Council of Nicea (325 A.D.)

[_basilII]

Was the universe uncreated?

According to traditional Christianity, the universe is a created thing. This would include matter, space, time, and spiritual entities as well (angels, the devil, our souls, etc.). The only uncreated 'thing' is God, that's what makes God God. For me coming from a Mormon background, this idea of a strict distinction between the Creator and created things took a while to sink in.

Before the 20th century the default scientific view of the universe was that it was eternal. Einstein's 'greatest mistake' (his words) was his modification of his theory of general relativity to make it fit that preconception (otherwise it would have predicted an expanding or shrinking universe). It was christian theology (along with the jewish and muslim faiths) that argued for a strict beginning or creation event. Some of the initial resistance to the Big Bang theory was because of its implications of a 'beginning' (it also probably didn't help that an early developer of the theory was a physicist who was also a roman catholic priest!)

[_Wisdom Seeker]

It is hard for me to imagine undefined matter, space and time. How much time did it take before time was created. What elements of matter were used to create matter? What existed in space before the space was created?

I tried to make sense of it by thinking that our perception of what time, matter and space is flawed by our human understanding of things which can only be understood by the God's themselves.

[_basilII]

It is hard for me to imagine undefined matter, space and time. How much time did it take before time was created. What elements of matter were used to create matter? What existed in space before the space was created?

I tried to make sense of it by thinking that our perception of what time, matter and space is flawed by our human understanding of things which can only be understood by the God's themselves.

In conventional big band cosmology, literally nothing existed before, it was creation 'out of nothing': no matter/energy, no space/time; the universe simply began to exist. (There are various theories that try to get around this by positing the existence of some broader multiverse or something like that. We are still waiting for empirical evidence for such theories, so for now it is just speculation.) It wouldn't even make sense to ask a question like 'how much time passed before the big bang' because time itself did not exist.

I agree that it is basically impossible to develop an intuitive feel for concepts like a beginning to space/time/energy, even though we have mathematically precise descriptions and models. But perhaps that shouldn't be too surprising. One lesson of 20th century physics is that the real world is often much stranger than we could have conceived. For example, at a fundamental level quantum mechanics simply doesn't make sense. There is a mathematical formalism that can make incredibly accurate predictions, but at a gut level it is just strange: how can something be a wave and a particle at the same time anyway?

A somewhat older book (1993), but still very interesting, that addresses some of these issues is 'The Mind of God' by Paul Davies. He is not religious in a regular sense, so he is not trying to peddle christianity or some other belief system. The book wrestles with alot of these 'big questions' issues.

[_Wisdom Seeker]

Was Constantine Christian? Did he bring about the council to help resolve issues he might of had with what was believed, or did he bring about the council as a leader to just help resolve the division between beliefs?

Seems like he was at least partially involved in the process, not as a moderator-mediator but a particiapant.

[_JAK]

Was Constantine Christian? Did he bring about the council to help resolve issues he might of had with what was believed, or did he bring about the council as a leader to just help resolve the division between beliefs?

Seems like he was at least partially involved in the process, not as a moderator-mediator but a particiapant.

Constantine the Great

JAK

[_moksha]

Emperor Constantine did allow the Christians to absorb the main holidays of the followers of Mithra into their calendar for events such as Sol Invicta (a.k.a. Christmas), Easter and especially their day for the Sun God, Sunday. Where would we be without this structure? Oy!

[_basilII]

Emperor Constantine did allow the Christians to absorb the main holidays of the followers of Mithra into their calendar for events such as Sol Invicta (a.k.a. Christmas), Easter and especially their day for the Sun God, Sunday. Where would we be without this structure? Oy!

Both worship on Sunday and the Easter celebration in Christianity were around long before Constantine (who was, granted, a devotee of the sun before finding Christianity more useful). Testimony to worship on the 'Lord's day' (Sunday - the day of his resurrection) rather than on the Jewish Sabbath is found in the epistles of Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (about 107 AD) as well as in the writings of Justin Martyr (mid second century). The proper time to celebrate Easter was a matter of some contraversy in the late second century, with the churches in Asia Minor observing the teaching of the apostle John that followed the Jewish calender on Passover, regardless of the day of the week, with the rest of the churches only celebrating it on Sunday. The bishop of Rome at the time actually excommunicated all those Asian churches for not taking his 'advice' on Easter, which earned him the rebuke of some of the other bishops for being too harsh.

The origins of the date of Christmas is another matter, it does seem to come from pagan culture / the winter solstice.

[_madeleine]

Before Nicaea the Bishops in the west had already declared Arius a heretic. So, he went East, and found support there from a few powerful bishops.

He had many followers, including bishops, which was causing unrest, and Constantine was all about instigating peace after a long war. So, he asked the bishops to come to Nicaea to settle the dispute. The bishops in the west, having already excommunicated Arius, sent papal legates to represent the Pope. The bishops in the East were about 325 in number.

The decision wasn't as Mormons portray, which, cannot be supported by Christian history. The Christian faith had already defended Jesus as fully divine and fully human, through heresies that had already arose before Arius.

The Ecumenical councils exist to clarify doctrine, when issues arise. In this case, it was the doctrine of who God is, specifically Jesus Christ. What came out of Nicaea was not new doctrine, but a defense of Christian doctrine as believed and handed down from the time of the Apostles.

The errors of Arius were voted down as a heresy, by all but 3 of the 325 bishops. To address the heresy, the bishops as leaders of Christianity, wrote a profession of faith that summarized Christian doctrine. Doing their duty, as protectors of the faith handed down to them by the Apostles, once and for all. (Jude 1:3)

Constantine was a converted Christian, but was not baptized until he was on his deathbed...by one of the three Arian bishop. By all accounts, if Constantine had a "side" it was that of Arius.

As a side note, there is a legend regarding the real St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, who attended the council. The legend is that he got so angry at Arius during the council that he slapped him! (And was jailed by the other bishops for doing so.)

[_JAK]

Constantine & Christianity

The reign of Constantine established a precedent for the position of the Christian Emperor in the Church

JAK

[_Wisdom Seeker]

So would you say that the council provided us the very best possible definitions of things divine from a mere human understanding?