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 How was this teaching of divine bridge building undermined by a) Arianism, and

b) Monophysitism and Monothelitism?

            Once the Christian Church proved victorious over the persecution coming from without, from the pagans, an even greater danger arose from within. That danger was in the form of attacks from false brothers in the Church — that is, from one heresy and schism after another. Among those heresies were Arianism, Monophysitism and Monothelitism.

            Arianism undermined the idea of divine bridge building in that it falsely taught that the Son was inferior to the Father. It also falsely placed the Son among created things: a superior creature, it said, yet still a creature. The effect of this heresy was to render man's deification impossible. Condemning Arianism, the First Ecumenical Council (325) answered that only if Christ is truly God can He unite us to God, for the way to union with God can be opened by none but God Himself. The Council went on to affirm the truth that Christ is “of one essence” (homoousios) with the Father. He is not a demigod or a superior creature, but He is God in the same sense that the Father is God.

            Monophysitism and Monothelitism undermined the idea of divine bridge building from the opposite approach: both struck at the fullness of Christ's humanity and held that He was not truly man. Monophysitism maintained that in Christ was a unity of personality, but only one nature. That is, it considered that Christ's human nature had been absorbed by His divine nature. The Fourth Ecumenical Council (451) replied with a proclamation of belief in “one and the same Son, perfect in Godhood and perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man... acknowledged in two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference between the natures is in no way removed because of the union, but rather the peculiar property of each nature is preserved, and both combine in one Person and in one Hypostasis.”

            (Concerning the word hypostasis, Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos explains that it is derived from the Greek verb meaning to stand underneath, and it implies stability, the foundation, basis, and so forth. In theological language, hypostasis means being or reality, in contrast to appearance. The metropolitan goes on to state that according to St. John of Damascus, hypostasis means two things: first, existence, and secondly, the particular existence of each person. That is to say, a man is a hypostasis, he has a real existence, but also each person has his particular existence, the peculiarly characteristic features which distinguish him from other people, other hypostases).

            Monothelitism, a later form of Monophysitism, held that although Christ has two natures, He is still a single Person and thus has only one will — namely, the divine will. The Sixth Ecumenical Council (680) condemned this false teaching and replied that if Christ has two natures, then He must have two wills.

            Arius is called a fighter against God and a ringleader of the heresies. He was a second Judas, although he had a worse end than Judas, who at least died in a secluded place. As Arius was on his way to be reconciled to the Church, the bishop who had to receive him suspected that his repentance was not genuine, and he therefore placed the matter in God's hands. Then, while Arius was on his way to church, he stepped into a public latrine, and there he died when his bowels burst from his body.

            Arianism was brought back to life in the modern God-fighting sect of the Jehovah's Witnesses, which also denies Christ's Divinity and openly and consciously attacks the Holy Trinity. It should come as no surprise that the Jehovah's Witnesses are given extensive financial support from the enemies of Christianity.