The Christological Controversies: The Christological Debates

[Gloria]

History is one of the “shapers” of Christianity but not all historical events had an equal influence on the development of Christianity. The main purpose of this book “The Christological Controversy” by Richard Norris was to enable the reader to gain not only a better understanding of the early church but also an appreciation of how Christianity of the twentieth century still reflects the events, thoughts and social conditions of the earlier history. This book is a collection of texts designed to illustrate the development of Christian thought about the person of Christ in the era of the church fathers.

According to Richard Norris, the term “Christology” refers specifically to inquiry and reflections that are concerned with Jesus in his Messianic character. In other words, Christology asks what is presupposed and implied by the fact that Jesus is the elect “son of God”, the one through whose life, death and resurrection God has acted to realize his purpose for humanity.

Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of David. Jesus is fully divine and fully human in the Christian sense. But this was easier said than done especially during the early centuries. Just at the beginning , there were two things to be said about Jesus. The first was that God’s salvation, the thing to which Prophets and seers had always looked forward, had for Jesus, already become real. The second was that Jesus was the one through whom others entered into the new order of things; he was the bearer of God’s rule, the mediator of God’s salvation. Thus, in the Christian sense, Jesus was the Messiah, The Christ, the Son of God.

However, for a second century Christian philosophers like Justin Martyr who believed in the “Logos- Theology”, the “LOGOS” meant essentially “Reason”. According to Justin, the Logos was the mediator between God and His creatures and it is the Logos who forms the universe, who “appears” to Abraham and to Moses, and who confers knowledge of God on all humanity by giving people a share in God’s rational nature. However, the Logos represented slightly a lower level of divinity, something between the pure divinity of God and the non-divinity of creatures. This view of Justin’s was strongly opposed by the “Monarchians” who believed in just one God. They saw Justin’s view as introducing plurality into the divine realm.
Other second century thinkers openly argued that it is inconceivable for a being who properly belongs to the realm of divine to take ordinary human form. These thinkers called “Docetists”, because they described Jesus’ flesh as mere “appearance”. Others like Marcion of Pontus, argued that the flesh of Jesus was “Phantasmal”.
Despite the Docetists view of Christ, some great Christians such as Melito of Sardis believed that Christ is glorious, divine figure who becomes incarnate for the sake of the redemption of humankind form the suffering and death which were its inheritance from Adam and that, this incarnation or embodiment of the Son of God is the fulfillment of the whole dispensation of the mosaic covenant, which is for Melito, not only a salvific work of God in its own right but a “type” of foreshadowing of the perfect salvation given in Christ.

Other great Christians such as Irenaeus of Lyon believed that the incarnation is real because it represents the unity of God with humanity and the Unity of human history with God. Most people in the early centuries thought that the flesh was something bad and evil hence “salvation” to most people was a way of “escaping” the flesh. However, Tertullian (A latin-speaking North African) insisted upon the fact that the flesh even with all its weakness and ugliness, is an object of God’s love. According to Tertullian, Jesus is constituted out of two “substances”, flesh on the one hand and spirit on the other, which are designations for human and divine ways of beings.

Another great theologian and founding father Origen of Alexandria also believed that God begets His Logos eternally and that there never was a time when the Logos did not exist and we see this same view in Athanasius who argued with the Arians concerning the “divinity” of the Son of the Word. Origen however shared Justin’s sense of the need for mediator between God and the visible and spiritual creation. As the Logos mediates God to the soul, so the soul mediates God’s Son to the body.

Arius, the Alexandrian Presbyter whose public teaching after A.D 318 occasioned the Trinitarian and Christological debates of the fourth century believed that the Logos performs and essential mediatorial role in the relation of God to the World. According to Arius, the Logos belongs to the created.
Many more problems evolved and among them were those created by Nestorius who became the Bishop of Constantinople in 428. Nestorius preached toward the end of his first year in office, a sermon attacking the view that the Virgin Mary is properly called “theotokos” (mother of God) and suggesting that she be styled instead “theodokos” “recipient of God”. But the question was whether it is proper to say that the divine Logos was born of a human mother. Cyril of Alexandria responded quickly. To make his point, Cyril dwelt not only on the language of John 1:14 (the Logos became flesh) but also on that of Phil. 2:5-11, which as he understood it showed the Logos “emptying himself” and taking on the “form” of human existence.

The debate between Nestorius Christological dualism and Cyril’s Christological monism came to a head at the council of Ephesus (431), where both sides were represented but met separately and mutually excommunicated each other. The original controversy was renewed in Constantinople in 448 as a result of the Condemnation of a monk name Eutyches who taught that Christ had only “one nature”.

The product of these various pressures was a document which took careful account of all of them. The “Definition” of the council of Chalcedon begins with an affirmation that the truth about the person of Christ and the mystery of redemption is satisfactorily stated in the creed of Nicaea as confirmed and expanded in the creed attributed to the council of Constantinople of 381. It goes on, however, to explicit condemnation of Appollinarianism, nestorianism, and Eutychianism to the extreme forms of both the Antiochene and Alexandrian Christological traditions.

As correctives to these heretical views, it proposed three documents; the Tome of Pope Leo, the second letter of Cyril to Nestorius, and Cyril’s letter to John of Antioch accepting the formula of Reunion of 433. These standards of orthodoxy are supplemented finally by a statement composed by the council itself in obedience to the wishes of the emperor.

The “Christological Controversy” by Richard Norris is a great book full of information. I like this book because it shows how history has helped shape Christianity. It also introduces the various heresies and how the Christian community responded to those problems.

[DaughterUK]

This is certainly an interesting post, Gloria. Thank you for giving me some food for thought.

The problem with the modern Churches is their lack of reasoning (logos, as it's technically called) when it comes to interpretting scripture, and applying those teachings to modern issues. I once encountered a group of Christians who were SERIOUS when telling me that Planet Earth is 4,000 years old... and when I told them that the scientific evidence againt that statement was utterly overwhelming, I was told that I'd end up going to hell for not accepting God's word. I told them that I accepted Christ, but I did not accept the rejection of scientific fact. I also asked them to show me, where in the Bible it gives the age of the planet. Upon finding no such verse, they left me alone.

At another point, some Jehovahs Witnesses attempted to get me to abandon my belief in evolution. Again, I pointed out that while Darwins original theory was incomplete and slightly faulty, he did at least get the basics right which have since been proven and thus enshrined in scientific fact. They were also busy telling me about the evils of blood transfusion. Now while I have respect for the beliefs of other people, I asked them why they thought that God would object to a blood transfusion when the person whose life has been saved could also later be saved in spirit by become a Christian if he was not already. They never knocked on my door again. Presumably they did not have an adequate rebuttal and thus had to withdraw from the debate table.

The Holy Spirit, being a part of God and therefore logical and discerning, would want the person to live, whilst the letter of the law misapplied would fascilitate an untimely death.

I believe that reasoning itself is a divine gift, given to us by God to make full use of. Why would evolution have taken this path if it was not God's will? It's an awful waste of a brain for people to simply accept what they are told without questioning things, isn't it? Reasoning connects the mundane with the divine. It's what connects modern science to faith. It's also what we need to continue our progress as a species. Reasoning is a very important part of what it means to be a Christian, and without it we are lost.

As to Christian History, all religions evolve from their original state. They have to in order to keep up with changes in culture and society, which as we know, are not static. A religion which fails to evolve fails to survive, just as a species which fails to evolve to a changing environment will fail to survive. What is a shame to me is that this evolution early on brought splits within the Church based on peoples interpretations of scripture. I'm pretty certain that God didn't intend there to be hundreds of denominations of Christianity, he actually wanted all of humanity to form a relationship with him by accepting Jesus and getting to know the Holy Spirit. For this reason, I do not tie myself to a specific denomination, knowing that all denominations have part of the truth but none having the whole truth.

Much of what was originally in the Bible has been lost and recently found. The Lost Gospels do make one wonder exactly how much was edited out by the early church. Had these have been kept intact, modern Christianity may or may not have been quite different.

DaughterUK

[Atubiga]

This post has really opened my eyes on certain issues. We as Christians sometimes consider the Bible and other Christian practices as though God himself made them or instructed us to do the same. It is kinda funny but that is why faith is so important in Christianity. We are not supposed to know everything. Just belief and blind faith

I enjoyed reading this thread. The Bible is just like any history book out there. This post will enable people to think twice before they do something stupid. Thanks for posting.