diff --git a/website/src/content/blog/2025/09/24/creeds.md b/website/src/content/blog/2025/09/24/creeds.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a638fd0 --- /dev/null +++ b/website/src/content/blog/2025/09/24/creeds.md @@ -0,0 +1,124 @@ +--- +title: Why the creeds matter +description: >- + Plenty of Christians don't think the creeds are important for their faith. + Plenty others take the creeds for granted. But Christians ought to appreciate + that the creeds are a sophisticated, profound and essential foundation of the + church. +pubDate: 2025-09-24 +--- + +
+ But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, + faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take + hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good + confession in the presence of many witnesses. + +1 Tim 6:12 + +
+ +Since the earliest days of the church, Christians have confessed their faith. +That is to say, we have declared what we believe to each other and to the world. +For the vast majority of the world's Christians, this frequently takes the form +of one of two fixed texts, respectively, the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene +Creed. The Nicene Creed in particular unites almost all Christians worldwide, +including the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic denominations and almost all +Protestant denominations. Despite celebrating its 1700th anniversary this year, +and despite all the ways in which the global church is sadly divided, the Nicene +Creed stands as a symbol of Christian unity and a faithful summary of what +Christians believe. + +Yet not all Christians fully appreciate their creeds. + +Perhaps you're familiar with the creeds from your church's form of worship, or +maybe you've heard it used at baptisms. You might have even confessed one +yourself at your own baptism. But if you've never given it much thought, you +might have assumed the creeds are simply neutral summaries of Christian belief, +abstracted out of any historical context. You might think it dates to a +primitive time in the Church's history, before the Church went through the +refining fire of advanced theology. + +In fact, in the fourth century, when the text of the Nicene Creed and the +ancestor of what became the Apostle's Creed was fixed, the creeds were +formulated in response to some very particular challenges of that time. They do +not represent primitive Christianity, but on the contrary, they exist in the way +they do precisely because of the need for exact, exclusive theology. + +In the fourth century, the Church was straining within itself to understand what +the revelation of Jesus Christ revealed about God and his purposes. + +For an earlier generation, the main threat had been that Christians might adopt +ideas from the gnostics, a mystical religious community which probably formed +about the time of Christ. In some respects, gnostic ideas cohered nicely with +the revelation of Jesus. But the fusion of gnostic ideas with Christianity also +meant mutilating the New Testament and ditching the Old altogether. It meant +giving up on the idea of a God who cared for his people and was willing to die +to save us. It meant dividing the world into people who were by nature +spiritual, and those destined for death. And it meant giving up on the hope that +the world might be redeemed, settling instead for a future where those lucky +enough to have the magic spark within their souls could escape the world and +leave it for dust. + +The first generations of Christian theologians fought to steer the church away +from these harmful ideas, including Irenaeus, Justin Martyr and Origen. In so +doing, they made a huge contribution to the fundamentals of our faith. + +We can see the influence of this battle in the creeds. For example, the first +article of the Nicene Creed asserts that God the Father created the heavens and +the earth. This corrected the gnostic notion that a truly good God would never +have anything to do with something so rotten as creation. Instead, the creed +reminds us that God made the world good, that despite its fallen state, it still +bears his likeness, and through his unfolding plan, he intends to make it +perfect. + +By the fourth century, the main controversy was over the ideas of an Alexandrian +Christian teacher called Arius. He claimed that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, +was not truly divine, nor an eternal Person of the Triune God, but rather a +created being. + +This might sound like a technical issue, but the consequences are massive. If +Jesus is not God, then he has no power to save us. The Christian hope is that +God came down to bring his life to a dead world. But if he isn't truly God, but +a lesser being, not much more than an angel, then he doesn't possess God's life, +so he can't do any of that. + +The Nicene Creed was formulated to try and specify exactly what was wrong with +this view. Thus we get the assertion that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is of +one substance with the Father, light of light, very God of very God, who for our +sake and for our salvation was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, +and was made man. + +But maybe none of this is new to you, and perhaps all this chat about heresy is +summing up for you exactly why you aren't into the creeds. If it's just a tool +for manhandling fourth-century heretics, then why should I care about it today? + +Well, I could point out how the same heresies have repeatedly re-occurred +throughout church history, including the present -- but instead, I'll highlight +that the creeds are not in fact just a stick for bashing heretics with. Some +words are surgically inserted to force Arius to make a choice, yes. But that's +not the whole story. + +Large parts of the Nicene Creed were not up for discussion at the Councils which +formed them. For example, nobody questioned the basic trinitarian form: 'We +believe in God the Father ... and in Jesus Christ, the Son of God ... and in the +Holy Spirit.' So something else has to be playing a huge role here. + +Indeed, we have evidence that the trinitarian formula was one way that +Christians had been confessing their faith at their baptism since the early +second century. By the time of the Nicene Creed, it was probably dominant. So +the Nicene Creed isn't just a list of things Arius can't say: the bulk of it +comes from an existing tradition built up within the church from its earliest +days, for Christians to affirm to other Christians the basics of what we +believe. + +Furthermore, the creeds are far from unimportant. Even if you're not part of one +of those denominations, representing an overwhelming majority of global +Christians, which use the creeds to aid their worship, the creeds should matter +to you. They are formed in large part from material from the New Testament. They +represent apostolic and catholic teaching. And they remain the best symbol of +what Christians believe both within the church, and to the world outside the +church. + +As for me, I'm trying to memorise the Nicene Creed. If you don't know it +already, I'd recommend you do, too!