The Nicene Progression depends upon the two indirect sources in Text, the 1 Tim 3:16 verse, and the Johannine Prologue passage. Except that, there are more than a few places which both NT authors render themselves…absolute monotheists. The theological term for this would be…Monarchian Adoptionism. Called today, a heresy. How can the original monotheism of the Jew…be called a HERESY? Leave it to the RCC. What would eventually be called such, natch.
The easy route to knowing this point is had by simply scanning the biblicalunitarian.com site for Pauline and Johannine verses which are unitarian. Out of their own most prolific and “absolute" 100 monotheistic verses of all time in the Bible overall…how many are from Paul or John?
Not only this, but John the Apostle stated red-letter the most CLEAR and CONCISE absolute unitarian verse of all: Jn 17:3. This is eternal life, that they know YOU the ONLY True God, and that they also know Christ Jesus whom YOU sent (me). In any case, a list of these verses reveal some 39 instances for John (including two in Revelation) and…29 instances for Paul, (included in the assumption that he wrote Hebrews). I did not count successive verses for the most part…as two, but only one.
The logical and most apparent condition is this: neither could be BOTH unitarian AND…modalist or trinitarian, which is to say EITHER they thought Jesus was a LITERAL incarnation of God come to earth OR they thought Jesus was…a man anointed and sent by his God to earth. To be both or to be self-contradictory is simply not cohesive. We assume that the Text…is, along with its own authors. Even to each other, in fact. The Spirit which impels the Text, has to be active and viable…or not.
Appendix, my own slant, upon the biblicalunitarian.com verses, which is a list originally compiled in 1825 by Samuel Barrett (Boston: American Unitarian Association).
https://www.biblicalunitarian.com/100-scriptural-arguments-for-the-unitarian-faith
John:
1) Because Jesus Christ is represented by the sacred writers to be as distinct a being from God the Father as one man is distinct from another. “It is written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one who bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me,” John 8:17, 18.
Yea, and in fact every single time Jesus speaks of the Father…this is another thing, object, Subject, and Character. MEANING that as a separate being altogether…two who ARE GOD cannot be anything ELSE, but…two Gods, the Athanasian Creed DISCLAIMER. They CLAIM two are God in a binitarian motif, at the same time CLAIMING they are not polytheists. However, the constant prick on the consciousness would naturally be…this abiding condition of two beings called…God. A theology cannot stand, which makes not a modicum…of sense.
2) Because he not only never said that himself was God, but, on the contrary, spoke of the Father, who sent him, as God, and as the only God. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent,” John 17:3. This language our Saviour used in solemn prayer to “his Father and our Father.”
Easily…the most compelling argument of all, for unitarians. That Jesus is God, WAS NOT SAID in Text, in SIMPLE and CLEARLY CONCISE language, in 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 or 20 or 40 words. INdirect hints for…what reason? Jesus was…shy? Since he submerged his messiahship at least initially, he would also submerge his deity?
It could be easily also said that the synoptics give NO direct implications for DEITY whatsoever, that this is only contained in the epistles and…John? So then…just WHEN did the disciples and apostles COME TO KNOW Jesus God Almighty? The mechanism of CATALYST is missing, as well as the description of CHANGE, from “the King or Lord of the Jews,” to…YHWH HIMself come to earth. From the anointed and sent MAN, to…YHWH HIMself.
Having described only the first two instances of John’s writings from a list of some 39 instances…we are already amply showing the preponderance of evidence altogether: that John the Apostle knew of a SINGLE GOD called YHWH, or Father (as Jesus related him), and he was NOT a trinitarian in his heart of hearts, whatsoever. OR what theologians call now…Modalistic Monarchians, essentially being God the Father MORPHING into the Son among men. What this calls into question then…is the Nicene Definition or Interpretation of the Prologue. It would HAVE TO MEAN something different altogether APART FROM the mainstream faith.
I will continue on describing the dynamics and mechanisms which formulate John’s theological viewpoint in macrocosm, but these two instances alone already topple the so-called JisG claims or textual supports from John the disciple of Jesus. The waters get MURKIER as we go, since Ignatius was supposedly in direct lineage from John. And he may be by himself, the most revised and redacted ECF father…of all. His writings now OBSCURED for the duration, pertaining to his actual historical theology. NAMELY, whether or not Ignatius was…a trinitarian, modalist, or…absolute monotheist.
So…if Jesus OBSCURED his messiahship, and THEN his own absolute divinity, and now even the ECF fathers, are OBSCURED as to their own theology historically….how do we sort through the fog and mist of…time? And…obSCURED circumstances? Common sense says to find the ANCHOR POINTS along the way. What then ANCHORED these writers? What did their theology then HAVE to contain? The fundamentals of faith THEN have to be the same fundamentals of faith NOW. And…as GOD HIMSELF does not change, neither do the fundamentals of faith. Where WOULD our fundamentals of faith come from, primarily speaking?
The Text canon. It has to be, and even pentecostal inspiration has to be reinforced, by the Bible itself. CANON itself depends upon…the so-called ORTHODOX faith. What was repeated consistently as…PRINCIPLES of faith. And it so turns out, the most IGNORED Principle of Faith comes to fore. The Shema has historically been…the MOST IGNORED and PRIMARY Command and Principle of Faith, altogether. Was it mentioned at Nicaea, even ONE TIME? I never encountered it there, ever having been brought up at all.
The fundamentals for the Jew, come from Torah. For the Christian, the Bible Canon including the NT. And the linking verse of NT to OT is this one, Deut 30:
6 And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.