Scripture and God in Christianity

Jewish spirit it had absolutely nothing....the Arian confusion of deity and creaturedom was just as
hateful to the Jew as to the Christian. Whatever sins Israel may have to answer for, the authorship
of Arianism is not one of them." 557 He further argues, that "their doctrine was a mass of presumptuous
theorizing, supported by alternate scraps of obsolete traditionalism and uncritical textmongering,
on the other it was a lifeless system of unspiritual pride and hard unlovingness." 558 T.
E. Pollard argues that Arius transformed the "living God of the Bible" into the "absolute of the
philosophical schools." 559
This "half-god", to use Tillich's term, theology of Arius was rejected by the champions of orthodox
Logos Christology and finally defeated as heresy. The reason, as Harnack contends, was, the
very nature of Christian religion, "the defeated party had right on its side, but had not succeeded
in making its Christology agree with its conception of the object and result of the Christian religion.
This was the very reason of its defeat. A religion which promised its adherents that their nature
would be rendered divine, could only be satisfied by a redeemer who in his own person had
deified human nature. If after the gradual fading away of eschatological hopes, the above prospect
was held valid, then those were right who worked this view of the Redeemer." 560 That is
what was achieved by Athanasius in the Council of Nicea and the Logos Christology was victorious
over its opponents once for all. And "when the Logos Christology obtained a complete victory,
the traditional view of the Supreme deity as one person, and, along with this, every thought
of the real and complete human personality of the Redeemer was condemned as being intolerable
in the Church." 561
New estimates of Arius' contributions to christological discussions have been made by modern
scholars. Out of these new reconstructions a different picture of Arius is evolving. Francis
Young, for instance, argues that " the Arius was not himself the arch-heretic of tradition, nor
even much of an inquirer; rather he was a reactionary, a rather literal-minded conservative who
appealed to scripture and tradition as the basis of his faith." 562 Like Barnard and Norris, Young
argues that "The fact is that links can be traced between Arius' views and those of earlier Alexandrians,
even if a continuous or coherent tradition cannot be established. Arius doctrine of God
has affinities with Athenagoras and Clement, his subordinationism belongs to the Origenist tradition,
his theological method is anticipated in Dionysius of Alexandria, and his biblical literalism
may be connected with bishop Peter. Arius was guilty not so much of demoting the Son as exalting
the Father; for, as Stead has shown, he taught a hierarchical Trinity of the Origenist type, a
fact obscured by Athanasius for his own polemic purposes but confirmed by the reaction of Eusebius
of Caesarea. Athanasius emphasized the fact that Arius ranked the logos among creatures;
whereas Arius' main concern was probably to avoid attributing physical processes like emanation
or generation to God, a traditional point developed earlier against the Gnostics. Arius therefore
expressed coherently what many Christians had long since assumed." 563 Kelly observes that "the
general mould of their teaching was undoubtedly Origenistic, and there are many striking points
of resemblance between their subordinationism and that of Origen and, still more Dionysius." 564
Moreover, his opponents did not stick strictly to the scriptures either and were forced to adopt the
non-scriptural, utterly philosophical as well as paradoxical term homoousios [of the same substance]
to exclude his views. We may conclude, then, with F. Young that "Indeed, the popularity
of his biblical solution to the tension between monotheism and faith in Christ is beyond dispute;
and there is no reason to doubt Arius' sincerity or genuine Christian intention. Though his oppo-
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