The Arians, the Radical Arians, and the Need for a Response

What do we know about God? How intimately can we know God? The fathers of the Church had no inclination to speak on these topics of their own volition, until questionable teachings began to arise which threatened the very foundation of life in Christ. We do not need to know the relationship between the persons of the Trinity simply to know the proper title when addressing our prayers to God; our life in Christ is little more than having another human friend if we are not in Christ, and he, in the Father.

In the early parts of the fourth century, the Arian teaching threatened the Church. Arius, and those in line with his thought, taught that the Word of God, since he was begotten, was not eternal with the Father. In the years following the First Ecumenical Council, the Arian teaching grew more radical, and in doing so, more obviously problematic. These “neo-Arians” held to “anomoianism”, that is, that not only is the Son and Word not of the same essential being as the Father, but that he is not even of a similar essence (ἀ 'not' + ὅμοιος 'similar'), unlike in all things.

Eunomius is accounted as the father of the radical Arians. His stumbling block was the word ‘begotten’. “It is positively ridiculous for those who grant that there is one unique unbegotten being to say that anything else exists either before it or along with it.” At least on the surface, it is understandable that he would ask how “being begotten yet being in existence before being begotten” makes any sense. Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, he posits that “the names would then be...‘Son-who-was-not-begotten’ and ‘Father-who-did-not-beget’.”

As we will see, the Cappadocian fathers publicly respond to Eunomius less out of a desire for theological banter and more to address a fundamental problem with disastrous implications for our salvation. This response from the Cappadocians is the subject of the next few posts.