← Thinking Fellows
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- [00:00]
A
Hello, 15:17 podcast listeners. This is Caleb Keith, director of the 15:17 podcast network, here to talk about our June Podcast Fundraiser. The June Podcast Network Fundraiser has become an integral part of the fundraising we do to support these shows throughout the entire year. The 15:17 podcast network is special. We have many shows ranging from topics in the Old Testament, New Testament theology, history, and so much more. And each one of these manages to keep the focus on Christ and him crucified for the forgiveness of sins. We thank you for being a listener and for your support, both subscribing and donating to keep these shows on the air this year. The Podcast Network Fundraiser has a goal of $150,000 to support the production, the posting and the hosting of these shows. We believe that the Podcast Network is worth it, and we think that you do, too. We keep all of these shows free and ad free, meaning that we do not put these shows behind paywalls. You can listen to all of the episodes, the entire archive of our shows for free. And when you do so, that experience will be ad free. No advertisements jumping in between the content, just the entire recording presented to you uninterrupted. We believe that these are the best ways to present our podcasts and the best way to listen to podcasts as a whole, and we greatly need your support to keep it that way. Without collecting revenue from subscriptions and ads, the Podcast Network is entirely dependent on donors who love and are impacted by these shows to keep them going. If you would consider supporting this show, you can go to 1517.org donate. You can also go to the Show Notes here, and there are links directly to a giving page where you can support the Podcast Network Fundraiser. Thank you for helping us reach our goal of $150,000 this June, and we hope that you continue to enjoy these shows. Bye. What is the Athanasian Creed and why do we confess it? Hi, my name is Cale Keith, and today I'm joined by a fellow of 1517. He writes, he podcasts for us, he's spoken at conferences. And that's Dr. Even though he's wearing his golf hat today, he's Dr. John.
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B
I'm moving furniture today. So, yeah, he's doing.
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A
He's doing vocational work today, but we're going to talk about the Athanasian Creed. Trying to time this with Trinity Sunday, which in Lutheran churches and kind of creedal churches around the world is going to be the most common time that this is, that we recite this in public or in unity together. And I think there probably are every year, as this comes up in churches, questions about what is the Athanasian Creed? Why do we have this third creed that we don't say, you know, extraordinarily frequently together in church? Why did we retain it? And I think that people also, when they say it, think there's a couple of things in here that sound a little weird or maybe sound different from the other two creeds. John, I picked you because, as far as I know, you're a resident expert on the Trinity. Your doctoral work was on Trinitarian theology, and your parish pastor, who I know has dealt with questions from parishioners about the Athanasian Creed as well. So can you help us figure out what is the Athanasian Creed? First of all, what are the ecumenical creeds? Maybe we should mention the other two, the Apostles and the Nicene Creed, and give some context about their use in church history, their inclusion in the Lutheran Confessions, and why they're used or when they're used in particular worship settings.
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So the first of the creeds is the Apostles Creed, which originates in Rome in the second century. It underwent much development over several hundred years, but by the time, say, the fall of the Roman Empire, that's a pretty universally acknowledged creed of the Church, especially in the West. So that's the Apostles Creed. You'll find that one in the small catechism, the Nicene Creed. 325. So, you know, we just celebrated an anniversary of that creed, which was put together by an ecumenical council of the Church to address the problem of Arianism, which questions the full deity of Jesus Christ. And there was a controversy later in the fourth century around the full deity of the Holy Spirit. And that was brought to a close in 381 with the affirmation that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God, three persons. So they share a single essence, and their personal relations are how we distinguish them. That's, in a nutshell, what the Nicene Creed articulates. And the Athanasian Creed is basically expanding upon that and also addressing some issues related to the full humanity and full deity of Christ. So if you want to think of it in this way, the Nicene Creed clarifies the full deity of Jesus Christ. The Athanasian Creed, one of its purposes, is to clarify the full humanity of Jesus Christ
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A
so people will be, as you said, familiar where these pop up in different locations in our tradition. In the Lutheran tradition, these creeds all appear at the beginning of our first confession, at the Augsburg Confession, at least included in affirmation that we Confess these creeds. So why is confessing the creeds a norm or important for Christians? And maybe for Christians who watch this channel, are familiar with 1517, aren't part of a confessional group who maybe see or have heard that creeds are like an add on to Scripture. What is their role for Christian churches that still use them today?
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B
Yeah, I think the way that I would put that briefly is that Scripture is clear. It is authoritative, inspired, inerrant. But I am not clear and I am not authoritative in divine matters. I'm not inspired and I'm not inerrant. And so what creeds do are. They're there to clarify what it is. I believe Scripture says so. Scripture can speak on its own, but oftentimes sinful human beings in the church need help echoing back what it is Scripture says to the world in evangelism and to each other. Okay, do you want to add anything to that? That might be too cute? I don't know.
- [07:47]
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I mean, I think they help. I think you're right. It helps to put the preaching of Christ and him crucified and the truth of the ways in which God works, united as three persons, one God, into our lips whenever we speak. So it helps give us words to receive into our own ears and to preach communally as the church to one another. And also helps us define something that I think you and I have seen as becoming more important, which is to ask the question, who is the God of Christianity? And more and more that is getting blurred, especially in sort of the resurgence of different types of anti Christian apologetics today to say, oh, Christians don't really understand or know who the God of Christianity is. They don't know their own Bible or something like that. The creed is meant to unify Christians in answering this question, who is the God of Christianity? It isn't an additive on top of Scripture, but is us saying, this is our united reading of scripture as Christians understanding that, yeah, we are fallible and that people can walk away from the text and say all sorts of weird things and have throughout history, including denying the divinity of Christ, you know, saying that the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament, you know, that the Holy Spirit is, is a different entity or a different being from the Father or something like that. These have all been repeated. And the creeds are simply Christians coming together with one voice to say, this is our God.
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B
Yeah. And that's the difference between creeds and confessions and say the Book of Mormon, which is set alongside of scripture as authoritative by the lds, by Latter Day Saints, and in fact, really above Scripture. So when we say we subscribe to confession, creeds and confessions, we're not adding to Scripture, we're articulating ourselves collectively as the church as to what Scripture teaches.
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A
Yep. So this creed, the Athanas Creed, it's a long one named after so. And Athanasius of Alexandria. But did he write it? What's the significance of the naming?
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B
Yeah, it's kind of conventionally attributed to him. Athanasius was a famous theologian of the early church who is probably most famous for taking the right side on the question of Christ's true divinity during the Arian controversy leading up to the Nicene Creed. So it's attributed to him kind of historically, but really he did not write. Was written a couple of centuries later, probably in France, by someone who very much admired Athanasius. And so it took up this name, the Athanasian Creed, as a kind of an honor to him or kind of a tribute.
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And what's its connection to Christian worship? When did it make its way into divine service or the liturgies of common Christians?
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Yeah, I mean, that's kind of a difficult question to answer. Historically, on some level, it takes a while for these things to kind of be fully disseminated and recognized, particularly in a world without mass media. But by the time of the Middle Ages, this had become a creed associated with Holy Trinity Sunday, the Sunday following Pentecost. So by the time of the Reformation, this is simply what you do on Holy Trinity Sunday, and there isn't really a question about it.
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A
Okay, so let's just get into the content. You said there's a distinction here from the Nicene Creed, essentially an expansion on the truths there. What kind of expansion are we talking about? What differentiates this from the Nicene Creed, but still keeps it in line with the other two creeds?
- [12:34]
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Yeah. So following the Arian controversy and the controversy over the full deity of the Holy Spirit, then Christians started debating, what does it mean for Jesus to be fully divine and fully human at once? Do we say that he is two persons, a divine person and a human person? Do we say that? Well, I could go into it. There's several different heresies that show up, but they all kind of map onto a spectrum of either confusing the divinity and humanity of Jesus or separating them too much. And so the definition of Chalcedon, they got together and defined the doctrine of the deity, of the deity and humanity of Christ, so as to say that Christ is one person in two natures, and so the Athanasian Creed is kind of has additional content clarifying this truth. And Holy Trinity Sunday is a time for the whole church to confess this.
- [13:51]
A
There's two lines in here which I think you and I have. It's the same line twice, but that you and I have talked about before can sometimes stump people or make them ask the question, do I have to understand this entire creed and every line in it to be saved? And that is this opening line. Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the Catholic faith. And then it goes on to say that this creed describes the Catholic faith. And then it says it one more time here. Therefore, whoever desires to be saved must think thus about the Trinity. Must think thus about the Trinity. Those two lines. Do people who have never heard of the Athanasian Creed or confessed it, do they fall themselves outside of salvation? And what about people who can't understand? Or what about children or young adults or. I mean, it could be anybody. It could be the mentally impaired who are not wrapping their head around this, and not even the mentally impaired. But not everybody, you know, possesses the same gifts of intellect or something.
- [15:03]
B
Yeah, I get this question probably every year. Usually. What I say is this. The Athanasian Creed identifies which God you trust. That is the true God, rather than a false one. So if you worship someone who is not the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, truly man and truly God, then you have the wrong address for your faith. Whatever level of understanding that you have of the creed, it's not your intellect that saves you. It's identifying who it is that has saved you. And so that's why trinitarian theology is important. But lest I, you know, you know, confuse anyone. Look, I study this stuff for a living, and I don't understand trinitarian theology exhaustively in any sense, but I know the true God and trust in that true God who has revealed himself in Scripture. And so I confess the creed and the truths in it not with exhaustive understanding, but with faith and trust in Jesus Christ, my Savior. So that's usually kind of how I explain it.
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A
Yeah, I think that's great. You're saying here this isn't a faith in the right faith itself, and it's not a faith in proper knowledge that saves. It's a faith in Jesus Christ. And this creed is a tool and a confession about who that God is. And so if people are worried about, I don't know, believing something against this. I think what you're saying is, if you're really attempting to make A confession about a different God, or to construct God otherwise than this, then try in, yeah, you have the wrong God, you're knocking on the door of the wrong God. And that is enough. Even with something as long or complex as the Athanasian creed, it is saying that it is enough to believe in the triune God and trust in Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection for your salvation.
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B
Yeah, exactly. I totally agree. And I think that especially in this day and age where, you know, faith in some ways is making a comeback, but there's a lot of kind of general faith out there, like in a sort of force that undergirds the universe or is infused in kind of everything and everyone. There's a kind of cultural Christianity on the rise. And you know, with. With these kinds of movements, it's often very nebulous. What it is people really believe they know they have a need for religion. But beyond that, getting specific about identifying who God is and what the Christian message is. It's important for us to be able to confess that before the world.
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A
Yeah. I think one of the things that is changing in the world today is exactly what you said, which is when you look at people's responses to things, not to say that there aren't people with these reasons still, but that a lot of the reason in the past, the sort of rationalist reasons to abandon faith in God was human suffering and the sort of the meaning, the dark meaning that might be behind some people suffering and some people not and things like that in the rise of a new Western spirituality in the absence of Christianity. This is actually the reason people give for having spirituality of some sort, believing in a force or believing in heaven. I think it's close to 80% of Americans believe in heaven, even though it's now teetering on. 50% of them are Christians in regular church attending settings. So a lot of non believers believe in heaven or eternal life or a positive spiritual force. And when asked, most of them say it's how they deal with the problem of suffering, it's how they deal with that. Things are hard in this life, but there's got to be a purpose for Christians. The creeds work to again, make sure that God is not a nebulous force
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or some sort of guarantee of something good on the other side of the hill, you know.
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Yeah, exactly. Is there anything else we want to say about this? I know there's.
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B
I have one more thing. I know we need to wrap up, but I can do it briefly.
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Yeah.
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At the end, I believe of the creed there's a statement about those who do good inheriting eternal life, those who do evil inheriting eternal death. That's another one that people ask me about.
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They're like, 39. If somebody's reading it.
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Okay, I get the question, like, hey, aren't we saved by Christ and trusting in him and not by works? And that's a question I get every year, I think, or almost every year. And the thing that I usually say is, first of all, Jesus speaks this way. And so there's nothing inherently wrong with speaking the way that Jesus does. And then the second thing is that who does good? Ask yourself that question, who does good? Where does good come from? Well, it comes from justifying faith. Ultimately, you know, there's all kinds of proximate goods out in the world, but only God can bestow truly good works. And therefore, only from faith and faith alone do truly good works come. And so it's descriptive of who at the last day is going to be saved. Not telling you how you are saved.
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A
Yeah, I think that's a great explanation. Those who have done good and those who have done evil is the way it is phrased. And I think for a lot of Christians, our mind goes to every external alignment of something that we might call good. Being good, behaving yourself works, behaved at a coercion of natural law or the knowledge of the natural law being good. But the Scripture is clear and we can confidently say this. And thus Lutherans, with an extremely strong doctrine of justification that does not allow works anywhere into that article.
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You keep it as far away as possible.
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Yeah. Can in fact, confess this, because we know what true goodness, like actual goodness, is. And it is not just external works that look good to our eyes and our ears. But it is true. Goodness is only possessed by being in Christ. One can only have done good by being in Christ. Otherwise all my deeds are sin, even the ones that correspond to the law.
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Yeah. And at the last day, this is actually the confidence of the believer, because what is the Father going to see when he sees you raised from the dead at the last day? Someone who never sinned and only ever did good.
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Yeah.
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Only on account of Christ.
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Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's great. I think that's. That's fantastic. Well, thank you, John. I hope many of you are able to confess this creed, this Trinity Sunday. This video should come up the day before for people, so maybe you're watching it on the day of, or maybe watching a little bit after. You can find the Athanasian Creed free online. If you don't have access to it. If you're in a Lutheran church, it's in your hymnal as well. You can find it in various ones. If you use LSB, it's in 319. I'm not sure.
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It's not in the LCA hymnal anymore.
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No. Oh no. Well, if you're in a Missouri Synod church or a church that uses lsb, it's in your hymnal and it's in the Book of Concord. You can find it at the front of the Book of Concord as well. But again, free online if you'd like to read it and follow online. Alright, thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this video, you found it helpful, you learned something new. Don't forget to like and subscribe and share it with somebody, a family, a friend member, somebody at church or something like that. Help us grow this channel and expand the reach of these resources. You can also go to 1517.org to see the other things that are being done there this week. Thanks for watching. Catch you next time. Bye.
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Sam.