The Bible implies a Trinity, but does not work it out in any detail.  Hence, the Trinitarian formulations are extra-biblical in nature. As I said, the fathers relied heavily on Hellenic metaphysics.   Accordingly, they viewed God as a wholly simple, immaterial, immutable, nonrelational being, a monad.  Then they tried to introduce the highly com…[Read more]

Arius, as did the  other  fathers, went on Hellenic metaphysics and standards of perfection. The Greeks enshrined the immune and the immutable.  Hence, Arius thought of God as wholly immutable, passionless, and incapable of suffering.  Therefore, he and other Arians rejected the Deity of Christ, on the grounds that Christ both changed and suffered.

I think that God and the universe are co-creators.  God is the supreme effect as well as cause. God is a social-relational being and so arises out of God’s relationships to the universe.  So, it is as true to say that God creates the universe, as that the universe creates God.