#yes this is about the nicean creed

[scleroticstatue]

When someone uses a doctrinal misunderstanding to spread misinformation about your sect but you don't need to bring conflict into your relationship and have no spiritual promptings to fight for it so you're just being the strongest little soldier.

[the-single-element]

Trinity Sunday

Over the Easter season, we've heard the good news of Jesus's death and resurrection, and then, of his return to his "father", and then, of the coming of the Holy Spirit.

If we find something strange about this, I suspect it'll usually be the miracles themselves, not the cast of characters involved.

But in Jesus's time and place, in the Judah and Galilee of 2000 years ago, to describe how he talked about himself and the Father and the Spirit as "strange" would've been an understatement.

We discussed it back in Lent, didn't we? What was the most often repeated, most stressed, most belabored point in the Sinai covenant? "No other gods but God."

What is the "greatest commandment", confirmed by Jesus in his final debate in Jerusalem? "Hear, o Israel, the Lᴏʀᴅ is God, the Lᴏʀᴅ is one."

Surrounded by polytheistic cultures, Jewish culture was uncompromising on this point.

And yet Jesus claims, on the one hand, equality with God the Father (“before Abraham came to be”, “the Father and I are one”...), and on the other hand, converses with God the Father (”I know you always listen to me”, “into your hands I commend my spirit”...) and talks of the Spirit as something that can only arrive if he's steps back to make room for it.

How can we resolve this apparent contradiction? How can Jesus be divine, and distinguishable from the Father... and how can the Holy Spirit be divine, and distinguishable from both of them... and have them all still count as being "one", a monotheistic God?

We can start by digging into the notes and conclusions of the early Church, who had to solve this riddle first.

In the fourth century AD, Church leaders from across the whole "known world" met twice to debate certain points of doctrine: once in Nicaea in 325, then again in Constantinople in 381.

One of the products of their debate was a document we now call the "Nicean Creed", a summary of what everyone (other than a few Arian holdouts) had been willing to agree about, with regard to the contentious doctrinal issues of the time. And on the topic of the mysterious, seemingly impossible relationship we now call the "Trinity", it had this to say":

Jesus was “begotten, not made” - not a creation of God the Father, but rather, naturally following from his existence. This happened before anything else was created - “before all ages“.

Jesus and the Father are “consubstantial” - sharing one substance.

The Holy Spirit “proceeds” (with connotations of origination) from the Father - again, logically following from his existence.

So the Son and Spirit’s existence, in some way, is a natural consequence of the Father’s existence.

This... doesn't do much to clarify things, does it?

But it becomes more enlightening when we make use of another mysterious fact we know about God, which we discussed on Easter: God is love. "Love" in the sense that we use it when talking about the Kingdom, yes. But love.

And that kind of love can't exist alone.

Every example we're given in the Good News of the kind of love which defines God and God's Kingdom is a relationship with the other.

So the Trinity - the idea that God can be Father, Son, and Spirit while still being "one" - far from being a paradox, a doctrine invented to patch up a logical contradiction in the Good News... is, instead, almost a logical necessity if God is who we believe him to be.

What else could God be, to know love before Heaven and Earth were made? What else could God be, than either intrinsically in a relationship, or (if you parse it differently) intrinsically a relationship himself?

We can take this line of reasoning further. Consider what it means that the Father and the Son are not just distinguishable, but different. Different enough to have different preferences, different perspectives (as we saw, painfully, in Gethsemane). God’s love, the relationship of love that God embodies, is not the mere love of one's own close compatriots or kin, but the love for someone that has distinctions from you.

And so what does this mean for us? If God has always known what it is like to love and be loved, if the particular love between all three distinct divine persons is part of who God is... what lesson can we draw from it?

If that’s part of who he is...

...and if we’re made in his image...

...then he wants us to know that kind of love too.

Love for each other. Love for those different from ourselves, which nonetheless unites us. Love like the Spirit enabled at Pentecost, when everyone heard the good news in their own native tongue. Love like Jesus had for the Caananite woman. Distinction without disunity.

Best wishes to you and yours.

[thescienceofapologetics]

What are your thoughts on the Nicean Creed?

The Nicean Creed

“We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father. Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven; he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made human. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried. The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will never end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and to life in the world to come. Amen.”

Yes, these are all absolutely biblical principles! Catholic here refers, not to the Roman Catholic church, but the word catholic (lowercase C) which means whole, such a the global church vs. one building. Baptism refers to spiritual baptism which comes by the Holy Spirit and is indeed how we are saved, not to be confused with water baptism which is merely a non-salvific outward symbol of the Holy Spirit’s transformative process. R.C. Sproul talks a little more about the phrase “One holy catholic and apostolic church” here.