at the councilof Nicaea in 325CE, Arianism, gave way to Trinitarianism by a vote, does this make it truth?

Question

Constantine called , and headed, the first Council of Nicaea to, once and for all, bring orthodoxy to the Catholic Church (the only christian church at the time). The members, 318 Bishops, voted for Trinitarianism. how do Christians believe that the vote of 316 Bishops (2 voted for Arianism, the teachings of Arius, that believed Jesus was a lesser being than God, that god created him) can become the word of truth, THE TRUTH, that all other Christian beliefs are based. the Logos (trinitarianism) defies logic, thus relies on blind faith! if the Christian Hierarchy had anotherCouncil that voted that they were wrong, would you then believe this, if not why? why would you believe the first ? please explain your theories

Jadore, I see your point, but the Nicene Creed established the foundation of trinitarianism, but you miss the whole point, that if the Christian world believes in two theories of Origin (of God) how can it be taught as truth, if it was put to the vote?, who is to say that if the vote had been 50yrs sooner, christians might now be Arians?
how can it be truth, if it was voted on? what if it went the other way? does this not prove to you that religion is man made!

Boniface, what about all the Scripture, Acts, Gospels ect, left out of the Bible.

the early Christians followed the word of many Scriptures, it was men who decided which ones were deemed worthy of the Bible, this was done 200 years after the scripturs were written, how do you know they were the right ones? what about the dead sea scrolls?

why do Christians have such closed minds?
why do you not question the bibles authenticity? are you THAT closed minded!

Answer 1

Constantine wanted an ideology to unite an Empire.

Arianism diluted and split the deity and was not a useful idea for his propaganda, so they came up with this fudge -- there IS only one god etc....

If the vote had gone the other way, Constantine would have told them to try again until they got it right.
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Answer 2

The council voted in favor of what was already stated in the Gospels and what was believed by the early church (how could the Bishops in all concience do otherwise?) and that was why Arius lost.

Arianism was never the majority or the original teaching position of the church, the writings of: Polycarp (70-155/160). Bishop of Smyrna. Disciple of John the Apostle, Justin Martyr (100?-165?), Ignatius of Antioch (died 98/117), Irenaeus (115-190), Tertullian (160-215) and Origen (185-254) and the Gospels themselves all confirm the Trinity.

The reason that the Trinity doctrine was not "official" until the time of the Council of Nicea is because Christianity was illegal until shortly before the council. It wasn't really possible for official Christian groups from all over to meet and discuss doctrine. Nevertheless, with the exception of Arius and some Gnostics, everyone believed the Trinity anyway because that was what the Gospels said, so there would have been no reason for an overwhelming majority of delegates to vote against the Trinity.

But even if the council had got it wrong, ignored scripture and the early church fathers and voted with Arius - the trinity does not depend on a vote of men and anyone who read the Gospels and knew church history would have been able to tell that the council had in that case made a mistake, so it really didn't matter if the Council confirmed the Trinity or not.

Answer 3

Hell no,Constantine was a sun worshipping pagan!!!!

Lets unite my crumbling roman empire (i know it can be a holy empire based on religion instead of might as i dont have any anymore)
The truth will ultimately be what you perceive it to be as far as i know its virtually impossible to convince christians that the're wrong about anything
simon magus could do everything jesus could(must have been the devil)
mary magdalene must be a prostitute she wore red/purple(the colour adopted by bishops and cardinals
holy ghost/holy spirit-whats the difference between those and the original thought/wish/breath of the gnostics
knights templar,cathars all heretics(mabe just more wise)
look up black sun/isis and horus dying reborn gods(so jesus wasn't first)
akenathen(atenism first monothesim-so god,jehovah,yahweh wasnt first)
question to end on why does anybody think the bible is reliable? its not even all from the same place israel as you'd expect(sumeria,babylonia etc take gilgamesh(noah for example)

Answer 4

Did the Council of Nicaea establish, or affirm, the Trinity as a doctrine of Christendom? Many assume that this was the case. But the facts show otherwise.

The creed promulgated by that council did assert things about the Son of God that would allow various clergymen to view him as equal to God the Father in a certain way. Yet, it is enlightening to see what the Nicene Creed did not say. As originally published, the entire creed stated:

“We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible;

“And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down and became incarnate, becoming man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the heavens, and will come to judge the living and the dead;

“And in the Holy Spirit.”

Does this creed say that Father, Son, and holy spirit are three persons in one God? Does it say that the three are equal in eternity, power, position, and wisdom? No, it does not. There is no three-in-one formula here whatsoever. The original Nicene Creed did not establish or affirm the Trinity.

That creed, at most, equates the Son with the Father in being “of one substance.” But it does not say anything like that about the holy spirit. All it says is that “we believe . . . in the Holy Spirit.” That is not Christendom’s Trinity doctrine.

Even the key phrase “of one substance” (ho·mo·ou′si·os) did not necessarily mean that the council believed in a numerical equality of Father and Son. The New Catholic Encyclopedia states:

“Whether the Council intended to affirm the numerical identity of the substance of Father and Son is doubtful.”

Had the council meant that the Son and the Father were one numerically, it would still not be a Trinity. It would only be a two-in-one God, not three-in-one as required by the Trinity doctrine.

Answer 5

Arianism gave way to the force of the Roman Armed Forces. The vote was just one result of that. The extermination of the Arian heresy over the next 150 years was another result of it.

Answer 6

They voted, fair and square. Shouldn't the world be made to suffer for eternity from the results of this vote. Those who don't like it can go back and ask for a recount. Otherwise, it is too late now. Or, ... is it?

Answer 7

I don't think there is one true doctrinal position that everyone is ever going to agree on how we acknowledge Christ, whether flavoured by the Arian, Manichean, Roman, Nestorian or Athanasian stance.

What is certain about the message of Christ is that he came to save us from the mob rule of a mob identity with a religion/culture/nation that makes God in it's own image. Whether God is expressed in the form of a universal belief in the power of man as the master of the universe or whatever, Christ came to bring a message of God's love for victims of man's aggressive need for mob identity and for mob power and mob control. The vicitm is the poor, the weak, the hungry, the bullied, the exploited, the excluded, the downtrodden, the accused, the slighted, the robbed, the sick, the lonely, the tortured, the bruised, the broken, the mocked, the despised, the hated, the foreigner, the ones who are judged by others who have a pathetically ignorant judgement. These are just a small example of victims at the hands of man's inhumanity towards man.

The reason for Christ is to save man from the wickedness of man and the wickedness of man becomes more apparant the more he believes there is no final absolute authority on what is right and what is wrong.

The more you argue therefore for truth to be zeroed down to just a human/cultural phenomenon and the more you convince people of this as an 'honest' approach to the question of Christ's identity the more you will observe the human race descend into a nihilistic arena of no reliable truth.

In the vacuum of no truth, the imaginations of men can dream up any knowledge they like and with that knowledge be empowered to do what? Be nice to others? You honeslty believe this nonsense about a blank slate, and being conditioned by our environment like intelligent animals able to codify and regulate behaviour?

Knowledge is empowerment. Empowerment is control. Control is order. Order means rule and to rule you need to collectivise the ruled. To collectivise means slavery. Slavery is brutal and inhuman.

What the secular industrialists did approx 200 yrs ago, I do mean SECULAR, was create a monster of enslavement. Not enslavement to machines per se, but to the ideology of a man-centred universe evolved from pixie dust. From this belief in man as master on the throne of life, the industrial Egyptian / Sumerian / Greek / Roman has come back from the dead with a hybrid system that begs for melt down and the people's around the world whose lives have been sucked into this consumer madness have become slaves and victims therefore to ideas that have no authentic or reliable source for their existence as truth.

In view of man's recurring dilemma of living in a truth vacuum that causes civilisations to come and go like fruit flies, in which people repeatedly exercise power over dominions of flesh in order to construct meaning for their lives, don't you think that by now the human race has seen itself in the mirror? And, can't it face up to the truth that it's sin needs to be removed by someone who has far greater power to do it than mere regimes of knowledge?

Answer 8

The Bible is the source of the doctrine on the divinity of Christ and the Holy Trinity. Jesus said he was God. "The Father and I are one." As for the Trinity the baptismal formula Christ gave to his disciples was baptize them "in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." They are not three Gods. Jesus did not say baptize them in the nameS of..., etc. I am not an apologist but this is my understanding of it.

Answer 9

The Council was simply acknowledging what the self-authenticating, God-breathed Word teaches about the nature of God.

Answer 10

There's a big difference between "truth" and "fact".

Let them have their little "truths" -- I'll stick with the facts.