'second God' - as certain even among those of substantial orthodoxy somewhat loosely called Him - then there was an end to all faith in one controlling ruler of the universe and one undivided object of worshipful devotion.' p. 76
The stakes are very high on this one.
Arius was incapable of uttering an apparent contradiction and revolted from the supposition that vast, intricate problems might present more than one aspect. His two-dimensional mind regarded the divine mystery of revelation in the flat, foreshortened, without depth or background, like a diagram in Euclid...
For heresy, rationalistic short-cuts are almost always the downfall. As Athanasius clarified it:
If you contemplate the Father, who is one distinct presentation of the deity, you obtain a mental view of the one true God. If you contemplate the Son or the Spirit, you obtain a view of the same God; though the presenation is different, the reality is identical. p. 89
But what was the peculiar attraction of Arianism?
6 comments:
Maybe the attraction of being able to formulate a "clear", "rational" and maleable understanding of the Divinity. It's interesting how the challenge of the Trinity is also a challenge to recognise and humble oneself before the mystery of God.
The doctrine of the Trinity is a clear indication that He "dwells" on a plain inapprehensible to the human mind, reminding us of our own creatureliness and space-time limitedness (and the fact that we can only think in space-time terms). I think one of the great values of the doctrine is that it puts us in our place, along with revealing a bit about who and HOW God is in of himself.
An example of this could be DB Knox's affirmation of God as "other-person-centered", which was quite a radical revelation for me (and I'm still not sure how to reconcile it with the idea that God does everything for is own glory, as Piper has been reminding us of, lately).
Well the Trinity CAN be other-person centred AND aim for his own glory...
It is glorious to be other-person centred.
(Can you call the Trinity a 'him'? My query is about the number, not the gender, of this pronoun)
Is the Trinity a single subject or three?
(I used 'him' without thinking)
Hi Michael,
Do you know where I could get hold of a copy of the infamous report that's lead to us being labelled Arians?
Yep
http://www.sds.asn.au/assets/documents/synod/TrinityDoctrineComm.pdf
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