02-13-2007 20:42

That Credal Thing

Gerald, as I understand the order of progress in Christian tradition, it works this way: something begins as a doctrine (a teaching), and then, if it is found to be sufficiently central to the life of Christianity that it seems a necessary part of orthodoxy, it is elevated to the rank of dogma. If the dogma is challenged, a creed may be formulated to summarize the dogma for the purposes of defense. But not all dogmas get summarized in creeds, and not all doctrines achieve the rank of dogma. 
 
Thus a creed is determined to be acceptable or not by testing it against preëxisting doctrines; and once the creed is in existence, it is then used to test people. This is the reason why creeds are called creeds, in fact: the very name \"creed\" means \"I believe\" (Latin credo), and the act of reciting a creed is the act of saying \"I believe thus-and-so\" (credo thus-and-so) -- in this way giving evidence that the person reciting it willingly conforms to the doctrines that the creed summarizes. 
 
So, for example, the baptismal creeds of the second century and later were summaries of those doctrines which the individual catechumen (the candidate for baptism) needed to embrace in order to be worthy of admission into the church. The catechumen was taught the doctrines in question during catechetical instruction, and then the baptismal creed was administered at the time of baptism to establish that his acceptance of the doctrines was sufficient. The Church kept going over its catechetical doctrines, working out which ones were truly deserving of the status of dogma and which ones were not, and as it did so the Church also kept going over its baptismal creeds, testing them against its doctrines and refining them -- until finally, in the eighth century, the Church settled on a credal formula that it was fully satisfied with, and this formula was the Apostle\'s Creed we know today. 
 
The Nicene creed was developed in the fourth century for the specific purpose of excluding the followers of the Arian heresy. Arianism was already regarded as a heresy by the majority of Christian bishops before the Nicene creed was composed, since Arianism denied one of the doctrines they themselves regarded as essential -- the doctrine that Christ was fully equal to his Father. But at the time of Arius, the idea of Christ\'s complete equality with his Father was not yet universally understood as deserving the status of dogma, and there were ways of thinking that would seem to argue that making it a dogma would be a mistake. And that is precisely why Arianism emerged. The purpose of the Nicene creed was to provide a formula summarizing the points where the doctrines which the majority of bishops accepted, conflicted with the views of Arius and appeared to be deserving of the status of dogma. Since it was breaking new ground, the creed -- and the dogmas it summarized -- did not spring into existence in an instant, but were refined over a period of perhaps sixty years, from some time before the Council of Nicæa to around the time of the second ecumenical Council of Constantinople. During that sixty-year period they were tested and re-tested against the bishops\' understanding and experience. The doctrines involved were not tested against the creed, but the creed against the doctrines. 
 
The Athanasian creed evolved in southern Gaul in the fifth century, as a summary of orthodox doctrine on the Trinity and the Incarnation for the guidance of catechismal teachers. The views it excluded as heretical were already regarded as heretical a century before it was formulated. Again, the creed was shaped by the doctrines, rather than the other way around. 
 
In the early centuries of the church, the determination of what was orthodox and what was heretical was a very messy process. But after the time of the struggle with Arius, the body of orthodox Christian doctrine was sufficiently well-documented that new works by new authors could simply be compared with known heresies to determine whether they were orthodox or not. This was not a testing against creeds but a testing against dogmas. 
 
Once in a long while, however, some major new teaching or body of teachings would arise which did not clearly conform either to orthodoxy or to known heresies, and when this happened, the teaching or teachings in question would have to be examined and either exonerated or condemned by a Church Council. This task of examination had to be completed without use of a creed, precisely because the teachings in question did not clearly contradict any preëxisting creed. But the teachings on trial would still be compared against preëxisting doctrines, and the doctrines the teachings were tested against would be on trial to see if they deserved the status of dogma, even as the teachings were tested to see if they deserved the label of \"heresy\". 
 
Thus Jan Hus\'s teachings were evaluated and condemned by the Council of Constance, without reference to any preëxisting creed that they clearly contradicted. Luther\'s teachings were initially identified as a variation of Hus\'s, in an attempt to save the Church the trouble of another Council, but when it proved that Luther\'s teachings were not just Hussitism revisited but something genuinely different, they were ultimately examined and condemned by the Council of Trent -- again, without the use of a creed, since no existing creed clearly proved Luther wrong. 
 
This has been a very long response to your concerns, and I hope I have not imposed unduly. I have drawn heavily on the reference texts in my home library -- books on Christian theology and Church history -- and if you need some citations, I\'ll be happy to oblige.

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