Unitarianism
The
origin of this ancient heresy, sometimes called antitrinitarianism, is to be
found in the Arian controversy of the early fourth century when Arius,
presbyter in the church at Alexandria, set forth the system of thought which
bears his name. He denied the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and asserted
that there was a time when God was not the Father and Jesus Christ was not the
Son. Because God foresaw the merit of Jesus the man, Christ was accorded a kind
of divinity, but he was never of the same substance as the Father although he
is worthy of worship. This early and rather high form of Unitarianism was
condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325 and by the Council of Constantinople
in 381. Throughout the Middle Ages, Unitarianism in any form was regarded as
heretical.It reappeared in a somewhat different guise in the writings of
Michael Servetus and was accepted by some of the more radical of the Anabaptist
groups.
With
the coming of the Enlightenment and the appearance of deism, Unitarianism in
the hands of Joseph Priestly and others became more rationalistic and less
supernaturalistic in its outlook. Nature and right reason replaced the NT as
the primary sources of religious authority, and what authority the Scriptures
retained was the result of their agreement with the findings of reason.
Unitarianism
came to New England as early as 1710, and by 1750 most of the Congregational
ministers in and around Boston had ceased to regard the doctrine of the Trinity
as an essential Christian belief. In 1788 King's Chapel, the first Anglican
church in New England, became definitely Unitarian when its rector, with the
consent of the congregation, deleted from the liturgy all mention of the
Trinity. The triumph of Unitarianism in New England Congregationalism seemed
complete with the election of Henry Ware, an avowed opponent of the Trinitarian
position, to the Hollis chair of divinity at Harvard.
In
the nineteenth century, under the impact of transcendentalism, Unitarianism
became steadily more radical. Its later leaders such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and
Theodore Parker rejected those remaining supernatural elements which William
Ellery Channing had seen fit to retain. Modern Unitarianism has become
increasingly humanistic. Many members of the American Unitarian Association,
founded in 1825, have come to the conclusion that their movement is not a part
of the Christian church. In 1961 they merged with the Universalists.
Charles
Finney
Charles
Finney was one of the evangelist of the
nineteenth century, that was able to correct the arguments of the
Universalists. It seldom took him over
an hour of Bible based discussion to dissuade them, and show them the error of
their way!