church heresies quiz - ash

gnosticism

• gnosis is greek for knowledge (also known to be a secret knowledge)

• people who believed in this heresy also believed that in order to be saved you

3 things gnostics agreed on

•the world is separated from the one supreme being

• the soul is perfect and is trapped in a physical body

• the soul must be freed to return home

they also believed..

• jesus is a guide

• the creator god is evil

• most people are sleepwalkers

gnostics taught that...

• there were 2 gods

- one was the creator god (old testament)

- and the good unknowable divine being god

( new testament)

• the soul was trapped in the body by the evil god

• jesus was sent to give secret knowledge to a select few so they could return to the unknowable divine being (this was only possible if they understood the secret knowledge and practiced the gnostic rituals)

Gnostics rejected.....

• they rejected the church's' doctrine of both jesus' human and divine nature (they rejected his divine nature because "the logos" was not god

•they rejected jesus' human nature because that would be material and therefore evil (jesus' body was just an apparition)

major errors of gnosticism

• they denied...

- the goodness of the created world

- the true existence and supremacy of the one true god

- the clear meaning of scripture

- jesus' human and divine nature, and his redemptive paschal mystery

- it is an elitist religion, you need this secret knowledge and if you don't have it, you are not saved

arianism

• was started by arius who believed that..

- jesus is not god

- jesus is not equal to the father

• arius taught that god (the father) created the son and then gave the son authority over creation

- essentially, the son is not truly god, but a creation of god

- the supreme creation but not divine

• the church reaffirmed the traditional belief in the divinity of jesus at the council of nicea in 325, proclaiming that jesus is consubstantial with the father so arianism was no longer a possible belief

Apolloinarianism

• this belief originated fro apollinaris

• this heresy taught that..

- jesus is true god (consubstantial with the father

- has a human body

- but does not have a human intellect or free will

• the error of apolloinarianism is

- if jesus did not have a human mind and human will, he did not live a complete human life

- so he did not fully share in our human experience

- and this means human nature is not redeemed

nestorianism

• mary had originally been called the Theotokos meaning " god-bearer" or "mother of god"

• nestorius who was a patriarch of constantinople said that mary was NOT theotokos

- Rather Mary was the Mother of the human person Jesus, but NOT the Mother of the divine Person of the Son of God.

• this was a problem because...

- he taught that jesus is the unity of 1 divine person and 1 human

- essentially.. 2 SEPARATE PERSONS

what is wrong with nesorius' teaching?

• it seems like the son "possessed" Jesus

• the son does things that lead to Jesus' death, but the son doesn't suffer crucifixion (the human Jesus does)

• doesn't line up with who we know god to be

then..

• at the council of Ephesus in 431, the church condemned Nestorius and reaffirmed that:

- Jesus christ is one person

- Mary is the theotokos (because if Mary is the mother of Jesus, and Jesus is god, then Mary is the mother of god)

Monophysitism

• means one nature

Taught:

• there is only one nature in christ rather than 2

• the human nature of Jesus "incorporated" into the divine nature

• the one person of the son has a new mixed nature

why is monophysitism a problem?

• Jesus is neither human nor divine at this point. all the reasons for why it is necessary for Jesus to be human so he can save us and redeem us goes away. all the reasons for why it is necessary that he is fully god also go away

• This heresy was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 when the Church declared that:

- Jesus’ human and divine nature are UNITED but not CONFUSED (mixed) in the one person of the Son

- And we call this union the “hypostatic union"

TRINITARIAN HERESIES

MODE AND PART

modalism

• the incorrect belief that says god takes the form (or mode) of the father or the son or the holy spirit

• god cannot be father, son, and spirit at the same time (he can only morph from one form to another)

partialism

• the incorrect belief that the father, son, and spirit are "parts" of god

• the "part" cannot be the "whole"

• the partialists claimed that he father was 1/3 of god, son was 1/3 of god, and spirit was 1/3 of god