DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OUR TWO MAIN CREEDS

This is an interesting post to think about. As I reflect, two random thoughts come to me:

1. I know the origin and history of the Nicene Creed. I have no idea about the origin and history of the Apostle's Creed although I have been saying it my whole life.
2. For most of my life, I was member of a denomination that used the Apostolic Creed, but not the Nicene Creed. Now, I am a member of a denomination that recites the Nicene Creed regularly and the Apostolic Creed less frequently.

I have never considered them at odds with each other. However, I think I see a google search in my future.

seeking.IAM said:

This is an interesting post to think about. As I reflect, two random thoughts come to me:

1. I know the origin and history of the Nicene Creed. I have no idea about the origin and history of the Apostle's Creed although I have been saying it my whole life.
2. For most of my life, I was member of a denomination that used the Apostolic Creed, but not the Nicene Creed. Now, I am a member of a denomination that recites the Nicene Creed regularly and the Apostolic Creed less frequently.

I have never considered them at odds with each other. However, I think I see a google search in my future.

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Indeed, I prefer the Apostles Creed for its simplicity and reflection of the sufficient beliefs of that very early church. I can live with the text of the Nicea (325) but rather skip the Anathema of that Creed as I can't find direct Biblical evidence for that and object against the logical problems it creates.

R.W. Smith said:

Differences between the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed:

Although I prefer the Nicene Creed, questions have come to mind over the years. (I have been a Catholic for 30 years now. As an Anglican we tended to use the Nicene Creed more often. My local parish used to use the Apostles Creed 90% of the time. The new priest has changed that.)

I thought that ONE of the reasons for the Nicene Creed was to clarify the much older Apostles Creed. BUT...

Concern # 1:
1) I believe in God the Father almighty, who created heaven and earth
Verses
2) I believe in one God Almighty, who made heaven and earth ...
I once read that the difference between "created" and "made" is that to create means to create from nothing, whereas to make means to make something new out of already existing material. Why would the Church Fathers at the Council of Nicea change from create to made?

Two other concerns:
There are two things I find lacking in the Nicene Creed. (I'm wondering why I think I like it better.)
I love to proclaim that "I believe in the Communion of Saints".
I find it theologically significant to proclaim that "I believe in the resurrection of the body". I notice online that a lot of protestants are very confused or uninformed about the resurrection. (It was actually a secular professor who, four+ decades ago pointed out that this understanding is what sets Christian belief apart from the eastern religions.)
Dominus vobiscum, Reg
(P.S. So I can get more responses, and to see which forums might be more active, I think I'll repost this to other forums I belong to.)

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The Orthodox Church uses only the Nicene Creed (as a creed per se) and refers to it as the Symbol of Faith, however, the Athanasian Creed as some call it, which is more correctly referred to as Quincunque Vult, since it was not written by St. Athanasius, appears in its original form, lacking the filioque, in Orthodox Psalters and other service books.

We do not use the “Apostle’s Creed” - while not containing any errors, this document is extremely limited, in that it lacks hard protections against Arianism and Macedonianism, and it is believed to be descended from an ancient Roman baptismal liturgy, so it makes sense that the Orthodox would not have it in our liturgical patrimony.

Reluctant Theologian said:

but rather skip the Anathema of that Creed as I can't find direct Biblical evidence for that and object against the logical problems it creates

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There is no anathema in the text of the Nicene Creed. Perhaps you’re thinking of Quincunque Vult? It lacks an anathema but it does declare “Unless someone believes (the following) he cannot be saved” or words to that effect.

R.W. Smith said:

Differences between the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed:

Although I prefer the Nicene Creed, questions have come to mind over the years. (I have been a Catholic for 30 years now. As an Anglican we tended to use the Nicene Creed more often. My local parish used to use the Apostles Creed 90% of the time. The new priest has changed that.)

I thought that ONE of the reasons for the Nicene Creed was to clarify the much older Apostles Creed. BUT...

Concern # 1:
1) I believe in God the Father almighty, who created heaven and earth
Verses
2) I believe in one God Almighty, who made heaven and earth ...
I once read that the difference between "created" and "made" is that to create means to create from nothing, whereas to make means to make something new out of already existing material. Why would the Church Fathers at the Council of Nicea change from create to made?

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good question

R.W. Smith said:

Two other concerns:
There are two things I find lacking in the Nicene Creed. (I'm wondering why I think I like it better.)
I love to proclaim that "I believe in the Communion of Saints".

Click to expand...

The key is the meaning one chooses to pour into that statement. It makes all the difference in the world

R.W. Smith said:

I find it theologically significant to proclaim that "I believe in the resurrection of the body". I notice online that a lot of protestants are very confused or uninformed about the resurrection. (It was actually a secular professor who, four+ decades ago pointed out that this understanding is what sets Christian belief apart from the eastern religions.)

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what confusion do Protestants have in regard to the resurrection of the body that we see in 1 Cor 15 and 2 Cor 5?

BobRyan said:

what confusion do Protestants have in regard to the resurrection of the body that we see in 1 Cor 15 and 2 Cor 5?

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I sometimes hear the afterlife described by saying that our souls go to heaven, where we live in a disembodied but blissful state. @R.W. Smith may have something like that in mind. It was a bit jarring to me when I first realized that the orthodox belief is that we're going to have resurrected bodies (not just disembodied souls) in the life to come.

R.W. Smith said:

Hey Reluctant Theo...
Could you please expand on your concerns (that I put in bold) a wee bit? I am so used to both creeds that I've never really had any "problem", other than the points in my O.P. that have developed over the years.
Might it possibly be this line: "I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church"? Surely you don't have a problem with: "I believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins".
Thanks for your input, and God be with you, Reg

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The lines "I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church" come from the revised Creed as the result of the First Council of Constantinople (381 AD), not from the original Creed from the First Council of Nicaea (325 AD). I think in general even among Protestants no one takes offence at the phrase ' .. holy, catholic .. ' But the phrase '.. apostolic church .. ' has been redefined by Protestants these days it seems - they don't use that phrase with its original meaning referring to the uninterrupted line of delegated authority from Apostles to Bishops, etc. to the day it was written or now.

Given the original meaning - no Protestant church subscribes to that phrase '.. apostolic church .. ' but if one asks a Protestant pastor he would say something along the lines of ' .. it means we believe in a general church built on the foundations as laid by the Apostles .. ' which has quite different semantics.

The anathemas of the 325 AD original Creed (taken from Nicene Creed):

These lines are missing from the revised 2nd Creed from the Constantinople Council from 381 AD.

I can easily subscribe Yeshua was begotten by God the Father, and not created/made (which was Arius main point) - and He clearly pre-existed, but I cannot find direct evidence that there never was such a 'begetting' event.

The 1st Creed from Nicaea (325 AD) says:

But to then state that there never has been any event or sequence leading to that makes no sense to me - it's logically impossible to claim Yeshua was begotten of/from the Father, but there never has been such an event. IMHO the Biblical texts themselves don't demand that understanding, that position is AFAIK derived from theological meta-physics. From what I can find Irenaeus of Lyons (2nd half 2nd century AD) is the first to refer to that.

Personally I believe in Yeshua's subordination to God the Father; that's still implied in both version of the Nicene Creed, but quite absent from the much later 'Athanasian Creed' (with the 'Quincunque Vult') (+/- 200 years later).

R.W. Smith said:

Differences between the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed:

Although I prefer the Nicene Creed, questions have come to mind over the years. (I have been a Catholic for 30 years now. As an Anglican we tended to use the Nicene Creed more often. My local parish used to use the Apostles Creed 90% of the time. The new priest has changed that.)

I thought that ONE of the reasons for the Nicene Creed was to clarify the much older Apostles Creed. BUT...

Concern # 1:
1) I believe in God the Father almighty, who created heaven and earth
Verses
2) I believe in one God Almighty, who made heaven and earth ...
I once read that the difference between "created" and "made" is that to create means to create from nothing, whereas to make means to make something new out of already existing material. Why would the Church Fathers at the Council of Nicea change from create to made?

Click to expand...

The Apostles Creed was primarily Latin, whereas the Nicene Creed was in Greek. The Latin "creatorem" is from the root "creo" which means "to create, make". "Creatorem" can also mean "author", which is also one of the meanings of the Greek "ποιητὴν" from the Nicene Creed. Overall, the words are almost identical in meaning.

R.W. Smith said:

Two other concerns:
There are two things I find lacking in the Nicene Creed. (I'm wondering why I think I like it better.)
I love to proclaim that "I believe in the Communion of Saints".
I find it theologically significant to proclaim that "I believe in the resurrection of the body". I notice online that a lot of protestants are very confused or uninformed about the resurrection. (It was actually a secular professor who, four+ decades ago pointed out that this understanding is what sets Christian belief apart from the eastern religions.)
Dominus vobiscum, Reg
(P.S. So I can get more responses, and to see which forums might be more active, I think I'll repost this to other forums I belong to.)

Click to expand...

The Nicene Creed was developed to fence off specific heresies, being phrased to exclude each one in turn. I personally find some of the phrasing in the Apostles Creed allows too much wiggle room in that the followers of some heretical views could happily recite the Apostles Creed with a clear conscience.

Reluctant Theologian said:

But to then state that there never has been any event or sequence leading to that makes no sense to me - it's logically impossible to claim Yeshua was begotten of/from the Father, but there never has been such an event.

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There is no contradiction between the two creeds; the revised creed of 381 was merely strengthened as @prodromos stated to exclude specific heresies that were able to claim compliance with the Nicene creed, specifically, the heresies of Macedonianism, which was denial of the full deity and personhood and Lordship of God the Holy Spirit, Apollinarianism, which was a Christological heresy which claimed Christ had a human body but a divine soul (a precursor to the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies of the fifth century and especially of the monothelite heresy of the sixth century) and semi-Arianism, which was a version of Arianism watered down just enough to avoid the anathemas and doctrinal clarification of the original creed (which should not be called the Nicene Creed per se but the prototype of it, since the creed was officially revised by the council of Constantinpole and the revised Creed became the symbol of faith adopted by all Nicene Churches).

The specific position of both Creeds (which is clear if you look at the original Greek of the Constantinopolitan Creed, is that Christ was begotten of our Father before all ages, that is to say, before events, before the creation of Time.

This is completely Biblical because time is a thing, and according to John 1:1-18, it was by Christ, the Logos, that all things were made, which would include Time.

If one believe time exists independently of God, one has reduced Him to a demiurge, since in such a system the actual God becomes spacetime and our Lord merely becomes a powerful entity existing within spacetime, which is what the Mormons teach (specifically, that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, led by the Father, for Mormonism is fully tritheist, merely re-arranged existing matter, which is of course blasphemous and contrary to Genesis ch. 1 and John ch. 1).

And if one believes that there was a time when Jesus Christ was not, one has denied the deity of Christ, and his consubstantiality with the Father (likewise if one believes there was a time when the Holy Spirit was not - the Nicene position is clear, that the Son is begotten eternally of the Father and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father).

I would suggest On the Incarnation, by St. Athanasius, who led the defense of the Christian religion against Arianism at the Council of Arianism, which explains this, and the scriptural basis for the Incarnation, in great detail. He also wrote several letters on this same basis.

Essentially, the Nicene belief can be distilled to the idea that Jesus Christ is fully God, that he and the father are of one substance, and that He was begotten of the father before all ages, that is to say, that He has always existed and is coequal, coeternal and consubstantial with the Father. He became consubstantial with us at the time of His incarnation, when he put on our created human nature in order to restore and glorify it, procuring our salvation and resurrection through his own Passion on the Cross, atoning for our sins and ransoming us from the wages thereof, that of death without hope of resurrection in the Eschaton, and insodoing, became the firstfruits of the resurrection. He is God, in the fullest sense of the word, being the perfect representation of the Father and in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwelled bodily, so that anyone who saw HIm saw the Father, just as anyone who receives the Holy Spirit has received the breath of the Father, with whom He is united together with the Holy Spirit, one God united in three co-eternal, coequal persons, the unoriginate Father, the incarnate Son and Logos, and the indwelling Holy Spirit, an eternal union of perfect love.

Likewise we are to, in our own lives, as Christians, seek to make ourselves an icon of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity, by loving each other and loving God as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost love each other and love us.

prodromos said:

I personally find some of the phrasing in the Apostles Creed allows too much wiggle room in that the followers of some heretical views could happily recite the Apostles Creed with a clear conscience.

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Indeed, and this is probably why some pietistic denominations switched to using it exclusively, as it came across as less controversial, just as some stopped using Quincunque Vult altogether (of course, the Western version of Quincunque Vult is different from the one we use in the Orthodox Church in that its arranged across three paragraphs and expresses the filioque.

Interestingly, the Apostles Creed is the only Western Creed that an Orthodox Christian could confess, however, since it is the only one of the three creeds in use in the Western Church that was not modified with the filioque (the fact that it wasn’t indicates its somewhat doctrine-light nature; it is believed by scholars to be derived from an ancient Roman baptismal liturgy, and the clauses in it bear some resemblance to questions that are still asked of the person receiving Baptism or their Sponsor in the traditional Western liturgies).

I will take a look at some point today to see if the Apostles Creed is in use in any of the Western RIte Orthodox liturgical texts. I’ve never seen a serious Orthodox theologian object to the “Apostles Creed” or declare it to be in error, and I myself regard it as acceptable provided its not used to displace the Nicene Creed. Historically in the Western liturgical tradition, it was used for masses on weekdays and during the Divine Office, with the “Athanasian Creed” as it is incorrectly called, better referred to by the incipit Quincunque Vult, albeit the Westernized version with the filioque, being used at Prime and at the mass on Trinity Sunday (which as you may be aware is celebrated on the Sunday after Pentecost, having been separated from it in the same manner that the feast of the Nativity became separate from Theophany in every church except the Armenian Apostolic Church, which alone preserves the more ancient practice of celebrating the birth of our Lord together with his Baptism, which has the unfortunate side-effect of his Baptism being less celebrated than His birth, since His nativity captures the imagination of the laity more, but they were originally celebrated together as a general celebration of the Incarnation - moving them to two separate feasts, the Feast of the Nativity being dated to December 25th not due to Pagan influence as some liberal theologians and some anti-Catholics try to argue, but rather, because December 25th is nine months from the feast of the Annunication, was a mid-fourth century response to the Arian heresy, along with the Nicene Creed, since obviously if one is an Arian the birth of Christ becomes of much less theological importance, since it is no longer God Himself being born but rather merely a lesser created entity, basically a glorified archangel (or in the case of the J/Ws, an actual archangel, for they believe Christ is an Archangel, St. Michael, despite Scripture clearly treating St. Michael as a created archangel completely distinct from the Messiah (and also despite Scripture clearly declaring Christ to be God, but of course they modified the most obvious instance of this in John 1:1, making this change being the raison d’etre for their “New World Translation”*; this also of course adds a strangeness to St. Gabriel the Archangel announcing the birth of our Lord to the the Blessed Virgin Mary a strange character, since it ceases to become St. Gabriel glorifying God and degenerates to St. Gabriel glorifying another archangel.

*I have to confess I find something chilling about the J/Ws calling their modified paraphrase the “New World Translation,” and not just because its not a translation, properly defined, but also because of the use of the term ‘New World’, which to me suggests something very much this-Worldly about it. It’s such a tragedy how many pious but uneducated or poorly catechized or intellectually vulnerable Christians are being exploited by that cult - it becomes particularly distressing when we note that the J/Ws have the lowest per capita income of any major religious group in the United States (conversely, the Unitarian Universalists have the highest, which is unsurprising, due to a combination of their political views, their guilt-free neutral spirituality being appealing to the wealthiest of the elites, and also the fact that they are largely descended, like the United Church of Christ, from “Old Money” Yankee families in New England who emigrated to the US in the 17th century and remained in New England rather than migrating out West, becoming something of a regional aristocratic class, with the Unitarians obtaining particular leverage due to gaining control of Harvard.

R.W. Smith said:

Wow. I WAS going to try to respond to people, but this thread has become very interesting and educational.
Thank you to everyone and may God be with us all!
Dominus vobiscum, Reg

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Et cum spiritu tuo!

Thank you for posting it Reg!

I believe the Apostles & Nicene Creeds work well together. Reading the Apostles & then the Nicene Creeds together is a helpful tool for basic theology and even a sense of immersion in it.

Reluctant Theologian said:

I think in general even among Protestants no one takes offence at the phrase ' .. holy, catholic .. '

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I would argue that there are quite a lot of Protestants (and I'd add liberal Catholics and Orthodox) actually who take issue with the Church as being "holy." Many see it as a purely human institution with no guidance from the Holy Spirit and no preservation from error. They take it upon themselves to correct the errors of the past; in the most extreme cases they say the faith was completely lost, but that they've rediscovered or restored it.

BobRyan said:

The key is the meaning one chooses to pour into that statement. It makes all the difference in the world
what confusion do Protestants have in regard to the resurrection of the body that we see in 1 Cor 15 and 2 Cor 5?

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Sort of off-topic, but since you raised it: 2 Cor. 5 is not about the resurrection, but the state of souls in heaven before that event.