The emperor Constantine faced a very large and theoretical question in the different churches of different lands about Christ. Was Jesus divine and eternal as his father was at birth, or was he promoted to divinity while living, after being born a mortal man? This simple question was brought up by Arius, a local musician/philosopher, who while not coming up with the question originally, brought it to the laymen, in his songs.
This question led to the discussions of the Trinity, (Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost). Many still believed in the God as discussed by Plato and Aristotle. The ideal eternal presence which began with the unmovable mover, and was eternal in all aspects; Jesus presented these churches with problems that could not easily be rectified by Plato or the Bible. Arius stated Christ was not divine at birth, but promoted while living to being divine by his Father, God:
“He was different from the rest of us, because God had created him directly but all other things through him. God had foreseen that when the Logos became man, he would obey him perfectly and had, so to speak, conferred divinity upon Jesus in advance. But Jesus’ divinity was not natural to him; it was only a reward or gift.” (A History of God, Armstrong k, 1993, p109)
Thus Constantine called together the Nicaean Council to solve this “Chicken before the Egg” type argument. For Arius everything went through Jesus, but how could this be if he was not divine at birth? How can something be divine without the knowledge of God beforehand? Arius raised the questions, but had no real answers. In contrast, Athanasius believed that everything came from nothingness, created by God. God was the force which kept the nothingness from taking over again, swallowing everything. Once man had sinned, this nothingness was his natural domain, only God’s presence and obeying god as the perfect example, kept man from the damnation of nothingness.
The council members were evenly divided by the power of moderation. Believing both had valid points, but Athanasius and the emperor forced the council to decide in Athanasius favor; and Jesus was elevated to being an eternal being for all of his life, even while seeming to be a mortal man while on earth. This became the official version of the Church, (it must be noted, that this argument was fought again five times over, causing Athanasius to be banished each time). Plato’s God was banished in many ways, and God creating everything out of nothingness, became truth also for the Church.