Dr. Ramon Luzarraga is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Saint Martin's University, Lacey, Washington. He is solely responsible for this channel's content. All rights reserved.
This channel is to provide supplementary lectures for courses in theology and religious studies. I welcome colleagues and persons interested in using this material for classes or for private use.
These videos will be refreshed and added to as time permits.
What a confused mess Christian belief is. You would have thought that God in his infinite wisdom and having an all powerful intellect would have done a better job communicating, then all these heresies would never have come about. It reminds me of when the astrologers tried to account for the movement of the planets in a geocentric world - all those epicycles. Once they realized we live in a heliocentric world it all fell into place and was simple.
Thanks for your commentary but you keep saying Arius is wrong but never able to dispute his position. In the future, can you just provide a description of both sides since it is impossible to dispute Arius. Also, I didn't hear the part that the Council of Nicea was resolved by St Athanasius punching Arius violently. Scripture tells us "we will know them by their fruits" of their actions. Since Arius can not be disputed and St Athanasius' explanation is what we call META today, I have to side with Arius. The fruits of St Athanasius is sufficient proof and evidence that he is the one who was EVIL and was against the church. Why also did you not continue in your discussion to the fact that most Christians at the time did not believe Jesus was God. In 300AD, most Christians did not believe that and so it is not a requirement of salvation and never was. And going on why did you not continue that as a result of the Council of Nicea, that Rome killed all Believers they could find which did not believe the same as the Council of Nicea. These people had to flee to the mountains. This, like St Athanasius, is also now showing "bad fruits" of their actions. This whole thing is not Christian behavior It is EVIL. And therefore, what you are worshipping today is a false god. Your religion started as a violent usurpation of the true church. What you are serving is EVIL and Rome has confused and continues to confuse most Christians. And this is the sole reason of all our troubles today. I certainly believe if it wasn't for St Athanasius and the EVILS of the Council of Nicea, that ALL the WORLD would be saved today.
I don’t agree with him on this video I’m not looking at a picture and pray to seem like I’m praying to Jesus through this picture that’s idolatry, but it’s ok to make drawings but praying to them as a model to see Jesus isn’t cool we worship in Spirit and Truth no through image
10:14 Mary could not LITERALLY bring God into existence. She gave birth only to the incarnation. So she is the CHRIST BEARER. She is a creature, not a creator. God alone is Creator. The Holy Spirit caused her conception and the incarnation. Nestorius did not deny the incarnation.
she gave birth to the one divine person Jesus Christ who is fully God and fully man. You cannot seperate His natures of split Him into two persons. Mary is Theotokos. Cry more
@savagematti777 Mary could not have given birth to any of the non-communicable attributes of the divine nature--unless you are agreeing with the monophysite heresy. The hypostatic union of the two natures specifically denies that the two natures are mixed together. Furthermore, the Apollinarian heresy tried to say that the reasonable human soul of Christ's human nature was replaced by the divine Logos. So if you say that Mary literally gave birth to God in the literal sense, you have violated the Defunition of Chalcedon 451 A.D. on those two points. Mary is not the mother of God. She is the mother of Jesus Christ, who is the hypostatic union of two natures. She is the mother of Jesus as incarnate, two natures and one divine Person, who's also the fully human Person. The incommunicable attributes of deity are not communicated to the human nature, therefore Mary did not give birth to His divine nature literally. She only gave birth to the Person who is hypostatically two natures in union without mixing or confusing the two natures. Mary is not the queen of heaven. She was not born immaculately preserved from sin. Mary conceived Jesus by supernatural conception. But Mary gave birth naturally as other women do. She was no longer a virgin after Jesus was born. She married Joseph and had other children who were 1/2 siblings of Jesus.
@@ThomasCranmer1959 NOBODY said she gave anything divine to Christ DOORKNOB how about actually STUDY the position first. THIS ALREADY BEEN SETTLED 1600 YEARS AGO. CASE CLOSED. YOURE A HERETIC. “If anyone will not confess that the Immanuel is very God, & that therefore the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Θεοτόκος), inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [as it is written, The Word was made flesh ] let him be anathema.” -Council of Ephesus 431AD also, SHE IS PERPETUAL VIRGIN, SINLESS, QUEEN OF HEAVEN, ARK OF NEW COVENANT, MOTHER OF GOD. STUDY THE BIBLE BRO.
You cannot become divine. That's because the HUMAN NATURE cannot be the DIVINE NATURE. We are not monophysites or Apollinarians. The hypostatic UNION does NOT divinize the reasonable human soul of Christ. He is a genuine human person just as we are. Yet He is also hypostatically united with the divine nature AND the divine mind of the eternal Logos, the eternal Son of God. Jesus is the incarnate Logos.
Response to the lies you told in around minute 11: “At times Jesus speaks from his own authority” Jesus has *already* told us “I Have not spoken of my own authority” John 12. That is a universal statement concerning whose authority and behalf he is speaking on, everything he says will be understood in that light. He doesn’t have to preface every individual statement with “God told me to tell you” because he has already set the precedent. “Jesus forgave sins only God can do that” No, that’s what the Pharisees said. Jesus corrects them(“that you may know” is a correction) that Jehova can delegate that authority to whom he pleases: “That you may know the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins, I say unto you take up thy bed and walk” Matthew 9. And “the Father hath *committed* all judgement to the Son” John 5:22 Jesus directly corrects yours and the Pharisees belief that Jehova cannot commit/delegate judgement to anyone else, and you just don’t believe him. “Only God can heal” Nope, he can commit that power to whom he pleases. The apostles were given the power to heal. “Only God can change the law and Jesus changed the law” Jesus did not change the law, he specifically told us “think not that I have come to destroy the law and the prophets, I come not to destroy but to fulfill” Matthew 5:17. The catholic/orthodox Jesus would never have said this. 11:44 The woman taken in adultery story was added in and is widely recognized among scholars as being fraudulent.
Athanasius has to beat Arius so the empire could slay fellow Christians without dividing their new religious structure they'd painted onto the one that was already there. Argue that, hoss. Nice tie.
1. The empire wasn't Christian. Christianity was merely allowed. 2. Constantine continued to have Arian sympathies after the council, and his son was Arian. He was baptized by an Arian (who wasn't killed, where did you get that the Arians were killed?) 3. Many of the Bishops who you believe were just politically motivated, were martyred horribly by Julian the Apostate when he tried to restore paganism. They had no problem being tortured to death rather than recant what they believed. It's clear that not only do you not have the inside track of the secret dirty history of the church, but you've never even read a basic history text book on Byzantium.
@@rushfinki2445 the bishops killed by Julian the Apostate weren't virtuous because they got killed playing musical chairs with the power structure. The inability of the church to agree to disagree and avoid dogmatic uselessness directly led to the Vandalic War, the fall of Constantinople and the spread of Islam westward. The church as it exists differs hardly a jot in structure or division from the pre-christian organization that existed before. It's also disgusting. But you are right about the empire not being Christian yet. That happened after the council that got the homogenization started so it could be painted on to the Roman system with less cracks after it dried. Simping for the RCC is weird.
@@monkeywritingshakespeare9744 ... or they were scrupulous men who never changed their faith a died rather than recant over months of torture. But whatever. If you're going to use events that literally happened over 1000 years later to prove guilt, there's no point in arguing. Have a good one.
Your arguments for icons are identical to the arguments pagans make for idols. The idol is a representation of their God and their prayers and partitions go through the idol to their god. It's exactly the same .
The pagans worshipped demons. Canaanite pagans absolutely believed their gods to dwell within the statues they made for them. Greco-Roman pagan philosophers much closer-in-time to Christianity came to take the type/anti-type distinction, if they ever did. We venerate and seek to emulate people who worshipped God. Assuming your representation is correct, however, it's not that we have an identical rationale to the pagans, it's that the type/anti-type distinction is probably a universal concept. When we salute the national flag, we aren't so much saluting the flag itself as much as we're saluting the country for which it stands. When we desecrate it, we mean to disrespect the country it represents.
I like taking the newest version of English translation (NET), and comparing it with the NWT and seeing all of the contradictions. How can someone read John 1:1-5 in the NWT and not realize its own words contradict Arianism? The Word “was A(?) god”? How can you justify a god created God, as verse 3 states? I also see major contradictions with John 8:58 and its connection to Exodus 3:14-17, within the NWT. Thank you sir, for this video. I appreciate the historical note and insight in regards to how this split in doctrine happened.
So basically, the same thing happened to him that happened to Pelagius. Pelagius was never a Pelagian or semi-Pelagian; Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism were strawmen of what he actually taught (that we are all sinners by choice and inherit death from Adam rather than guilt). The Council of Ephesus was messed up in so many ways.
After going through a lot of videos on RU-vid on this matter , it seems like the whole of christianity would either unite or fall apart completely simply if Jesus had a twin brother 😅
If you receive the Holy Spirit from God the Father, you are not equal to the Father, even though you may share divine nature with Him. See Matthew and Jesus´baptism. Also, if you are the Father, you do not pray to yourself, do not say things like "Father why have you abandoned me" and "the Father is greater than I", and "your Will be done not mine" and "Only the Father knows the hour" In fact, if Gods greatest commandment is "Hear o Israel, the lord our God is ONE" and you make another 2 Gods co equals, you are doing exactly what Satan did, trying to make himself equal to God. And attirubting Jesus statements of Father-like attributes to full divinity are absurd. I can forgive sins comitted against me, does that make me divine too? If my will is harmonic with the Fathers, and I am one with Him, am I fully God too? absurd. Orthodoxy sounds more and more like heresy, significant mental gymnastics and twisting of scripture is necessary to defend that position. The enemy is a master deceiver and political victory determines who is a heretic and who is not.
Both are wrong… The Father is God, alone. The Father is the only one eternal, in both directions of time. Always was, always will be! The son was a man, which did not literally exist before conception. He existed before creation began, but only in the logos and mind of God. He was the planned messiah and redemption of mankind, before there was mankind. The Holy Spirit or Paraclete, is a created spirit, like other spirits in be scriptures, but with a very important and special purpose. All of the verses that appear to be saying Jesus preexisted, are misunderstood or lacking context. For example: Jesus was the bread that came down from heaven, like the mana during the exodus… only the mana was left on the ground after the dew evaporated. The mana didn’t float down from heaven, but all good gifts are from heaven. The trinity doesn’t fit the whole concept of reconciliation to God in the Old Testament. To satisfy the death punishment for sin, man would sacrifice an animal to God. Not just any animal, but a perfect example of that animal. Without blemish! Not once did God sacrifice himself for mankind… the Old Testament is full of man sacrificing to God. To completely reconcile man’s sins to God, a man sacrificed himself, being perfect, without blemish, the best example of mankind. Jesus was a man… not a god, not an angel, not anything else. A man… No other doctrine fulfills the Old Testament example and requirements.
God has no mother. If God ( including Christ pre incarnate as God the Son) created Mary she CANNOT be God's mother. She is the mother of Jesus as human but is not the mother of His Deity. She was simply God's chosen vessel to bear His Son into the world . If Mary was actually " The Mother of God" she would have to have existed BEFORE God which we know she did not. Mary existed before Jesus as a human being and gave birth to Him as a human being but He was her Creator and Savior as God. Explain to me again how an externally existent Person of the God head could have a mother especially when Jesus is the Creator of all including his human mother
Nestorian denied that Christ is consubstantial with the Father but held that he is homoiousios with the Father (that is "of like substance" not similar substance). This compromises Jesus divinity.
In begin god say let there be light. Light is created. Gos separated the light and dark. Apotle creed/neician creed claims jesus is light from the light. Did god created the light? Aries was right. There was time god was not the father he was only god. Make a lot of senses . There was time me and my wife just husband wife. Parents to no one. When we got a kid than new time begen as parent. Jesus was created just like a light created.
You said "every time you see one of the persons of the Trinity, you see all the three present". Does that mean that when we have the Eucharist, we have all the three persons of Trinity and not alone Jesus's " body, blood, soul and divinity" ? If you say Trinity is present in Eucharist, isnt it Sebellianism, Patripassianism? Or in other words, when the Son was incarnate, was Trinity also present in womb or Son alone? Also at the cross, when the Son suffered, did Trinity also suffer??
Of course they all suffered. In different ways. Don't confuse God's essence or nature with His work. God's essence/nature is 1 but God works in 3 persons. I urge you to get out of catholicism, follow Jesus only and start praying for full guidance. It's much easier when you know God alone does all of His work through you and worshipping him in spirit is what He wants
because humans are composite. now while you could say we all have the same nature, the difference is that the mode in which the nature is instantiated is through personhood. The term for that is enhypostasia. The mode in which the Holy Trinity exists which is not separated by space or time and the mode in which human composite individuals exists who are bound by space and time are different
The greatest sin in today's world is manufacturing & using weapons against civilian populations etc. As Christians when are we going to stop these dogmatic arguments & demand an end to weapons manufacturing?
Christianity today faces problems which are indicated rather than answered in the New Testament. Dogmas came to be established for just this reason, because of the constant demand for intellectual clarification. The question was: “What think ye of Christ?” But what good could come from the ‘clarifiers’ and establishers of dogma at the synod of Ephesus in 449 who, in fury, abandoned the discussion and went for each other with cudgels, until one party was defeated and accepted the ruling of the stronger party. The Church Assembly was terrorised by a crowd of fanatical monks, and brute force prevailed. That is why Leo the Great spoke of a “Synod of Robbers’. And there were other Synods during which the enraged Church Fathers threw copies of the Gospels at each others’ heads. The dispute concerning the status of Jesus Christ became particularly fierce when those Church Fathers who sided with Arius took a stand against the doctrine of the Trinity, which was then being formulated. The dispute focused on an essential problem which the Church in those days had not yet clarified. While certain ecclesiastical authorities were attempting to establish the doctrine of the Trinity, Arius presented a different view: “The Father begat His only begotten Son many aeons ago, and through Him created the Aeons and the universe. The Son is begotten timelessly by the Father, made and created before the Aeons, not that he could exist before having existed, before having been begotten, but rather that it is He alone who was timelessly begotten before all else.” (This is precisely the same spiritual teaching that we now receive through our divine messenger of truth.) Following this, Arius was branded as a heretic. Athanasius, his greatest antagonist, was quite categorical in placing Christ on an equal footing with God, though this was not at that time a view generally accepted by the Church Fathers. The dispute concerning the Trinity became increasingly momentous. In his ‘Book of Heretics’, (Das Buch der Ketzer) the writer Walter Nigg has this to say: “Not only Bishops from different countries but also the ordinary Christian people were deeply disturbed by this. Soon there was no single city or village in which arguments did not take place concerning the relationship between God and Christ. Families were bitterly divided, and there were many public scenes of violent uproar. Christians fought each other in the streets on the issue of Christ’s divinity. They did not stop at injuring each other, and their monstrous behaviour brought Christianity into disrepute amongst the heathen, whose dramatists made fun of these events.” “The Emperor Constantine felt obliged to do something about this quarrel, and in order to resolve it he convened the Council of Nicea in June, 325. It was to be the Church’s first triumphant display - an event sure to impress those people who loved pageantry and liked to see Bishops in their finery.” “The false splendour”, Nigg continues, “soon faded on closer inspection. Even then, true Christianity was to be found with Anthony of Egypt in the dessert, and not with the well-dressed people in the king’s palace where the assembly was taking place. There, braggarts pushed themselves into the foreground, for at such meetings the participants would often scream at each other ferociously, not bothering to preserve their episcopal dignity. The Council Fathers were not concerned about mutual understanding, or the promotion of Christian brotherhood. Lacking understanding, many of the uneducated bishops took to scheming, so much so that one eye-witness named that Council ‘The Synod of Perfect Fools’. Amongst the bishops, those who sympathised with Arius were in a minority, and when Constantine brought pressure to bear it was the central party, with its statement that Christ was to be seen as ‘One in essence with the Father’, that gained supremacy. Literal minded Christians should note that this statement does not originate in the Bible.” After this, Constantine exiled all bishops who were unwilling to give their assent to the new dogma. Commenting on this in his book “The Emperor Constantine and the Christian Church”, Edward Schwartz writes: “It was quite unheard of that a universal article of faith should come into being merely on the authority of the Emperor, who as a catechumen was not even admitted to the mystery of the Eucharist, and who had not the slightest right to take part in discussions concerning the most profound mysteries of the Faith. Yet not one Bishop dared to speak a word in opposition to this monstrous happening.” The Council of Nicea gave assent to this dogma, not as a result of Christian deliberations but through the force of imperial politics. It can hardly be called a sacred assembly. But since too small a majority had overpowered too large a minority, the resulting victory rested on a fragile foundation. Wishing to restore peace within the Church, Constantine sought reconciliation with the offended Arian bishops, even going so far as to recall Arius in order to recompense him for the injustice he had suffered. The Emperor gave Arius a gracious reception, but his command was not obeyed by Athanasius, the most powerful opponent of Arius, and the hoped-for reconciliation between these two did not take place. Not long afterwards Arianism was granted the status of a true doctrine; the opposition party was charged with heresy, and its leader, Athanasius, was exiled. However, before he could be officially installed Arius was poisoned by his opponents, who openly rejoiced at what they had done. Even Bishop Athanasius stood by this deed, thus showing to what depths Christians had sunk in their doctrinal struggles. the final ratification of the Doctrine of the Trinity took place at the Synod of Constantinople in 553. In so far as we Christians think for ourselves and refuse to let ourselves be prevented from seeking the truth by a reliance upon dogmas thought up by human beings and argued about for centuries, we are following good advice: “Seek and you shall find!” We have found. But it often seems as though the world has to be put off with falsehood for a time because it is not yet ready for the truth. There is, nevertheless, a noticeable wave of interest in the religious quest, particularly amongst young people who are seeking truth and higher knowledge. The religious quest keeps humanity from lapsing into a sense of static finality. Arthur Brunner The Spiritual World 1980 p.81
You said two contradictory things taken in comprehensive view support only one of the two contradictory things. This is very confusing. It would make much more sense to believe in just one pure God who does not assume human form. This whole Trinity thing is too convoluted and clearly man made. Also, I think all the reasons you gave about taking on sin are still perfectly plausible in arius worldview. The fact is two competing ideological factions battled and one won while the other was erased. That is why Athanasius is called a saint and Arius a heretic.
I think part of the problem with your presentation, which was pretty good, is that the Aramaic view of nature and what nature is is a little bit different than the Greek view. View. So the Aramaic view is is that things can have their own nature, not just part of a class. So you have two red apples? They're both part of the class of red apples and therefore they have the nature of red apples. But the two apples are not identical, so each Apple can have its own nature. That nature is specific to that Apple. So this actually applies to Theodore's discussions on part of this as well as some other things. Calling Mary, the Theo tocos is considered to be kind of a fallacy since while Jesus is God, he is not the Trinity, and he is not eternally begotten of the mother. So she is a vessel and a handmaiden but she is not the source of God, so in one of the catechisms it says this would make her the mother of the father in Jesus would be her grandson, not her son
In fact, nobody ever practiced nostorianism as described by Cyril. About 150 years ago, the bazaar of heraclades became available again, which you can find online. In that nostorius in his own hand describes his own position. So in effect this is a heresy that never was
I think people misunderstood Arius here is what I THINK happened: what he meant was that God was above its creation. God is God because he is immortal and has unique characteristics that are infinite. How could the all powerful being die? And interestingly you said "suffer and die" which is absolutely against the definition and properties of God. Arius knew what the church was doing. The church was pleasing the Greco-Roman pagan ideas and entertaining their mythology. If you think about it Arius was right. That is what ended up happening ultimately. You got idols in churches and people worshiping Mary and what not. Furthermore, I am interested in why Arius or what was the resource that he used to back up this claim. If you think about it from a rational perspective I believe it should be clear that he possessed a strong academic weapon or support otherwise he would not have been able to establish his position in such a fashion. It is highly likely that the church got rid of all the supporting documents that Arius may have possessed as well as twisted his words to maintain or make sure what they preach remains. Either way, its interesting, why if trinity was so clear would anyone differ. Considering there are lunatics in every generation. People barely pay any attention to them unless they fear them. Even if anyone would differ you would think people would dismiss him if there is no evidence or his rationale is weak however this does not seem to be the case. I think a better way to understand homoiousios would be to think of it as someone who is a godly person (pious). As Jesus himself said I do the work of my father. God is all just and Jesus was also just; in that sense they could be thought of as one in purpose meaning Jesus fulfilled the wishes of the father (God) by his commands and his permission alone. Jesus by himself could not have been just why because justice (right and wrong) comes down from God. The same God that splits the ocean through Moses could have done the miracles through Jesus and it should not be surprising. Finally, the bible has clearly been played with. It does not make sense how Jesus never spoke to Moses or any other before him and said worship three? Here O Israel your Lord is One. To put it in a nutshell, I believe that Arius must have had a strong proof which was later wiped out as he was labelled a heretic. Perhaps he had a bible that was close to the bible of Jesus that had more sense but it possessed a threat to those who were in power.
Constantine after the Council of Nicaea is supposed to have had doubts he made the right decision in opposing the Arians. He was later baptised by an Arian bishop called Eusebius towards the end of his life.