Trinity

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TRINITY & OTHER DOCTRINES OF GOD: PROF. M. M. NINAN IV DOCETISM, EBIONISM & SUBORDINATIONISM A: DOCETISM Docetism is the belief that Jesus only seemed to have a physical body and to physically die, but in reality he was a spirit, and thus unable physically die Docetism (from the Greek, “to seem/phantom”) is taken as the belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion. It appears to have arisen over theological contentions concerning the meaning, figurative or literal, of a sentence from the Gospel of John: “the Word was made Flesh.” Docetism is easily explained: It is a belief that Jesus Christ did not actually die, and therefore was never resurrected bodily. A number of Christian theologies have arrived at this conclusion, in different ways, so Docetism comes in a number of forms. Gnostic Docetism As I explained in my book on Gnosticism, one of the tenets of Gnosticism is that Christ had not actually had a physical existence. What the apostles had interacted with, and what had been killed by the Romans, had actually been an illusion. This was necessitated by Gnostic dualism, which posited that matter, or the physical, was evil, and only light was good. Since they believed Christ to have been "good," then logically, the Gnostics were forced to assert that he had not actually had a physical form. Docetism is in essence a Christology heavily influenced by basic Greek assumptions of both the Platonic and Aristotelian varieties. Plato taught the idea of gradations of reality. Spirit or mind or thought is the highest. Matter or the material is less real. With this distinction of ontological gradations of reality, there came to be ethical gradations as well. Thus, matter came to be thought of as morally bad. (Erickson 1998: 729) 61
TRINITY & OTHER DOCTRINES OF GOD: PROF. M. M. NINAN The divine Christ would never stoop to touch flesh, which is evil. Jesus only seemed (dokeo, in Greek) human and only appeared to die, for God cannot die. Or “Christ” left “Jesus” before the Crucifixion. Phil. 2:8: “ … and [Christ] being found in appearance as a man … ” Samosatene/Arian Docetism Some of the adherents of the Samosatene Doctrine (championed by Arius) were also Docetists, but for different reasons. They believed that Jesus Christ was not actually God, but rather, a man, in whom lived a divine spirit which inspired and guided Him. When Christ died, that spirit fled from Him, since nothing divine can die. (Hence, Jesus's famous dying words, Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani?) Thus, according to this model, it was only Jesus-the-man who actually died. Not all Arians were Docetists. In fact, the majority tried to avoid taking such a stance. After all, simply asserting that Christ was less than fully divine got them in enough trouble, as it was! Many of the more intellectual Arianists, however, could not help but come to this conclusion, based on the logic of the basic Samosatene premise, as well as scriptural support (cited). 62
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The Mystery of tefillin The Manduky
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Trinity

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