06_person_0119_scriptures_of_nicea

The speaker discusses Arianism and its scriptural arguments against the belief that Jesus is eternal with God. They reference John 3:16, Colossians 1:15, and Proverbs 8:22. The early Christians defended the doctrine of eternal generation, while Athanasius argued that Jesus is other than creation. In response to Proverbs 8:22, Athanasius questions whether God was ever without wisdom. Now, we won't have a chance to do this with every one of these, but for Arianism, I want to stop and look under the hood a little bit at what went on in Nicaea. One of the benefits of historical theology is getting to interpret the scriptures with the Great Tradition. There were three scriptural arguments that the Arians made when they denied that Jesus is eternal with God. John 3, Colossians 1, and Proverbs 8. John 3, 16 says, He is the only begotten Son of God, and they would say, See, that means He's not eternal. Colossians 1, 15 says that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation, and they would say, See, that means that He must be created. And then in Proverbs 8, 22, it says that wisdom was created before the foundation of the world, and they would say, See, if Jesus is the wisdom referred to in Proverbs 8, that must mean that Jesus was created. Well, for John 3, 16, we've already looked at how the Church responded to this. The early Christians maintained the doctrine of eternal generation and said that, yes, Jesus is begotten of the Father, but this happens from all eternity. And then for Colossians 1, 15, against their translation of that, Athanasius, the main hero of the Council of Nicaea, he took the same perspective as our English translations that this actually implies that Jesus is actually other than creation. Our English Bible shows that this is the firstborn over all creation. And he points out that in Romans 8-29, when he's trying to show similarity with the group and not being other than the group, he uses the word en to show among many brothers. And that's just one of his arguments. But for the last one, it's my favorite one. So in Proverbs 8-22, where it says that wisdom was created, Athanasius' response is just awesome. See, I would have said two different things. I would have said, first of all, this is just metaphorical language about wisdom personified. It's not literal. It shouldn't be taken that way. And secondly, I would have pointed out that the word created is not even there in the original Hebrew. It's just part of the Greek translation. This is actually the tactic of origin. But Athanasius' approach was way more effective. He just said, hold up, I want to clarify your position. Are you proposing that there was once a time when God was without his own wisdom? I mean, just so awesome. What do you say to that, right?