This is planned as the first of a series of articles on what Christians believe. As I start, I wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew. For where can we find a statement of "what Christians believe"? In the Bible? In the Catechism? In the Thirty-Nine Articles at the back of the Book of Common Prayer? In the writings of Karl Barth, or Thomas Aquinas, or some other theologian? In the Creed - and if so, which one?
And even if an adequate statement exists, our Christian life is not about believing ("The Devil also believes, and trembles..."). It is about following, living, loving and serving.
It was suggested I start with the Nicene Creed. It is so called, not because it was written at Nicaea (which is Iznik, in modern Turkey), but because it was felt to be the best summary of what the church leaders who met there in 325 had agreed. (Tradition has it that there were 318 of them, and only two disagreed.) The Nicene Creed is an elaboration of the Apostles' Creed (also "so called", for similar reasons!), and was the result of deep thought on the lines of "What do you mean by Son of God?".
The Apostles' Creed was a baptismal creed. That is to say, before you were baptized, you were asked to summarize your faith. In New Testament times, this might have been with a very simple statement, like that in 1 Cor 15:3-4. The baptismal sermon may have brought home what baptism meant and how new Christians should live, and many scholars feel that the two Epistles of Peter were sermons prepared for baptism services.
The Nicene Creed came to be the eucharistic creed. In the Eastern churches, there is a puzzling cry "The doors! The doors!" before the Creed, and it is said that this marks off the first part of the service, which was evangelistic in nature and open to everyone, and the second part, where Christ's own people shared in Christ's own life, death and resurrection.
In Common Worship, the Nicene Creed is 222 words long. The first 21 of these run: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. I planned to write on the first nine of those this month, but the word almighty is enough to provoke thought for a separate article, so I'll stick to the first five.
Only the fourth of these five words is really significant. The remaining four come in the Apostles' Creed, and are so fundamental to our faith that it is hardly necessary to comment. Pedants might ask whether "believing" in God is the same sort of belief as believing the world is round, or believing in ghosts. (And it is certainly not the same sort of belief as believing in Tony Blair, or in democracy, though there are parallels in the field of trust and confidence!)
And the adoption of "we believe", rather than "I believe" has been controversial, but not very significant. The fourth-century councils declared "We believe", stressing their solidarity. The old Greek and Latin liturgies, and the Book of Common Prayer, had the celebrant say "I believe" on behalf of each individual there. "We believe" stresses the corporate belief of the whole congregation, as well as "what we all individually believe".
But the stress that God is one, though it echoes Deut. 6:4, and Eph. 4:5, should make us reflect. The wording recalls 1 Cor 8:6: "There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist."
Although the grammar allows it, this does not mean that there are two separate beings (or three if you include our Lord, the Holy Spirit). "I and the Father are one," said Jesus (John 10:30). As we look at the Creed, we need to recall that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one, yet we can think of each separately. They are not three ways of looking at the same God, they are not three Gods, they are distinct, yet together. We need not understand this fully, just as we need only to stretch out the hand of belief - God will grasp it firmly, and we, in faith, can trust and follow.
HD