Bible Students

A reflection based on “The Story of Christian Theology” by Olson (chapters 6-10)

This week’s reading covered chapters six through ten and discussed a few important church figures, including Origen and Cyprian. Additionally, these chapters discuss the church as it begins to formulate a written creed and solidify its doctrines. 

Chapter six focused on Origen of Alexandria. Origen was accused of teaching that souls preexisted, which was likely a true accusation. While this is not a doctrine especially relevant to salvation, I have personally known people who believe in the preexistence of souls. This belief is not biblical, and usually comes from strange speculation, which seems to be the case for Origen. He may have also believed in universal salvation. In some ways, I wish universalism was true. However, similar to the preexistence of the soul, universalism is believed only through obscure readings of passages. While Origen was disliked by some, he contributed greatly to the church’s theological articulation and development. His teacher was likely Clement. Origen was an eastern thinker (contrasted to Tertullian, a western thinker), and ended up teaching things which seem to be heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. I believe all proper philosophy is true philosophy (all truth is God’s truth). I do believe philosophy can be a proper and even necessary tool for personal and evangelistic apologetics, bringing into play the universal and necessary logic of the universe to the discussion of theism. However, the specific influence Origen seemed to have on him from Greek philosophy colored some of his theology in a nonorthodox way. 

Chapter seven focused on Cyprian of Carthage. In ancient Christianity, there was no such thing as two bishops of the same region. Each region had its own bishop, elected by the churches to oversee them. Cyprian was one of these who acted as a great steward of his Christian gifting and was eventually elected to high church office. This system of a bishop overseeing a region of churches makes a lot of sense, especially for a region where orthodox Christianity has not been properly established. On the mission field, it especially makes sense to have the missionary plant churches, hand them over to local leaders, and act as a bishop of the region until the churches are strong enough to fend off invading ideologies. In ancient Christianity baptism was the mark of the beginning of one’s Christian life. Salvation began at baptism, and spanned for their entire life. There were no self-appointed bishops of regions, only elected bishops. There was also no main bishop of the ancient world, though the bishop of Rome was the first among equals. Gnosticism and other ancient heresies caused Christians to depend on the structured church leadership. This kind of church parenting by bishops is quite appealing to me. 

Chapter eight discusses the beginning of the church’s official orthodox formulation. At this point in history, the church began to universalize its front against heresies and false teachers. The church’s history of canonicity of Scripture is messy, but depended on a few factors. The Pentateuch, the first Jewish scriptures, had been expanded upon by later Jews to include the Writings and the Prophets. The early church accepted the Old Testament, especially due to the claims of Christ, which accepted the Old Testament. The church accepted the New Testament, and the later church accepted the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha was circulating at the time of Jesus, so his lack of usage of the Apocrypha causes me to be wary about using it as Scripture. The Marcion canon stripped the Old and New Testaments of any Jewish influence (the entire Old Testament, and most of the New Testament except some of Luke and Paul). The future emperor Constantine was well ahead of his competitors by the time the decision was made. Legend has it, he saw a sign of a cross and was told to place it on the shields of his soldiers in the next battle. Eventually, Constantine became both Christian and Emperor. 

Chapter nine covers Alexander and Arius. These two figures most famously came against each other in ideology at Nicaea. Sabellianism, today known as Modalism, is the belief that God reveals Himself in three forms, but is really one being with three (or possibly more) masks. In this view, God is not three persons, but one, putting on the mask of three. Arius, a heavily influencial man in the ancient theological scene, pushed to far back against Sabellianism that he created his own heresy, known as Arianism. In this view, the Son is divine, but is not of the same being of the Father. The Son is a created being, who was the first created being, but nonetheless a created being. The Logos was less than the Father. Arius took a big following and accused Alexander of Sabellianism. Alexander called a senate to address the matter, and Arius fled. He continued to hold to his view of the Logos as inferior to the Father. A popular saying created by Arius was, “There was a time when the Son was not.” The divine being in the Logos was not the same as the divine being of the Father. I personally know people who believe in Modalism, so I understand the desire to differentiate between the Father and the Son, especially in places like the Baptism of Jesus and the Garden of Gethsemane. 

Finally, chapter ten covers the time immediately following the previous chapter. Arius and Alexander are two heavily influential men in the ancient Christian world, and their influences were tearing the Christian world apart. Is the Son inferior to the Father? The first whole church council was called to address this issue of Arianism. Three-hundred-eighteen bishops were present at the council of Nicaea. He vast majority of bishops did not fully understand the situation they had been called to address. The council decided on using extrabiblical words for the establishment of their orthodox creed due to the twisting of biblical language done by Arius and his followers. In a culture needing to define biblical ideas, I believe using extrabiblical wording is the best way to go about it. When using biblical wording to define difficult-to-understand doctrines, the problem of a lack of clarity is not really solved. Using different extrabiblical words can help narrow the meaning. The extrabiblical word “homousias” was decided on for describing the shared nature of the Father and the Son. Some people believed this was too close to Sabellianism, but that was not an issue in view for this council. The threat of Sabellianism would be addressed at a later time. Four ecumenical councils, in total, are taken seriously by Protestant Christians. That number goes up to seven for Orthodox and twenty-one for Catholic believers. Councils offer a great deal of wisdom for the church, especially for Protestants, who tend to ignore church history (compared to Orthodox or Catholic traditions). Tradition, while not on par with Scripture, offers a well of understanding and thought from godly men and women of the past, and I believe drawing from it will yield beneficial results, especially where the gospel is breaking new ground. “New” issues on mission fields are likely old issues in new packaging, which can be dealt with well with an understanding of the problems of the past.