161NIEBUHR, HELMUT RICHARDalmost unanimously against Arius, who
was then exiled and had his books burned.
The Council formulated the original
Nicene Creed (a later version was agreed
upon at the Second Ecumenical Council
in 381), which was the first uniform Chris-
tian doctrine. It described Jesus Christ as
“the Son of God, begotten of the Father,
the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of
the Father, God of God, Light of Light,
ver y God of ver y God, begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father.”
The Council also decided when to
celebrate the Resurrection, addressed the
Meletian schism, discussed the validity of
baptism by heretics and the status of lapsed
Christians during persecution by Licinius,
and formulated a series of canon laws.
NICHOLAS OF CUSA (c. 1400–1464).
A German cardinal and theologian who
held that God is not, strictly speaking,
knowable; our best claims to knowledge
should be viewed as “learned ignorance,”
insofar as we need to appreciate our own
limitations and fallibility. His principle
writings include On Catholic Harmony,
On Learned Ignorance, On Conjecture, On
the Hidden God, Apology for Learned
Ignorance, The Idiot, On the Peace of Faith,
and The Vision of God. The latter contains
a fascinating account of God as seeing the
creation from all possible points of view.
NIEBUHR, HELMUT RICHARD
(1894–1962). H. Richard Niebuhr was
born into the German Evangelical Synod
of North America. Trained at Elmhurst
College, Eden Theological Seminary,
Washington University and Yale University,
Niebuhr returned to teach at Eden
between 1919 and 1931 (serving for a
time as dean), a period divided by his
Presidency at Elmhurst between 1924 and- He culminated his career by teach-
ing theology and ethics at Yale for more
than three decades, beginning in 1931.
Taken together, this range of experience
in higher education made Niebuhr
somewhat of an authority in the role of
theological education in the American
church. Niebuhr was the younger brother
of political philosopher and theologian
Reinhold Niebuhr.
H. Richard Niebuhr spent significant
intellectual energy on typological analy-
ses of Christianity and its relationship to
life and culture. In his typological analy-
sis, he stood on the methodological
shoulders of Max Weber and Ernst
Troeltsch, the latter being the focus of his
doctoral dissertation. This methodology
informed his study of the roots of the
variety of Christian denominations. It
helped frame his work in pursuit of
the range of ways in which theological
traditions understand the relationship of
Christ to the surrounding culture. It is the
method he used to understand compet-
ing ideological systems (whether overtly
religious or not) in the cultural-political-
ideological clashes of the Cold War era.
It provided a basis for distinguishing his
construction of what he saw as the most
compelling mode of ethical theory at the