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Divine but not fully divine

Arius emphasized the supremacy and uniqueness of God the Father, meaning that the Father alone is infinite and eternal and almighty, and that therefore the Father's divinity must be greater than the Son's. Arius maintained that the Son possessed neither the eternity nor the true divinity of the Father but was rather made "God" only by the Father's permission and power.

"Many summary accounts present the Arian controversy as a dispute over whether or not Christ was divine." "It is misleading to assume that these controversies were about 'the divinity of Christ'." "Many fourth-century theologians (including some who were in no way anti-Nicene) made distinctions between being 'God' and being 'true God' that belie any simple account of the controversy in these terms."

"It must be understood that in the fourth century the word 'God' (theos, deus) had not acquired the significance which in our twentieth-century world it has acquired... viz. the one and sole true God. The word could apply to many gradations of divinity and was not as absolute to Athanasius as it is to us."