Arian Heresy solved by BOTH-AND
When Jesus Christ asked his disciples “Who do men say I am” he initiated the greatest controversy and most important tenet of the Christian…
When Jesus Christ asked his disciples “Who do men say I am” he initiated the greatest controversy and most important tenet of the Christian faith: who is Jesus Christ?
Perhaps the greatest threat to the (then) young Christian faith came with the so-called Arian heresy. Bishop Arias, citing the gospels, claimed that Jesus was begotten of the Father and was less than the Father, though divinely created. But by that time, the teaching that Jesus was co-equal with the Father was already a key tenet in the rapidly growing Christian faith.
The time was 325 A.D. when Emperor Constantine, wanting to quell the growing split in the newly recognized faith, called the bishops and other spiritual leaders together to settle the controversy. The emperor was desperate to contain the already fractious empire and didn’t need yet another major controversy. He was more interested in unity than in the theology.
Jesus’ declaration that “I and my Father are one” was in no small way a contributing factor towards his condemnation that led to his crucifixion. A core tenet of the Jewish faith was “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE!” Pitted against the so-called pagan religions that surrounded the Jews on all sides, the Jews took issue with the plethora of gods that infested the Greek, Roman, Egyptian and other religions of their time.
By declaring Jesus, the son of God and a co-equal with the Father, the new Christian faith appeared to move backwards in the direction of the pagan religions with their multiple gods. The theological explanation of the Trinity did little to mitigate this point of view as it seemed difficult to explain logically and to understand intuitively. In the context of the controversy, the orthodox faith might be termed “trinitarian.”
Arias’ teaching that Jesus was not co-eternal with the Father but was created “ex-nihilo” by the Father (out of nothing and before time) appealed to many (both clergy and commoners alike) for its simplicity and for its preservation of monotheism over pagan polytheism. They might be termed, unitarians, for affirming that there is only one God. (I admit that in trying to understand the two points of view it seems to me that Arias’ definition of Jesus is akin to having created a lesser god thus violating their insistence on there being only one god. I never found an adequate answer to that question.)
Enter Paramhansa Yogananda from India into the debate in the twentieth century. He brought the ancient teachings of Sanaatan Dharma, the eternal religion, to the West. Declaring that, rightly understood, the teaching of Trinity exists in India as well, and that the “second person” of God is not limited to the “person” of Jesus Christ but exists universally at the heart of every atom of creation and in the heart of every person.
In the first chapter of the gospel of John, this teaching is affirmed unequivocally out front: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. and the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” The name “Jesus” isn’t even used in this first chapter. This quote could come from any of the scriptures of India. No where is it stated that the Incarnated Logos (Word) in the person of Jesus is the ONLY such Incarnation.
Furthermore, this Logos or Christ-Krishna consciousness immanent in all things necessarily exists as a function of how God creates and sustains the universe; it cannot be otherwise. God could only create the universe out of his own “self,” that is to say, from “nothing” meaning from his own consciousness. [I use the masculine pronoun only as a linguistic convenience for God is neither male, nor female nor a created thing or being.]
Just as an idea can come into my mind and trigger sufficient enthusiasm to motivate me to bring the idea into manifestation, so the universe of visible objects comes out of the invisible void of God-consciousness by a process of vibrations of thought. To me quantum theory or string theory echoes this teaching.
Just as an author might create heroes and villains without being either a hero or a villain himself, so God is unaffected by the creation which he manifests. It is not uncommon for a successful author to insist that in the process of writing the characters took on a life of their own. Nonetheless, the stamp of the author’s “pen” remains. The universe and human experience we partake in may similarly seem to have a life of its own, but the mark of divinity resides at the heart of all things for those “who have eyes to see” and who can thus be called “seers:” the great saints and mystics of east and west. All things, all emotions, all thoughts have as their essential substance the indwelling consciousness and vibration of the Creator as the “Word” or Logos.
As God, being under no compulsion to do so, made the desireless choice to create, so the creation is indelibly stamped with the impulse to create. To maintain the illusion of separateness and objectivity, the motion of ceaseless vibration was necessary. We see this truth reflected in quantum physics, electromagnetism, and atomic structure where the three states of positive, negative and neutral are the necessary building blocks of energy and matter. By contrast, awareness is invisible and doesn’t appear to partake in motion (at least to the same degree). In the act of setting into motion the vibratory universe, consciousness was embedded into the heart of motion to provide the guiding intelligence. By their own nature, however, intelligence and intention remain invisible.
A novel cannot be acclaimed as great if there is no conflict. A protagonist and antagonist are necessary for the plot to hold one’s attention. At the same time, the resolution of the conflict into harmony provides the denouement that our soul demands, being, as we are, made in the image of the One who is whole, complete and ever blissful.
The oscillating fan blades of ceaseless motion are necessary for the illusion of objectivity and, in the process of movement, create opposites and opposing, if transient, states from a neutral center. God’s great novel of creation, too, requires for its perpetuation the contrast of choices, of opposites of good and evil, and the drama of conflict with periods of resolution in between.
Endowed with the creative impulse, it is not surprising that creation myths from around the world posit a dark, evil or consciously rebellious force because conflict and contrast is necessary to even be seen. All creation comes from God and to varying degrees therefore is made in the divine image. Yet for the show to go on, the creation and its creatures inherit the creative impulse and the freedom to choose. Creativity means to manifest objects and states of consciousness and we’ve seen that the manifestation of apparent “objects” only is possible because of contrasting oppositional states. It is no wonder, therefore, that some of these states will be viewed as negative and even evil. From the God’s eye view, the negative states serve a divine purpose: to prod conscious beings to ask questions and to seek ultimate good rather than only temporary relief.
At last, we turn the corner and begin to approach the reconciliation of Arias’ great heresy with the orthodox divinity of Jesus Christ. The “only begotten son of God” then is not limited to a person but begins with the consciousness, intelligence and intention that rests invisibly at the heart of every atom and the heart of every person. According to God’s plan, this immanent state of divinity evolves towards self-awareness and culminates in the human form with the realization of its oneness with the Father. This Self-realization occurs not merely to one such human person, viz., Jesus Christ, but is the destiny of all evolved souls who “Knock and (to whom) the door shall open.”
Any soul who through many lives of effort attracts the grace that frees the soul from its bondage of ignorance, and who thereby achieves the permanent realization that “I and my Father are one” is a son of God. As John stated in Chapter 1 of his gospel, “To as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God!” We are not different from Jesus Christ and other Christ-like masters in kind but only in the degree of our enlightened realization.
Who then is the third person of the Trinity: the so-called Holy Ghost? To create form, God needed to separate His invisible intelligence (consciousness) from the visible forms of creation. Just as I can perform an act which you can observe but which you cannot necessarily discern my intentions, so too the Holy Ghost is the visible appearance of the creation based on the principle of vibration. All things in creation, in feeling and thought are in motion and are but temporary. Even the rocks are, in their own geologic framework of time, temporary and on a molecular level, vibrating. All things are in polarity: positive, negative and neutral.
It is ALL God’s manifestation. There is NO other reality possible. The more self-awareness rises to the surface, and the gift of reason appears, the more our intelligence is a two-edged sword giving us the choice to act ignorantly or wisely; to shorten or lengthen the time it will take us to achieve Self-realization as a son of God. Our destiny, however, is assured; only the length of time it will take, and the intensity of our struggle remains in our hands.
When the entire universe of objects, emotions and thoughts are seen as manifestations of God the true meaning of monotheism can be understood. There is only one God! Insofar as creation cannot exist without the constant play of opposites, it is like a novel in which it is necessary to have both protagonist and antagonist. It cannot be otherwise. But woe to the one who commits evil for the consequences to him are suffering. But the choice to do so is necessary for the perpetuation of the great drama of life, which for all that it seems to be, is, nonetheless, merely a drama, indeed but a dream. It is a dream because when we wake up, we discover that there is but One who is the essence of all those who appear to be playing the parts!
A dream is real so long as we dream but vanishes when we awake. This does not mean good and evil are identical, however.
Virtue brings us closer to unmasking the One because harmony is closer to oneness; the nature of oneness is unconditional love and bliss. But God, out of which all duality appears, is untouched by good or evil. Through our conscience, our soul is receives the beatitude that goodness bestows for it is a pathway to Oneness.
Thus, both the Trinitarians and the Unitarians are right at least from their respective points of view. “The Lord our God, the Lord is ONE” is the truth and substance of all things. But the individual soul nonetheless journeys over many lives towards ever greater realization of the One. Until Self-realization is achieved, we feel separate from God. As Arias propounded that all creation came into being through the Logos as an instrument of God, begotten of the Father (but not equal), so we feel separate from God as his creatures. Yet being a manifestation of God, we too can declare as Jesus declared, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” In our case, however, we have not yet achieved the Christ consciousness of oneness with the Father. The soul’s destiny is to be redeemed, to be reunited to the Creator by the realization that, as it is said in Sanskrit, “Tat twam asi” (Thou art THAT!).
The symbol of the Eucharistic ritual of the “body” and “blood” of Christ is to unite the “body” of consciousness (the substance, or bread, of life) with the “blood” (the vibrating energy or life force that gives rise to the appearance of the body). By reuniting that which was separated at the dawn of creation (and in every moment in time), we achieve enlightenment as to the “truth that shall make us free.”
In India it is also taught that we need a “son of God” (a true guru) to awaken our memory of our divine nature. Reason alone cannot reveal this except only tentatively, as a hypothesis. The transmission of the realization of that memory is an awakening, essentially a soul or mystical experience, that matures into faith. The birth of this awareness is beautifully symbolized by the manger scene where the Christ (consciousness) is born. Thus, it is also true, that Jesus, as an awakened son of God (in Sanskrit, an avatar), is a channel for those sent to him by the Father through which souls are redeemed. Jesus himself said as much at the Last Supper.
The first coming of the Christ is in the form of the guru; the second coming is the awakening of Christ consciousness in the individual heart and consciousness.
Other sons of God, like Buddha, Krishna, and Yogananda and many others, have entire families of souls who are destined to be redeemed when, like the Prodigal Son, the soul awakens sufficiently to turn within and begin the journey home to Self-realization. Soul freedom takes many lifetimes. But In the Infinite consciousness of God, time is only relative and exists only in this world of duality. It has no reality for the soul is eternal and is as much part of God now as forever. “Before Abraham was, I AM” can be said for all of us except that in the avatars the truth of that has come into permanent, conscious realization.
When Krishna and Jesus, and others, speak in the impersonal pronoun of “I” (“I am the way, the truth and the light and no one comes to the Father but by me”), they are not speaking only as a person born in time and space but also as the universal Christ consciousness that lies within all. Yet at the same time, as avatars sent to redeem souls, they are ALSO the instruments of salvation. For the Christ risen comes to awaken the Christ memory, transmitting the power through grace needed to sustain that memory until it becomes fully realized.
By his death on the cross, Jesus did not redeem the whole world of souls. That is pious sentiment with neither evidence nor logic to support it. Jesus’ willingness to do the will of the Father even unto the torture, pain and death of the physical body is the lesson of the crucifixion. The truth and victory of that lesson is symbolized by the resurrection. All who accept with grace, forgiveness, and equanimity will find that the burden of karmic debt (sin) will be resurrected towards eventual soul freedom in God. Jesus had no personal karmic debt. His gift was his example of willingness and forgiveness. (Avatars can and do take up and release the karma of “as many as received him,” so Jesus certainly took away the karma of true disciples, but not card-carrying members of any Christian sect.)
What Christianity needs, therefore, is a broader and deeper understanding of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ so that his teachings can be resurrected from the tomb of ignorance and sectarianism. As Yogananda wryly put it, “Jesus was crucified once but his teachings have been crucified daily ever since.” Both Arius and the fledgling orthodox church had points of view that contained an element of truth. Both-And is the saving mantra of those who seek the truth.