The Council of Nicaea in 325, whose 1,700th anniversary the global Church is now marking, was a pivotal moment in Christian history. It was the first ecumenical council, and it addressed a fundamental question: Is Jesus divine, or was he created by the Father and thus subordinate to him? This is the defining question of Christianity.

In retrospect, it seems shocking that 300 years after the resurrection, this question had not been definitively resolved. However, the rise of Christian theology was a slow process, and it took considerable time to develop appropriate terminology.

Early Christians were concerned more with living the Gospel than with explaining it to philosophers. Doctrine and the life of the faithful cannot be neatly separated into packages that don’t affect each other. If today we assume that doctrine is more important than spirituality, we may be mistaken. To be sure, right prayer and right belief are intertwined. If our beliefs are faulty, we would pray to a God who does not exist. More controversially, if our lifestyle is degenerate, we may easily fall prey to a set of erroneous beliefs.

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The Eastern Christian churches typically view right belief and right spirituality as the same, with the spiritual life being of greater importance. Correct doctrine is essential, not only because it is true, but primarily because it enables us to live in union with Christ. In the West, we have not yet reached that understanding, although Vatican II nudged things in that direction.

The Gospels contained questions that raised doubt about Christ’s divinity. If Jesus was God, why did Luke’s Gospel (2.52) say, “Jesus increased in wisdom”? Why did Jesus say regarding Heaven and earth passing away, “About that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father”? (Mark 13.32) If Jesus were divine, He would know everything, and He would already possess the fullness of wisdom. Wouldn’t He?

The Nicene Creed answered the question of Jesus’ divinity in a seemingly unequivocal manner. Jesus is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father.” This was not only true doctrine, it implied the spiritual path Christians were to follow. Jesus had bridged the chasm between the divine and the human. 

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The Incarnation not only showed how to follow Jesus, it also pointed to our destination. The destination is oneness with God through Jesus Christ – theosis, or divinization. Human beings could only be deified if Jesus was God. 

Theological debates, far from subsiding after the Council of Nicaea, only intensified. Seven ecumenical councils from Nicaea in 325 to Nicaea II in 787 were required to resolve questions about the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the relationship between Christ’s divine and human natures, and Mary’s status as the Mother of God. 

Parallel with the debates over the divinity of Christ was a debate over the meaning of divinization or deification. St. Athanasius wrote, “Christ became human so we could become God.” Did this mean that the Incarnation gave us knowledge of God so we could imitate God? Or did it mean something much stronger – that the baptized person could truly ascend to the level of the divine? 

In the 14th century, Gregory Palamas took the stand that became widely held in the Orthodox Church. Palamas maintained that while humans can never share in the divine essence, we can participate in what he called divine energies. Deification is not an analogy but a reality. 

While Catholic teaching differs from that of Palamas, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is replete with statements that can be understood in terms of the concept of divinization. Indeed, St. Paul’s letters and the writings of the Johannine community seem to support a realistic understanding of deification.

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Human beings, it should be noted, are misfits in nature. We are oriented to seek union with God but live in a material world to which we are ill-suited. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8.20) Following the call to deification leaves us homeless in this world.

Humans live uneasily on the border between spirit and matter. Our God-given mission is to be overseers or stewards of creation. The human situation is like that of the Christ who is both divine and human. While we reach for the stars, our feet must remain planted on earth. Nicaea leads Christ’s followers to walk a tightrope of spirit and matter.