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Arianism Is Still Here: Ancient Errors in the Modern World

Arianism Is Still Here: Ancient Errors in the Modern World

Last updated on: October 3, 2026 at 5:43 pm by William Hemsworth

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Arianism Is Still Here: Ancient Errors in the Modern World 2026-10-03T17:43:47-07:00 William Hemsworth

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When we hear the word Arianism, there is a tendency to think of it as an ancient heresy that the Church dealt with a long time ago. Arius lived in the fourth century, the Council of Nicaea condemned his teaching in A.D. 325, and the Church clearly proclaimed that Jesus Christ is truly God. It would be easy to think that the issue was settled and disappeared into the pages of Church history, but unfortunately, it is not quite that simple.

Arianism itself may have been condemned, but ideas resembling it have continued to appear throughout Christian history. They do not always use the same terminology, and they certainly do not always teach exactly what Arius taught. However, the fundamental problem remains whenever Christ is reduced to something less than the eternal Son of God.

Historic Christianity teaches something radically different. Jesus Christ did not become God, he was not promoted to divinity, and he was not the greatest creature God ever made. The Son has eternally existed with the Father. This is why the language of the Nicene Creed is so important when it calls Christ “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.”

Those words were not chosen accidentally. They were used because the Church was defending the identity of Jesus Christ, and that battle did not end in the fourth century. Today, there are religious movements whose teachings concerning Christ bear important similarities to the ancient Arian controversy. There are also modern theological movements that approach the question from a completely different direction but can arrive at a similar destination—the denial of the full and eternal divinity of Christ.

Three examples are worth examining: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and theological modernism.

Arianism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses a great deal of terminology that sounds familiar to Christians. They speak about God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, baptism, Scripture, and eternal life. Because the terminology sounds familiar, it can be easy to assume that Catholics and Latter-day Saints mean essentially the same things when they use these words. However, there are substantial differences, especially when it comes to the person of Jesus Christ.

Latter-day Saint theology teaches that Jesus is divine and identifies him as Jehovah, but its understanding of God, creation, and the relationship between the Father and Son differs substantially from historic Nicene Christianity. According to LDS teaching, Christ was the “firstborn spirit son of God” (Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual, 9). Joseph F. Smith similarly wrote, “Among the spirit children of Elohim, the first-born was and is Jehovah, or Jesus Christ, to whom all others are juniors” (Gospel Doctrine, 70).

This creates an enormous theological difference. Catholic Christianity does not teach that Jesus is one spiritual offspring among others, even if he occupies the highest position. Jesus is the eternal Word of God. John’s Gospel states, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). A few verses later John tells us that “all things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be” (John 1:3).

The significance of John’s statement cannot be overlooked. If all things that were made came into existence through Christ, then Christ cannot belong to the category of things that were made. He stands on the Creator side of the Creator-creature distinction. That is precisely the distinction the Church defended against Arius.

The Problem Is Bigger Than a Different Interpretation

The disagreement between Catholicism and the LDS movement is also bigger than interpreting a handful of Bible verses differently. There is a fundamental disagreement regarding revelation itself. Catholics receive Sacred Scripture as part of the apostolic deposit of faith handed down within the Church, while the LDS movement accepts the Bible along with the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price as Scripture.

This creates two very different theological foundations. From the Catholic perspective, revelation cannot simply be reinvented centuries after the apostles because Christianity is an apostolic faith. St. Paul tells the Ephesians that the household of God is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone” (Ephesians 2:20). The Catholic Church therefore looks to Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the apostolic faith preserved through the centuries when determining what Christians believe about God.

This disagreement becomes especially important when discussing baptism. Some Catholics are surprised to learn that the Church does not recognize LDS baptism as valid. After all, Latter-day Saints baptize using the words “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” so why would the baptism not be recognized? The answer is that words have meaning, and the same words can be used while expressing very different theological ideas.

In 2001, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith addressed this question directly. It explained that although similar Trinitarian terminology is used, the theological meaning behind those terms is fundamentally different from the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The issue is not merely that Latter-day Saints misunderstand one aspect of the Trinity. Their underlying concepts of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit differ substantially from the apostolic and Nicene understanding.

Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Person of Christ

If there is a modern movement that more closely resembles ancient Arianism, Jehovah’s Witness theology is perhaps the clearest example. Jehovah’s Witnesses are well known for their missionary activity, and most of us have probably encountered them at our doors or seen them distributing literature. Their dedication to evangelization is certainly something Catholics can take as a challenge. We should be willing to share our faith with the same enthusiasm, but enthusiasm does not determine whether a doctrine is true.

When we examine their teaching concerning Jesus Christ, we find a serious departure from historic Christianity. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Jesus existed before his human life but that he was created by God. They also identify the prehuman Christ with Michael the Archangel. Jesus therefore occupies an incredibly important position in their theology, but he is not understood as the eternal, uncreated Son who is consubstantial with the Father.

This is precisely where the ancient controversy becomes relevant. Arius did not simply say that Jesus was an ordinary human being. His teaching gave Christ an exalted position, but the problem was that Christ was still ultimately placed on the created side of reality. The Church rejected that understanding because the apostolic faith proclaimed something much greater about Jesus.

Begotten, Not Made

This is why one small phrase in the Nicene Creed carries so much theological weight: “begotten, not made.” We say it at Mass so frequently that it can become almost automatic, but those words were forged in theological battle. The bishops at Nicaea understood that simply calling Jesus the “Son of God” was not enough because Arius could use similar language while giving it a completely different meaning.

The Church therefore became more precise. Jesus is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.” Christ possesses the same divine nature as the Father. He is not a lesser god, an angel, or God’s greatest creation. He is God the Son. This is why the Jehovah’s Witness understanding of Jesus cannot be reconciled with Nicene Christianity.

One passage frequently brought into discussions about Christ’s divinity is Colossians 1:15, where Paul calls Jesus “the firstborn of all creation.” At first glance, someone might read this as saying that Jesus was the first thing God created, but that interpretation misses the biblical meaning of firstborn. In Scripture, firstborn can indicate rank, inheritance, and supremacy rather than simply chronological birth.

The verses immediately following make Paul’s meaning even clearer: “For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible” (Colossians 1:16). Paul’s argument is not that Jesus is the first creature but that Christ is supreme over creation. Once again, the biblical picture is that creation comes into existence through Christ. The Creator cannot simultaneously be merely one member of the creation he brought into existence.

Modernism and the Divinity of Christ

The third example requires more nuance. Modernism is not simply Arianism with a modern name, and historically theological modernism encompasses a much broader range of ideas. However, certain forms of modernist theology can eventually arrive at a conclusion similar to Arianism: Jesus Christ is reduced to something less than the eternal divine Son. The road to that conclusion is simply different.

Human reason is a tremendous gift from God, and the Catholic Church has never taught that Christians should abandon reason. Quite the opposite. Faith and reason belong together. The problem comes when human reason is elevated above divine revelation and becomes the final judge of what God is permitted to reveal. Once that happens, the supernatural elements of Christianity can begin disappearing.

Miracles become legends, prophecy becomes literary invention, the Virgin Birth becomes symbolism, and the Resurrection becomes an experience of the disciples rather than an event in history. Eventually, Jesus himself can become little more than a religious teacher whose followers later exaggerated his identity. At that point we have moved very far away from apostolic Christianity.

One example can be seen in the writings of Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong, who challenged traditional Christian teachings including the Virgin Birth and bodily Resurrection. In Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Spong wrote that “the virgin birth tradition of the New Testament is not literally true.” Once foundational claims about Christ are continually reinterpreted as non-historical symbols, an important question must be asked: At what point are we no longer talking about the Jesus proclaimed by the apostles?

St. Paul certainly did not consider the Resurrection an optional metaphor. He wrote, “If Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching; empty, too, your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14). Paul stakes Christianity itself on the Resurrection. Christianity stands or falls on the identity and work of Jesus Christ.

The Church Responds to Modernism

The Catholic Church recognized the dangers presented by theological modernism, particularly during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Pope St. Pius X became one of its strongest opponents, and in 1910 the Oath Against Modernism required clergy and certain teachers within the Church to affirm central truths of the Catholic faith, including the historical reality of Christ and the divine institution of the Church.

The concern was not academic curiosity, nor was the Church afraid of legitimate scholarship. The concern was a method of theology that could gradually empty Christianity of its supernatural content while continuing to use Christian vocabulary. A person can say “Resurrection” while meaning something completely different from what the apostles meant. A person can say “Son of God” while denying that Christ is truly God. Words matter, but what we mean by those words matters just as much.

The Apostolic Answer Has Not Changed

This is where the Catholic response becomes important. The answer to modern errors concerning Christ is ultimately the same answer the Church gave in the fourth century: return to the apostolic faith**.**

Christianity did not begin in the nineteenth century. It did not begin with Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russell, or modern biblical criticism. Christianity began with Jesus Christ and was entrusted to the apostles. Those apostles proclaimed something astonishing: Jesus Christ is Lord, he died, he rose bodily from the dead, and he is the eternal Son of God. That faith was then handed down.

This is one of the great blessings of being Catholic. We do not have to reinvent Christianity every generation. When someone presents a supposedly new discovery about Jesus, we can ask a simple question: Is this what Christians have believed from the beginning?

We can read Ignatius of Antioch calling Jesus Christ “our God.” We can read Justin Martyr defending Christ before the pagan world. We can read Irenaeus combating false teaching and appealing to the apostolic faith preserved in the churches founded by the apostles. Eventually we arrive at Nicaea, where the Church solemnly proclaimed what Christians had been worshipping and confessing from the beginning: Jesus Christ is true God from true God.

Why This Still Matters

Some may look at all of this and wonder why it matters. Does it really matter whether Jesus is eternal, whether he is created or uncreated, or whether the Resurrection actually happened? Absolutely, because Christianity is not primarily a philosophy or merely a collection of moral teachings. Christianity is centered on a person.

If we get the identity of that person wrong, eventually everything else begins to change. Our understanding of salvation changes, our understanding of worship changes, our understanding of Scripture changes, and even our understanding of God changes. This is why the early Christians fought so passionately over words such as homoousios, meaning “of the same substance.” They were not arguing over meaningless theological technicalities. They understood what was at stake.

If Jesus is merely a creature, then worshipping him would be idolatry. But if Jesus truly is God, then falling on our knees before him is exactly what we should do. Thomas gives us perhaps the simplest confession of all when he encounters the risen Christ and declares, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Jesus does not correct him. He receives the confession, and two thousand years later the Catholic Church continues making the same confession.

The Ancient Question Remains

Arius has been dead for centuries, but the question behind the Arian controversy remains very much alive: Who is Jesus Christ? Every generation has to answer that question. Some will say he was a prophet, others will say he was an angelic being, and some will call him the first and greatest creation of God. Others will say he was an inspiring teacher whose followers eventually transformed him into something more.

The Catholic Church continues to proclaim the faith handed down from the apostles. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. He was not created, and there was never a time when the Son did not exist. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, truly became man, truly suffered, truly died, and truly rose again.

The answer to modern forms of ancient errors is therefore not complicated. It is the same answer Christians have confessed for centuries and the same answer we proclaim every time we recite the Creed:

Jesus Christ is Lord.

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