Christians formed themselves into local communities, for ritual observances, including Baptism and the Eucharist, for teaching and preaching, on the model of the Jewish synagogue, and for mutual support and practical activities. But they also sought a rational, authoritative account of their faith; and Christian teachers, organized from the earliest times in the orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, claimed universal assent from the Church. Christian thinkers tried to work out a systematic view of the person of Christ and his relation to God that would explain all the New Testament claims about the work of Christ. The doctrinal formulas that were eventually accepted as Catholic teaching and as authentic interpretations of the Apostolic faith were certainly not accepted because they were clear, easy to understand, or immediately plausible. They were accepted, however, because clearer, more easily intelligible, and more immediately plausible solutions seemed not to capture the facts about Christ expressed' in the New Testament accounts of him.

It has often been suggested that Christ himself did not claim to be anything more than human. The earliest Christian sources offer no support to this suggestion. Paul describes Christ as 'the image of the unseen God . . . in him all things were created . . . For in him all the fullness ‘of God’ was pleased to dwell.' The fourth Gospel regards Christ as the incarnation of the 'word' (logos) of God, implying that an aspect of the nature of God was actually present in. Christ. Moreover, the claims that Jesus makes about himself imply that he is more than the Messiah expected by the Jews. The New Testament implies that Jesus claimed divine status for himself; and there is no specific historical evidence on the other side.

Orthodox Christian thinkers therefore claim to derive the divinity of Christ from the New Testament. If Christ had not been God, it would not have been true that 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself'. Christ's death is effective because it is the action of God; and by having Christ within them believers have the presence of God with them. These claims would not correspond to any reality independent of the ideals and aspirations of the believer, unless Christ was more than an unusually striking human being. On the other hand, Christ must have really been human, not God merely appearing to be a human being. His life and death would have no exemplary function if it were not the life and death of a human being. Paul insists that though Christ really was God, he genuinely 'emptied himself', and really acquired the limitations implied by becoming a human being. Jesus has emotions, appetites, limited knowledge--all properties that seem necessary for being human, but not clearly compatible with being divine. It is difficult to see, then, how Christ can be both 'one with the Father' to the degree that he claims and still fully human. To be fully human he must be really distinct from the Father (not just the Father under another name). Moreover, he would not be one person at all if he were really an alliance of two persons, one human and one divine; and so his divine and his human characteristics must not constitute two persons. Christ promises the presence of the Holy Spirit to continue his own presence when he is no longer physically present. Unlike the Stoics, Christians do not simply identify God with the spirit (pneuma) immanent in the cosmos; they regard the Spirit as the immanent aspect of an essentially transcendent God. They must fit some conception of the Holy Spirit into their account of God and Christ. . .

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