Council Day 3 – Vito

It is with great sadness that we could not come to an agreement on the Nature of Jesus. But this does not come as a surprise. There are two views that directly oppose each other. I understand that deleting some of the words in the creed will allow us to agree on most of it but creating a vague creed will do nothing but hurt the future of Christianity.  Heresies will rise up again and we will be back to square one, trying to defend the true nature of Christianity. Or worst, these heresies could become extremely powerful and ruin Christianity as a whole. Therefore, a vague creed is not going to give us unity, but instead chaos.

Towards the end of the council I feel as though we were so close to creating a creed we could all agree on, but we were at a standstill after the Alexandrian’s compromised to allow the word “begotten” into the creed. The Alexandrians agreed to the word “begotten” to promote unity and compromise; however, when they asked for compromise in return, Arius threatened to leave the church—promoting disunity in the church. This action astonished me because it makes me question if Arius is at this council for unity or to just dismiss anyone else’s view? I understand that he has his strong views and will not go against them, but so do we except we are trying to compromise.

We wanted compromise with the words “co-eternal” or “uncreated” to balance our compromise with “begotten.” I even suggested to use just one of those words or another word altogether in order to show that Jesus is not created nor born from God. However, I was met with direct opposition and absolutely no feedback on these suggestions from the Arians. If these changes cannot be made, then I cannot support the word “begotten” in the creed. And in all honesty, I do not know if I can sign a creed without emphasizing that Jesus is unborn and not a creature of God. He is divine and to call him a creature is to diminish his divinity.

I am anxious to see how we will resolve our discussion on the nature of Jesus: myself and others cannot support a creed that does not emphasize the true nature of Jesus and a vague creed may be the end of Christianity.