Where Literalistic Reading Fears to Tread—Logical Consistency between Some Prepositions in the New Testament and the Divine Persons’ Being Consubstantial

In “Early High Christology and Contemporary Pro-Nicene Theology,” Steven Nemes raises a dilemma. Either one may affirm what the New Testament teaches about the Word “through” whom all things were created, or one may affirm that the Father and Son are consubstantial (as the Nicene Creed teaches), but not both. I show that Nemes’s argument begs the question and that Nemes fails to represent how pro-Nicene theologians interpreted such prepositions (for example, “through”) in the New Testament. Contrary to what Nemes contends, there is no inconsistency in believing what John 1:3 teaches and that the divine persons are consubstantial.