M
y mom remarked recently on hearing about Arianism, "Oh! I could get behind that! God is God, and Jesus would be just a man." Putting aside the fact that this is removing the absolute coolest, most breathtaking part of Christianity, why is this notion appealing in the first place?
Without being too uncharitable, I think it has something to do with being able to temper the words of the Gospel. If Jesus is just a man, and in fact all the writers of the Bible are just men, then their words are intrinsically fallible. Therefore, I can apply my own judgement to Scripture. I can take that which I find mose true and beautiful, and write off that which I find ugly or unreasonable as simply human mistakes.
I think this is precisely why God commands. Christianity is not a philosophy, it is a fidelity to a covenant (never forget that faith and fidelity are practically the same word). God's commands take us out of ourselves; they force us to throw our own judgement down before Him, and make Him our teacher. I cannot reason my way out of the Ten Commandments, nor out of the Golden Rule, or any of the divine proclamations. As a Catholic in particular, the Magisterium is my teacher -- it forms me intellectually and morally, in ways that I would be incapable of doing myself. The spiritual life begins and ends in humility, and this means accepting restrictions on our thought and behavior that perhaps we'd rather not accept. But when we do so, we find the opportunity to take part in the divine life. This cannot be explained well from the outside.