Trinity Sunday & the Athanasian Creed

At Necessary Roughness is an interesting post on Trinity Sunday. His pearl illustration, in which he compares the writing of the Athanasian Creed to the formation of a pearl, generates some helpful thinking, but it is generated by thinking that is not quite accurate.

As he indicates, a pearl is the product of covering over of something that is foreign and harmful to the oyster. But the Creed is not like this. Rather than a covering over of a foreign and harmful substance in the body of Christ with an inanimate and innocuous material, the Creed is an exposition of the all-powerful Truth, which actually exposes and expels what is foreign and harmful.

It seems that the most common response to the Athanasian Creed is to call it a refutation of the various heresies. It certainly was written in response to these, but not with refutation as the foundation. The Creed is written as an exposition of the true and catholic faith, without which salvation cannot be given and received.

When a person reads or recites this creed, what is encountered is not a refutation of falsehood, but a confession of the Truth. The Creed is very much more than a refutation. The Truth always leaves falsehood refuted, simply by the light that is generated by the Truth. In the light, that which is false simply does not match that which is true.

The Creed is written as a confession of the catholic faith by which salvation is given and received. It is written for the purpose of edifying the body of Christ, for strengthening the weak and faltering. Those who refuse to receive this Creed are surely exposed by their rejection of the Truth as it is clearly stated, but that is a secondary function of the Creed.

It is a mistake to view the Ecumenical Creeds as means of keeping heresies and heretics out of the Church. Rather, they are declarations of what the Church really is, so that people may freely come to the source of the Truth and not have the true faith stolen from them by false prophets and by people’s own misunderstandings.

Conservative Lutheran church bodies have often presented the creeds and especially the Athanasian Creed as refutations of false doctrine. Because of this much legalistic thinking has prevailed amongst those holding such. Then the notion that the Bible is counted as the Word of God and that the Creeds and the Lutheran Confessions are counted as true expositions of the Word of God is counted as being equal to and truly holding and believing and living the true faith. This is what happened with the Pharisees and the scribes and Sadducees.

The true Church does not have as its business the refutation of falsehood. Rather, it is the living body of Christ, founded upon and gathered unto the Truth. Where the Truth is taught and guarded, all that is false is naturally perceived as false and foreign. Where the activity is continual confession and exposition of the Truth, falsehood has no foothold and those who prefer falsehood expose themselves. Such shall be acknowledged according to what their own works/confessions expose concerning them and they are thereby refuted and ultimately excommunicated. But this is actually a foreign work of the true Church and of the Creeds of the true Church.

It is notable that in the Gospel accounts the Lord Jesus is not reported as having given orders to the apostles or to the others who were sent out that they should refute falsehood. Rather He sends them forth to preach the Gospel to all who will receive their peace. He said that where that peace is rejected that they should simply depart and make clear in their leaving that they are not one with those who reject their peace, which is the peace of God in Christ.

In contrast, consider the immense amounts of energy wasted in the building and defense and reclaiming of people’s church bodies. Consider the amount of time and money and energy thrown away on evangelism programs and on trying to win souls for Christ. If only those professing to be the Church of the Creeds would live by them, not counting their confession of them as anything more than the Truth at work in them. Then they would be true gatherings unto the pure Word and Sacraments, rather than gatherings of mangled church bodies where fighting for the Truth is the order of the day.

The Athanasian Creed is not written to be used as a refutation of heresies, but as a confession of the true faith by which all men must be saved. Salvation, not refutation, is the foundation of the creeds. Since this salvation is unlike any other proclamation in the world, it stands in such stark contrast to everything else that the foreign notions, when exposed to the Truth’s light are by their very nature exposed as foreign and false. Anyone who truly knows the God of the Athanasian Creed naturally cringes at the hearing of anything else and will gather only to the proclamation of the catholic faith confessed in this creed.

This is the purpose and nature of the creeds.