Monday, June 9, 2008

What Does the Nicene Creed Actually Mean? Part One

The word "does" in the question might well be its most significant part. The Nicene Creed is not our Bible "what does Genesis mean" but is in fact more like a Christian Constitution "what does the Creed do?". It was expressly created to overcome the particular theological disputations of its day. It tells the bare minimum of the Christian story. It relates it without historical or theological detail. Its intention was to unify early Christianities, and it is reaffirmed weekly by many diverse Christian traditions nearly two thousand years later.

The Nicene Creed is a living, breathing document. It evokes more meaning than it bestows.

Yet it did originally mean something. And because the writers who agreed upon the Creed were very much aware of Judaic and early Christian traditions to which we also have some access, a few guesses might get us on our interprative way:

"We believe in one God" clearly echoes the Shema "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord" as it reaffirms the communal nature of belief. Not I, but we, believe in God, not gods.

"The Father, the Almighty" refers to God as Jesus did. It puts us in Christ's religious shoes. God is not only the father of Jesus but the father of humanity, as in the geneological "Adam, the son of God." By standing us where Jesus stood, the Creed invites us to contemplate the imatatio Christi, the imitation of Jesus himself.

"Maker of Heaven and Earth, maker of all that is, seen and unseen" contains the same belief as the Judaic formula "Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the universe...." The Father is not only the father of humanity, but radically soverign over the entire cosmos as its creator, including the unknown (sight being a frequent Biblical symbol for knowledge).

"We Belive in One Lord Jesus Christ" redoubles the opening affirmation of God as one and unitary. Yet it moves this affirmation also over Jesus Christ, the savior of mankind. We relate to Jesus with the same submission of will that Christ extended toward the Father, because they are of the same sovereign nature.

"The Only Son of God," reflects Christ's unique roll in history. Though the Hebrew kings were also called sons of God, this relationship was symbolic. By submitting himself to the Father and befriending the oppressed and serving humanity, Jesus Christ became the prototypical Son of God who Christians emulate. By all being in some sense sons of God through Adam, we are called to be fully sons of God in Christ.

"Eternally begotten of the Father" strongly rejoins Johanine notions of Christ's pre-existing the cosmos, though He does so in a way dependent on the Father's nature, being of the same. The Son is eternally generated by the Father, presumably, by the Father's love for God's people.

"God from God, Light from Light" then clarifies that, though different, the Son and the Father are one, just as two torches can be borne of the same flame. Of this, St. Athanasius himself said that the Father and Son are one "as the sight of two eyes is one." This subtly retouches on the metaphor of sight and knowledge: as we have "seen the light" of the Son, we may know the (light of the) Father.

"True God from True God" consequently rebukes those (Arians) who believed that Jesus was a lesser god, and not God in fully, true God being the phrase of the time. The above removes this as a creedal possibility. There are no degrees, no gradations, in Nicene divinity.

Consequently, "Begotten, not made" emphasizes that just as there are no degrees in divine nature, there is no subordination of divine origin. God did not create Christ Logos in the same way that God created the cosmos. Rather, the Father gave birth to the Son not as creator, but in the gentive sense, as a parent would.

"Of one Being with the Father," affirms just as there is no subordination of Son to Father in divinity or origin, also there is no subordination in substance, in existence. Three people may all be different people, but are no less human for being so.

No comments: