Everyone else had a beginning, including God's son Jesus Christ which proves he is not divine. Jesus Christ was a "second-class" god who was not a necessary link between God and the rest of the universe. Arius based his claim of Christ's non-divinity on the philosophical axiom of God's impassibility which, denied that divinity could suffer or change. Since Christ suffered for our sins, he could not be divine. Arius also claimed that since the transcendent God could not interact with the world in order to redeem it, redemption would be the mission of a subordinate god, Christ. Arius and his followers, Arians, liked the gospel of John and often used it to support their claims. "The father is greater than I" Jn 14:28. The orthodoxy leader on this issue was Athanasius. Athanasius argued that Christ was fully divine and that at the heart of the bible's teaching is that, in Christ, humans could see the true God, not a subordinate one: "For in him [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross" (Col 1:19-20). Athanasius approach was to ask the question: What kind of savior was necessary to save sins? The answer Athanasius gave was that the savior, Christ, had to be a divine person because anything less than that would not be capable for forgiveness of sin and granting salvation. Athanasius" argument came from a more philosophical position. Usually the scriptural argument wins over the philosophical argument however it proved to be the opposite in this council. .
The bishops of the council did not agree with Arianism and supported Athanasius in their final decision of the relationship between God and his son. As a result of this council the Nicene Creed was formulated as a statement of beliefs and closely related the relationship between Father and Son.