POST-NICENE TESTIMONIES

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.