Schaff notes, “ The Fathers of the Council at Nicea were at onem time ready to accede to the request of some of the bishops and use only scriptural expressions in their definitions. But, after several attempts, they found that all these were capable of being explained away.” That was certainly correct.
Another is that the language is that Scripture itself does not adequately define what the Trinity is! Scripture does not give us a definitive explanation (as if it could). It must be put together synthetically.
I think Hilary of Poitiers summed it up precisely when he said, “But what man cannot understand, God can be”.
There is a harder reason the fifty six years took fifty six years, and it is not in the piece.
Same-essence is homoousios, and a synod at Antioch had condemned that exact word in 268, against Paul of Samosata, who had used it to collapse the Father and the Son into one person wearing two faces. So when Nicaea adopted it in 325, the objectors were not inventing a scruple about non-biblical language. They were citing a council.
Athanasius ends up having to deal with that directly, and his answer is that Paul meant something else by it. True, and also the weakest shape an argument can take, because it concedes that the word on its own settles nothing.
Your Rule of Faith point is what carries the weight, then. The term could not hold the creed on its own. It had to be read inside a pattern that was already there. Nobody could be shown the word and told to agree, and there are your fifty six years.
Schaff notes, “ The Fathers of the Council at Nicea were at onem time ready to accede to the request of some of the bishops and use only scriptural expressions in their definitions. But, after several attempts, they found that all these were capable of being explained away.” That was certainly correct.
Another is that the language is that Scripture itself does not adequately define what the Trinity is! Scripture does not give us a definitive explanation (as if it could). It must be put together synthetically.
I think Hilary of Poitiers summed it up precisely when he said, “But what man cannot understand, God can be”.
Had they laid 27 books on that throne the debate could have been over :-)
Ha
There is a harder reason the fifty six years took fifty six years, and it is not in the piece.
Same-essence is homoousios, and a synod at Antioch had condemned that exact word in 268, against Paul of Samosata, who had used it to collapse the Father and the Son into one person wearing two faces. So when Nicaea adopted it in 325, the objectors were not inventing a scruple about non-biblical language. They were citing a council.
Athanasius ends up having to deal with that directly, and his answer is that Paul meant something else by it. True, and also the weakest shape an argument can take, because it concedes that the word on its own settles nothing.
Your Rule of Faith point is what carries the weight, then. The term could not hold the creed on its own. It had to be read inside a pattern that was already there. Nobody could be shown the word and told to agree, and there are your fifty six years.