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In 325 the Council of Nicaea defended the true
tradition against Arius, who taught that the Father
alone was truly God, that the Word was the most
excellent of creatures, created in time out of nothing,
and that the Holy Ghost was also a creature, inferior to
the Son. After long discussion it was defined that the
Word was consubstantial with the Father, homousion:
"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, the only-begotten Son
of the Father, that is, of the substance of the
Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true
God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the
Father, as the Greeks say, homousion, by whom all
things were made. And in the Holy Ghost."[115]
After this condemnation the heretics tried to cover up
their error by teaching that the Son was not properly
homousion or consubstantial with the Father, that is, of
the same essence, but that He was similar in nature, or
homoiousion. Such was the teaching of the
Semi-Arians; the Acacians said the Son was homoion,
that is, similar with regard to form and accidents.
These teachings were refuted by St. Alexander, the
bishop of Alexandria, and by St.
Athanasius.[116]
Note on the evolution of dogma or the progressive
understanding of dogma.
The definition of the Council of Nicaea on the
consubstantiality of the Word is clearly nothing more than
an explanation or more explicit statement of the
proposition contained in the prologue of St. John's
Gospel: "The Word was God." The consubstantiality
is not arrived at by an objectively illative process which
deduces a new truth from another, as, for example, when
we conclude that man is free from the fact that he is
rational. To arrive at the knowledge of this
consubstantiality an explicative process is sufficient, or
at the most a subjectively illative process, by which the
mind proceeds to the deduction of a new truth. By the
simple explicative process the second statement is shown to
be equivalent to an earlier simpler proposition.
The explicative process is most easy: God is one, but
the indivisible and infinite divine nature cannot be
multiplied. This monotheism is manifestly based on
faith, for we read, "Wear, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord" (Deut. 6:4); "See ye that I
alone am, and there is no other God beside Me"
(Deut. 32:39); "And Jesus answered him:...
the Lord thy God is one God" (Mark 12:29);
"We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that
there is no God but one" (I Cor. 8:4).
On the supposition of monotheism, we read further,
"And the Word was God, " or, the Word, the
only-begotten Son of God, is God, like the Father.
Therefore the Father and the Son are consubstantial,
that is, they are not distinct with regard to essence and
substance but only by reason of paternity and filiation,
which is the opposition of relation. Again, Jesus
said, "I am the truth and the life." This process
does not attain to a new truth deduced from that revealed
truth, "And the Word was God, " but it explains it
on the supposition that monotheism is established.
Therefore, in spite of what has been said by recent
students, the divine consubstantiality is not a
theological conclusion sanctioned by definition.
St. Athanasius, from another approach, proves the
consubstantiality by a proper illative process from two
revealed premises.[117] St. Athanasius declared:
Only God deifies, or makes divine by participation.
But the Word of God deifies us. Therefore He is
God, and consequently homousios with the Father, from
whom He proceeds not by creation but by generation in the
identity of nature.
Father Marin Sola teaches: "The consubstantiality
defined by the Council of Nicaea was a revealed truth.
But where and how was it revealed? It was revealed in
other truths, which contained it implicitly and from which
it was deduced by reasoning. These other truths are:
1. Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God; 2. in
God there is simple unity and there can be no division of
substance."[118]
At this point we depart from Sola and Batiffol, holding
that consubstantiality is not really a theological
conclusion but a truth of faith more explicitly stated.
Having posited the revealed proposition, "The Word was
God, " no objectively illative process is required to
understand consubstantiality. This consubstantiality does
not express a new truth, but the same truth in a more
explicit manner, as when we proceed from the nominal
definition of man to the real and explicit definition,
namely, man is a rational animal. If certain
theologians, like Bellarmine,[119] say that
consubstantiality is deduced, it is deduced by the
explicative process, or perhaps, as we have said, by an
illative process from two premises already revealed. Here
we must also keep in mind the transition from concrete
knowledge to abstract knowledge. Abstract knowledge is
already contained implicitly, and not only virtually, in
the concrete knowledge of the same thing, and the
transition is made without any objectively illative
process.
In this way St. Athanasius argued to prove the divinity
of the Holy Ghost against the Arians and the
Macedonians: inasmuch as the Holy Ghost sanctifies us,
that is, deifies us by a participation in the deity.
Furthermore, St. Athanasius said: "The Father
begets necessarily and at the same time freely; and He
does not create necessarily but freely." In explanation
he said that the Father necessarily and freely loves
Himself but not as a matter of choice. It follows that
in God generation is eternal since God was always the
Father, and similarly spiration is eternal, otherwise
neither the Son nor the Holy Ghost would be God,
because they would not then be eternal. In refuting the
Arians, St. Athanasius concluded: "Nothing created
can be found in the Trinity, since it is entirely one
God."[120] After the Nicene Council many other
councils confirmed this teaching against the Macedonians,
who had denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost,
particularly the Fourth Council of Rome (380) and
the Council of Constantinople, which expressly defined
that the Holy Ghost was God. With this we conclude the
testimony of tradition, for after the Nicene Council the
Church clearly taught the mystery of one God in three
distinct persons.
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