Athanasius and the Council of Nicaea

“Athanasius against the world.” Historically this was the epithet for Athanasius’s singular defense and interpretation of the Council of Nicaea. As we saw in our brief biography, when almost all of the bishops, theologians, and emperors stood against him theologically, ecclesiastically, and politically, Athanasius resolutely endorsed and championed the Nicene Creed as a true expression of the Catholic faith. In this chapter, we will examine his doctrinal defense of the Son’s true divinity and articulate his theological and scriptural arguments for why the Son is God as the Father is God. In the subsequent two chapters, we will also treat his defense and understanding of the Trinity, the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and the incarnation—all of which bear upon and are intertwined with Athanasius’s refutation of Arius and various “Arian” formulas that subsequently emerged, as well as his proactive exposition of the Nicene Creed.^[1]

The Making of the Crisis

To fully appreciate Athanasius’s theology concerning the ontological relationship between the Father and the Son, we first need to provide a brief summary of the ever-growing theological crisis that preceded and precipitated the Council of Nicaea. From apostolic times, the church proclaimed that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. However, almost immediately, as one can imagine, the issue arose as to how God can be one yet all three “persons” truly be God. Many attempts were made to conceive properly and articulate clearly this mystery of faith—frequently in a flawed manner or in what would later be deemed a heretical manner. Paul of Samosata (third century CE), bishop of Antioch, proposed, in order to preserve the oneness of God, that Jesus was merely adopted as the Son of God at his baptism. Such a proposal, obviously, denied the divinity of the Son as well as the Holy Spirit. Sabellius (third century CE) and other modalists argued that the one God changed the manner or mode of his expression in keeping with revelation. In creating, for example, he expressed himself as Father; in the incarnation, he expressed himself as Son; and in sanctifying humankind, he changed his mode of expression to that of the Holy Spirit. In so doing, God remains the one God but expresses himself in three different manners. While Sabellius upheld the oneness of God and hoped to express how all the “persons” were divine, he sacrificed the substantial integrity of each of the divine subjects. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit possessed no true ontological self-identity or depth.

Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254), following upon the apologists such as Justin Martyr (ca. 100–ca. 165), held that the Father possessed the fullness of the Godhead and from him, in a Platonic manner, the Son and the Holy Spirit eternally emanated. Importantly, for Origen, the Father was eternally the Father, for the Son eternally came forth from his very substance. Origen, then, believed he could uphold the oneness of God for the Son and Holy Spirit; while emanating out from him in a hierarchical manner, they each nonetheless shared in the Father’s one divine nature. Moreover, the Son and Holy Spirit possessed their own subjective identity as persons (hypostases) distinct from the Father precisely because they emanated out from him. Thus, Origen believed that he could uphold the oneness of God as well as the distinction of persons. However, there is an irreconcilable tension within Origen’s conception of  the  divine  Triad. The  Father  alone  possessed the  fullness  of the Godhead while the Son and Holy Spirit became lesser derivative expressions of it. The more the Son and Holy Spirit emanated out from the Father, and so attained their distinct identities, the less divine they became and also the less they were united with the Father—the Son being more divine than the Holy Spirit since the Holy Spirit emanated from the Father through the Son. Origen truly wanted to conceive and articulate the proper oneness and threeness within God, but he himself was aware of the tensions that resided within his attempt. Following Origen, theologians went in one of two directions. Some stressed the unity between the Father and the Son and so the full divinity of the Son; others emphasized the distinction between the Father and the Son and the Son’s subordination to the Father, and therefore minimized his divinity. This seemingly irreconcilable tension, a tension that was percolating over several generations, gave rise to the crisis that would confront the Council of Nicaea and would fling Athanasius into the protracted theological, ecclesial, and political fray.

Here, we should note that two presuppositions gave rise to the above faulty conceptions, even when well-intended, concerning the issue of how God can be one while the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit can all be truly God. First, it has been presumed throughout, most noticeably in Origen, that the Father alone and singularly constituted the whole of the Godhead. This presupposition followed upon the Old Testament revelation where God revealed that he alone is the one God. This was reinforced within a Platonic and Aristotelian Greek philosophical milieu, where there is only one God as opposed to a plethora of deities. From within a Christian context this one God, whether biblical or philosophical, would be the Father. Similarly, Christian theologians, such as the apologists and Origen, could easily employ the Neoplatonic notion that all reality emanates out from God and so the Son and the Holy Spirit emanated out from the Father. However, as we will see, both presuppositions are false, and it will be the Council of Nicaea and Athanasius who will demonstrate their falsity. Athanasius will perceive that because of the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God and the sending forth of the Holy Spirit, the conceptualization of who the one God is needs to be radically reconceived—and this took place at the Council of Nicaea. However, Arius (d. 336), a priest of Alexandria, also took as a given these two presuppositions, but he did so knowing that within such preconditions it was impossible for God to be one and for the Son to be God. Here, we must briefly articulate why Arius was convinced that the Son was a creature.

Arius’s Theological Position

Arius was not a systematic thinker and most of what we know about his theological stance is found within his opponents’ rebuttals, primarily Bishop Alexander (d. 328) and Bishop Athanasius (ca. 296–373). We can, nonetheless, know the core of his arguments and conclusions. For Arius, God is transcendent in that he is not only other than all else, but also far removed from all else. He is ineffably one and there is none like him. Unlike creatures, God is defined as ingenerate or unoriginate, without beginning or end. Being alone ingenerate, God is alone unalterable and unchangeable. For Arius, since God alone is unchangeably ingenerate, it would be metaphysically impossible for him to generate another ingenerate being. Two ingenerate beings, one dependent upon the other, would be a contradiction of terms and would destroy the unique ingenerate oneness of God. For Arius, God is a “monad” in that he alone possesses a singular mode of existence. Moreover, Arius rightly perceived the flaw in the principle of emanation. If God is absolutely one and so alone constitutes the whole of the Godhead, it is impossible for him to share his divinity with another, for that would demand that he change and mutate into a multiplicity, thus destroying his immutable oneness. And so, if the Son came forth from the Father and so shared in his divine nature, this would demand that there be two Gods, dividing the one nature of God into two. Arius, in his seemingly impeccable logic, concludes that the Son must be a creature. If God is defined as ingenerate, then for the Son to be “begotten” must mean that he is not ingenerate, and if he is not ingenerate, then he must be generate, and if he is generate, he must be a creature. For Arius, if God is one, there is no possibility that the Son can be God. Because God is eternally ingenerate, Arius argued, he was not always the Father and only became Father when he created his Son, the first and most divine-like of all creatures. Athanasius sums up Arius’s position:

God was not always a Father: The Son was not always: But whereas all things were made out of nothing, the Son of God also was made out of nothing: And since all things are creatures, he also is a creature and a thing made: And since all things once were not, but were afterwards made, there was a time when the Word of God himself was not; and he was not before he was begotten, but he had a beginning of existence: For he has then originated when God has chosen to produce him: For he also is one among the rest of his works.^[2]

In order to protect God’s singular immutable transcendent nature, Arius held that, while the Father created the Son, the Son created all else that existed, thus becoming the protective shield between the transcendent God and all finite reality. Moreover, since the Son or Logos/Word is a creature, he possesses those attributes that accrue to finite reality such as being changeable. This is why the Son or Word could become flesh and equally why he could not be truly divine. In becoming human, the Son would undergo a change, and as a human being he could suffer and die. While a created spiritual being could endure such changes and limitations, God himself, because of his immutable transcendent singular existence, could not and so the incarnation equally demands that the Son be a creature, though he is the most divine-like of all that is created. Here, Arius employs a constellation of Scripture passages that appear to prove his point. The following is an example.

How can the Son be from the Father by nature, and like him in ousia, who says, “All power is given unto me. . . .” If he was, as you [Nicenes] say, Son by nature, he had no need to receive but possessed it as a Son. Or how can he be the natural and true Power of the Father, who . . . says “Now is my soul troubled?” How can he be the Word of the Father, without whom the Father never was . . . who said upon the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” If the Son were, according to your interpretation, eternally existent with God, he would not have been ignorant of the [last] day, but would have known it as Word; nor would he have been forsaken who was coexistent; nor would he have asked to receive glory, who had it from the Father; nor would he have prayed at all; for being the Word, he needed nothing. But since he is a creature and one of the things originated, therefore he spoke in this way, and needed what he did not have, for it is proper to creatures to require and need what they do not possess.^[3]

According to Athanasius, Arius and his followers “deny the Eternity and Godhead of the Word in consequence of those human attributes which the Saviour took on him by reason of that flesh he bore.”^[4]

Arius, then, denied the divinity of the Son on two fronts: the divinity of  the  Son  necessitates  a  division  and  change  in  the  one  God  that is  metaphysically  impossible,  and  the  Son’s  becoming  human necessitates that he not be God because the transcendent God cannot undergo change in becoming a human or the limitations and weaknesses that ensue upon his being human. Arius, thus, brought to a head the issue of how both God can be one and the Son can be God. Arius’s position made it impossible to avoid this quandary and demonstrated that the flawed attempts to solve it would no longer serve. While the majority of the council fathers who gathered at Nicaea did not doubt that the one God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, they assembled unsure as to how they could adequately respond to Arius’s seemingly flawless theological and philosophical logic.

The Council of Nicaea

By the imperial decree of Constantine, 318 bishops (traditionally reckoned) gathered at Nicaea in 325 CE. Previously, when questions of orthodoxy arose, bishops and synods would muster appropriate Scripture passages to refute an erroneous position. However, because Arius had raised the question of the Son’s relationship to the Father to the ontological level, whether the Son was metaphysically God as the Father is God, Scripture passages could be interpreted in various ways. Those sympathetic to Arius’s position were very disposed to affirm that the Son was “the only begotten Son of the Father,” or “the perfect image of the Father.” Because they had already determined that the Son was a creature, they could interpret such statements as meaning that the Son was the only creature created by/begotten of the Father, and thus, as the supreme creature, he is the perfect created image of the Father. The council was, therefore, required to make distinctions never before made, as well as to define the Son’s divinity in a manner that would assure a proper reading and interpretation of Scripture. The result was the Creed of Nicaea:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, creator of all things, visible and invisible.

And in our Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Only-Begotten from the Father, that is, from the substance [ousia] of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being/substance [homoousion] with the Father, through whom all things were made, those in heaven and those on earth,

Who for us men and for our salvation came down and became flesh, was made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven and will come to judge the living and the dead,

And in the Holy Spirit.

However, those who say: “there was a time when he was not” and “before he was born he was not” and that he was made from nothing or who say that the Son of God may be of a different hypostasis or essence [ousia], or may be created subject to change and alteration, such persons the Catholic Church anathematizes.^[5]

The council first declares that the one God is the Father and, in so doing, professes that the proper name of God is “Father” and not some philosophical concept such as Arius’s “ingenerate.” Biblical revelation holds exclusive pride of place. Moreover, since the eternal God is Father, so he must be eternally Father of the Son. There was never a “time/when” God was not the Father, and so there never was a “time/when” the Son was not. Likewise, the Father, being almighty, created all things and he did so by creating all things through his eternal Son. Thus, unlike Arius, God did not first create his Son, who then created everything else. The Father is transcendent in that he exists in a singular manner distinct from all else, but he does not exist such that he is infinitely removed from all else. The act of creation that ontologically distinguishes the Father from all else is the very same act that establishes his intimacy with all creation. That the Father creates all things through his Son/Word accentuates both the eternal divinity of the Son as well as distinguishes the Son from the Father and simultaneously highlights the communion of the Father and Son in that the Father through the Son together co-create.

The council next declared that as there is one Father, so there is “One Lord Jesus Christ” who is “the Son of God.” Here, the council immediately tethers the divinity of the Son to the incarnation. Not only is the Son divine within the very being of God, but it is also the same divine Son who exists as a human being. This Son is “the Only-Begotten from the Father, that is, from the being/substance of the Father.” As the only begotten Son, the Son is not ontologically a different kind of being from the Father, a creature, but he is begotten from the very same being or nature as the Father, that is, he is begotten as truly divine. If the Son were not begotten from the Father as truly divine, then the Father would not truly be the eternally divine Father, for he would not have an eternally divine Son whom he eternally begot. The Father is eternally constituted as “Father” in eternally begetting his Son. Because the Son is from the very being or substance of the Father, this begetting is “God from God, light from light, true God from true God.” As one light enflames another light in which the first light is not diminished and the second light is distinct from the first, so God the Father begets God the Son, and so the Father and Son, while distinct, are both truly God.

Arius, as did many before him, held that to be “unoriginated” and “unbegotten” were synonymous, as were “originated” and “begotten.” Thus, if the Father is unoriginated and so unbegotten, then the Son, if he is begotten must be originated and so must be a creature. Nicaea, for the first time, initiates an important clear distinction. Since the Son is from the substance/being of the Father and so truly God, the Son is “begotten, not made.” What is begotten is always of the same nature as the begetter, and so the Son, as begotten, is of the same being/substance as the Father who begot him. God the Father created the world and so all creatures are of a different nature than God, but he begot his Son and so the Son shares in his very divine nature. Thus, while the Father is unbegotten and the Son is begotten, both are unoriginated in that the eternal Father eternally begets and does not make/create his eternal Son.

The council reaches its doctrinal climax in immediately proclaiming that the Son is homoousion (of one/same substance/being) with the Father. Since the Son is begotten of the substance of the Father—and so is true God and, therefore, begotten and not made—the Son is of the very same substance/being as the Father. While the council’s use of this non-scriptural word would cause controversy, as we will see in Athanasius’s defense of it, its insertion into the creed affirmed and confirmed that the Son is God in the same sense that the Father is God. It likewise, then, guaranteed that what was proclaimed in the New Testament concerning the Son’s divinity be interpreted metaphysically, that is, for the Son to be “the only begotten” from the Father and so the perfect image of the Father was for him to be ontologically God as is the Father.

One of the issues that would confront Athanasius, especially in his defense of the council’s use of the concept and term, was how homoousion should be understood and interpreted. Part of the difficulty was that homoousion could be understood in two problematic senses. First, it could be interpreted to mean that the Father and the Son were homoousion in that they generically shared the same substance, similar to two copper coins being homoousion because they shared the same substance of copper. If one understood homoousion in this sense, while the Father and Son would both equally be God, they would be two Gods just as there are two copper coins. Such an understanding would confirm Arius’s claim that there is no way that one can simultaneously uphold the oneness of God and the full divinity of the Son. Historically, this would not seem to be the understanding of the Nicene fathers. They were rarely accused of asserting two equal divinities.

Second, homoousion could have been understood to mean that the Father and the Son were one and the same substance in that they were one and the same being or entity. While some scholars think this second understanding was highly unlikely among the fathers, it is precisely this interpretation, as we will see, that causes the future critics of Nicaea to accuse it of heresy. If one was an Origenist bishop, especially with Arian sympathies, who held that the Father constituted the whole of the Godhead, and then were faced with Nicaea’s declaration that the Father and the Son were of the same one substance, one could easily conclude that the Father and the Son possess the same personal identity. This would be a form of Sabellian modalism. Such an understanding would cause, as Athanasius knew well, interminable debates, leading some to propose that the Son should be said to be homoiousian (of like being/substance) with the Father, so as to preserve the distinction between the Father and the Son.

While it is impossible to know with any accuracy which of the two understandings of homoousion the individual fathers at Nicaea held, if either of them, what can be said for certain is that they did wish to affirm the Son’s full divinity with the Father and, as clearly implied within the Creed, the distinct and individual identities proper to the Father and the Son. Thus, Nicaea wanted both to uphold simultaneously the ontological integrity of the Father and the Son as well as their being the one God, the same metaphysical entity or being. In the prolonged course of his interpretation and defense of the Nicene Creed, Athanasius would be forced not only to censure Arius’s and his followers’  errors  but  also  to  articulate  and  so  clarify  Nicaea’s  doctrinal affirmations.

While it does not pertain to the Son’s full divinity with the Father, which is the topic of this chapter, the council declared that the Son who is truly God, homoousion with the Father, is the same Son “who for us men and for our salvation came down and became flesh, was made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day, and will come to judge the living and the dead.” This incarnational proclamation, as we will see, will be very important when it comes to Athanasius’s own future defense and understanding of the incarnation. Likewise, it provides the basis for Athanasius’s soteriological, Trinitarian, and christological thought. Only if Jesus is truly the divine Son of God who actually became an authentic human being could humankind be saved.

Lastly, Nicaea makes an ever so slight reference to belief in the Holy Spirit. Toward the end of the Arian conflict, Athanasius will be, nonetheless, one of the first to provide a biblical and theological justification for and vindication of the Holy Spirit’s full divinity with the Father and the Son—even stating that the Holy Spirit, in keeping with Nicaea’s doctrinal program, is homoousion with the Father and the Son.

Having briefly examined the theological milieu prior to Arius, the crisis that Arius precipitated, and the Council of Nicaea, which attempted to terminate the crisis and so bring doctrinal peace, we will now examine Athanasius’s passionate championing and zealous elucidation of the Nicene doctrine, for the council did not bring concord but prompted a chaotic and protracted theological, ecclesial, and political conflict.

Athanasius’s Refutation of the Arians and his Articulation

of the Nicene Doctrine

Before delving into Athanasius’s theological conception of how God can be one while simultaneously upholding the full divinity of the Father and the Son, a few preliminary remarks are necessary. First, while scholars debate whether Athanasius wrote his twofold work, Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione, before or soon after the Council of Nicaea, both works demonstrate that his ensuing compositions did not arise out of a theological vacuum. They argue for the full divinity of the Son/Word in relationship to the Father and that together they are the one God. Secondly, Athanasius articulated his early position from within the conjoining relationship of Scripture and tradition, that is, the living apostolic faith of the church is but the doctrinal expression of what is proclaimed in Scripture. He will continue to employ this Scripture-tradition alliance within all of his subsequent writings. Third, soteriology lies at the heart of Christian doctrine. Throughout Athanasius’s entire corpus, beginning with his initial twofold work, upholding the full divinity of the Son/Word in relationship to the Father, and so the oneness of God, is essential for humankind’s salvation, for only if the man Jesus is truly the divine Son of God is redemption assured. For Athanasius, as we will see, the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation are inherently soteriological, and the whole of his soteriological theology is founded upon these two doctrinal truths.

Unsurprisingly then, Athanasius structures his early major three-volume work, Contra Arianos, around the disputed Scriptures surrounding the divinity of the Son. (We will especially see this when examining Athanasius’s understanding of the incarnation.)

For, behold, we take divine Scripture . . . and set it up as a light upon its candlestick, saying:—Very Son of the Father, natural and genuine, proper to his essence, Wisdom, Only begotten, and very and only Word of God is he; not a creature or work, but an offspring proper to the Father’s essence. Wherefore he is very God, existing one in essence with the very Father.^[6]

For Athanasius, the Scriptures themselves proclaim that “our Savior,” “our Lord Jesus Christ,” is “God and Son of the Father.”^[7] Only if the man Jesus is the true divine Son of the Father could he in truth proclaim: “He who sees me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), “because the Son’s essence is proper to the Father, and he in all points like the Father.”^[8] Only to Jesus, and not to angels, did “the Father show him to be his own proper and only Son, saying, ‘You are my Son,’ and ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’”^[9]

For Athanasius, then, unlike Arius, God is primarily defined by the biblical term “Father” and not by the philosophical designation “unoriginated.” Moreover, for God to be the eternal Father demands that he is eternally the Father of the Son. “Since the Father is always, so is the Word,” for “how can he speak truth concerning the Father, who denies the Son.”^[10] For God to be Father necessitates that he is Father of the Son. Therefore, being inseparable from his Father, “never was there when  he  (the  Son)  was  not,  but  he  was  always;  and  being  the Father’s Image and Radiance, he has the Father’s eternity.”^[11] There is an inherent ontological, relational bond between the Father and the Son, and so “when we call God Father, at once with the Father we signify the Son’s existence.”^[12]

Athanasius also makes a very important biblical distinction, one that is relevant today. While “unoriginate” defines God in relationship to the created order (that which is originated), it does not essentially define God in himself. “And as the word ‘Unoriginate’ is specified relatively to the things originated, so the word ‘Father’ is indicative of the Son. And he who names God Maker and Framer and Unoriginate, regards and apprehends things created and made; and he who calls God Father, thereby conceives and contemplates the Son.”^[13] God, therefore, has revealed himself to be, in his very essence, Father of his Son. To designate the Son as “originate,” and so a creature, not only dishonors him but also dishonors the Father, for the Father then is constituted “Father” only in relation to his created Son and not Father in his very divine being, that is, the eternal Father of the Son. “Therefore it is more pious and truthful to signify God from the Son and call him Father, than to name him solely from his works and call him Unoriginate. . . . [For] the title Father has its significance and bearing only from his Son.”^[14] Athanasius emphasizes that Jesus himself, as Son, taught his followers not to pray to “God Unoriginate” but to “Our Father.” Likewise, Jesus commanded the church to baptize “not in the name of the Unoriginate and Originate, nor into the name of the Uncreated and the Created, but into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for with such an initiation we too are truly sons; and using the name Father, acknowledge from that name the Word in the Father.”^[15] Here, we perceive Athanasius’s soteriological emphasis. The whole point of the divine Son becoming one of us was to make “us sons of the Father, and deify men by becoming himself man.”^[16] Thus, human beings are able to be assumed, through baptism, into the intimate divine life of the Trinity as Spirit-filled children of the Father only if the one who assumed humankind’s flesh is indeed the Father’s fully divine Son. Thus, for Athanasius, the perfection of the Father’s eternal fatherhood resides precisely in his eternally begetting his Son, whose eternal perfection lies  precisely  in  his  being  the  exact  image  of  his  Father.  Humankind’s salvation, for Athanasius, is predicated upon the perfect and inseparable divinity of the Father and the Son, for it is into that perfect and inseparable divine unity that saved humanity comes to share.

Following upon Nicaea’s distinction, Athanasius insists that “begetting” and “making” are entirely different notions. While God is unoriginate, this does not necessitate that the Son be a creature. The Arians “must constantly be told that the Son as well as the Father must . . . be called unoriginated,” in that both existed eternally. Moreover, for the Father to be “unbegotten” and for the Son to be “begotten” does not mean that the Father “made” (originated) his Son as he did creatures, but rather that the Father eternally “begot” his Son and so the Son, as begotten, is the same nature as the Father who begot him.^[17] Athanasius is clear that what is made is of a different nature than the maker. What is begotten is always of the same nature as the begetter. God made the world, but he begot his Son. One must remember, however, that unlike creaturely begetting where the begotten becomes a distinct, separate entity from the begetter, within the one God, while the Father and Son possess distinct identities, they are not separate beings.

Ensuing upon this, Athanasius stresses throughout Contra Arianos that the Son is begotten from the same ousia (nature) of the Father. While creatures possess a different nature than the Father and so are distinct beings, the Son, as the Father’s Word and Wisdom, is not external to the Father but “is ever the proper offspring of the Father’s ousia [nature].”^[18] To be the “proper offspring” means that the Son is “not foreign but proper to the Father’s ousia.”^[19] For Athanasius, for the Son to be begotten of the Father demands that he shares the Father’s same divine nature, “for it is all one to say that God is wholly participated,” and therefore the Son “has the real and true identity of nature with the Father.”^[20] To grasp the true meaning of Nicaea’s proclamation that the “Only-Begotten” is “from the same substance of the Father” is to perceive that the Son shares equally the Father’s very divine nature.

Without referencing Nicaea’s homoousion at this point, Athanasius grasps that the council, in professing the Son’s full divinity, declared the ontological participatory nature of the one God. Commenting on John 14:11, Athanasius writes:

For the Son is in the Father . . . because the whole being of the Son is proper to the Father’s ousia, as radiance from light and a stream from a fountain; so that whoso sees the Son, sees what is proper to the Father and knows that the Son’s being, because from the Father, is the Father and is therefore in the Father. For the Father is in the Son, since the Son is what is from the Father and proper to him, as there is in the radiance the sun, and in the word the thought, and in the stream the fountain: for whoso thus contemplates the Son, contemplates what is proper to the Father’s ousia, and knows that the Father is in the Son.^[21]

Because the Father and the Son co-inhere in one another, they together express “the identity of the Godhead and the unity of ousia.”^[22] “The fullness of the Father’s Godhead is the being of the Son, and the Son is the whole of God.”^[23] The Son “is proper to the Father’s ousia and one in nature with it.”^[24] For Athanasius, Christian worship bears witness to this truth. “He who worships and honors the Son, in the Son worships and honors the Father, for the Godhead is one.”^[25] Moreover, because the Father and the Son are one and the same God, both equally share the same divine attributes. The Son is “Almighty,” “Lord,” “Light,” “Forgiver of Sins,” for “the Son is the Father’s All.”^[26]

Even within this early refutation of Arianism and exposition of the Nicene doctrine, Athanasius argues that the Father and the Son are not distinct and separate natures but one and the same ousia. Thus, Athanasius does not suggest that the Father and Son share the same ousia in the generic sense, as two copper coins share the same ousia, but that they are one and the same entity or being, one and the same God. Likewise, while the Father and the Son are one and the same God, they possess their own distinct identities. It is the Father who begets his Son and so shares with him his very nature, and the Son is begotten of the Father and so properly shares in the Father’s very nature. The one God is the Father begetting his Son, and so the Father’s divine being belongs properly to the Son and the Son’s divine being is properly from the Father.

It has often been remarked that prior to 350—that is, twenty-five years after the Council of Nicaea—Athanasius in his three volume Contra Arianos only once made reference to the Nicene homoousion. There, he stated that the Son “is very God, existing homoousion with the very Father.”^[27] While Athanasius did state, as we already quoted, that the Son “is proper to the Father’s ousia and one in nature with it,” the question arises as to why he did not employ the term homoousion more often in his defense and articulation of the Son’s full divinity. There is no obvious reason, but one could suggest that Athanasius decided to make his point primarily and almost solely from within a biblical perspective, that is, upon the ontological relationship that exists within the proper understanding of God the Father being the Father of his divine Son. This would demand that the Son, as the proper begotten offspring of the Father, share in his one divine nature. For Athanasius, the biblical testimony was in itself adequate for articulating and defending both the oneness of God and the authentic divinity of the Father’s Son. However, as the theological, ecclesial, and political conflict intensified and the denunciation of Nicaea became more unyielding, Athanasius probably perceived that a biblical defense was no longer sufficient. The muddled situation propelled him to come to the defense of the Nicene homoousion and in so doing clarify its meaning.

The critics of Nicaea indicted its use of homoousion on four counts: (1) it was not a biblical term, (2) the Council of Antioch (268 CE) condemned it, (3) it either demanded that there be two Gods, or (4) it espoused a variety of Sabellianism. The more Athanasius addressed these concerns within the ensuing impassioned dispute, the more he became aware that homoousion was critical for upholding the biblical Nicene doctrine and, thus, for sustaining his own biblical defense and articulation of the Son’s full divinity with his Father. For Athanasius, only the term homoousion authenticated and guaranteed the proper reading of Scripture.

In his justification of Nicaea’s use of a non-scriptural word, Athanasius ironically points out that the Arians themselves employed non-scriptural words such as “ungenerate” and “there was a time when he was not.” Athanasius argues that it is precisely because Arius and his sympathizers perfidiously misrepresented the Scriptures, giving to such terms and phrases as “only-begotten,” “like,” and “image” their own deceitful meaning, that the council fathers “were compelled on their part to collect the sense of Scripture, and re-say and re-write what they had said before, more distinctly still, namely that the Son is ‘homoousios’ with the Father.”^[28] For Athanasius, even if Nicaea uses non-scriptural language, it does so precisely to guarantee and validate the proper reading of the sacred text, for “they contain the sense of the Scriptures, and expressing it, they convey it to those who have their hearing unimpaired for religious doctrine.”^[29] Athanasius’s apology for Nicaea’s use of a non-scriptural word and concept is still valid today, for its homoousion doctrine continues to guard against erroneous biblical readings and interpretations of who Jesus is as the Father’s Son.

In addressing the other allegations against the council’s usage of homoousion, Athanasius both exposes their inherent fallacies as well as clarifies a proper understanding of the council’s intent. Athanasius acknowledges that the Council of Antioch had condemned the use of the term homoousion, but he immediately demonstrates that it condemned a false use of it. In censuring Paul of Samosata, the council understood the term in a materialistic sense, and so, if the Son was homoousion with the Father, this would demand that God be divided into two Gods—similar to two copper coins being homoousion. The fathers of Antioch “said with good reason, that Christ was not homoousios.” The Council of Nicaea, however, professed a very different understanding. This council did not employ it in a materialistic sense but recognized that the Son was of the Father’s very nature, and because of this, he was “not of a different nature, as we are, and not separate from the Father, but that, being from him, he exists indivisible, as radiance is with respect to light.”^[30]Homoousion must now be understood as expressing the full divinity of the Son and the oneness of God, for he and the Father share one and the same ousia. Thus, for Athanasius, the accusation that the council professes two Gods is false, for the Father’s begetting of his Son is eternally constitutive of God’s one nature. The one God is the Father begetting the Son, and so the Son is homoousion with the Father, for together they share one and the same divine ousia.^[31] The “begetting” is not an act that takes place outside the being of God, or an act that causes alteration, change, or division within God. The “begetting” is the unalterable act by which the Father is eternally the Father of his Son. Thus, unlike all of Athanasius’s theological predecessors, such as Origen, the Father does not singularly constitute the whole of the Godhead. Rather, his very name demands that he be the Father of his Son, and, equally, the Son must then be the Son of the Father. Thus, the Son is homoousion, one in being, with the Father.

The most challenging accusation against Nicaea was that of Sabellianism. As noted when examining the Nicene Creed, if one continued to hold, as did the later Origenist bishops, that the Father alone constituted the whole of the Godhead, then to say that the Son was homoousion with the Father could easily be interpreted to mean that the Son and the Father are identical. However, Athanasius assures these critics that “the Father is ever the Father and never could become the Son, so the Son is ever Son and never could become the Father.”^[32] Even though Jesus stated that he and the Father are one and that the Father is in him and he is in the Father (see John 10:30 and 14:10) and so manifests that they are one ousia, for Athanasius, they are not “one thing twice named, so that the same becomes at one time Father, at another his own Son, for Sabellius, holding this, was judged a heretic. But they are two, because the Father is Father and is not the Son, and the Son is Son and not the Father—but the nature is one.”^[33] In designating himself as Son and the Father as Father, Jesus manifests that while they are the one God, they are distinct in their unique identities. Athanasius states that Nicaea, in employing the term homoousion, adamantly upholds this truth.

Neither do we hold a Son-Father, as do the Sabellians, and call him monoousion but not homoousion and thus destroying the existence of the Son. . . . For neither is the Father the Son, nor the Son the Father. For the Father is the Father of the Son, and the Son, Son of the Father.^[34]

The Father and the Son are not identical as to who they are and so are not monoousian (one and the same subject), but they are identical as to what they are (one and the same God), and as such the Son is homoousion with the Father. Thus, for Athanasius, the Nicene homoousion doctrine clearly articulates and resolutely confirms both the distinction of the Father and the Son as well as their oneness as God.

Nonetheless, as the unrelenting dispute careened from one theological option to another, some advocated the term homoiousios, like in substance. They did so to ensure the proper integrity of the Father and the Son. Basil of Ancyra proposed such a position and wanted to speak of the Son being “from the ousia” of the Father. Athanasius admired such efforts, but observed that homoiousian does not necessarily mean that the Father and the Son were “of the same ousia” and so equally divine.^[35] Athanasius perceived that homoiousian allowed the Arian party to agree that the Son is of like substance to the Father but not the same substance as the Father, and so not ontologically God. Only homoousion ensured that the Son of God is ontologically God as the Father is God.^[36]

[Because the Son is] the genuine offspring of the Father’s ousia, it would follow that he is inseparable from the Father, being connatural, because he is begotten from him. And this being the case, for good reason should he be called homoousion. . . . [For] the Son, being an offspring from the ousia, is one by ousia—himself and the Father who begat him.^[37]

Conclusion

It may appear that throughout the strident debate and ecclesial and political intrigues, the simple faith of the gospel was lost amid elusive theological and philosophical subtleties. During the later debate over which term was more apt, homoousion or homoiousian, the exasperated cry was heard: “What difference does an iota make?” Yet, Athanasius rightly perceived that it was the simple gospel that he was defending and that the salvation of the world demanded the erasure of that little “iota.” Only if Jesus was truly the divine Son, homoousion with the Father, was salvation assured. Moreover, Athanasius also was convinced that the mystery of the Trinity was clarified and preserved, and not dissolved, in the acid of philosophical rationalism.

As the Nicene doctrine was finally winning the field, a new theological issue concerning the Trinity arose: Was the Holy Spirit truly divine? If so, what distinguished the Holy Spirit from the Son? Athanasius, as one can imagine, eagerly and promptly jumped into this discussion. He did so, again, from within his own previously articulated biblical theology of the Trinity and of the Holy Spirit’s place within it. It is to this issue that we now turn.

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