Theology course: Week 10 reflection

Following on from last week’s class about the heresies surrounding the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation of Jesus, this week’s class was about the orthodoxy of the creeds (like the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed). This one was sort of a history lesson and explained how the early church settled on the fundamental doctrines that are deemed correct, which believers all around the world agree on today.

It was interesting to me to find out that Christians only experienced sporadic persecution in the first 300 years AD. During this time, Diocletian was the emperor of Rome. He decided that Rome was too vast to be ruled by a sole ruler, and separated it into four sections, two in the east and two in the west. The east would have one emperor, and the west another. He appointed Maximian as emperor of the West with the title of “Augustus”; Constantius was appointed “Caesar” (a.k.a. deputy emperor). Maximian was to watch over Italy, Sicily, and Africa, while Constantius was to watch over Gaul, Spain, and Britain. Diocletian himself also took the title of “Augustus” as emperor of the East, aided by Constantius who was appointed “Caesar”. Diocletian watched over Thrace, Asia, and Egypt, while Constantius watched over Gaul, Spain, and Britain. (All this info from Encyclopaedia Britannica; the lecturer didn’t really explain this. I didn’t understand how the titles “Augustus” and “Caesar” were connected until I read the Britannica entry. Also, until this lesson, I never knew “Caesar” was a title and not part of Julius Caesar’s actual name ::facepalm::)

Although Diocletian ordered Christians to be persecuted in four edicts from 303-304, this was mainly carried out in the eastern parts of the empire where he was emperor. It is said that Constantius chose not to enforce Diocletian’s edicts against the Christians and “demolished some churches but did not execute believers”; and some members of Constantius’ family might even have been Christians. Constantius became Augustus of the West in 305 when Maximian abdicated.

Constantine the Great was Constantius’ son and took over from his father when his father died in battle in 306. But there was civil war as Diocletian’s successor had named someone else emperor of the West and a third person, Maxentius the son of Maximian, wanted the throne, too.

This is how Constantine purportedly became a Christian: on the eve of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge against Maxentius in 312, he reportedly saw a cross of light in the sky with the words “In this sign, conquer,” and that same night, he dreamt that Christ instructed him to mark his soldiers’ shields with a symbol representing the first two Greek letters of the word “Christos”. He did so, and won the battle decisively to become the emperor of the West.

Thereafter, he attributed his victory to the Christian God and became a convert; in 313 he drew up the Edict of Milan to legalise Christianity, thus ending the persecution of the Christians and returning any property which had been confiscated from Christians during the earlier persecutions. Eventually Constantine took over the East from the reigning emperor too and then reunited the whole empire in 324, establishing Constatinopole as its capital.

According to the lecturer, Constantine was interested in ensuring that the church was united and orderly, not divided. He felt that discord among Christians regarding doctrine and theological teachings did not just threaten the community of believers, but the peace of the kingdom. So he took action by calling bishops together to discuss the main issue of Arianism (which was one of the heresies mentioned in last week’s lesson: that the Son of God, Jesus, was the first created being, created with a semi-divinity to become the instrument through which the rest of creation was called forth).

Bishops came from Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, but also some from North Africa and even from outside the Empire. It is said there were around 200-300 bishops altogether. They were welcomed as the emperor’s guests, their travel, lodging, and other expenses covered by Constantine. This gathering of the bishops became the first ecumenical council, the Council of Nicaea in 325 and it set a precedent for all the other Councils that came later. In total there were four Councils:

1. Council of Nicaea (AD 325), convoked by Emperor Constantine
2. Council of Constantinopole (AD 381), convoked by Emperor Theodosius I
3. Council of Ephesus (AD 431), convoked by Emperor Theodosius II
4. Council of Calcedon (AD 451), convoked by Emperor Marcian & Empress Pulcheria

Each of these councils discussed specific doctrinal issues and came up with authoritative decisions on what was right. This is how we got the Nicene Creed – it was formulated by the Council of Nicaea as a statement of belief to encompass all the fundamental points of doctrine. The Council of Constantinopole expanded the Nicene Creed, adding a section about the Holy Spirit, making it the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

The lesson did go into each of the four councils and the heresies or controversies discussed in each one, but I don’t feel like getting into that here. I was surprised that the councils came about due to the intervention of imperial power; and once the controversies had been decided, the person who had been the main proponent of that particular heresy was often exiled. I suppose, as far as the former is concerned, there had to be someone to put things in motion and you needed someone with authority who could gather people together – I daresay not many bishops would want to say no to the emperor when invited to participate in a council like this; it was probably an honour to be invited.

I was also surprised that even though the councils were decisive, this didn’t always solve the problem. Like, after the Council of Nicaea rejected Arianism as a heresy, this teaching persisted and had to be discussed again at the Council of Constantinopole. I was also a bit shocked that the decision made at the Council of Calcedon caused a schism between the Oriental Orthodox church (Coptic, Syriac, Armenian) and the Roman Catholic church. The issue discussed at that council was of the dual nature of Jesus (fully man and fully God), and it didn’t seem to me that any proper church could dispute this.

So I looked it up. The lecturer had mentioned the split but didn’t say why it had occurred. Apparently it was because of the way the document was worded. The bishops had composed a Definition of Faith, which became known as the Definition of Chalcedon. Part of it stated that Jesus is

…to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisively, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one person and on Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son…

Apparently, the Oriental Orthodox bishops did not like the “in two natures” wording because they felt it was too close to the Nestorian heresy – which says that the divine Son of God lived in the man Jesus of Nazareth, inhabiting Jesus’ body like a temple (remember, I said in last week’s reflection that it sounded like demon possession lol). This heresy claimed that Jesus the man and Logos the Son of God were two separate persons joined in a union. So, as far as I can tell, the Oriental Orthodox bishops accused the Chalcedonian council of heresy themselves and the whole thing caused a huge misunderstanding and falling out. Ah, humans. When you’re actually both on the same side but cannot even see it because you’re too busy arguing over minutiae.

Theology course: Week 9 reflection

The theology course ended last week with our last class. I was buried in work (sooooooo much marking to do) so here I am catching up with my reflections. Just need to finish things up so that I have a proper record of what I learnt and process what was taught.

In week 9, the topic was “Trinity in the early church”. The main focus of this lesson seemed to be the various heresies surrounding the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The lecturer explained that these heresies arose because the Jewish believers were trying to find ways to explain the concept of Jesus being both fully God and fully man in a way that would be acceptable to other Jews.

Why? Because the Jews believe that there is only one God: This is embodied in the ‘shema’, a prayer that practicing Jews recite twice daily. The opening of the ‘shema’ is based on Deut 6:4 – “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” Therefore, the early church needed to find a way to reconcile this concept of having one God with the concept of Jesus’ divinity and the experience of the Holy Spirit.

The lecturer said that in trying to reason things out, sometimes certain aspects became oversimplified and therefore ended up overemphasizing certain concepts at the expense of others, leading to heresies (otherwise known as “ajaran sesat”). I was surprised to find that heresies would arise from people earnestly trying to make sense of the trinity – that is, people who were not intending to lead others astray. Then again, I suppose every cult founder starts their cult in earnest, believing that they are right and that their teachings are the “true truth”. But I find myself a bit uncomfortable knowing that you can be so earnestly wanting to please God and yet going in utterly the wrong direction until become heresy summore.

Obviously, in the days of the early church, there was no recognised Scripture (or uniform canon). They had the OT, of course, but the NT didn’t exist yet. Giving us some background, the lecturer said that letters were floating around from various apostles and would be copied by hand to be used in churches other than the ones they had been sent to. Different churches would refer to different letters and documents.

And since the Church was a loose network of communities with no centralised authority, there was no institution or body to refer to, no authority who could pronounce whether a particular doctrine was correct or incorrect. You could have a very charismatic teacher who was able to persuade many to believe his unique interpretation, and there would be no one to challenge him. (Actually, isn’t it the same today? e.g. with the Prosperity Gospel and the ‘Name it and claim it’ crowd? I don’t see anyone challenging them or calling them out for wrong teachings, either...)

So the various church leaders were sort of left to figure out things on their own. I guess this explains the tone of many of Paul’s letters, where he admonishes the church leaders for doing the wrong things or allowing the wrong things among their congregation, and tells them what they should be doing instead.

Since Christianity was spreading primarily in the Greco-Roman world at that time, people naturally tried to interpret Christian doctrines and concepts through the lens of the culture of the day, i.e. using Greek philosophy from the three major schools: Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno (Stoicism).

There were two main paradoxes that caused various heresies to sprout up throughout the Roman Empire:

1. The Trinity: How can God be both one and three?
2. The Incarnation: How can Jesus be both fully God and fully man?

It was interesting learning about the heresies, but I wasn’t sure why it was necessary to know. Like, one of the heresies of the Trinity was “Modalism/Sabellianism” which posited that God is not three distinct persons, but one person who reveals himself in three different modes. That is, he can “take on” and “put off” the role like an actor on a stage. Thus, in the OT, he acted/appeared as the Father, then in the Gospels, He acted/appeared as the Son, and after Pentecost, He acted/appeared as the Holy Spirit.

Although this teaching successfully avoided the concept of having three gods and was able to show that the Christians only worshipped one God, it was rejected as a heresy because it contradicted the Gospels, such as when Jesus prays to the Father – obviously they are separate beings then – and the incident where the Spirit descended upon Jesus at His baptism. Plus, if this teaching were true, that would mean the Father also suffered on the cross, since the Father and Son are the same, and then the idea of God sending His only begotten Son as a sacrifice for sin would be negated.

One very interesting thing the lecturer said was that this is similar to the ‘water’ analogy often used to explain the Trinity, and therefore that analogy is actually inaccurate. You know the one; that water has three forms, namely water vapour, ice, and liquid, so God likewise takes on three forms. But water can’t be two or three forms at the same time, which means we’re saying that God morphs or moves from role to role within the Trinity, which is… heresy. I was flabbergasted cos this is the most common analogy used for the Trinity that I know of!

Someone in my class suggested using an analogy of an egg: You need the shell, the egg white, and the egg yolk to be an egg. You can’t have an egg without having all of them together. I think that was kinda smart but I also find it funny because… well, an egg haha. Eggs get eaten lolol.

Anyway, there were other heresies involving Jesus being “an ordinary man of extraordinary virtue” who was ‘adopted’ by God into divine sonship, or Jesus being the first and greatest created being, a sort of semi-divine creature, by which the universe and other beings were created. And outlandish ones like Jesus only appeared to be human; His body was an illusion and his suffering on the cross was a “divine charade” (based on the belief that God, who is holy, could not have a human body, because the material body is corrupt and weak and could not house a divine being). These were all most obviously false, so they were not interesting to me at all.

I suppose it is good to explore the known heresies and to understand why they were rejected as heresies, so as to know what is the actual correct doctrine. Like, the heresy of Nestorianism, which says that the divine Person dwelt in the man Jesus of Nazareth, “like a temple”. (Actually, it sounds more to me like a demon possession…) The suggestion was that there were two separate persons – the Son of God and the son of Mary – joined in a union, and this is how Jesus remained fully man but at the same time fully God. But the problem with this concept was that if the human Jesus was the temple, then the human Jesus was the one who suffered and died on the cross, and the Son of God did not die, thus it negated the sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son to save the world from sin. So we can understand the complexity of trying to explain the two paradoxes mentioned earlier, and yet at the same time ensure that the foundational truth was not lost or watered down.

Christmas doodles: Gnomes

Practicing drawing some gnomes. I promised Emmy I would send her a watercolour Christmas card, so now I have to follow through 😂 

Learned how to draw them from Emma Jane Lefebvre's watercolour tutorial on Youtube, but made them fatter cos I think they're cuter when they're round 😆 I might experiment with a watercolour of a gnome with the black outline, and one without (the way Emma did hers) and see which one I prefer. Stay tuned. 

Thoughts on shopping

I was thinking about the lure of shopping and I think it is that shopping makes life exciting. Life can be very mundane, like "same shit, different day" and shopping brings something new into your life. You're excited to try out the product or go out in the new dress. For a brief moment, there's something to look forward to. It brings that little bit of excitement into a kind of boring and plodding life. I daresay most of us do have times when life feels exactly like that -- boring and plodding, and set to go on that way for eternity. I sometimes wonder if I can take 30-40 more years of the same (assuming average life expectancy). 

We always look at shopping from the perspective of "retail therapy", and having used it as a coping mechanism myself, I do agree that this is valid too -- but I think that's too much of a generalisation. There are definitely people who are spending in unhealthy ways to soothe themselves or to build a sense of security surrounded by things they possess. But if you don't have an unhealthy relationship with shopping, then maybe it isn't "retail therapy" (my definition: doing it to make you feel better) but maybe it's just... needing a small burst of excitement to remind yourself that you're alive and that there's something to look forward to.