The Council of Nicaea (325) is the first of the seven ecumenical councils through which the rule of faith was expounded. While the creed produced at Nicaea was expanded upon at the Council of Constantinople (381), this paper will argue that the evolution that the Nicene Creed underwent at the Council of Constantinople (381) was seen as a clarification of dogma previously held by Orthodox Christians with regard to the consubstantial Trinity and did not constitute a development in Christian doctrine. I will argue this primarily by examining the presentation of Nicaea by Gregory the Theologian and his disappointment in the council of Constantinople’s refusal to make the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit explicit. Further evidence will be presented from the encyclical of 382.00 and the later councils.
Naturally, the question of continuity with and development from Nicaea to Constantinople has produced much scholarship. While an older generation of scholars, such as John Henry Newmann and Henri de Lubac, laid the foundation for much of the current conversation, authors such as Khaled Anatolios, John Behr, and Lewis Ayers have furthered this conversation while drawing more attention to the council of Nicaea. While this paper is focused on the question of doctrinal development from Nicaea to Chalcedon, it will serve as a first step of evangelical engagement with a topic otherwise dominated by Catholic and Orthodox thinkers such as the ones listed above. As I interact with these thinkers, I will map the conversation around doctrinal development and retrospection on the council of Nicaea and draw a future horizon for our understanding of doctrinal development.