Why is it that I am not surprised that you didn't mean what you said?
We were discussing the Nicene Creed, which clearly does make the Son less then the Father since (in its revised form) claims that in eternity, the Son is begotten from the Father.
As for Calvin's view on the Nicene Creed,
In the Reformed Churches, except the Episcopal, the Nicene Creed is little used. Calvin, who had a very high opinion of the Apostles' Creed, depreciates the Nicene Creed, as a 'carmen cantillando magis aptum, quam confessionis formula' (De Reform. Eccles.) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds1.iv.iii.html .
fortheDeclaration:
I think I said I would not longer debate the Nicene Creed, which if you go back and read it. That is what I said. You are correct that Calvin and Presbyterians tend to use the Apostles Creed, which of course is the Baptismal Creed of the Church of Rome as the writings of ST. Hippolytus of Rome in circa 220 AD indicate.
Now, with respect to me lying, In my last post, I posted the “Athanasian Creed” to further clarify what is believed by the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of the period of the Church Fathers and Councils of the Church, which both Historical Apostolic Churches hold to, i.e. the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthdoox Church.
If you Protestants, i.e Split P’s, want to continue to move away from historic orthodox Apostolic Faith, go ahead, as everytime I come here, I see that Protestantism is nothing more than theological relvatism in that every individual Protestant takes the idea of the priesthood of each believer and elevates it to the reality that “I will determine what is Correct Doctrine” from “my reading of the Bible” and in doing so, Protestant Church’s can’t in the end hold to correct Doctrine because each generation produces more and more splits based on, guess what “someone else came up with an interpretation” and what do you know, a new Protestant group is born.
Now, do some individual Catholics, even some Priests maybe and theologians dissent from Defined Catholic Teaching, of course, and usually in the area of sexual morality [i.e. Traditional Marriage, birth control] and the related culture of life issues [abortion and euthansia] and women’s ordination, etc, but those that do so are defacto schismatics in that they are elevating their own theological views in contrast to Defined Dogma and Doctrine.
Protestantism, on the other hand, who can say what is Defined Doctrine? Nobody, because every man and women are in reality their own interpreter of Sacred Scripture and thus Doctrine really comes down to what I think and thus, when the Church teaches something that I disagree with, that person leaves and seeks “like minded” individuals whose interpretations are consistent with “Me” and you have a new group.
Again, I take the Nicene-Constantinopile Creed as the orthodox Statement of Apostolic Tradition as reflected in Sacred Scripture and Holy Tradition, i.e what was passed on to the Church via the Apostles to the 2nd century Fathers of the CHurch [St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Justin Martyr, St. Polycarp, St. Irenaus of Lyon], to the 3rd century Fathers [i.e. St. Cyprian of Carthage, to the 4th century Fathers [St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Jerome , St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, etc] and defined by the 4 Great Councils [Nicea 325 AD, Constaninopile 381 AD, Ephesus 431 AD, Chalcedon 451 AD] and the faith that was believed and expressed via the way the Church prayed at Sacred Liturgy.
And again, you continue to make that claim about the Son. Who in the heck are you?? and what makes you think you know Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Doctrine and that your view is infallible.
So I say it does not say what you say as the Nicene Creed “Never says” Christ is less than the Father. It says the exact oppositie, Christ is “GOD from GOD” “Light fom Light” True God from True God.
And for historical accuracy, I think Confessional Lutherans still use the Nicene Creed. Anglicans I know, as you note do as well. The only other confessional Protesant group is the Methodist and I don’t know which one they use, they use either the Apostles are Nicene.
So lets be honest, if you are a Baptist, that is just another way of saying “every man/woman for themself” as among the core Bapstist principles is the “priesthood of all believers”, which in practice means I will not accept any Authority other than may own and assuming the local Pastor Jim Bob is preaching, what I think is correct, his role as Pastor over my “local little congregation”
So lets be clear now, you are one of these modern evangelicals, following John MacArthur and William Martin, who is now deceased, who started rejecting the eternal Sonship of Christ back in the 1980’s, although apparently MacArthur now says he was wrong in doing so, are so he says. Most of the people who pushed this view are radical dispensationalist/rapture supporters, which is a doctrine that was first pushed in American Protestant circles in the 19th century, again, nobody ever believed the “rapture doctrine” as espoused by Fundamentalist American Protestants.
In closing, yes there are some good faithful Protestants there, and the ones that hold to historic Christian Doctrine, are ones that I have much support for. But each generation, more and more Protestant Groups sort of “go over the cuckoos nest” with some of these novel ideas and the rejecting Christ as the eternal Son of the Father is another one of these ideas that has come about in the last 30 years in Protestant Circles.
Again, I will stick with the Church Fathers, Councils and Creeds of the early Church.