Jesus
As I learn more and more about Jesus Christ's life, death, and resurrection I cannot help but wonder more about whom he is as a person. Even more importantly, what he is. I realized that people have been contemplating the make up of Jesus ever since he came to be, so many years ago, and that as I sit and contemplate Jesus in my own life it is difficult for me to decide on the humanity and divinity of Christ. The controversy on whether Jesus was human or divine was still a large topic of discussion during the times when Scholars in Nicea, Alexandria, and Antioch were writing. There were two major schools of thought that represented each point of view. On one hand there was Antioch in Syria, and they believed in the full humanity of Jesus. On the other hand there was Nicea, who stressed the true divinity of Christ. Then in 451 the Council of Chalcedon met and tried to bring together both schools of thought. This then formed what we call the "High Descending" approach to Jesus' religious meaning. This "High Ascending" approach sits very well with me in my understanding of Jesus' meaning. I feel like Jesus was the incarnate of God's word and that he was a mixture of humanity and divinity.
When I understand Jesus as a human I am left to contemplate his divinity. How much of the "Word" did he consciously know? Sometimes I think of Jesus as just a human, like any one of us, but then I can lose sight of the importance and authority of his teachings. This is why I feel that the declarations of the council of Nicea in 325 are very important in my understanding of what Jesus was and what he taught. The council of Nicea met in response to what a priest named Arius taught in Alexandria of Egypt. "The council fathers doctored a creedal prayer that was already in use in baptismal ceremonies and added some curses to it" (Loewe 5). This prayer emphasized the divinity of Jesus and stressed on the fact that Jesus is one with God. It read, "true God of true God, begotten, not made, one in being with the father." (Loewe, 5). They also added to this prayer exclaiming that if anyone denied this that they would be "accursed or excommunicated". This declaration helps me in my belief of the divinity of Christ. It enables me to understand the power of Jesus' word and helps with my understanding of who he was. The council of Nicea was similar to the Antiochene thinkers, because they let Christian believers become familiar with who Christ was. After investigating both of these schools of thought, I encounter another problem in my rationale. If both of these points of view seem to be valid, then which one is correct? This is when I looked to the "High Descending" approach for an answer. This approach mixed the two theories together in a way that I could understand. In reading Loewe I found that
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Approximate Word count = 1085
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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