This excerpt is taken from an undergraduate, in-class debate between Holy Cross students studying the History of Early Christianity, arguing the orthodox position of Alexander and those of the Arians.
When problems or questions concerning the nature of the God arise, we must rely on the inspired Word of God and the tradition of those apostles we have succeeded. We know from sacred scripture that Jesus Christ, is the revealed Word of God who was begotten and not a product of God’s Creation. Jesus Christ the Son is one in being with God the Father as Christ articulates in John 10:30. Although Christ is not unbegotten with the Father, one cannot completely deny his humanity and claim he is merely human. The position of Arius is laughable. How can God the Father, unbegotten and eternal be Father before time if the Son is created at a later epoch in time?
Arius agrees that Jesus Christ is begotten of the Father (CLA, 164). Arius, however, uses the term “begotten” in a different way than that of Alexander and the Alexandrians. Arius uses the term to differentiate Jesus from the eternal and unbegotten Father, while Alexander uses the term to differentiate Jesus from Creation. Jesus, however, was with God in the beginning at Creation (John 1:1). All of Creation came through Him, therefore Christ could not be a part of Creation. Christ has the divinity of God, but is not God the Father (John 14:28). As Alexander points out (CLA 164), his hypostasis is the same as God (homoousios) but his nature as a begotten human being is different. Christ is the ineffable substance of God as Christ said to Philip: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9). In Matthew, Jesus describes the mystery of this substance: “For no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one has known the Father except for the Son” (Matthew 11:27). Whoever wishes to see the Father, must go through the Son. In terms of soteriology, Christ is the salvation that leads to His Father. Admittedly, Christ admits he is not his Father, which affirms the separation between the unbegotten and the begotten: “my Father…is greater than all” (John 10:29). To those heretics who question Jesus’ divinity as God, John writes: “The only-begotten Son, who was in the bosom of his Father” (John 1:18). Christ is made of the same substance of his Father.
A great number of those calling themselves believers in the same religion here in Alexandria claim Jesus was a part of Creation or made at a later time than we affirm in John 1. They call on portions of the Old Testament to support an idea of divine askesis, that Christ was a special human being who achieved a special status from good deeds. Yet the Old Testament subjugates our belief in Jesus as Son of God and Messiah who was before Creation: “I begot you from my womb before the morning-star” (Psalm 109:3). If God the Father is eternal as Arius also claims, then how could the Song be created at a later time? In order for God to be the Father, there must be the Son. The Begotten cannot be greater than the Unbegotten just as the created cannot be greater than the Creator, but the Begotten can be equal to the Unbegotten in divinity. We, the Creation made by God through the Son, are adopted children of God who cry out “Abba, Abba” as in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. We were created through Christ in God’s image (CLA 161). Christ was the “first born” (Colossians 1:15) and not part of the rest of Creation. All life came through Him (John 1:4).
To summarize, we believe in God the Father, unbegotten and Creator. We believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, begotten and not made, and consubstantial with the Father.
Works Cited:
Ehrman, Bart D. Christianity in Late Antiquity. London: Oxford University Press, 2004.
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