The Theological Method of Arius
July 29, 2010
Why does the theological method of Arius sound eerily similar to the method that many evangelical theologians adopt today?
From Alexander Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy (London: Harvill Press, 1963).
“Arius was mistaken in his view, for he approached the solution to the theological problem of the Trinity solely as a philosopher and weighted the whole problem by logic. He interpreted two basic and particularly vital truths of Christianity, that of the One God and that of the salvation of the world by the Son of God, as abstract principles. He was a convinced monotheist, not in the OT sense, but in the spirit of the philosophical monotheism which predominated at that period in the Hellenistic world. This meant recognition of some abstract One or Entity which lay at the based of all that existed, as its source and as the unifying principle of all multiplicity. God was One, and there could not be any multiplicity in him; if He had a Son, the Son was already distinct from him. The Son was not he and not God. The Son was born, and birth is the appearance of something which has not been before. The Son was born for creation, for salvation, but He was not God in that unique and absolute sense which we use when we call the Father God. Arianism was a rationalization of Christianity. …here faith was dried out by logical analysis and distorted into an abstract construction. Arianism was in tune with the times in its strict monotheism and desire to prune out everything irrational and incomprehensible. It was more accessible to the average mind seeking a ‘rational’ faith than were the biblical images and expressions of Church tradition. … The Arian heresy seemed to [the intellectual class eager for rational explanations of the faith] completely suitable as a ‘modern’ interpretation of it, one which would be acceptable to broad circles of educated people” (74-76).
