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.

[ReformedBeckite]

Former Pepsicolian here.....

Ok I'm presuming that a Pepsicolian is a Episcopalian, While the different spelling is this something that you just have to hang around a certain crowd to start calling yourself a pepsicolian or is it a misspelling.

[Mad Dawg]

I’m sorry if that turned out to be an “in joke”.

Long long ago when I was an Episcopal Priest in Northeast Mississippi I was caught for, like, 30 minutes on a small country road behind a Pepsi Cola truck. Of course the first thing I notice was that the pastel red, white, and blue were like those on the “Episcopal Church Welcomes You” signs. Then, somehow my brain started playing and I intuited that “PepsiCola” was an anagram for “Episcopal”.

It’s hard to drive when you’re laughing hysterically.

[Mad Dawg]

“You mean 1700 years.”

Indeed I do, Alex! :)

IF a zero here or there doesn't bother you, there's room for you on Obama's budget team ....

[Iscool]

On the other hand, if, of course, you deny the Trinity, then I wouldn’t expect you to try. :)

Why would a Christian deny the Trinity???

No one clearly understands the Trinity, even those in your church...It's a guess at best...And I find it comical that your religion will call someone a heretic for disagreeing with their version of their guess...

The best I can do is give an analogy as to what 'I' think the Trinity is...

God says we are created in His image...Does that mean we physically look like God??? I doubt it...

God created us as a trinity...We have a body, a soul and a spirit...That's made clear in the scriptures...That's the likeness in my opinion...And by showing us those things, we get a picture of the Holy Trinity...

Two examples: Water...Water is steam/vapor...Water is ice...Water is liquid...All different but all Water just the same...

I think a better analogy for me to understand is a tire, or a football...

You have the outer shell, the inner tube, and the air that inflates the tire...That's how I view God...One football, three parts, but yet one...

[Mad Dawg]

Thank you for this post.

Judging by some conversations I've had here, I think one of the things at issue is the nature, the role, and the extent of the corruption of reason in fallen man.

(Of course, another issue is the reliability of God's guidance to the teaching organs of the catholic Church.)

If reasons is the faculty or activity by which man appropriates those truths which are not radically and immediately dependent on perception -- either of the objects of the senses or of revealed things -- then it MAY be adequate to the task of articulating the principles of the Faith.

And not only that, but the application of the analytical faculty or activity to some statements may yield useful information about their concordance with revealed truth.

While error in reasoning about the matters of religion MIGHT not in itself imperil one's salvation, it is conceivable that such error might make one more liable to those temptations which might in the end lure one away from Faith in Jesus' Divinity and saving work.

On the other hand, if spiritual rebirth is not beyond reason but instead unreasonable, then the role of reason in one's life in Christ is limited. Consequently the task of determining the orthodoxy or reliability of certain propositions is less important. SO it is not necessary to provide a "Symbolon" of the faith, since that kind of standard is useless. irrelevant to salvation.

I do not know how to reconcile this difference. One party to the dispute eschews the very activity which makes reconciliation possible -- or so it seems to me.

And this would account for the way some conversations descend speedily into invective. From my point of view, to try to reach a position where one could converse about these high matters without the use of reason would be a little like trying to reach the summit of a mountain without climbing its shoulders. In my thinking, while God and His Love are far beyond reason, they are not LESS than reasonable.

But the other side seems to think that reason is of little or no use in the things that really matter. They are fundamentally committed to a mantic, ecstatic, or experiential form of religion. We are committed to a God who includes but overwhelms reason.

It's a tough problem.

[ReformedBeckite]

Of course now you know I’ll be driving aroud looking for the Espiscopal signs, and the other denomination signs to see which church are pepsi churches.

[Alex Murphy]

Perhaps reciting a creed is is like giving an oath to a church...I don’t need to do that either...God already knows what’s in my heart...

Yes - but the pastor at your new church doesn't.

[kosta50]

And I find it comical that your religion will call someone a heretic for disagreeing with their version of their guess

That's because you must not understand what the word "heretic" means in Greek.

God says we are created in His image...Does that mean we physically look like God??? I doubt it

So, then the Bible doesn't say what it says? Just what does that mean—to be in his image as opposed to his likeness? You mean an image isn't an image, and "is" isn't really "is?" Where have I heard that before...hmmm?

God created us as a trinity...We have a body, a soul and a spirit

Oh, what a nonsense. What is a soul? So when we die, the body goes to dust and the soul remains, but then what happens to the spirit?

Two examples: Water...Water is steam/vapor...Water is ice...Water is liquid...All different but all Water just the same...

So, the Trinitarian hypostases are different "forms" of one essence? Have you ever heard of Modalism?

You have the outer shell, the inner tube, and the air that inflates the tire...That's how I view God...One football, three parts, but yet one

Three different and separate natures...brilliant! You believe then in three different (and unrelated) gods.

And this last analogy you find in the scriptures too? O did you make that up in your own private "ecumenical" council of the church of one.

[annalex]

I'll bet there's no "filioque" in it! :)

Of course there isn't; I did not mean to imply what I posted is the pre-filioque original

[GonzoII]

"Of course you should...But you should put equal weight on all the other epistles as well..."

You assume I don't, where is your basis for assuming that?

"If Peter was the first pope, Paul would not have pointed out that you not follow Peter to the exclusion of the others..."

Paul points out that Christ is being ignored in their contentions in favor of different leaders including himself, He should be the center of their thoughts, these verses have nothing to do with the papacy.

"you not follow Peter to the exclusion of the others"

You don't follow or listen to any of them except for Christ's sake who appointed them:

Mt:28:20: "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. "

[Iscool]

Oh, what a nonsense. What is a soul? So when we die, the body goes to dust and the soul remains, but then what happens to the spirit?

I didn't realize you guys don't believe in the trinity of man...Doesn't surprise me though...Guess that's why you guys don't accept nor believe in the spiritual circumcisiion that takes place at the New Birth...

Oh, what a nonsense. What is a soul? So when we die, the body goes to dust and the soul remains, but then what happens to the spirit?

Col 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

This is a partial description of the spiritul circumcision...It separates the physical human body from the spiritual...Prior to that circumcision, they are connected...

Three different and separate natures...brilliant! You believe then in three different (and unrelated) gods.

Mat 26:39 And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

So what are you saying??? Different 'natures' that disagree with each other??? I don't care what name you put on it but the scriptures show that there are three and those three are one...

Joh 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

The 'nature' of God as God gives to the nature of Jesus as God???

And you claim I say they are not related??? They are three...They are one...That's all that God revealed to anyone...Putting an intellectual spin on it don't impress me much...

That's because you must not understand what the word "heretic" means in Greek.

As far as I know it means schismatic...Which is anathema to your religion...But then schismatic may be another Greek word, or Latin, or Ukranian, in which case I'd have to do more research

So, then the Bible doesn't say what it says? Just what does that mean—to be in his image as opposed to his likeness? You mean an image isn't an image, and "is" isn't really "is?" Where have I heard that before...hmmm?

I'd say there's more to it than that...

Gen 9:6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

If we murder another man we shall be killed because we look like God???

There is given an image of God in the book of Revelation...Reading that description, there is no human ever born that resembles that image...So what then??? It clear that you nor I have seen the end of the creation of man...

When God says we are made in His image, He is certainly not referring to what we look like right now...And how do I know this??? Because the scripture says so...

1Jn 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

O did you make that up in your own private "ecumenical" council of the church of one.

Well that's turning into a popular condescension...

[Iscool]

Yes - but the pastor at your new church doesn't.

But yet the pastor of a new church doesn't care what you believe...He's there to teach you what he believes...

In my experience, before being allowed membership in a church, one has to make an admission of what he believes before membership is allowed...And it must be in agreement with what the church believes...No need for a recited creed...

[Iscool]

Paul points out that Christ is being ignored in their contentions in favor of different leaders including himself, He should be the center of their thoughts,

I would say not since Christ is included in this topic of exclusion...

Interesting that Paul says pretty much not to focus on what Jesus personally teaches exclusively...

ALL of the apostles have taught what Jesus told them to teach...To rely only on what Jesus says in Matthew is no better than following just the teaching of Apollos...

these verses have nothing to do with the papacy.

Sure they do...As I understand it, your pope teaches that what Jesus spoke to Peter supercedes anything any of the apostles wrote...

Paul points out this is wrong since they all taught what Jesus spoke, to them...

The topic is unity...And it is NOT unity into a religion that follows after one person's teaching whether it be Peter, Jesus or Paul or Apollos or anyone else...That verse goes to the heart of your religion...

[GonzoII]

"I would say not since Christ is included in this topic of exclusion..."

He is and Paul saved the correct response until last.."and I of Christ "Look at the following verse, look how Christ is now brought forward as the main issue:

1Co 1:13 "Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified(No, Christ was) for you? or were ye baptized (baptism in Christ) in the name of Paul? (of course not but in the name of the Father and the Son etc..)

[GonzoII]

"My personal favorite is the twisted pretzel - the kids in catechesis love that lesson because they get to consume it ;-)" Three folds one curtain isn't bad either!

[Alex Murphy]

In my experience, before being allowed membership in a church, one has to make an admission of what he believes before membership is allowed...And it must be in agreement with what the church believes...No need for a recited creed...

How does the applying member know what the church believes, if the church refuses to document and make their beliefs public? And how is what you describe above different than assenting to a creed, assuming the church's beliefs are documented somewhere?

[FourtySeven]

As you can see [from 1 Cor 1:10-13], we are warned against following Peter, or any of his supposed apostolic heirs...

With all due respect, I do not believe you are reading 1 Cor 1:12 correctly. Contextually, I believe the passage you cite (ironically) bolsters the claim for having one, VISIBLE, UNIFIED Church.

Specifically, 1 Cor 1:12. What does it say? The language is a bit flowery in the KJV, so the message may be lost. In my NAB (for Catholics) it reads,

1 Cor 1:12 "I mean that each of you is saying, 'I belong to Paul,' or 'I belong to Apollos', or 'I belong to Cephas' or 'I belong to Christ".

Now, if the passage meant what you are claiming, then St. Paul would also be warning people against saying "I follow Christ". So the meaning of "belong" (or "of" in your translation) cannot mean "follow". The meaning is, as I stated before, from the context, that St. Paul is warning people to not think of themselves as separated from their fellow Christians simply because another Apostle or disciple, or even Christ Himself, brought the Gospel to them.

St. Paul is warning against division in the Church. Divisions that, amazingly enough, closely resemble all the denominations we have today (as they are formed when one person claims to have a "better truth" than the Church Herself, and other people claim to "belong" to that person's idea)

And of course everyone knows Peter would never let a man bow down to him, to pay him reverence...

I've always found this criticism of current Church practice (bowing to the Pope) rather curious. After all, the criticism clearly comes from the event recounted in the passage of Acts 10:25-26.

Acts 10:25-26: And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped [him]. [26] But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man.

To me, and perhaps I'm wrong here, I've always found this specific event replayed every time someone *does* bow to the Pope. If you will carefully observe, every time (or virtually every time) someone does bow, or kneel to the Pope, the Pope gestures to the person to rise up. At least this is what I have noticed. I could be wrong.

However, to put it in other words, the Church doesn't ignore verse 26, in fact we not only know of verse 26, but also verse 25. We are re-enacting the entire event to make a point: That the visitor honors the Holy Father as Cornelius wished to do to Peter, but the sucessor of Peter reminds the visitor that he is not God, so is not to be worshipped as God is worshipped.

So in essence, each time someone kneels or bows to the Pope it's actually a lesson about idolatry, and to not substitute the Holy Father for God, just as Peter wasn't to be mistaken for the Son.

Again, this is just my impression. I don't know if this is true, traditionally speaking, at all. However, even if it's not true, it's still not evil to show respect to someone in authority, or else a Christian shouldn't call a Judge "Your Honor" or "Your Grace", or shouldn't bow to anyone who is a royal (that is, a Christian from the UK shouldn't bow to their own Queen, I'm not talking about US citizens bowing to royals here), etc.

Sorry...Jesus became the ONE sacrifice FOR US so we don't need sacraments...We can do nothing...Jesus did it all...

I've never found this belief particularly comforting either. If we can "do nothing" then what's the point of even professing our Christian faith in a Creed?

And even beyond that, the notion of "we can't do anything" [to cooperate in our salvation] is dangerously close, IMO, to the false notion of "double predestination". If we can do nothing to cooperate in our salvation, then everything is already set. There is no point in going to church, reading our Bible, or even, and this is the most important point, it would be foolish to believe one is "saved" in the first place.

Why? Because there would be no way you could know! If one can "do nothing" to participate in one's own salvation, then that necessarily means no matter what you say or believe, there is nothing one can do to assure oneself of one's salvation.

So where's the message of hope in that?

God never asked you for a sacrifice...

I think to say that is a bit disingenuous, with all due respect. After all, while I, 47, may never have personally been asked for "a Sacrifice", all of humanity certainly was (in the Jewish people). Before Christ, they had to perform sacrifices as part of the atonement for the transgression of Adam. It wasn't until Christ came that the true nature of this Sacrifice was revealed, in other words, it became clear God demanded a completely pure sacrifice to restore Man to his original state. And speaking of that "one Sacrifice"....

God already provided the 'Sacrifice', His only Son...What can you do to top that??? You going to offer His Son again??? Or continually offer His Son???

You can't offer the Son of God to God for a sacrifice...God already offered His Son for a sacrifice for YOU...

Yes, God provided the only truly atoning Sacrifice, and there's nothing we can do to top it. As I'm sure you have heard already, Catholics do not "re-sacrifice" Jesus. We partake in the same Sacrifice at Calvary that occurred 2,000 years ago. Time is not a factor for God, since He is eternal. Thus, He gives us the ability, in a mysterious way, to reach back in time and literally partake in the same sacrifice that occurred at Calvary. What better source of that saving grace could there be other than the original source 2,000 years ago?

Certainly the original source of Calvary is a better source of Saving Grace than is reading the Bible on Sundays and shouting "Praise Jesus!" all day (not that those aren't sources, but they cannot compare to the source from the Cross).

You can claim you can sin every day, all day long but your sins aren't bad sins...

Who says that?

And there's the biggest delusion of all...More than half of your church voted in a pro child killer as president...This is God's church??? Not the one I read about in the scripture...

Why not mention the priest sex abuse scandal while you're at it?

The Church is not a society of sinless people; the Church is a hospital for the sinner. Remember, Christ Himself said He did not come for the righteous, but for the sick. So it's perfectly reasonable (and expected) to find all types of weirdos and sickos in the Church.

In fact if that wasn't the case, I'd boldly submit that wouldn't be the Church Christ founded at all. If you, or anyone, is in a "church" that claims to be "sin free", you have a problem, because you aren't in the true Church at all. Such a person would be in a "society" of "self proclaimed sinless people", not the Body of Christ which can and does save people today.

[Petronski]

1Co 1:10-13 is a warning against leaving the Church founded by Christ for selfish, separate churches founded by individuals. It's an anti-Protestant warning of the first order....ironically misinterpreted by Protestants (or perhaps consciously so).

Jesus became the ONE sacrifice FOR US so we don't need sacraments...We can do nothing...Jesus did it all...

He DID do it all, including giving us His Seven Blessed Sacraments and, in the case of Holy Eucharist, commanding us to partake of it.

God never asked you for a sacrifice...In fact, a sacrifice by Catholics or anyone would be an abomination to God...

Quite the opposite, actually: That notion--which is directly contrary to God's Church--is the true abomination to God.

More than half of your church voted in a pro child killer as president...

A false claim blissfully unburdened by proof.

[Petronski]

If Peter was the first pope, Paul would not have pointed out that you not follow Peter to the exclusion of the others...

Of course St. Peter was the first pope. Paul's warning was that we must follow Christ, not any man.

[Petronski]

Well that's turning into a popular condescension...

As more people discover the truth of the term, it will certainly become more popular.