Scripture and God in Christianity

Whatever was the composition of the Council, the impact it had and the high position its creed
and confession enjoys in traditional Christianity is overwhelming. It is called "the greatest of all
Synods" and is generally described with high remarks and lofty terms. "The Council of Nicaea is
what it is to us quite apart from all doubtful or apocryphal traditions: it holds a pre-eminent place
of honour, because it established for all ages of the Church that august and inestimable confession,
which may be to unbelief, or to anti-dogmatic spirit, a mere stumbling block, a mere incubus,
because it is looked at ab extra, in a temper which cannot sympathize with the faith which it
enshrines, or the adoration which it stimulate; but to those who genuinely and definitely believe
in the true divinity of the Redeemer, the doctrine of Nicaea, in the expanded form which Christendom
has adopted, is prime treasure of their religious life, the expression of a faith coherent in
itself, and capable of overcoming the world in the power of the Incarnation who is the "Coessential,"
that is, as St. Athanasius was careful to explain it, the "real" Son of God." 616
On the other hand, Fairbairn argues that "These gracious and sublime ideas were the aim rather
than the achievement of the theology; they were more what it aspired to than what it reached." 617
He further argues: "It is hard to say whether the Nicene theology did more eminent service or disservice
to the Christian conception of God. In contending for the Deity of the Son, it too much
forgot to conceive the Deity through the Son and as the Son conceived Him. In its hands, and in
consequence of its definitions and authority, the metaphysical Trinity tended to supersede the
ethical Godhead. The Church, when it thought of the Father, thought more of the First Person in
relation to the Second than of God in relation to man; when it thought of the Son, it thought more
of the Second Person in relation to the First than of humanity in relation to God.... The Nicene
theology failed here because it interpreted God and articulated its doctrine in the terms of the
schools rather than in the terms of the consciousness of Christ." 618 He concludes observing that "
The division of the Persons within Godhead had as its necessary result the division of God from
man, and the exaltation of miraculous and unethical agencies as the means of bridging over the
gulf. The inadequacy in these cardinal respects of the Nicene theology would be inexplicable
were we to regard it as a creation of supernatural wisdom or the result of special Divine enlightenment;
but it is altogether normal when conceived as a stage in the development of Christian
thought." 619
The Aftermath of the Nicene Council:
It is obvious that there is a clear doctrine of the "Trinity" incorporated in the Nicene Creed.
There is only one indefinite statement in regards to the Holy Spirit. But the deity of Christ, (the
central problem for our study of anthropomorphism in Christianity) was fully conserved and rendered
immune to theological as well as philosophical criticism that had discredited Modalism.
All avenues leading to the Godhead of Christ, the Savior, and impulses leading to his exaltation
to the highest possible place and worship as the God were given free play without convicting his
worshippers of polytheism, obscurantism or anthropomorphism. On the other hand, as the Creed
was carried in the Council by the pressure of Constantine against the inclinations of a great majority
of bishops, it did not settled the dispute. It needed only a change of mind in Constantine
himself (in 336) then his death in 337 to change the so-called Holy Spirit stamped exposition of
the divine will and turn every thing upside down. 620 Jerome's words are not wholly exaggeration
when he writes, "the whole world groaned in astonishment to find itself Arian." 621 It was once
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