The Christian Spiritual Vision

The fundamental grounds for Christological disputes in the early church concerned the person of Christ, namely the relationship and presence of the human and divine in him. Based on their reading of the scripture, some theologians believe that both of them coexisted, while others agreed on a new nature and others believed against his divine essence (Norris, 2012).

Arianism and the Nature of Christ

Arians held that the Son was produced and adopted, and hence not on the same level as the Father, based on incorrect Scriptural interpretation. They believed that Christ’s full divinity, as coupled with the Holy Spirit, did not exist. Later, while trying to refute Arianism, Apollinarius established a teaching, which claimed Jesus was divine, since he never had a human mind. He expressed that Christ was like a human possessed by a spirit and thus his body was only a representation, with spirit being the real Jesus. However, Nestorius was opposed to the approach of Jesus being only divine or human alone. He argued that both of these two natures were present in one individual (Jesus). He claimed that there was cohabitation or a union of these two natures. Nevertheless, later Eutycheanism combined these two characters to settle at a new one, whereby Christ was considered to have one nature (Monophysitism) (Norris, 2012).

Solving the Christological Controversies

Later the Western Christian Church in reliance with the insights of Tertullian and Hippolytus provided a solution to this problem of the Christological controversies. Tertullian expressed that ’we observe a twofold condition, not confused, but conjoined, Christ, in one individual at once a man and God. Side by side with this indivisible individual can be seen manhood and Godhead, strength and weakness, mortality and immortality, human flesh and divine spirit.’ On this one can see the significant attribute of Christ as fully man, and fully God explained in a way, which creates little room for discussion, yet almost without explanation (Norris, 2012).

References

Norris, R. A., & Saler, R. C. (2012). The Christological controversy. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.