I've thought for a while that this might be a good time to write a new creed. The existing creeds were written at a times when there was active controversy over what they confessed, and were biased by those controversies. And all of the creeds say far too little about the Holy Spirit.
Anyway, at a Church retreat yesterday, we were all invited to write a creed. Unsurprisingly, an exercise that seemed impossible given just a summer was easily completed in the twenty minutes allotted. I don't claim that the following creed is any sort of final word, and I would welcome suggestions as to how to improve it.
I believe in God the Father, source of all life, source of all love, creator of the Universe and all that is in it, including me. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, fully human, fully divine, the only begotten son of the Father whose witness and sacrifice saves the Universe, and all that is in it, including me. I believe in the Holy Spirit, God acting in the world, the voice of the prophets, who animates the Universe and all that is in it, including me. These three are one God, the only God, my God. I believe in the communion of saints, the Church of the Father, Son, and Spirit, through which we are called to love one another as God loves us, to find identity and unity through baptism of water and spirit fellowship, remembrance, and forgiveness through Eucharist, and to seek the life eternal.
Peace
24 comments:
stu,
That is wonderful. I'll think about it some, and try to come up with something constructive to say sometime.
George—
Thank you! I'd appreciate your insights and suggestions. There are already a couple of lines in there that I think of as having been informed by someone specific. I like that.
the writers of the first creeds had to be careful they were working out philosophical notions that were sort of new and they had to make the basic dictates of the creeds accessible to people in spain in north africa and as far away as india
your creed has a sound about it that young children would like and i think you carry all the elements of faith
the notion of KATHOLIKOS as i have said before
is pretty important
i know it conjures up notion of roman domination but the word itself encompasses the essence of the holy spirit working in the people and availing all the good in the church to all who come in contact with the beauty of witness
and
APOSTOLIKOS
lends a sense of commitment on the part of the faithful to participate in what is already known and believed about the trinity
i like the tone of this credal statement
j
jh—
Thank you for writing. I've been looking forward to your thoughts and input on this.
Certainly, when I set out to do this, the existing ecumenical creeds (especially the Apostle's and Nicene) were models, and I trust this is visible in the overall structure of the creed (e.g., four major sections: Father, Son, Spirit, and Church). The minor trinitarian section (between Spirit and Church) is a nod to the Athanasian Creed and its particular concerns, albeit in a very different style.
As I said in the posting, I wanted more balance between the three persons of God, but this certainly comes at a cost, as there seems to be less to say about the Holy Spirit (in creedal language) than the existing creeds have to say about Jesus. So I needed to expand a bit on the Spirit part (e.g., I'm not sure that my notions that the Spirit is "God acting in the world," or of the Spirit as "animating force" are mandated by existing doctrine), and had to cut out a fair bit about Jesus.
The later (cutting out creedal statements about Jesus) seems justifiable only because there is absolutely no sense on my part that this creed (or any "modern" creed) ought to supplant the existing ecumenical creeds. At most, it ought to seek to call attention to them, and give us reason to think actively about what they say (and don't say), rather than just mouthing the words.
As for the former (creedal attributes of the Spirit), I'd be delighted if my efforts here gave people reason to think seriously about how the third person of the Trinity differs from the first.
I also think that "we" creeds (like the Nicene) are preferable to "I" creeds (like the Apostles, and this creed). This is because creeds ought to be more than individual statements of faith—they ought to be part of the glue that holds us together as Church. But the exercise called for an "I" creed, and I went along with it. Of course, this enabled the "...including me" language of the first three sections, the repetition of which I think contributes greatly to the feel of this creed. Also, I think it would be a sign of real hubris to sit down as an individual and attempt to write a "we" creed.
In terms of "catholic" and "apostolic," I did try to deal with the former explicitly in the baptism clause, albeit with the alternative language of "unity." Does this seem reasonable? I think you're right that there is no "apostolic" language here, and that this is a defect of the creed as it is. I think this can be remedied by adding a clause after "the Church of Father, Son, and Spirit," but I don't have an immediate proposal regarding specific language.
A final remark, and something you might not have noticed, is one way in which this is a creed informed by Lutheran sensibilities, specifically in the way the two sacraments (and only the two sacraments) Lutherans acknowledge were worked into the Church section. I don't think the result is language that a Catholic should find offensive, but perhaps, with this observation made explicit, it might seem incomplete.
stu,
I like the overall balance between the three persons; I, too, have always thought that to be a weakness of the Apostles' and Nicene creeds. I've often felt the Father has been short-changed, too, not just the Spirit.
But having thought about your creed a bit, I am beginning to see why not much is said about the Spirit: the Spirit just seems mysterious, somehow. For example, I don't know that I completely agree with your line about the Spirit: "God acting in the world". The Father and Son have also acted in the world. In fact, it always seemed to me that the Spirit mostly acts in, through, and on people, but I certainly may be wrong in my impression. Similarly, I don't know that it's right to say that the Spirit "animates the universe". Isn't it the Father who began the universe? And isn't it the Father who breathed life into the world's creatures and people? But I'm really not clear on distinctions about the three Persons; I'm not even really convinced that the distinctions are really as crisp as they are often made out to be.
And, finally, the word "seek" in the final line doesn't feel quite spot-on to me. I don't have a better suggestion, though.
Overall, I love the feel of the thing. The balance between Father, Son, Spirit, Church just feels right, as does the emphasis on the speaker's relationship to them, where the speaker fits in.
George—
"participate in"?
"share"?
George—
As regards the Spirit...
For "God acting in the world," I'll draw on Ezekiel 37:14: "I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act," says the LORD.
The phrase "the voice of the prophets" is intended to be an equivalent to the Nicene Creed's "who has spoken through the prophets." I think this is actually very interesting, because we often view the Holy Spirit as an actor who arrived on the stage at Pentacost, but the Nicene Creed (and we with it) confess otherwise.
The phrase "who animates the Universe" is intended to be an equivalent to the Nicene Creed's "giver of life." Likewise, Genesis 6:3: Then the LORD said, "My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years." Oddly, the Nicene language seems more elementary (reflecting on jh's comment that my creed is something that young children would like). Clearly there's something here I need to work on. The poetic problem here is that I needed (for the sake of parallels) to work in "the Universe."
I don't think I made the "Spirit" petitions up out of whole cloth. At the same time, I'll admit that the Bible verses are very much ex post facto. They may have been acting in my subconscience, but I certainly wasn't specifically aware of them when I wrote this.
This is all subject to improvement. I'd be happy for better/clearer language.
"live"!
stu,
I agree that you can probably support your Spirit parts. I'm just never sure that it's clear--or even is meaningful--how to make precise distinctions between the Persons.
Oh, and "live" is much better, I think.
George—
I'm just never sure that it's clear--or even is meaningful--how to make precise distinctions between the Persons.
Yet we confess a triune God, with the Father and Holy Spirit as distinct persons. The Nicene Fathers felt the distinction was important. I agree that it's a struggle—how do we distinguish two non-corporeal persons who are a part of a single entity?
how has the spirit already been working in the world
what has come to be known by means of revelation
perhaps we still struggle with knowing about this
i guess that's why some people dedicate extraordinary time and energy for knowing how the trinity works how god has been active who the personages are involved why the stories how to ritually contextualize everything
i think the two areas that i mentioned are best framed in the ideas of -
in what matter and means is the world to be addressed when christians speak
and
what is the measure of faith that each christian is required to take along the pilgrim trail - mission to the world?
as a way of appreciating the concepts as the christians of old formulated doctrine this excercise seems like a very good one
(there were riots and arrests amongst the christians at various stages of formulation
heresy has at least assisted in drawing a line
heresy has helped to formulate doctrine
maybe you have to consider what words or ideas are indispensible
reading justin martyr
reading gregory of nyssa
reading gregory nazianzen
reading athansius
reading basil the great
reading jerome
reading augustine
reading cyril of jerusalem
reading theodorous of mopsuestia
helps to understand
why were these guys so consumed with articulating the truth as they understood it and the truth they shared
resurrection of the body?
are we somehow beholden to state
that we are invested in teh idea of actually being perceived in a fully glorified body
i wonder if a new credal statement for catholics mightn't necessarily find a way to state something about the inherent sanctity of all life...not simply that god is creator but due to that fact all life is imbued with his glory and power and beauty..you are alluding to this but i wonder if it needs to be more blatant...i think there should be no wiggle room on that concept
anyway
I think that a large part of the problem is that God has only made part of the distinctions, whatever they may be, between His Persons known to us, and that there is no reason to think that pure thought will lead us far along the path to total knowledge. There's a long history within Christianity between conflicting interpretations of what has been revealed, and to a large extent, I'm not convinced that the "winners" at each stage were necessarily correct. I suppose one way of putting it is that I think the mathematical insights of people like Goedel have not been properly incorporated into theology. Could anyone really have foreseen what was revealed in Jesus' ministry and death, until they were revealed? But it's hard. There's a fine line between insisting on too much and insisting on too little.
It's also hard what to say about the sanctity of life. I think that distinctions must be made, within a Christian context, between human life and other life. It's very easy to prove "too much", as it were. It is not clear, to me at least, exactly what it means to say that all life has been sanctified, and what this would imply. I've seen it argued, for example, that the sanctity of life implies that Christians should be vegetarians, but I don't see how this can be reconciled with that Jesus himself was not.
Delighted by the discussion here. I thought it was an extremely daring thing to write!
I once read an article that the Trinity was in response to the Arian Heresy, and that they argued with Augustine.
They said that they would follow God, but Jesus was only the son, so they took him less seriously. He said no, they are the same.
They said, then how do they communicate.
Augustine said, The Holy Spirit.
They said, then the Holy Spirit is just a go-between, so we don't have to listen.
He said yes you do, because all three are equal.
They said, that makes it four, then, the three, plus the entirety.
Then, according to the article, Augustine terminated the discussion.
This was twenty years ago that I read this, so I'm not sure it's how it really went down, even if the article was more or less correct, because I'm not sure I remember the article perfectly.
It was in a very dusty encyclopedia two-feet thick.
Could George say in brief how he thought Goedel's ideas could be incorporated into the church?
I think the reason that Godel's ideas could go with Lutheranism is that Godel has a notion of infinity that somehow is borrowed from, and clarifies something, about Lutheranism. I once think that I thought that I understood this, but I'm no longer sure I understand anything, especially about Godel.
Kirby,
One of Goedel's great insights is that not everything that is true can be argued for from what is known. That is, God has revealed certain truths to us, but there nevertheless must be some things we just cannot determine from what we know. In general, I think people are too willing to build vast edifices of belief based on tenuous arguments from what has really been revealed.
Catholics have a sort of thing like this, with "mysteries" and whatnot. I could be wrong, but it seems to me, however, that Catholic mysteries are much more about the "hows" than the "whats", i.e., they're much more willing to say they don't know how God does something than they are willing to say they don't know what God does.
But I don't mean to pick on Catholics here. I think just about all Christian denominations have the same problem. Most different Christian beliefs are consistent with what God has revealed, but it is all too common to treat our own consistency as proof, while not be willing to acknowledge that other beliefs may be just as consistent with what has been revealed. We often don't know nearly as much as we pretend to.
Kant has something similar when he argues that oughts can not stem from an is.
Or something along those lines.
I think Godel also says something about infinity, and that because of infinity artificial intelligence will never catch up with human intelligence. That is, I think he was getting at the infinite nature of the human mind, versus the closed nature of the robotic mind.
But I may have been inferring this, and making too big a leap from what I had read.
Thanks for this answer, George.
Kirby,
This is pretty much hijacking the thread, but I hope stu doesn't mind too much.
Goedel's main work doesn't necessarily directly have to do with infinity, although one of his most well-known applications does. Goedel's biggest theorems have to do with completeness and consistency. He showed that no theoretical framework which includes arithmetic can be both complete (i.e., any true statement which can be expressed in the framework can be proven within the framework) and consistent (i.e., only true statements can be proven within the framework). He also showed that such a theory can prove its own consistency exactly when it is inconsistent.
One way to think about these theorems is this: No matter how many assumptions you make (once you can do arithmetic, anyway), there are always some reasonable statements you can neither prove nor disprove, unless you push the assumptions so far that you get contradictions, in which case you can prove everything (and its opposite). Also, you can never prove within the system itself that you can never get contradictions.
Infinity comes into this because Goedel (with Paul Cohen) also showed that the continuum hypothesis is an example of a statement that can neither be proved nor disproved by the standard set theory assumptions (the so-called "Zermelo-Fraenckel" theory, even if you include the Axiom of Choice). The continuum hypothesis is that there are no "sizes" of infinity that are strictly between the size of the set of integers and the size of the set of real numbers ("continuum").
By the way, I think it's fair to say that modern mathematicians have pretty much made their peace with the infinite. For our purposes anyway, we understand pretty well how infinity behaves, and what we can do with it.
George—
I don't mind the hijack :-). But I have a somewhat different take on this, and hope to do a post. I hope that's ok, too!
i will only acknowledge that i listened to the creed today at mass as we all recited it and the language i guess because it is familiar and it sort of sings the language is what it should be
i automatically think 'I" even though i say "we" with everyone else
this blog post helped me to think about what i am actually saying what i have given my whole life over to once again...the gospel was good today but i've been thinking about these statements of faith
i believe it all just the way it is stated....and there must be nothing to compare with the creeds in all the world and all the commentary and catechesis and theology that has gone into to rearticulating it all
it's even going on today difficult wars of words wars of meaning wars of philosophy over these words
forcing reason always to be openended
thanks
j
jh—
Thank you for this. I think your last comment more than justifies my posting.
Some further thoughts on this. I do hope to develop this creed further, but I think that one place where it needs a tremendous amount of help is in the title. I call this "A Modern Creed," but that may carry with it the implication that the ancient creeds are somehow obsolete. This is an implication that I would not wish to be associated with—the ecumenical creeds are brilliant, concise statements of faith that have been tested now for the better part of two millenia.
But I do think that the ancient church did a few things right that we've forgotten, and the writing of creeds is a part of that.
Thanks again. Peace.
The history of the "creeds" seems a bit odd. Me latin is not great, but early on, the creed (Apostles? Or Nicene, or both) has JC journeying to hell for a bit (infernalis, right), and then to heaven, but originally skies (caelum, I believe). The modern creeds do not feature those somewhat miraculous events.
J—
Thanks for coming over! As for your question about the history of the creeds—I don't know. I'll try and figure out a way to give jh an opportunity to weigh in. I expect he does...
In the meantime I'll try and do a bit of research.
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