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Nicene Creed

Central Question:

Nicene Creed decided if Christ was 1 or 3 people. Can I trust their decision making?

Why this is important to me:

So much of Christianities ideals and culture came from these meetings. They consisted of arguments on the most central cores of Christianity.

Until these meetings there was no definition on Jesus. As in, is Jesus just a man or was he God and the Holy Spirit too.

Backstory to the Nicene Creed

The First Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council of the church. Most significantly, it resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed. With the creation of the creed, a precedent was established for subsequent local and regional councils of bishops (synods) to create statements of belief and canons of doctrinal orthodoxy—the intent being to define unity of beliefs for the whole of Christendom.^[8]

The First Council of Nicaea, the first general council in the history of the Church, was convened by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great upon the recommendations of a synod led by the bishop Hosius of Corduba in the Eastertide of 325, or rather convened by Hosius and supported by Constantine.^[18] This synod had been charged with investigation of the trouble brought about by the Arian controversy in the Greek-speaking east.^[19] To most bishops, the teachings of Arius were heretical and dangerous to the salvation of souls.^[20] In the summer of 325, the bishops of all provinces were summoned to Nicaea, a place reasonably accessible to many delegates, particularly those of Asia Minor, Georgia, Armenia, Syria, Egypt, Greece, and Thrace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

Council Decided if Jesus was 1 or 3 people

With respect to the Godhead Question, the large portion of the Nicene Creed that is devoted to Christ (more than 80%), indicates that the main issue before the council was about Jesus Christ; not about the Father or about the Holy Spirit. What the main issue was more exactly can be seen by comparing the condemnations at the end of the decree - reflecting Arius’ views - with the council’s affirmations as contained in the body of the creed:

While Arius claimed that Jesus Christ was created, the Council concluded, since He was begotten, that He was not made.
While Arius argued that Jesus Christ was created out of nothing or out of something else, the council affirmed that He was begotten out of the substance (essence) of the Father.
Since the statement in the creed, that the Jesus Christ is homoousion with the Father (of the same substance),^[41][42] does not counter any of Arius’ claims, as reflected in the condemnation, the debate was not about what His substance is, but out of what substance He was generated. The term homo-ousios was added only because Emperor Constantine proposed and insisted on its inclusion.^[43][44][45] Both Fortman and Erickson mention that the main issue before the council was “not the unity of the Godhead” but the Son’s “full divinity.”^[46][47]

According to Warren H. Carroll, in the Council of Nicaea, “The Church had taken her first great step to define revealed doctrine more precisely in response to a challenge from a heretical theology.”^[21]

^{Council Dissenting Argument was Strong}

The opposing view stemmed from the idea that begetting the Son is itself in the nature of the Father, which is eternal. Thus, the Father was always a Father, and both Father and Son existed always together, eternally, coequally and consubstantially.^[55] The contra-Arian argument thus stated that the Logos was “eternally begotten”, therefore with no beginning. Those in opposition to Arius believed that to follow the Arian view destroyed the unity of the Godhead, and made the Son unequal to the Father. They insisted that such a view was in contravention of such Scriptures as “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and “the Word was God” (John 1:1), as such verses were interpreted. They declared, as did Athanasius,^[56] that the Son had no beginning, but had an “eternal derivation” from the Father, and therefore was coeternal with him, and equal to God in all aspects.^[57]

These unifying decisions did not happen for religious reasons, they were pushed by the empire for civil order

Constantine’s role regarding Nicaea was that of supreme civil leader and authority in the empire. As Emperor, the responsibility for maintaining civil order was his, and he sought that the Church be of one mind and at peace. When first informed of the unrest in Alexandria due to the Arian disputes, he was “greatly troubled” and, “rebuked” both Arius and Bishop Alexander for originating the disturbance and allowing it to become public.^[79] Aware also of “the diversity of opinion” regarding the celebration of Easter and hoping to settle both issues, he sent the “honored” Bishop Hosius of Cordova (Hispania) to form a local church council and “reconcile those who were divided”.^[79] When that embassy failed, he turned to summoning a synod at Nicaea, inviting “the most eminent men of the churches in every country”.^[80]