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to mystic institute.org. Why was it that in the decades surrounding the Nicene Council,

some apparently devout Christians started saying that the Son and Word of God was created from nothing

and not eternal, while others insisted that the author and Word of God was created from nothing and not eternal, while others insisted

that the authenticity of the whole of Christian life depended on professing that Jesus Christ

was one in essence with the Father. This question is all the more puzzling when one

considers the inherent difficulties of both positions.

To profess that the sun is a creature, not eternal, not fully divine,

seems to obviously denigrate the status of Christ.

Such denigration would seem to be antithetical to the fundamental momentum

of Christian life, which moves in the direction of acclaiming Jesus as Lord. On the other hand,

to insist on the indispensable normativity of the homoousios was to make the proclamation of the gospel contingent

on an unbiblical term of ambiguous signification.

Not only was the Homoosius unscriptural, but nobody was very clear about what this word actually meant.

The Nicene Creed employed that term without

appending any footnotes or explanatory apparatus defining its meaning. Indeed,

no clear definition of its meaning was forthcoming from any of the defenders of Nicaea

for quite some time after the council.

So then what exactly were people arguing about?

...