Arianism

Arianism is the view that denies the divinity of Jesus Christ. The idea matured due to an earlier reaction toward the heresy, Modalism in the Second Century. The First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325 condemned the view of Arius, a priest from Libya. Arius referred to Joh 3:16 and Col 1:15 to support his view that since the son was spoken as coming after; it meant that he had a beginning and was not eternal like God the Father. My understanding as a trichotomist greatly aids in combatting this condemned view. The Son of God was begotten in the sense of the new creation, which he became when God raised him from the grave in a glorified body; yet he was always eternal in the sense that the soul of the human Jesus was God himself. Jesus was fully human, and the Christ was fully God. Isaiah said it as, a child is born; a son is given (9:6). The child was born of Mary and the son was given of God. The heresy continued to spread and was addressed again in the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381. The Council expanded the Nicaean Creed to include, “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” The Second Ecumenical Council also affirmed the full divinity of the Holy Spirit: “the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have a single Godhead and power and substance, a dignity deserving the same honor and a co-eternal sovereignty, in three most perfect hypostases, or three perfect persons.”