Why was the council of nicea importnat?

Answer 1

Emperor Constantine was able to consolidate his power with the help of the Christians in his army. He saw Christianity as a potential force for unity in his empire. However, Christianity could never unify the Roman Empire if it was not in itself united. Not only were there divisions between the proto-Catholic-Orthodox and Gnostic wings, there were breakaway sects being formed. And within the proto-Catholic-Orthodox church, there was dissention over important issues of faith and practice. Constantine called the Council of Nicea, to unite the church under his leadership and to achieve consensus on the issues that had been dividing its members.

Answer 2

The basic purpose of the Council of Nicea was to answer the question of whether the Son of God was created or had always existed.

The controversy started in the church in Alexandria, Egypt in A.D. 318, where an elder named Arius told the bishop, Alexander, that Jesus was created from nothing. Though Alexander attempted to correct Arius, Arius was unrepentant.

Eventually Arius was excommunicated from the church in Alexandria, but his cause was taken up by Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia (in modern Turkey).

The controversy grew until Constantine, emperor of Rome, found it necessary to intervene. Constantine was in the process of uniting the Roman Empire under his control through a civil war with Licinius, his co-emperor. With the popularity of Christianity growing due to the favor he had shown, Constantine feared that his newly-united empire would be split if the Church was split.

When other means failed, Constantine demanded that the bishops of the various churches of the Empire gather to resolve the dispute. This happened in A.D. 325 in Nicea.

Details of the Controversy

The reason that Arius was able to formulate and spread a doctrine like his is that the Church was in the habit of using the word "created" to apply to the "begetting" or "birth" of the Son of God in eternity past. This is because Christians prior to Nicea understood Proverbs 8:22 to be a reference to the eternal begetting of the Son. Tertullian, for example, in A.D. 200, wrote:

What can be better entitled to the name of Wisdom than the Reason or Word of God?

Listen therefore to Wisdom herself, constituted in the character of a second Person. "At first the Lord created me as the beginning of his ways, with a view to his own works. Before he made the earth, before the mountains were settled, moreover, before all the hills did he beget me."

That is to say, he created and generated his own intelligence. (Against Praxeas 6)

The "orthodox" explanation for this was that the Son of God had always existed, but prior to his eternal "begetting" by the Father, he had not always been separate from the Father. Before he was begotten, he was the Word or Wisdom of God.

God, however, being God, was able to do what none of us could do: he "created and generated," as Tertullian put it, his own Word as a person second to himself.

To Alexander and to most bishops, there was a drastic difference between begotten as just described and being created from nothing. If he is the Word of God, begotten by God, then he is divine. He consists of "the substance of God"; i.e., whatever God is made of.

If he was created from nothing, then he's the same as the angels and the rest of us. He is something other than divine.

The Nicene Creed: The Conclusions of the Council of Nicea

That is why the Nicene Creed includes phrases like "begotten, not made," and "one in substance with the Father." They were specifically disagreeing with Arius' doctrine.

The original creed also anathematized those who say, "There was a time when he was not" and "He was not before he was begotten" and "He was made from that which does not exist."

A Common Misunderstanding of Nicea

It is often said that the Council of Nicea met to determine whether Jesus was God. There is a sense in which this is true, but that's very imprecise.

Arius would have agreed that the Son of God was divine. More orthodox teachers would have disagreed with his assessment, however. If the Son of God was created from nothing, then he was not of the divine substance and could not be called God. That is why they were also careful to say that he was "God from God ... true God from true God."

This does not mean that the Council of Nicea was trying to call him God in the same sense as the Father is called God. The Nicene Creed specifically says, "There is one God, the Father," not "There is one God consisting in three persons."

In this sense, they used exactly the same wording as 1 Cor. 8:6, which reads, "For us there is but one God, the Father ... and one Lord, Jesus Christ."

It is true that both Scripture and the Christian writers before Nicea regularly called Jesus God. On the other hand, when describing the one God, Scripture, the early Christian writers, and the Nicene Creed are consistent in saying that the one God is the Father.

Why this terminology?

Tertullian, in Against Praxeas, explains:

I shall follow the apostle [Paul], so that if the Father and the Son are alike to be invoked, I shall call the Father "God" and invoke Jesus Christ as "Lord."

But when Christ alone [is invoked], I shall be able to call him "God." As the same apostle says, "Of whom is Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever" [Rom. 9:5].

For I should give the name of "sun" even to a sunbeam, considered by itself. But if I were mentioning the sun from which the ray emanates, I would certainly withdraw the name of sun from the mere beam. For although I do not make two suns, still I shall reckon both the sun and its ray to be as much two things-and two forms of one undivided substance-as God and his Word, as the Father and the Son. (ibid. 13).

The Son, being the Logos of God begotten from the substance of God, is divine and can be called God. This is why the apostles, early Christians, and the bishops of Nicea were not afraid to call him God.

However, what Tertullian says is true. In Scripture, in the early Christian writings, and at Nicea, when the Father and Son are mentioned together, the Father is called God and the Son Lord.

Answer 3

Emperor Constantine called the Council of Nicaea to establish a consistent Christian doctrine and agreed practices throughout the empire. One of the most important outcomes was to decide between two competing doctrines - Arianism and Trinitarianism. The Council decided in support of the Trinitarian doctrine, although it was several decades before Emperor Theodosius finally gave it his imprimatur.

Answer 4

It settled the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

Answer 5

Because Constantine used it.