What’s the Point of Creeds?

CERC ^ | 1988 | Peter Kreeft

[Salvation]

What’s the Point of Creeds?

PETER KREEFT

I remember vividly how deeply moved I was as a young Protestant to hear how one of the Catholic martyrs died...

Peter Kreeft

---

I remember vividly how deeply moved I was as a young Protestant to hear how one of the Catholic martyrs died: scratching in the sand with his own blood the words of the creed, “Credo ....”( “I believe”).

My heart was moved, but my head did not yet understand. What do these Catholics see in their creeds anyway? How can a set of words be worth dying for? Why have wars been fought over a word? What's the point of creeds?

Then I read Dorothy Sayers' little masterpiece Creed or Chaos?, and I was answered.

The question can be answered by remembering another question, the one Pilate asked Christ in another life-or-death situation: “What is truth?”

And that is the point of the creeds: truth. In fact, Primal Truth, the truth about God. That is why the words of the Creed are sacred words. Just as God's material houses are sacred, so are his verbal houses. Of course God is no more confined to words, even the sacred words of creeds, than he is confined to the sacred buildings of tent or temple, church or cathedral. But both are holy, set apart, sacred. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. “

Faith has two dimensions: the objective and the subjective. Creeds express these two dimensions: “I believe in God. “ There is an I, a believing subject, and there is God, the object of belief. There is the psychology of believing, which is something in us, and there is the theology of belief, which is the Truth believed. There is the eye, and there is the light. And woe to him who mistakes the one for the other.

When the Church formulated her creeds, humanity was more interested in the light than in the eye. God providentially arranged for the great creeds of the Church to be formulated in ages that cared passionately about objective truth. By modern standards, they ignored the subjective, psychological dimension of faith.

But we moderns fall into the opposite and far worse extreme: we are so interested in the subject that we often forget or even scorn the object. Psychology has become our new religion, as Paul Vitz and Kirk Kilpatrick have both so brilliantly shown.

Yet it's the object, not the subjective act, of faith that makes the creeds sacred. They are sacred because Truth is sacred, not because believing is sacred. Creeds do not say merely what we believe, but what is. Creeds wake us from our dreams and prejudices into objective reality. Creeds do not confine us in little cages, as the modern world thinks; creeds free us into the outdoors, into the real world where the winds of heaven whip around our heads.

What is the object, the Truth? Saint Thomas says that the primary object of faith is not words and statements but God himself. “We believe in God.” Further, as Christians we know God most fully in Christ, God incarnate, and as Catholics we know Christ through Holy Mother Church and her creeds.

When human reason raved, in the Arian heresy, that Christ could not possibly be both fully human and fully divine, Athanasius stood against the world; today we know Christ as he really is because of Athanasius and his creed.

When contemporary forms of the same heresy water down the strong meat” of Christ, the Church again braves the media, the mouth of the world, and calmly thunders the full truth about Christ. True, it is Christ rather than words that is the primary object of the Christian's faith, but what Christ? Here words are crucial.

Two extremes must be avoided: intellectualism and anti-intellectualism, worshipping the words and scorning the words. If the ancient mind tended to the former extreme, the modern mind certainly tends to the latter. Both errors are deadly.

Intellectualism misses the core of faith, both objectively and subjectively. Objectively, the core of faith is God, who is a Person, not a concept. Subjectively, the core of faith is the will, not the intellect. Though informed by the intellect, it is the will that freely chooses to believe.

Faith is not the relation between an intellect and an idea, but the relation between an I and a Thou. That is why faith makes the difference between heaven and hell. God does not send you to hell for flunking his theology exam but for willingly divorcing from him.

Anti-intellectualism also misses the core of faith, both objectively and subjectively. Objectively, because its faith has no object. It calls faith an experience (“the faith experience”) — a term never used by our Lord, Scripture, the creeds, or the popes. Modern people are constantly saying, “Have faith!” But faith in what or whom? They often mean “have faith in faith. “ But faith in faith in what?

Anti-intellectualism is a modern reaction against the modern narrowing of reason to scientific reason. When the ancients and medievals called man a “rational animal”, they did not mean a computerized camera mounted in an ape. They meant by “reason” understanding, wisdom, insight, and conscience as well as logical calculation.

Modern thinkers often forget this dimension of man and think only of reasoning (as in calculating) and feeling. And because they see that faith is not a matter of reasoning, they conclude that it must be a matter of feeling. Thus “I believe” comes to mean “I feel and creeds simply have no place. Faith becomes a “leap” in the dark instead of a leap in the light.

Many of the Church's greatest saints have been doctors of the Church, theologians, philosophers, intellectuals: Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Bonaventure. Anti-intellectuals like Tatian and Tertullian and Luther (who called reason “the devil's whore”) often die excommunicated, as heretics.

The Church — repeating what Saint Paul said in Romans 1: 19-20 — even teaches as a matter of faith that God's existence can be known by reason, independent of faith!

The Catholic ideal is the complete person, with a cool head and a warm heart, a hard head and a soft heart. The mere intellectual has a cool heart; the anti-intellectual has a hot head. The intellectual has a hard heart, the anti-intellectual has a soft head. The Church puts the severed parts in the right order because the Church has the blueprint: Christ (Eph 4:13). The Church has always had a conservative head and a liberal heart, and the world has never understood her, just as it never understood Christ.

Creeds are to the head what good works are to the heart: creeds express truth, the head's food, as good works express love, the heart's food. Both are sacred.

If there is any doubt about the need for creeds, it can be settled by fact: the fact that the Church established by Christ, the Church Christ promised to “guide into all truth”, has in fact formulated and taught creeds.

The first bishops, the apostles, formulated the Church's first, shortest, and most important creed, the Apostles' Creed. Whether the apostles literally wrote it, as tradition says, or whether it was written by their disciples to preserve the apostles' teaching, in either case it is the teaching of the apostles. When we recite this creed we speak in unison with them.

There is a strange notion abroad that creeds oppress, repress, or suppress people. That is like saying that light or food is repressive. The practical purpose of the creeds is truth, and truth is light and food for the soul.

Each of the Church's creeds was written in response to a heresy, to combat it not by force but by truth, as light combats darkness. Creeds are “truth in labeling”. Those who disbelieve in truth or scorn it, or who disbelieve in our ability to know it, see creeds as power plays.

The media's hysterical rhetoric about the pope's labeling Hans Kung's theology as non-Catholic theology is a good example of the world's utter confusion here. The media conjured up visions of the return of the Inquisition simply because the pope said, in effect, that Kung's teachings about Christ should not be confused with the Church's teachings about Christ. But this reaction should be expected if we remember the words of Christ himself (read Jn 3:17-21 prayerfully).

The most important creeds were those formulated by the Church's ecumenical (universal) councils in response to the most important heresies, the heresies about Christ; and of these the two most important were Chalcedon and Nicaea. (The Nicene Creed is the one we recite each Sunday at Mass.) The Church's most recent council, Vatican II, formulated no new creeds and no new doctrines but applied the old ones to new needs and situations.

The pope called an extraordinary synod of bishops in 1985 in part to clarify Catholic confusion concerning Vatican II. Anyone who would take the trouble to read the actual documents (which are much, much longer than creeds) would see how traditional they are. The “spirit of Vatican II” conjured by the media and some theologians is a phantom, a ghostlike half-person, with the fatal split between head and heart, creed and deed, theology and social action, love of God and love of man, eternal principles and updated applications.

But the pope is a bridge builder, a pontifex; he will patch what the world has torn. And the blueprint he will follow in doing this will be the historic, never-abandoned creeds of the Church of Christ.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Kreeft, Peter. “What's the Point of Creeds?” Chapter 17 in Fundamentals of the Faith. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 107-111.

Reprinted by permission of Ignatius Press. All rights reserved. Fundamentals of the Faith - ISBN 0-89870-202-X.

[kosta50]

Begotten meas 'born'...It's not a tough as you make it out to be...

Not really. It means to cause, to produce. It's an entirely different word from born.

[Petronski]

Thank you for your normal contribution to an issue...

Yes. Pointing out brazenly-false information about the Church founded by Christ is a big job. I'm happy to be a consistent force of resistance to the false witness against the Catholic Church.

[Cronos]

No, that was not Sola Scripture...The scripture doesn't say that nor can it be interpreted to mean that...

Sola Scriptura means that you as an individual, Mohammed as an Individual, Arius as an individual, can interpret things based on your own understanding. Arius interpreted scripture to understand that Christ was the firstborn of creation, that He was a created being. That was Arius' sola scriptura.

The problem that the "guy" had was sola scriptura -- individuals by themselves will err and misinterpret scripture, The Church as a community led by God, does not err. btw The Church means the entire community, not just the Magisterium

Your posts about what Kosta said are your interpretation, he said "Oooh, the author of the Hebrews says so? Why do you believe him, and oridnary man? You don't even know who he is!" to indicate that sola scriptura devotees seem to prefer the epistles to the gospels and the OT and also that they forget to look beyond the words and see that we do not worship the Bible, but that we worship God. by blindly looking at the words alone, we miss the forest that is God.

your trinity of man is flawed -- you say a separation of man into Body, Intellect (or soul) and Air????? you're interpreting things again

[kosta50]

No, that was not Sola Scripture...The scripture doesn't say that nor can it be interpreted to mean that...

Actually, there is a lot in your "sola scripture" that suggests Arius was right. Jesus certainly says that he and the Father are one, but he never says they are equal. To the contrary! It is Jesus who is sent, it is he who is to do the will of the Father, it is he who is lesser than the Father, it is he who calls the Father his God, it is he who says only the Father knows the day of his return, etc.

Reading St. Paul doesn't help either. It is Paul who says there is but one God, the Father, and that it was this God the Father who raised Jesus. Not much equality there, is there?

And it was precisely the same Paul who, in Colossians 1:15 states that Christ is merely "an icon (image) of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creatures." At no time does Paul ever say Jesus is God. Paul calls "God" only the Father.

None of the disciples ever prayed to Jesus, but they—including Jesus—prayed to God. 

So, one can see very easily where Arius, who was no dummy, and certainly a prominent Church personality, not a stranger to scripture, might have gotten his ideas.

That guy had the same problem many people do...And it's not that he didn't understand what the scriptures said, he just chose not to believe it...

To say something like this, to place Arius on the same level is to tell the whole world you know nothing about him. Just because the Church disagreed with him, and even condemned him, doesn't mean he was a theological pushover. The same can be said of Tertullian (to whom you owe the term Trinity), or Orgien who, at one time, was the master theologian of such Church giants as +Gregory of Nyssa, and others. Yet, they strayed into heresy, not because they "chose" to as you suggest but because they put their private reading and comprehension above that of the entire Church. It is ultimately very narcissistic and vain, and prideful and as such a terrible sin to make yourself "smarter" than the combined wisdom of the whole Church.

Obviously, there is a lot more to understanding the sciptures then just reading them! Maybe one day the Protestants will realize that too, along with Mohammedans and and their LDS cousins.

[kosta50]

Cronos: We do NOT in any was condemn using "scripture" -- that is a slur against the Christian Church and you ought to take that back. Do you have any proof to back your incorrect statement?

Iscools Sure, no problem...Post 64 by Kosta [:] That's just Paul making up a new religion for the Greeks and Romans. Jesus Christ never said anything like that in the Gospels. Oooh, the author of the Hebrews says so? Why do you believe him, and ordinary man? You don't even know who he is!

First, last time I checked Kosta is not the Church. Kosta did not say "Christian Church says that Paul is just making up a new religion..." Kosta said it. It was his private statement, not the official doctrine of the Church. Second, you need to read up and become a little more familiar with what the Church believes before you shoot from the hip. Third, you didn't answer my question! What are you waiting for? Inspiration? A miracle?

Proof enough???

Do you even understand what "proof" means? What you posted says a lot but it does not prove that the Church "condemns using scripture!"

OK, I'll try againg...They are different because they are spelled differently...psuche...pneuma

But that's not completely honest, Iscool. Both also mean breath.

1Th 5:23...pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved...It's all in there...And it's not a matter of interpretation...It's a matter of (un)belief...

Well, then you must profess that there is but only one God, the Father (cf 1 Cor 8:6) because Paul says that too.

[MarkBsnr]

***Mark to Iscool: With the underscore that you have created on the ‘begotten’, are you saying that you have joined the LDS in saying that God the Father procreated Jesus upon a woman?

Mark, you noticed the same thing (see #105). I hope this is not what the mainline Protestant community believes.***

Most of the evangelicals that I have met, worked with and listened to do not go quite this far. Except for the strong traditional liturgical types, most of them believe that Jesus is somewhat subordinate to the Father in some hazy fashion and that the Holy Spirit is the messenger of the Father and the Son. The varying beliefs and individual believers wander all over the map. The JWs are not entirely alone in all their beliefs.

It’s funny that CofC hardliners pounding the Bible only were the first ones that I talked to that hinted at this underlying belief. Your post speaks to the English begotten versus the Greek essence in very expressive fashion.

[MarkBsnr]

***Nope...I’m saying I’ll bet your modern Catholic bible doesn’t contain the word begotten in John 3:16...***

John 3:
16
For God so loved the world that he gave 7 his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.

The official English version Catholic Bible does not. Does yours? Who authorized it?

[MarkBsnr]

***Perhaps you can also explain what Paul means in Romans 7:17 when he says “So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.” You mean to tell me, that the Holy Spirit shares the same “space” where sin abides?

And how can sin “abide” in anything? Sin is not a thing but what we do. Sin is not even a spirit. It is the consequence of our acts. Yet Paul says sin “abides” in you. You can only read this sensibly if you read it metaphorically; otherwise it’s pure nonsense.

And how can you be a slave to sin if you are “hijacked” by the Holy Spirit, if you are “born again,” if you “dwell” in Jesus? Get real! This is flowery language that was used to make the new religion attractive to Greeks and Romans. It “feels” good but taken literally it’s gibberish.***

Excellent point, unless one has warped the theology to the point where God shares space with satan. I had a conversation on another thread a while ago with someone who was absolutely certain that God was His own satan and ensured the Fall in the Garden; he didn’t as I recall had a good explanation of the 40 day temptation in the desert or the temptation in Gethsemane.

***And, when you quote dear Paul, don’t forget that he said different things to different people in order to make them accept this new religion he created in order to save the Church, or maybe he didn’t believe that either:

“just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved.” [1 Cor 10:33]
He actually believed that he [sic] saves them by pleasing all [sic] men in all [sic] things! Whatever he believed is irrelevant; it;’s what he accomplished that counts which was to save the Church from certain extinction.***

The Church owes pretty well as much to Paul as it does to Peter.

[MarkBsnr]

***Pointing out brazenly-false information about the Church founded by Christ is a big job.***

And a constant one, too.

[Petronski]

All the more reason to reject that ridiculous translation and go back to something pure.

Cyborg and I take our Douay-Rheims to Sunday Mass and follow along as a comparo. Invariably, we spend the drive home simply aghast at the texture lost, the meaning muddied, the souls robbed.

For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.

John 3:16, Douay-Rheims

[Iscool]

Well, then you must profess that there is but only one God, the Father (cf 1 Cor 8:6) because Paul says that too.

1Co 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

That's what it says, in God, of whom are all things...And it also says we are in God just as it says were are in Jesus Christ in other verses...

AND one Lord, Jesus BY whom are all things...

Luk 1:68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people,

And now we have God being called the LORD when in Corinthians we read that Jesus was the Lord...

And if you look hard enough, you'll see where the Holy Spirit is called the Lord...

Joh 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? There IS only one God...God the Father...God the Son...God the Holy Spirit...Paul new that a well...

[MarkBsnr]

***1Co 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

That’s what it says, in God, of whom are all things...And it also says we are in God just as it says were are in Jesus Christ in other verses...***

Notice that Jesus differentiates Himself from the Father.

***Luk 1:68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people,

And now we have God being called the LORD when in Corinthians we read that Jesus was the Lord...

And if you look hard enough, you’ll see where the Holy Spirit is called the Lord...***

The Lord is a title. Notice the actual verse differentiates.

***Joh 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? There IS only one God...God the Father...God the Son...God the Holy Spirit...Paul new that a well...***

It doesn’t give any evidence to the Trinity; it differentiates between them all - they all have title of Lord, but there is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

Your verses do not back up your claims.

[kosta50]

That's what it says, in God, of whom are all things...And it also says we are in God just as it says were are in Jesus Christ in other verses...AND one Lord, Jesus BY whom are all things...

How can that be, if they are both one and the same God? And what about the Holy Spirit? Where is he in this Pauline formula?

And now we have God being called the LORD when in Corinthians we read that Jesus was the Lord...

God can be and is logically the lord, because it's his world and he is greater than all (cf John 10:29), greater than Jesus Christ himself (cf John 14:28). Anyone can be a lord, but Paul recognizes only one God, the Father. And so does Jesus (cf John 20:17).

As Mark correctly observed, the Greek word kyrios (master, prince, emperor, teacher) translated as lord is a title, specifically a title of ownership—one to whom things or living being belong. Since all authority on earth was given to Christ, he is the Lord over all on earth, but he is never called God; only the Father is. And the way the New Testament reads, the Father is the Lord over all, including Christ.

Paul makes that perfectly clear:

"But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ." [1 Cor 1:13]

So, there is no Trinity of co-equal, co-eternal hypostases, as the Church knows it, anywhere in your "sola scriptura." If anything, the "sola scriptura" would lead you to go down the way of Arius, as Cronos aptly noted.

And if you look hard enough, you'll see where the Holy Spirit is called the Lord...

Yes, such as in 2 Cor 3:17-18, a purely Pauline innovation just as he invented the "trilogy" of soma, psyche, pneuma, that is not found anywhere in the Gospels or the Old Testament. Again, this was part of his creating a new religion, or as he called it his gospel, including the idea that the scriptures are "God-breathed."

There IS only one God...God the Father...God the Son...God the Holy Spirit...Paul new that a well...

But apparently the Gospel writers never heard Jesus tell them that. No one ever calls Jesus God and no one ever refers to the Spirit as God. God is lord, but no other lord or Lord is God in the bible.  No one, but the Father is worshiped. If everything, including the Gospels are subjected to Paul, then we are talking Paulianity and not Christianity, as Paul seems to be the "Lord" against whom all things scriptural are made to conform.

Obviously something other than "sola scriptura" had to play a role in the 300-year long development of Christian theology and canon. 

[kosta50]

Iscool: ***Nope...I’m saying I’ll bet your modern Catholic bible doesn’t contain the word begotten in John 3:16...***

Mark: John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. The official English version Catholic Bible does not. Does yours? Who authorized it?

Although there are significant variants of John, only-begotten is not one of them in Jn 3:16—it appears in all Greek versions. So, the official English language Catholic Bible is wrong! Possibly, the editors perhaps realized that the word "begotten" can be misconstrued to imply that Christ is a "creature," which would certainly find scriptural support in Col 1:15, and decided to take it out. Regardless, it is fraud and deception. One way to combat misconceptions about the nature of Christ's existence is to educate the believers rather than alter biblical text.

Iscool: ***Nope...I’m saying I’ll bet your modern Catholic bible doesn’t contain the word begotten in John 3:16...***

Mark: John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. The official English version Catholic Bible does not. Does yours? Who authorized it?

Although there are significant variants of John, only-begotten is not one of them in Jn 3:16—it appears in all Greek versions. So, the official English language Catholic Bible is wrong! Possibly, the editors perhaps realized that the word "begotten" can be misconstrued to imply that Christ is a "creature," which would certainly find scriptural support in Col 1:15, and decided to take it out. Regardless, it is fraud and deception. One way to combat misconceptions about the nature of Christ's existence is to educate the believers rather than alter biblical text.

[Cronos]

Yet, they strayed into heresy, not because they "chose" to as you suggest but because they put their private reading and comprehension above that of the entire Church.

Beautifully put, Kosta. Iscool, we do not deny that you may be very holy, very well versed in scripture, but we do say this, that no one individual can ever interpret scripture by him/herself -- that's why God gave us a community of believers, The Church.

Arius, Tertullian, Origen, Augustus etc. were very learned men and very devout too, but they either strayed or strayed and repented. Their lives tell us that the community of believers that is The Church (and "The Church" doesn't just mean the priests and bishops) is God's gift to us for us to learn scripture, together, not sola scriptura.

[TradicalRC]

He did? I'd have thought that scripture writers, especially those of the OT, used anthropomorphic terms to describe what they couldn't understand

I have a problem with that approach: it's as though only intellectuals can really "understand" God. Smacks of Gnosticism.

[TradicalRC]

Indeed they do, though God doesn't send them there; they send themselves. Its a shame that the various ecclesiastical terror regimes which have arisen in the West felt and, to this day among some of them, feel that making God the source of damnation on account of divine wrath is good Christian theology. Its no wonder there are so many atheists in the West.

The atheists do not like a God that tells them that self-restraint is a good thing. They use the upside-down rationale that a loving, merciful God would never condemn anyone to Hell for eternity. The truth is, of course, that we only walk this earth for a few decades and like to believe that we are smarter than God. A few decades of faith and works and an eternity in bliss sounds like a bargain to me.

[TradicalRC]

But the idea that God is the source of damnation goes back to Blessed Augustine.

Does not all power come from God? Including the power to judge and condemn?

[Kolokotronis]

“: it’s as though only intellectuals can really “understand” God”

No human understands God. The Fathers are quite clear on this.

[Kolokotronis]

“They use the upside-down rationale that a loving, merciful God would never condemn anyone to Hell for eternity.”

But that is no rationale at all; in fact its nonsense because it completely misses the point. As the Fathers have taught, man’s created purpose is to become “like God”, to be fully in His image. This theosis is attained by dying to the self, something which Christ, on account of love, has made possible by trampling down death by His own death. We can love God, die to the self and become like God or we can reject God’s love, live only for the self and fail in our created purpose. As those who have rejected God, we will suffer the torment of God’s love just like a fire. But its all about our response to God’s grace.

“A few decades of faith and works and an eternity in bliss sounds like a bargain to me.”

Indeed it is!