Faith of Our Fathers: Myth Busters - "Jesus Was Not A Great Man" - Stamping Out Ignorance That Has Built Up Over 1700 Years

You go to the dentist to clean your teeth, you may take medicine to help keep your arteries clean, but what do you do for a religious check up? This may sound at first odd or weird, but with Church attendance decreasing and with many people not get a solid religious education in the first place, maybe religious check-ups are just what the doctor would order to help out our spiritual needs. If we had more of these maybe we be a much better society and world.

Almost since the advent of the end of the Council of Nicaea there has been a great deal of myths about what actually took place there and why. Several bestselling novels have been written on this subject and people believed the premise because it sounded good. The trouble with that was the logic was faulty and based on some very bad misconceptions or myths on what actually took place at the Council of Nicaea 1700 years ago. Today we will set the record straight.

Myth One – Until Nicaea Jesus Was Considered a Great Man and Looked Upon As Just a Prophet

Dan Brown claims the Roman Catholic Church created a divine Christ and an infallible Scripture. p. 233 Teabing states, “Jesus' establishment as the 'Son of God' was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicea.” “until that moment in history [the council of Nicaea in 323 AD], Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet” (p. 233). Brown claims “That the divinity of Jesus was first raised and established at the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, “prior to that time, no one—not even Jesus’ followers—believed Jesus was anything more than a “mortal prophet.”

Now if you didn’t know better and if you didn’t have any knowledge of the Council of Nicaea you might believe what was written. However, the interesting part of the logic behind that myth is Paul writes to Corinthians in I Corinthians 15 12-19.

The Resurrection of the Dead

¹² But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. ¹⁵ More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. ¹⁹ If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Note Paul expands upon the concept that Jesus was more than mere man or wise man. He was a resurrected being. Cross apply the fact that Paul was a contemporary of Jesus and wrote this to followers of Jesus at Corinth after the passion of Christ. He establishes the tone that Jesus died on the Cross to save mankind from their sins. If this were not true then everything else He said would not be true and our faith would be useless.

This totally takes out Dan Brown’s assertions, that the idea of the divinity of Jesus was hatched by the Roman Emperor Constantine as a political power play. The Emperor led the bishops to declare Jesus as the Son of God by a vote. “A relatively close vote at that,” ( p. 233) The Council of Nicaea created the divine Jesus. Nothing was further from the truth. Then why do people insist upon believing such?

This is good question and something that defies logic. If defies logic only to the extent one considers that groups who try to do this deception prey on the unwitting inabilities of people to ascertain the truth. C. S. Lewis, the author of the Narnia stories and a Christian apologetic, demonstrated this using an argument, which is now known as ‘Lewis’ Trilemma’. He reasoned that the Gospels describe how Jesus clearly saw Himself to be the Son of God and that if He was anything other than the Son of God then He would have had to have instead been either a lunatic or an evil person capable of deceiving His followers. He certainly would not have been merely a good man or a great moral teacher. To this I would add a logical fallacy that all people of this philosophy will have- Jesus was a great teacher. He said He was Son of God and if you believed what He said in other things and then deny what He said in this thing you diminish or actually obliterate the need to believe in Him in the first place. A prophet must be right in His teachings, once you prove part of His teachings wrong- the rest will be gone as well. This is the great error of Arianism- eventually you take out your own beliefs.

Today we face sects, cults, authors, and other major religions in this world that claim Jesus was only a great man. They deny His divinity, they deny parts of His teaching, and they deny history. Deny, deny, deny!. However, what we should deny is their faulty logic. By definition Jesus can be a mere great man or prophet because that would make Him great liar and deceiver. If He was prophet, a good man, and His miracles meant anything they must mean everything. Face the facts here, any error in His statements tarnish His greatness and take out the original premise in the first place.

Religious check ups? Maybe we need to get one each day- it is called prayer. Maybe we should get one at least once a week – it is called going to church. Until we grow in our faith and realize how easy it is to be deceived, we need to be vigilant and guard against Arianistic claims just as the Bishops did in Nicaea in 325. Jesus is the Christ. Christ has risen. Indeed He had risen.