incarnation continued

The most subtle denial of the divinity of Christ appeared in the fourth century, when the priest Arius (who died in 336) taught that the Word is divine but that this divine Son had a beginning. Reinterpreting John's Prologue, Arius said that the Son was not "co-eternal" with the Father. He reduced the Son to a being created by the Father, a demi-god or an emanation from God, an intermediary between God and the cosmos, but not fully God. Saint Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 295-373) was the greatest and most persistent foe of Arius and his followers.
The Catholic response to Arius was focussed around the technical term we find embodied in the Nicene Creed, homoousios. In the current English translation this is rendered "of one being with the Father." The divine Son is of one being or one essence with his divine Father. Homoousios affirms the eternal equality and unity of the Father and Son.
These disputes and defining the creed remind us of how God the Word enters our words, how human language becomes the vehicle for divine revelation. Language is the usual way we know God revealing himself in the deeds and words of Jesus Christ. This is why I believe that divine revelation comes to us normally through human language, through propositions.
As the Second Vatican Council taught, there are two sources of the one Word of God - Scripture and tradition, sources of the teachings of the Church, her dogmas and doctrines. This is why technical words were so important when used by the Church to express and protect orthodox doctrine. Homoousios in the Nicene Creed is the supreme example.