The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God

What were the issues in the Fourth-Century Arian Controversy?

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The Arian Controversy of the fourth century was the greatest controversy in the church of all time. It was a dispute over the identity of Jesus Christ: Is He God or is He subordinate to God? This article identifies the main issues in that controversy. It addresses the orthodox view when the controversy began, why did the Nicene Creed of AD 325 fail to end the controversy, the competing views, the roles of the emperors and of Greek philosophy in the controversy and how the Controversy was brought to an end.

RPC Hanson – A lecture on the Arian Controversy

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Hanson describes the conventional account of the Arian Controversy as a complete traversy and explains that, when the controversy began, there was no “orthodoxy” on the doctrine of God, that the pre-Nicene fathers described the Son as subordinate to the Father and as the the nous or Second Hypostasis of contemporary Middle Platonist philosophy, that errors were made on both sides of the controversy, that the creed of 325 did not solve the controversy because its use of the words ousia and hypostasis was ambiguous, and that it was the Nicene Creed that broke with the tradition of the pre-Nicene Fathers.