WI: early respected leader states Christians will not exclude over Trinity/Divinity of Jesus?

Yes, people are people and will find other reasons to fight.

But this has been a big one which has echoed through the centuries. What might be a top 20% possibility over how much change we might reasonably expect?
 
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I'm not sure I understand what you're asking.

Do they accept that there are those who don't believe Jesus wasn't divine, but they still count them as Christians? (Since in this case, the Arians would never be declared heretics)
Do they accept that there are those who don't count the Holy Spirit as part of the divine union, and still count them as Christians? (which is fair enough, since the Spirit is never actually mentioned by Jesus, He tells the disciples that a parakletos (a comforter, an advocate, one who stands alongside) will come to replace Him after He ascends to heaven).
Or do they accept Jesus was divine, but that he's not the God of the Old Testament (a la Marcion)?
 
I think the Arians have figured in a number of timelines, because they're interesting! :)

Are Marcions another group of early Christians?

Marcionites. Followers of the Greek(?) guy Marcion. Basically, he put together the first canon of the Bible, but dropped any books that he considered "too Jewish" (like all except Luke's Gospel), and considered that Jesus Christ was God, and that Jesus' commandment of "love thy neighbor" was out of joint with the Old Testament YHWH (who he considered malevolent/evil). Either way, he said that there are actually two deities - Jesus Christ, and the "evil" demi-urge of the Old Testament. He was the reason that the Church put together the first canon of the Bible in order to refute his statements about Jesus and YHWH being separate entities.
 
Marcionites. Followers of the Greek(?) guy Marcion. . . Either way, he said that there are actually two deities - Jesus Christ, and the "evil" demi-urge of the Old Testament. He was the reason that the Church put together the first canon of the Bible in order to refute his statements about Jesus and YHWH being separate entities.
Wow. Very Interesting. Thanks for sharing this.
 
Almost as if the issue of the Trinity is periodically rediscovered as a highly controversial issue.

Try explaining the Trinity to someone who isn't Christian. It's insanely complicated, because the go-to move is to consider it as three gods, but then when you explain it that it's three aspects of one God, you usually either lose them or end up making a hash of it. Even explaining it to some Christians is difficult.
 
Yes, people are people and will find other reasons to fight.

But this has been a big one which has echoed through the centuries. What might be a top 20% possibility over how much change we might reasonably expect?

I think it's possible that you could have had the early church adopt a less specific, more flexible definition/relationship of God, Christ, Spirit. It seems like the most likely POD would be if Arianist-type Christians were a larger portion of the overall population of Christians AND of the clergy leading up to the Nicean Council. If you have that, then the Church leaders might have been less emphatic on that point and Constantine might have wanted to keep the definition broad to enhance the unifying effect of the religion on his empire.

If, instead of it's current composition, the Nicene Creed essentially said, we believe in:
  • God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things
  • The Lord Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father, who for us and our salvation came down and was made man, suffered, and on the 3rd day rose again into heaven
  • The Holy Ghost
If it left out some of the other specifications of relationship, what begotten means, etc, you could have a 'bigger tent' of belief that wouldn't define things like Arianism as heresy.

You're right that people would find something else to argue about, but there are a lot of arguments even today where one group calls another "non-Christian" because their interpretation of the Trinity is different, even if 90% of their other beliefs are incredibly similar.
 
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