There Was A Time When The Son of God Did Not Exist – Arianism
A man named Arius is infamous for having spread the heresy that the Son of God (i.e., Jesus) is not fully eternal. In other words, the Son of God was created in time and not eternally begotten by the Father. This is much like how a human father must precede his own child in existence.
What is particularly intriguing about Arius is that his heretical belief spread through songs he made. Is it not more fun to believe in falsehoods if they are catchy?
Arianism was a problem for Christians because it called into question Jesus’s full divinity. For example, if Jesus was simply the Son of God made by the Father, then that makes Him subordinate in essence/nature because the Father is eternal. Also, this heresy calls into question the efficacy of the atonement and salvation because only someone who is fully divine can reconcile with the fully divine.
To see a piece of the refutation that is still used by churches today, one only needs to look at the beginning lines of the Nicene Creed: “Begotten from the Father before all ages . . . begotten not made; of the same essence of the Father.”
