The Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds are Mormon to the Core

Ray,

The part about “of one substance of the father” could be explained as you propose, but that is not what any of those churches believe. Their intent was defining the godhead as the trinity, right? No one has gone back to try to correct them. That one was the only one that seemed to be stretching the words, the others all seem to be in line with mormon doctrine and most of the christian world.

Interesting.

Very nice Ray, I like it. I do have some thoughts.

From Ray’s standpoint, I agree it is not really fair to overlay our interpretations into the text. Since we weren’t there, don’t have complete understanding of the times and culture, or language of the day, we can only read the words as they stand.

OTOH, we can glean insight into what they may have been saying by understanding the times, culture, and language, and even the current traditional meaning. The danger here, obviously, is inductive reasoning, which is not very reliable. However, there is one form of it that is reliable, and I wish we could do more to try and incorporate it. Often, the view of many apologists I’ve read is that due to narrative fallacies we really can’t draw any conclusions. I think this is also a fallacy.

There is information contained in both sets of analysis (from an information theory point of view) and it is difficult to find, and utilize that information. But it is possible, and I think it silly to throw out one in favor of the other. As for me personally, I choose not to latch on to any one interpretation or parsing very heartily, but leave room for incorporating new information as it becomes available. This doesn’t mean I don’t draw conclusions, but the conclusions I draw are not very firm. They are like my best guess, or what seems most likely to me. If you know anything about probability theory or stochastic inference, it would be the mean of the distribution.

Boy did I get off track ( 😯 ).

Okay, as for the Nicene creed, I like your interpretation Ray. I’m good with it. For me, I don’t personally feel I can say anything definitive about God, and only a little about Jesus, so I’m open to various ideas.

“Is that the point you are making, that when Pres Hinckley said the Nicene Creed doesn’t make sense, it makes as much sense as any mormon doctrine, depending on how you read it and refraining from reading meaning into it?”

Exactly, Heber13.

Look at it this way:

How many times have you heard someone say, “Mormons believe . . .” and answered, “No, we don’t.” The response often is, “Well, So-and-so said, ‘ . . .'” – to which your reply is, “Yeah, but I do not think that means what you think it means.” (Said in my best Sicilian accent. *grin*) (or, “Yeah, but that was long ago. We don’t believe that anymore.” *bigger grin* – since that really drives fundamentalists of any stripe nuts)

The only difference generally is what meaning the other person reads into the words – often when that meaning isn’t in the words themselves.

I try really hard to use words that say what I mean to say. I take my time (generally) when I comment to do that, and I almost always re-read my comments and posts at least once before I submit them – looking for any way that they might be misunderstood. When someone looks back years or months from now and reads this post and comment, I don’t want them to assume they know what I must mean – because, you know, I’m Mormon. I want them to read the actual words and believe that I meant what I actually wrote.

Perhaps the words of these two creeds had deeper meaning to the authors than they express when parsed – but I don’t want those who read my words to assume that about me, so I try hard not to do that to others. I try to be charitable and believe they meant what they wrote, as I want others to do for me.

bump

The history of Christianity is so fascinating and actually full of this very problem—what do the words mean?

People would read the same gospel and derive very different meanings from it. 😮

Christians were also being put to death. It was a unique time.

One guy decided that his beliefs were “orthodox” and all other beliefs were “heterodox.”

He also picked which gospels to use to form the Bible. The “four pillars” are what he picked because they aligned well with his beliefs and he felt they disproved the heretics.

Then they banned all other gospels and wanted them burned.

All because people dared to interpret words in their own way.

Not one “guy”, but a whole lot of them, pretty well organized.

By the way not all the other gospels are equally good.

The Nicene Creed says –

Πιστεύομεν εἰς ἕνα θεὸν Πατέρα παντοκράτορα, πάντων ὁρατῶν τε και ἀοράτων ποιητήν.

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.

Not three gods. The Greek is unambiguous too -“ena theon”.

I think it is quite clear that while nearly all churches refer to God as “father”, that “only son” in the Apostles’ Creed suggests something quite, quite different to Mormonism. I don’t just think it means only begotten (“Monogenos”), but goes against the whole spirit children thing. (Other mainstream creeds of the fourth century make this more explicit.)

The fact we say Lucifer/Satan is one of God’s spirit children, and a brother of Jesus, sends the majority of Christians crazy.