There is something wonderfully confident about the claim that we can simply establish a neat little checklist for determining who is—and who is not—Nicene. Five propositions. Oh, sorry, six! That little numerical wobble may seem insignificant, but it actually introduces us to the larger problem. Jake Brancatella argues in The Making of the Trinity that anyone who wishes to be regarded as Nicene must affirm a series of propositions concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: that all three are fully divine and share the same essence; that they are distinct persons; that the Father is unbegotten; that the Son and Spirit eternally proceed from the Father; that there is only one Most High God; and that all these propositions are eternally true.

On the surface, this sounds entirely reasonable. After all, isn’t that what Nicene orthodoxy is? Well… yes and no. The difficulty is that Jake’s criteria are not simply a neutral description of the Nicene Creed. They represent a much more developed theological synthesis that incorporates centuries of subsequent reflection on divine processions, relations of origin, personhood, and the nature of divine unity. And that matters enormously. Because if we take a theological system that developed through the fourth century and beyond, turn it into a six-point checklist, and then march backwards through the Ante-Nicene Fathers asking whether they tick every box, we have created a rather impressive historical trap. We are no longer asking: “What did this theologian mean in his own historical and theological context?” We are asking: “Did this second- or third-century Christian sound like a fourth- or fifth-century theologian?” That is a very different question. And history tends to object rather loudly when we do that. So let me unpack this point by point. 

The First Problem: There Is No Nicene “Six-Point Checklist”

Let’s begin with the obvious. Jake presents his criteria as though they constitute the necessary requirements for identifying Nicene theology. But the Nicene Creed of AD 325 does not give us this six-point systematic formulation. The original Nicene Creed confesses: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty…” and then immediately confesses: “And in one Lord Jesus Christ…” The Son is described as: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father.” That is extraordinarily significant. The Nicene confession is overwhelmingly concerned with who the Son is in relation to the Father and whether the Son is truly God. The Holy Spirit receives only the briefest confession at the conclusion of the creed. Yes, I know what skeptics then say about the Spirit that was depreciated etc etc. Tsk tsk… (Did I spell that right, Grammarly) 😀

The much fuller pneumatological belongs to the later Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed associated with Constantinople in AD 381. So, when Jake’s criteria are presented as the necessary conditions of being Nicene, we need to ask a rather awkward question: “Immmm…Jake… Nicene according to whom?” No realy…in the almost 2000 years of the History of the Church? Who? You? Nicaea Constantinople? The Cappadocian Three? Augustine? Aquinas? Modern systematic theology? I don’t know if you noticed, but all these are not interchangeable categories.

Lewis Ayres (Peace be upon him), one of the leading modern historians of Nicene theology, cautions precisely against flattening the fourth-century controversies into neat theological parties. He says;

“Modern Trinitarianism has barely engaged with” the theological practices that shaped “pro-Nicene theology.” 

His work demonstrates how terminology, biblical exegesis, philosophical categories, and theological trajectories developed throughout the fourth century. His study of Nicaea explicitly asks whether we can even identify a single common theology among the architects of the Nicene settlement. That should make us pause before producing a Nicene doctrinal checklist with a laminated cover.

Nicaea Was Not a Systematic Theology Textbook

This is perhaps the most important distinction. The Council of Nicaea did not produce a complete systematic theology of the Trinity. It produced a creedal confession aimed primarily at resolving a particular controversy concerning the identity and status of the Son. The word homoousios, “of the same substance,” was deployed to deny the claim that the Son was a creature or belonged on the creaturely side of the Creator/creation distinction. That is why the creed says that the Son is: “true God from true God” and “begotten, not made.”

The target is not merely a vague belief in three divine persons. The target is the theological claim that the Son is something less than fully divine. Modern scholarship has repeatedly emphasized this. Khaled Anatolios describes Nicene theology not as a collection of isolated propositions but as a comprehensive reintegration of Christian faith. His work argues that the Nicene achievement must be understood through its biblical, theological, liturgical, and soteriological framework. That is a much more sophisticated account of Nicaea than:

Question 1: Do you believe X?

Question 2: Do you believe Y?

Question 3: Please tick the box confirming eternal procession.

Congratulations. You are now Nicene. Come on! The fourth century was considerably messier than that.

Back to the “Five… or actually Six” Propositions

Jake initially describes these as “five propositions” and subsequently refers to “six propositions.” That is more than a typo because the argument depends upon these propositions functioning as a comprehensive criterion. But even more importantly, proposition four requires careful scrutiny:

“The Son and Holy Spirit eternally proceed from the Father.” This formulation is problematic. The classical distinction is precisely that the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds. The Nicene Creed says that the Son is: “begotten, not made.” And the later creed says of the Spirit: “who proceeds from the Father.” These are not simply interchangeable words. Gregory of Nazianzus, John of Damascus, Augustine, and later scholastic theology all wrestle with the distinction between generation and procession. John of Damascus, for example, explicitly distinguishes the Son’s generation from the Spirit’s procession while affirming that both are eternal and divine. He writes that the Son is “derived from the Father after the manner of generation,” whereas the Spirit is derived from the Father “after that of procession,” while simultaneously insisting that the difference in mode does not produce a difference in nature.

So if the criterion is meant to say: The Son is eternally begotten of the Father and the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father, then it should simply say that. But if it literally says that the Son and Spirit both “proceed” from the Father, it is using procession in a broader technical sense than the classical distinction normally permits. Ironically, the checklist intended to police terminological precision has itself become terminologically imprecise. The theological equivalent of bringing a ruler to measure everyone else’s grammar while spelling “grammar” incorrectly.

“The Father Alone Is Unbegotten” Does Not Mean the Son Is Less Divine

Here we need to distinguish essence from personal property. Jake rightly observes that classical Nicene theology distinguishes the Father as unbegotten, the Son as begotten, and the Spirit as proceeding. But then the argument risks treating these personal distinctions as though they undermine equality of essence. They do not… (BTW this argument sounds a lot like some of the arguments of Dale Tuggy and other Unitarians…)

In classical Trinitarian theology, the Father’s being unbegotten does not mean that the Father possesses more deity than the Son. This distinction is crucial. Gregory of Nazianzus explicitly argues that the Father, Son, and Spirit differ according to their personal properties, not according to their divine nature. John of Damascus makes the same distinction: the Father is unbegotten, the Son begotten, and the Spirit proceeding, but these differences do not divide the divine nature. Augustine is even more explicit. He writes that the Father alone is called “unbegotten,” but immediately warns that the term is not found in Scripture and belongs to the language of theological disputation. That little qualification is important. “Unbegotten” is not a biblical name for the Father. It is a theological term used to articulate a personal distinction. And that distinction is not equivalent to saying:

Father = God in the fullest sense

Son = God but somehow derivative

Spirit = God but slightly further down the queue.

That would indeed be subordinationism. But classical Nicene theology specifically rejects that conclusion. The Father is the Father because He is unbegotten. The Son is the Son because He is begotten. The Spirit is the Spirit because He proceeds. These RELATIONS distinguish the persons without dividing the essence. Gilles Emery’s work on Aquinas is particularly helpful here. He notes that the divine persons are distinguished through relations, and that the plurality of persons does not arise from differences in divine essence. So the fact that the Father has a personal property that the Son does not possess does not mean that the Father has an additional essential property that makes Him more God. Gilles writes:

“Relation distinguishes and identifies the person which it ‘constitutes’.”

That distinction is absolutely fundamental to Nicene theology.

The “One Most High God” Criterion Is Too Ambiguous

Brancatella says that denying the proposition that there is “only one Most High God” entails polytheism or atheism. Well, yes… if someone actually believes there are several independent gods. But this doesn’t function as a uniquely Nicene criterion. Monotheism was not invented at Nicaea. Christians were monotheists long before AD 325. The issue at Nicaea was precisely how Christians could confess one God while affirming the full deity of the Son. That is why the Nicene confession begins: “We believe in one God…” and then confesses the Son as: “true God from true God.” The theological question was therefore not simply: “Do you believe in one God?” The Arians could say they believed in one God. But the freakin real question was: What kind of unity is Christian monotheism?

And that question cannot be settled by simply adding “one Most High God” to a checklist. It requires a theological account of ousia, hypostasis, relations, divine identity, and the biblical confession of Father, Son, and Spirit. That is precisely why the fourth-century debates became so complicated. Lewis Ayres’ work is valuable here because he demonstrates that the development of Nicene theology involved the gradual clarification of the relationship between divine unity and personal distinction rather than the simple discovery of a previously completed theological system.

The Biggest Historical Problem: Reading Later Nicene Theology Backwards

This is where I think Jake’s argument becomes most vulnerable. He wants to evaluate Ante-Nicene writers by asking whether they affirm the complete package of later Nicene orthodoxy. But the development of theological language is precisely what happened during the period under investigation. The fourth century was not merely a time when Christians finally learned how to use words they had always used perfectly. The vocabulary developed. The categories developed. The distinctions developed. The debates forced theologians to clarify what they meant.

Lewis Ayres’ (Peace be upon him) research demonstrates this beautifully in the development of fourth-century theology. His treatment of Basil of Caesarea, for example, highlights Basil’s developing distinction between unity at the level of ousia and distinction at the level of hypostases and personal properties. Ayres argues that Basil should not simply be labelled a subordinationist because of formulations that can sound awkward to modern ears. That is precisely the point. Historical theology must be interpreted historically. If an Ante-Nicene Father uses terminology that later becomes unacceptable, the question cannot simply be: “Does he pass the Nicene exam?” We must ask: “What does he mean by these terms in his own theological context?” Otherwise we end up judging Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen and others as though they had secretly attended a fourth-century systematic theology seminar and simply refused to submit the final assignment.

The Ante-Nicene Fathers Were Not Secret Arians

This is another place where caution is needed. It is perfectly legitimate to point out that some Ante-Nicene theologians used language that later Nicene theology rejected or refined. But that does not automatically make them proto-Arians. Arius is not simply “anyone who says the Father is greater than the Son.” The Arian controversy involved a much more specific theological account of the Son as a creature and therefore as belonging to a fundamentally different ontological category from the Father (Believe it or not). Nicaea’s famous rejection of this position is captured in its language: “begotten, not made” and “of one substance with the Father.”

The issue is not whether an early Christian occasionally described the Father as the source or principle of the Son. The issue is whether the Son is fully and eternally divine. That distinction matters. Indeed, Gregory of Nazianzus could speak very strongly of the Father’s monarchy while simultaneously defending the full divinity of the Son and Spirit. So can a theologian emphasize the Father’s monarchy and still be genuinely Trinitarian? Absolutely….  The Eastern Christian tradition has spent centuries answering precisely that question.

The Filioque Alone Should Make Us Nervous About an Overly Rigid Checklist

There is another problem with Brancatella’s formulation. He says the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father “(or the Father and the Son).” That little parenthesis is doing an enormous amount of work. Because if the criteria are genuinely necessary conditions for Nicene orthodoxy, then which one is it?

Father alone?

Father and Son?

Father through the Son?

From the Father and Son as one principle?

These formulations are not identical. And yet both Eastern and Western traditions regard themselves as faithful to the Nicene faith. Augustine, for example, argues that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son while maintaining the Father’s unique primacy as source. Augustine writes that the Spirit proceeds from the Father “principally” but also from the Son. That did not make Augustine a non-Nicene theologian. It became part of the later Western development of Trinitarian theology. So the moment we admit legitimate theological development and legitimate diversity within Nicene Christianity, the six-point checklist begins to look less like a definition and more like a particular theological synthesis. And that is an important distinction.

“Are Modalists, Arians and Unitarians Trinitarians?” Of Course Not.

Here I actually agree with Brancatella. Modalists are not Trinitarians. Arians are not Nicene Trinitarians. Biblical Unitarians are not Trinitarians. Jehovah’s Witnesses are not Nicene Trinitarians. Nobody needs to perform theological gymnastics to establish this. But that does not prove the larger argument. The question is not: “Are non-Trinitarian movements Trinitarian?” They obviously are not!  The question is: “What criteria should we use when determining whether a historical Christian theologian belongs within the development of Nicene Trinitarian theology?” Those are two completely different questions. Nobody is arguing that Arius was secretly a Nicene theologian because he occasionally used the word “Son.” The issue is whether Ante-Nicene theologians must be expected to articulate the fully developed conceptual vocabulary of post-Nicene theology before they can be regarded as contributing to the trajectory that eventually became Nicene orthodoxy. That is a much harder historical question. And the answer is clearly no…. or as we South African’s say….NOPE!!

The Irony of “Terminological Precision”

Ok this made me chuckle.  Jake rightly complains that historical theologians can sometimes excuse early Christian thinkers by appealing to “lack of clarity” or “terminological precision.” Fair enough. There are certainly cases where scholars have been far too generous. But there is another danger. We can become so obsessed with terminological precision that we forget that terminology itself was developing. The fourth century was not simply the period in which Christians discovered the correct vocabulary. It was the period in which they fought about vocabulary because vocabulary mattered.

Ousia.

Hypostasis.

Homoousios.

Homoiousios.

Agennetos.

Gennetos.

Procession.

Generation.

These weren’t theological emojis. They mattered because Christians were trying to preserve the biblical confession while explaining how the Father, Son, and Spirit could be distinguished without dividing God. That process took time. Anatolios’s recent work is particularly helpful here. He describes the Nicene controversy as an exercise in “systematic” theology precisely because Nicene theology involved the creative reintegration of Christian faith through Scripture, worship, doctrine, and Christian existence. In other words, Nicaea was not the end of the theological conversation. It was one of the most important moments in the conversation.

The Strange Case of Gregory of Nyssa

Perhaps the best antidote to an overly rigid checklist is to look at the Cappadocians. Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus were instrumental in the development of what eventually became classical Trinitarian orthodoxy. Yet their theological vocabulary is not simply identical. Their formulations developed. Their explanations differ. Their emphases differ. And they were themselves responding to earlier theological traditions. This is precisely why modern scholarship increasingly speaks about pro-Nicene theology rather than treating “Nicene” as though it were a static theological database downloaded directly from heaven in AD 325. Ayres’ work demonstrates that the development of pro-Nicene theology involved complex theological trajectories in which the Cappadocians played a crucial role. His analysis of Basil, for example, highlights the emergence of a mature account of unity in ousia and distinction in hypostases. That development is not evidence that the earlier theologians were necessarily heretical. It is evidence that theology develops. And there is nothing inherently embarrassing about that.

What Should the Criteria Actually Be? (Just a suggestion)…

Rather than beginning with a six-point checklist derived from later Trinitarian synthesis, I would suggest something much simpler.

A theologian should be regarded as substantially within the Nicene trajectory when that theologian:

1. Confesses the one God of Scripture

Christian Trinitarianism remains irreducibly monotheistic.

2. Confesses the genuine deity of the Son

The Son is not a creature, angel, demiurge or intermediate divine being.

3. Confesses the Son as eternally related to the Father

There was not a point at which the Son came into existence.

4. Confesses the unity of divine being

Father and Son do not possess competing or separate divine essences.

5. Maintains genuine distinction between Father and Son

The Father is not simply the Son wearing a different theological hat.

6. Confesses the Holy Spirit as genuinely divine

The Spirit belongs within the divine identity and is not merely an impersonal force or creature.

7. Understands salvation as God’s own work

This is particularly important in Athanasius and other pro-Nicene theologians.

The logic is wonderfully simple: If God saves, and Christ saves, then Christ must belong on God’s side of the Creator-creature distinction. That is one of the driving theological convictions behind Nicene theology. The problem, therefore, is not whether Nicene Christianity has doctrinal boundaries. Of course it does. The problem is whether those boundaries can legitimately be reduced to a later systematic formulation and then retroactively imposed upon theologians who lived before the vocabulary had reached its mature form. Lewis Ayres’s account of “pro-Nicene theology” is particularly important here, since he treats the theology of the fourth century as a developing theological achievement rather than as the mechanical repetition of a completed system.

The Real Issue Is Not “Nicene Checklist” vs “No Nicene Checklist”

This needs to be said clearly. Jake is right about something important. There are boundaries. Christian theology cannot simply call everything “Trinitarian.” If someone says: “Father, Son and Spirit are three temporary modes of one person,” that is not Nicene Trinitarianism. If someone says: “The Son is a creature,” that is not Nicene Trinitarianism. If someone says: “The Holy Spirit is an impersonal force” (yes…there are actually people that say that…), that is not Nicene Trinitarianism. So yes, boundaries matter. But historical boundaries are not the same thing as a systematic-theological checklist. And that distinction is crucial. Arius does not become Nicene because the terminology was complicated. But neither does Origen become an Arian simply because some of his formulations require historical explanation. That would be bad history.

Please, don’t Turn Nicaea Into a Theology Exam

The great irony is that a book interested in The Making of the Trinity should be especially careful not to assume that the finished theological product was already sitting on the shelf before the manufacturing process began. In a way that is exactly the argument Muslims have… That’s rather like writing a history of the automobile and then criticizing the Wright brothers because their aircraft didn’t have airbags. The early Church did not receive a completed fourth-century theological vocabulary and then spend three hundred years copying it neatly into notebooks.

It argued.

It refined.

It borrowed language.

It rejected formulations.

It defended Scripture.

It made distinctions.

It occasionally made theological messes.

And then it cleaned some of them up.

That is what theological development looks like.

The Nicene achievement should therefore be defended… but it should be defended historically. The creed of Nicaea gives us the decisive confession that the Son is truly God, eternally begotten, not made, and homoousios with the Father. The later development of Trinitarian theology clarified how this confession could be articulated through the language of person, essence, relation, generation and procession. Modern scholars such as Lewis Ayres and Khaled Anatolios have demonstrated how important this developmental dimension is for understanding Nicene theology. And perhaps that leaves us with a more historically responsible question than: “Does this Father pass the six-point Nicene checklist?” The better question is: “How does this theologian contribute to the developing Christian confession that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God, while remaining genuinely distinct?” That question doesn’t make the boundaries disappear. It simply prevents us from pretending that the fourth century arrived fully assembled. And that, ironically, is precisely what makes the story of the Trinity so fascinating. The Trinity was not invented at Nicaea. But neither did Nicaea drop a fully developed systematic theology out of the sky. The Nicene confession was a decisive theological judgment within a much longer process of biblical interpretation, doctrinal clarification, and ecclesial debate. And if we want to understand the making of the Trinity, we should probably allow the historical theologians to actually do some making. Otherwise we’re not really studying the making of the Trinity. We’re just marking the exam.

Some Helpful Sources

 Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford University Press, 2004). Pg. 6–7.

Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine (Baker Academic, 2011).

Khaled Anatolios, “The Systematic Normativity of Nicene Theology,” International Journal of Systematic Theology (2025).

Gilles Emery, The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2010). Pg 103–127. 

Augustine, De Trinitate, Book XV.

John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, on the distinction between generation and procession.

For further reading, the official page for Brancatella’s book is available here: The Making of the Trinity — Jake Brancatella