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2024-08-102024-08-11

Arius described the Son as mutable but unchangeable.

Summary

Following ancient Greek philosophy, theologians generally accept that God is immutable, meaning, unable to change. The question arises, Is God’s Son also immutable? Can He change? In particular, can He become evil?

Arius’ opponents Alexander and Athanasius believed that the Son is part of the Father. (See here) As such, the Son is as immutable as the Father.

The Nicene Creed similarly anathematizes those who say, “The Son of God is … subject to alteration or change.”

Arius described the Son as “Like the Father, ‘unchangeable’.” (RW, 96) However, his enemies Alexander and Athanasius claimed that Arius taught the exact opposite, namely, that the Son is, “like all others … subject to change.” (Athanasius in Contra Arianos(v), RW, 100) Arius’ thinking was as follows:

By nature, the Son is mutable. His enemies preferred to emphasize this point.

God did not override the Son’s freedom (mutability). God did not make it impossible for His Son to change or to sin.

The Son does not sin because He loves righteousness and hates iniquity. He is “unchangeable” because He will not sin; not because He cannot sin.

God had always given the Son all authority in heaven and earth because He always knew His Son would never sin.

Note how Arius’ enemies emphasize the one part of Arius’ thinking, that the Son is mutable by nature, and omits that Arius also said the Son will never change. This is one example of how Athanasius misrepresents Arius. (Read more)

The Son came to this world to be tested to see whether He would also sin under the ‘right’ circumstances. (See here) If He couldn’t sin, His victory over sin would be meaningless.

Purpose

Since Athanasius wrote that Arius taught the Son is mutable, why did Arius say the Son is unchangeable?

Theologians generally agree, based mainly on the principles of Greek philosophy (See – Classical Theism), that God is immutable, meaning “unchanging over time.” All other beings are then thought to be subject to change.

Ancient Greek philosophers thought that God cannot change. For example, Plato argues that God is perfect and cannot and does not change. (Wikipedia) Aristotle called God ‘The Unmoved Mover’.

Origen said: “The divine (is) distinguished from the rest by possessing immutable existence not subject to the change.” (RH, 67).

The question arises, Is God’s Son also immutable?

Arius’ opponents Alexander and Athanasius believed that the Son is part of the Father. (See here) Consequently, the Son is as immutable as the Father.

In the Nicene Creed, the Son is begotten from the substance of the Father and is of the same substance as the Father. This implies that He is as immutable as the Father. The Creed anathematizes those who say, “The Son of God is … subject to alteration or change.”

Arius argued that, since the Father has begotten the Son, the Father has caused His existence and the Father alone exists without a cause. Therefore, the Son could be thought of as created. As such, He must also be mutable. But Arius described the Son as:

“Like the Father, ‘unchangeable’” (RW, 96).

The purpose of this article is to explain why Arius described the Son both as a ‘creature’ and unchangeable.

Arius is important.

Arius is traditionally regarded as the mother of heretics but Trinitarian scholars now say he was a good theologian.

The term ‘Arian’ is derived from the name of the fourth-century presbyter Arius. Traditionally, “Arius … came … to be regarded as a kind of Antichrist among heretics” (RW, 1). However, scholars have recently said: “Once we stopped looking at him from Athanasius’ perspective, we shall have a fairer picture of his strength” (RW, 12-13).

The point is that most of what we know about Arius comes from Athanasius’ criticism of Arius’ writings and “Athanasius, a fierce opponent of Arius … certainly would not have stopped short of misrepresenting what he said” (RH, 10). Athanasius used “unscrupulous tactics in polemic and struggle” (RW, 239).

Since most theologians over the centuries had taken Athanasius at his word, Arius’ theology has traditionally been “represented as … some hopelessly defective form of belief” (RW, 2). But Rowan Williams recently, after careful study of the ancient documents, described Arius as:

“A thinker and exegete of resourcefulness, sharpness and originality.” (RW, 116)

“An important dimension in Christian life that was dis-edifyingly and unfortunately crushed.” (RW, 91)

For that reason, it would be appropriate for us to take note of what Arius wrote. Read more

Authors Quoted

This article series is based on books by world-class scholars of the last 50 years.

Due to research and a store of ancient documents that have become available over the last 100 years, scholars today conclude that the traditional account of the Controversy – of how and why the church accepted the Trinity doctrine – is history written by the winner and fundamentally flawed. In some instances, it is the opposite of the true history.

Following the last full-scale book on the fourth-century Arian Controversy in English, written by Gwatkin at the beginning of the 20th century, only a handful of full-scale books on the Arian Controversy have been published. This article in particular quotes from:

RH = Bishop RPC Hanson
The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God –
The Arian Controversy 318-381, 1987

RW = Archbishop Rowan Williams
Arius: Heresy and Tradition, 2002/1987

‘Arian’ is a misnomer.

Arius did not have followers. Athanasius invented the ‘Arian’ concept as a polemical device.

Arius was already dead when Athanasius wrote. However, he used Arius as a stick to beat his opponents with. He called his opponents ‘Arians’, meaning followers of Arius, and then selectively quoted Arius as an attack on his opponents.

But his opponents were not followers of Arius. Arius did not leave behind a school of disciples. He had very few real followers. Nobody regarded his writings worth copying. His theology played no part in the Controversy after Nicaea. The term ‘Arian’, therefore, is a serious misnomer. The only reason so many Christians believe Arius was important is because they accept Athanasius’ distortions. (Read more)

In reality, Arius was part of a group we may call the ‘Eusebians’; followers of Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebius of Nicomedia. (Read more) Consequently, this article series often refers to the anti-Nicenes as the Eusebians rather than ‘Arians’.

Alexander and Athanasius

Athanasius claimed that Arius described the Son as “changeable by nature” “like all others.”

Athanasius, in his paraphrasing of Arius’ writings, claimed that Arius wrote:

The Son is “like all others … subject to change … because he is changeable by nature” (Contra Arianos(v), RW, 100; cf. RH, 13).

“God foresaw that the Son was going to be good, and so exempted him from evil in advance, i.e., deprived him of the possibility of earning merit” (RH, 21; cf. RH, 13).

This quote is from Contra Arianos in which Athanasius paraphrases Arius’ theology. Williams confirms this “has no parallel in S, nor any in Arius’ letters” (RW, 104). (“S” stands for de synodis 15, the other work by Athanasius in which he seems to quote Arius’ actual words.)

Alexander also claimed that Arius described the Son as “of a mutable nature.”

Alexander was Arius’ bishop. The Arian Controversy began as a dispute between them. Two of Alexander’s letters “emphasize very strongly that Arius taught a mutable Logos, whose divine dignity is a reward for his unswerving spiritual fidelity” (RW, 104). Alexander described Arius as saying that the Son “is of a mutable nature” (RH, 16-17) and “mutable and alterable in his nature as are all rational beings” (RH, 16; cf. RW, 104-5).

Arius

In his own writings, Arius said that the Son is and always was unchangeable.

In the three letters of Arius that have survived, he described the Son as:

- - “Like the Father, ‘unchangeable’” (RW, 96).
  - “Stably and inalienably” (L, RW, 97).
  - “Unchangeable and unalterable” (RH, 7; cf. RH, 6, 8).
  - “By the will of God, the Son is stably and unalterably what he is” (RW, 98).

While Alexander claimed that Arius’ Son is mutable because He was “promoted because of virtue” (RW, 113), namely, that His “divine dignity is a reward for his unswerving spiritual fidelity” (RW, 104), Arius said that the Son always had His “divine dignity:”

“Arius’ scheme depends upon the fact that God bestows power and glory upon the Son from the beginning” (RW, 113).

“The Son (was) creative Word and Wisdom and the image of the Father’s glory from before the world was made” (RW, 114).

There was no “sort of change in his status … (no) time when he is not Wisdom and Word” (RW, 114).

Arius’ Rationale

Rowan Williams explains how Arius could describe the Son as both a creature and as immutable on pages 113-116 of his book:

By nature, the Son is mutable. The Son has divine attributes, not by nature, but because He receives them from the Father.

For Arius, the Son “does not by nature possess any of the divine attributes … his godlike glory and stability [immutability] … and so must be given them” (RW, 113-114).

For example, the Son has life in Himself and all the fullness to dwell in Him, but He received those things (John 5:26; Col 1:19).

God did not override the Son’s freedom. God did not make it impossible for His Son to change or to sin:

“As a rational creature he is mutable according to his choice and what is to be avoided here is the suggestion that God overrules the Son’s freedom by his premundane [before the creation of the world] gifts and graces” (RW, 114).

The Son does not and will not sin because He hates iniquity, not because He cannot sin. In that sense, He is immutable:

In Arius’ view, “the Son, in his pre-incarnate state and in his life on earth voluntarily ‘loved righteousness and hated iniquity’” (RW, 114).

God always knew that His Son would never sin. Even though the Son can sin, God has given Him all authority in heaven and on earth and “all the gifts and glories God can give” (L, RW, 98) right from the beginning. If the Son would sin, that would cause great unhappiness. However:

“God, in endowing the Son with this dignity of heavenly intimacy from the very beginning of his existence, is … acting not arbitrarily but rationally, knowing that his firstborn among creatures is and will always be worthy of the highest degree of grace, a perfect channel for creative and redemptive action, and so a perfect ‘image’ of the divine” (RW, 114-5).

Conclusions

Arius did not describe the Son as immutable because He cannot sin; He is immutable because He will not sin.

The Son came to this world to be tested to see whether He would also sin under the ‘right’ circumstances. (See here) If it was impossible for Him to sin, His victory over sin would be meaningless.

While Arius wrote that the Son is immutable, Athanasius, without an explanation, stated that Arius taught the exact opposite. This is one example of how Athanasius misrepresented Arius. “Athanasius … certainly would not have stopped short of misrepresenting what he (Arius) said” (RH, 10). We must not blindly accept what Athanasius wrote.

Arius did not say there was time before the Son of God existed.

OVERVIEW

The Arian Controversy is named after Arius, a fourth-century presbyter. He taught that the Son was begotten before time and the creation existed. However, since the Son was begotten by the Father, he also argued that the Father existed before the Son. Therefore, while the Father had no beginning, the Son had a beginning of existence – outside time.

Arius never said there was ‘time’ before the Son. He always said the Son was before time. Very little of Arius’ writings survived. Almost everything we know of him comes from the writings of his critics, particularly Athanasius. Athanasius claimed that Arius said there was “time” before the Son existed. However, Athanasius had an ulterior motive. As discussed here, he wanted the world to believe that his enemies – the anti-Nicenes – followed Arius, which they did not. But that motivated Athanasius to ‘quote’ extensively from Arius and to present him in the most negative light possible. To determine what Arius really wrote, we should rather accept the Nicene Creed, which does not use the word “time” in its anathema:

“But as for those who say,
There was when He was not …”

When I began this article series, I thought that Arius was important. Consequently, I wrote several articles explaining his theology. I have since realized that Arius was not important. He had no followers and the people of his time did not regard him as an important writer. (Read More) The only reason that so many today regard him as important is because Athanasius claimed that the anti-Nicenes were followers of Arius, which is false. Therefore, I no longer regard these articles on Arius as important to understand the ‘Arian’ Controversy.

AUTHORS

This article series is based mainly on the books of three world-class scholars who are regarded as specialists in the fourth-century Arian Controversy, namely:

RH = Bishop RPC Hanson
The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God –
The Arian Controversy 318-381, 1987

RW = Archbishop Rowan Williams
Arius: Heresy and Tradition, 2002/1987

LA = Lewis Ayres
Nicaea and its legacy, 2004
Ayres is a Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology

This article uses the following codes for certain ancient documents:

- - EoN – Arius’ letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia
  - AoA – Arius’ letter to Alexander of Alexandria
  - De Synodis – Athnasius’ quote of Arius
  - A1 – Alexander’s first letter in which he explains why he excommunicated Arius
  - A2 – Alexander’s second letter

THE ARIAN VIEW

The Son existed before Time.

Arius taught that the Son existed before time.

As is also taught by the Bible (e.g., Col 1:16; Heb 1:2), Arius maintained that God created all things through His Son (RH, 13). Therefore, the Son must have existed before all things. Consistent with this, Arius wrote that the Son:

“Exists … before times and before ages” (EoN, RH, 6),

Was “begotten timelessly by the Father … before aeons … begotten timelessly before everything” (AoA, RH, 8). (An aeon is “an indefinite and very long period of time.”)¹²

Eusebius of Caesarea, regarded as the most scholarly bishop of Arius’ time, and who supported Arius all his life, similarly taught that the Son was “begotten before all ages” (RH, 56).

If we assume that “the beginning” in John 1:1 was when all things were created, as is implied by John 1:3, then Arius would have said that the Logos was with God “in the beginning.”

He did not always exist.

Arius also argued that the Son did not always exist but that God existed before His Son.

Arius frequently said that the Son did not always exist. For example:

“There was when He was not” (Nicene Creed of AD 325).

He “did not exist before he was begotten … for he is not eternal nor co-eternal, nor co-unoriginated with the Father” (AoA, RH, 8).³⁴

Therefore, the Father existed before the Son. Arius wrote similarly:

“Nor does he possess being parallel with the Father … thereby introducing two unoriginated ultimate principles, but as the … origin of everything, so God is prior to everything. Therefore he is also prior to the Son” (AoA, RH, 8).

In other words, Arius argued that, if the Son had always existed, there would be “two unoriginated ultimate principles,” meaning, two Beings who exist without cause and gave cause to all else, which is impossible.

Eusebius of Caesarea referred similarly to God as “prior to the Logos” (RH, 48).

He had a beginning.

Therefore, He had a beginning, in contrast to the Father who had no beginning of existence.

For example, Arius wrote:

The Father “is supremely sole without beginning” (AoA, RH, 8).

“We praise him as without beginning in contrast to him who has a beginning” (De Synodis, RH, 14, 31)

There was no ‘time’ before the Son

Arius never said there was ‘time’ before the Son. That is what his enemies said he said.

Very little of Arius’ own writings have survived but, in what has survived, Arius never used the word “time” to say that there was “time” before the Son was begotten. However, according to Arius’ two main enemies – Athanasius and Alexander – Arius did add that word. For example, Athanasius, in his paraphrasing of Arius’ teaching, stated that Arius taught:

“God was not always Father, but there was a time when he was solitary. The Son did not always exist” (RH, 13).

In De Synodis, which does seem to be a direct quote, Athanasius wrote:

“We worship him as eternal in contrast to him who came into existence in times” (De Synodis, RH, 14).

Similarly, Alexander described Arius as teaching:

“There was a time when God was not Father” (A1, RH, 16).

“There was a time when he did not exist” (A1, RH, 16).

“There was a time when the Son of God did not exist” (A2, RH, 17).

So, according to Athanasius and Alexander, Arius apparently wrote that there was literal time before the Son existed. On the other hand, Arius himself wrote that the Son was “begotten timelessly before everything.” Did Arius contradict himself?

Many commentators have thought so. For example, “Gwatkin characterizes Arianism as … a crude and contradictory system” (RW, 10).

On the other hand, however, the Trinitarian Bishop Rowan Williams, after writing a recent book about Arius, concluded that Arius “is a thinker and exegete of resourcefulness, sharpness and originality” (RW, 116).

This apparent contradiction may be explained as follows:

EXPLANATION

God exists ‘outside’ time.

Time is limited to our universe. God exists ‘outside’ time.

The theologians of the fourth century believed that time began when God brought the world (today, we would say “the cosmos”) into existence. Beyond this cosmos, where God exists, there is no time.

We cannot use the words ‘always’ and ‘before’ to describe that incomprehensible and timeless reality beyond our universe because those words assume the existence of time. Still, if we use these terms in a metaphysical sense, we can say that the Father ‘always’ existed and, therefore, He existed ‘before’ He created the cosmos. In other words, there was something like a timeless gap between God and creation (RW, 188-9).

Co-eternal implies two First Principles.

The Nicene View, that the Son has ‘always’ existed in the timeless reality, implies two Beings who exist without cause.

In this view, the Son is co-eternal with the Father, meaning that He has ‘always’ existed in that timeless reality beyond our universe. In other words, there was no timeless gap between Father and Son (RW, 189).

The Arians opposed this because it would mean that both the Father and Son are “unoriginated ultimate principles,” which is not possible:

Arius said that this would mean that the Father does not ‘have precedence’ over the Son in any respect and it would mean that the Son also exists without cause and is a rival first principle (RW, 189).

Eusebius of Caesarea “also defends … (the statement that) ‘he who is begot him who was not’ on the grounds that … if it is not allowed, ‘then there would be two Beings’, i.e. two grounds of being” (RH, 57).

Eusebius of Caesarea also argued that the titles Father and Son mean that the Father is the cause of the Son’s existence and that, therefore, “the Father and the Son … cannot have co-existed eternally.” He wrote:

“The Father and the Son … cannot have co-existed eternally, but rather the Father precedes the Son in eternal existence. If this were not so, then the Father would not be Father nor the Son Son, and both would be either unoriginated or originated. But in fact, ‘one is regarded as prior to and greater than the second in rank and honours, so that he is the cause of the existence [of the other] and of the kind of existence which he has’. The Son himself knows that he is different from the Father and less and subordinate.” (RH, 57)

The Son has existed at all times.

In the ‘Arian’ view, the Son has always existed in literal time but, in the timeless reality beyond time, the Father has ‘preceded’ the Son.

Alexander and Athanasius, by adding the word “time,” implied that Arius taught that the Son did not always exist in the literal time of our universe. (RW, 189) But Arius said that the gap between Father and Son “may be temporal or logical,” and if it is temporal (time), then it may be “an instant of time or an infinitesimal reality” (RW, 189).

In other words, if there was a gap of literal time between the Father and Son, then it would only be an instant. But it may also be that there is no literal time gap between the Father and Son and that the gap is only “logical,” meaning a gap in the timeless reality beyond our universe.

Williams interprets Eusebius of Caesarea as presenting the same concepts:

“Faced with the notion that there was no ‘interval’ between Father and Son, Eusebius is not necessarily being inconsistent in stressing the Father’s pre-existence. From our point of view, in the world’s time, Father and Son co-exist; from the Father’s point of view, so to speak, they do not and cannot.” (RW, 172)

Hanson explains the same principle in different words:

“He (Arius) and his followers insist again and again that the Son was produced before times and ages yet they hold onto the conviction that there was a time when the Son did not exist. … Perhaps they took the Platonic view that time only existed when the heavenly bodies, by which time is measured, were created, so that the Son, who was at some point brought into existence, but before the heavenly bodies, could be said in a sense to be ‘before times’” (RH, 22).

From our perspective, existing in time, the Son is eternal.

The point is that, in Arian teaching, since God created this universe, including time, through the Son, there was no literal “time” before the Son was begotten.

Category: Arius