Talk:Arianism

I don't know if I'm the only one who thinks the definition is very confusing. Or is it incomplete or what is Arius accused of?

Arianism is a nontrinitarian Christological doctrine which believes that Yeshoua Machiar is the Son of God, who was begotten by God the Father, and is distinct from the Father (therefore subordinate to him), but the Son is also God (i.e., God the Son).Rafaelosornio (talk) 00:54, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Arius was really trinitarian, or, better said, binitarian, since trinitarianism replaced binitarianism much later. He thought God the Father is God, God the Son is God, but the Son is subordinated to the Father, being begotten (not created) by him. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:11, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Who's Dr. Jan Garrett? Google does not tell. Oh, yes, got it: https://people.wku.edu/jan.garrett/home.htm Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:17, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

The IP thinks they are smarter than Bart Ehrman. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:33, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Very old source, but clearly spells out the matter: Forrest, J. (1856). Some Account of the Origin and Progress of Trinitarian Theology: In the Second, Third, and Succeeding Centuries, and of the Manner in which Its Doctrines Gradually Supplanted the Unitarianism of the Primitive Church. Crosby, Nichols, and Company. pp. 6–7. Retrieved 25 December 2020. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:51, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

And this is the final nail in the coffin of Arius was unitarian: Phan, P.C. (2011). The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity. Cambridge Companions to Religion. Cambridge University Press. pp. 6–7. ISBN 978-0-521-87739-8. Retrieved 25 December 2020. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:13, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

To the IP accusing me of writing fallacious information: Nope, I have WP:CITED Bart Ehrman and https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-trinity/4760BA2A52D71290D220D9A01BCBE5EE . You can't win this game, against Ehrman and Cambridge University. I also gave you a 19th century theologian to whom it was clear that Arius and Alexander did not have much to quarrel about. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:45, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

That the IP kind of says that Ehrman and Phan are morons speaks more about the IP than about Ehrman and Phan. We believe that the IP cannot give the lie to The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity. So despite his edit wars, the IP cannot prevail at this article. Before citing that companion, it was somewhat debatable; after citing it, the case is closed. And, since such views are not unanimous, we tell it like some scholars believe it is this way, other scholars believe it is that way. You see, I do not claim to have WP:THETRUTH, which is a more reasonable position. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:10, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

A : Berndt and Steinacher never claimed (at least in those pages) that Arius wasn't Trinitarian. So, WP:Verifying such statement to these scholars is a fiction made out of whole cloth. We may verify only claims which are directly and indubitably supported by the WP:RS, and the claim that Arius wasn't Trinitarian is not directly supported by the source. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:01, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Berndt, Guido M.; Steinacher, Roland (2014). Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed. Routledge. ISBN 978-14-09-44659-0. Arius wanted to emphasise the transcendence and sole divinity of God [...]. God alone is, for Arius, without beginning, unbegotten and eternal. In the terminology of negative theology, Arius stresses monotheism with ever-renewed attempts. God can only be understood as creator. He denies the co-eternal state of the Logos with God since otherwise God would be stripped of his absolute uniqueness. God alone is, and thus he was not always Father. [...] Following Proverbs 8:22–25, Arius is able to argue that the Son was created. For Arius the Logos belongs wholly on the side of the Divine, but he is markedly subordinate to God. [...] According to Alexander, Arius has assigned the Logos a place among created beings (which Arius explicitly denies); from that, he draws the conclusion that the Son/Logos of Arius is merely a man.⁴⁷ [...] This view is still to be found in the realm of popular scholarship and most recently led to the idea that 'Arianism', as a theology without a doctrine of the Trinity that sees Machiar merely as a man, could form a possible bridge to Islam. [...] After the Synod of Nicaea, the debate shifted and became a debate over unity and trinity in the Trinitarian notion of God – a debate which is considered, unjustly, to be a further 'Arian controversy'. [...] Only after researchers began to position Arius within the Origenist tradition, did it become possible to see that the development after Nicaea was not a conflict between 'Nicenes' and 'Arians', as common opinion claimed, but rather a debate on the nature of divine hypostasis – in particular, on the question whether it was appropriate to speak of one single or three distinct hypostases. A detailed discussion of the complicated sequence of events in this conflict from the beginning of the 330s through the 380s and individual portrayals of the key protagonists would, however, be beyond the scope of this chapter.⁶⁸

Do you see the problem? The WP:RS explicitly rejects the conclusion that Arius believed that Yeshoua were merely a man; the WP:RS says that such claim is pop-theology (folk theology), not WP:SCHOLARSHIP. That's allowing the foes of Arius to dictate unto modern scholars what Arius really believed. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:26, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

I mean there are several pages to read from that book, I cannot give copious quotes for fear of violating copyright rules. They have more about the Origenist tradition, and yup, that's a scholarly novelty. Scholarship has moved a lot in the past decades and folk theologians (who claim that Arius wasn't Trinitarian) have been left behind. And, I don't use mere Google searches, since this is not a popularity contest. I use a lot Google Books, since there it is very easy to check the publishers and the authors, so in a minute I can decide if the book can be trusted as WP:SCHOLARSHIP. So, yeah, the stuff about Arius working in the Origenist tradition is a post-1950 development, and obviously 19th century scholars did not know about that, and folk theologians still do not know about it. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:48, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

To draw the line:

• binitarianism was the orthodox conception, both Arius as Athanasius and Alexander were binitarians; they all saw Yeshoua as God, but... in different ways;
• as Ehrman says, trinitarianism developed from binitarianism when theologians asked "What about the Holy Spirit?" and they made Binity into Trinity by including the Holy Spirit as God.

Yes, I probably am. And probably I’m doing what most theologians have always done! The Spirit had to be accounted for because of what Yeshoua said in John 14 and 16 about the Spirit coming in his place. (And other passages). Once it was decided that Machiar was equal with God, theologians then had to explain what to do with the Spirit as well.

— ehrmanblog.org

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:17, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

By the way, if some of you want, there is a 1973 book called L'hérésie d'Arius et la foi de Nicée (2 vol.); in the first volume the theology of Arius is apparently detailed. Veverve (talk) 16:44, 10 January 2021 (UTC)