The Doctrine Of The Incarnation Analysis

The Doctrine of the Incarnation is at the centre of biblical Christianity. The Book of John reads, “I and the Father are one” as Jesus says to detail his relationship with God. Furthermore, John 14:11 goes on to reiterate this when he declares “Believe me when i say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” This brings forth the idea that Jesus and God are shown in the bible to be one- equal and of the same substance. In his work, Homoousios With The Father, Heron discusses the truth behind the Doctrine of the Incarnation and the idea brought forth at the Council of Nicaea, that God and Christ are “homoousios”- or one in the same-, with reference to Aruis, who believed that it was important to relegate the Doctrine to logically paradoxical
and simply unsound within the realms of epistemology, and Athanasius, who promoted the Doctrine as truth within the domain of Christianity, in so much as Christ is the Father incarnate, designated to be the Word of God on Earth.

In order to fully fathom the response to the idea that the Doctrine of the Incarnation is myth, we must first understand Heron’s standpoint as being in support of Athanasius’ view and condemning of Arius’ scepticism of the truth behind the Doctrine.
The question of how a theologian would respond to Arius’ accusations of the mythology behind the doctrine give a clear impression that the doctrine itself does not provide any evidence for mythology; it is only when attempting to disprove the doctrine that one is led to the idea of mythology influencing
Christianity.

The Bible helps to reinforce the idea of Jesus as God incarnate through the idea that he fulfilled numerous prophesies from the Old Testament. For example, His Imaculate Conception, His resurrection from the dead, and the many miracles that He performed- for example, turning water into wine and healing the blind and sick.

As Heron writes, at the council of Nicaea there was a discussion on the presentation of Jesus as being God incarnated, and of equal importance and value as His Father. The Council was fully supporting of the idea that Christ and the Father are one being- “that his being derives from the being of the Father himself and is therefore shared with the Father.” In the creed from Nicaea, before the rewriting at Constantinople, it is written that Christ is “begotten, not made, homoousios with the Father.” Use of the term homoousios here is important, as this is the basis for Arius’ scepticism of the doctrine and his refusal to accept it as truth within his faith. In his argument, Arius states that, by agreeing with the Doctrine of the Incarnation and accepting all it says, it is a worry that by ignoring the differences between the Father and the Son, one is in danger of merging the two- or adopting a Sabellian point of view and seeing the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as different modes or aspects of the one true god (which, in turn, causes the Son and the Holy Spirit to lose their substance), rather than taking a Trinitarian approach which views the parts of the Holy Trinity as three coexisting and co-eternal parts of the Godhead, but with their own separate identites. On this note, it is also important to understand that Arius- as well as others- could not respect the use of the word “homoousios” as it is taken from older, gnostic views and not Christian history. This led to uncertainty over the use of the term as it was not inherently Christian.

Moreover, Arius puts forth the argument that fathers surely come before their sons. Therefore, if Christ is to be seen as “the son”, he must come after the Father and therefore is not God. An example of this comes from Eusebius of Caesarea, who says that, “the Son is of the Father, but not as as being a part of his essence.” This suggests that Jesus is “of the ousia” of the Father and not necessarily homoousios. However, it could be argued that we place human constraints on the terms “father” and “son”, and that we cannot comprehend the divine relationship between God as the Father and Christ as the Son. It seems that Arius tries to fit God into a human mould, and tries to define Him which is ultimately impossible as He is so far beyond our scope of understanding, that we cannot put a distinct definition on the relationship between the Father and Son.

By Arius believing that the Doctrine of the Incarnation is false, and rejecting the idea that God and Christ are one in the same, he leads us to a problem in that by worshipping both of them he is practicing polytheism and is himself bringing in a sense of mythology- almost like Jesus is a demigod from within Hellenistic folklore.
With God as his father and Mary as his mother, Arius could not see Christ as fully God. Therefore, he is practicing idolatry, in that, by still worshipping Jesus, he is looking to a false God for guidance and redemption. Heron puts forward that, “The same Arius who professed such concern to safeguard the infinite transcendence of the One Father proposed nevertheless to worship a creature alongside God!” It could, however, be argued that, by God allowing another to be worshipped but him, that the first of the ten commandments is, in fact, being broken. The words of God are this: “I am the Lord your God… You shall have no other gods before me.” The words of Exodus clearly speak for themselves, however Heron evidently has a problem with the idea that Arius could not believe that Christ was His Father incarnate, yet still worships him
nonetheless.

Furthermore, Arius has then gone on to defend and define the heresy for which he is the namesake. His principle was that only the Father and the Father alone is God. Jesus Christ as the son, according to Arius, was created by the Father- established out of nothing by God before the rest of the universe was created- “The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works… before the hill, I was given birth”. This reinforces the idea that there was indeed a time when the Christ the Son had not been in existence. Taking this assumption, it is logical to go on to say that Christ is therefore gennetos- or created by God. This brings forth the question, if the Father is agennetos (in that he was never created because he has always existed) and the son is gennetos (as he was created by the Father before the universe) then how could the possibly be homoousios, or the same? Arius believed that he was defending the one elementary truth within Christianity (a monotheistic religion) that there is only one God. He took the divine status of Christ to mean that the Father and the Son were two separate gods, which needless to say contradicts the many statements of the Bible about God’s oneness.

In contrast to the views and allegations placed on the church by Arius, Athanasius took the opposing stance in that he believed we needn’t question the idea that Jesus and God are of the same essence- for the Father created the Son and He is therefore in Him. The Athanasian creed- although not actually written by Athanasius himself- seems to be in conjunction with his views:

“But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal… So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.”

However, it seems to many, including Arius, that there are too great an amount of underlying contradictions for the doctrine to be logically sound and truthful. Nevertheless, a Christian theologian would argue that God and his greatness are so incomprehensible that our human minds cannot grasp the full meaning of The Father as God and the Son also as God. Therefore, maybe it is not a contradiction at all, but just too beyond our realms of understanding. To draw to a close, it seems that through his use of logic and reasoning, Arius was adamant that the use of the term “homoousios” within the sphere of Christianity was misplaced and simply wrong when it has such a broad meaning, which is often so easy to miniterperet. It seems that he believes there to be a logical contradiction within the Christian Doctrine of the Incarnation and it was a large part of his findings that caused him to drive a wedge between the idea of both the Father and the Son existing equally as God and then lower the status of Christ from divine being to something more human-like, bringing with it the possibility of an influence from Hellenic mythology. However, the fatal flaw of Arianism is this: The attempt to place the idea of God, Christ and their divinity into human constraints tends to lead to wrong conclusions as any attempt to humanize Him will undoubtedly conclude with misjudgements. Therefore, it looks to be that in order to fully believe and accept the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as being of one essence, it is necessary to understand that, as only human and not divine, we do not have the capacity to fully comprehend the Doctrine of the Incarnation.