4. The creeds: a public vision of faith
One of my most vivid childhood memories involves going to church in rural Ireland back in the 1950s. The congregation was asked to recite the Athanasian Creed, using the language of the old Prayer Book. We got to the complicated bit about ‘the Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible’. An old farmer then interrupted proceedings by declaring that ‘the whole darned thing’s incomprehensible’. And he had my sympathy. The words meant nothing to me, and may even have helped me lurch into my atheist phase a few years later.
Many Christians will know exactly what that old farmer meant. The creeds often seem wordy and formulaic. Yet they are verbal vessels containing the treasure of the gospel. We need to regard them as a window to look through, or a lens to bring things into focus. They are not an end in themselves, but a means to an end – and that end is catching sight of the life-changing vision of God.
Creeds and the life of faith
We often think of faith as checklists of beliefs. You begin by deciding whether you believe in God. Having sorted that out, you then move on to the next item on the list. And when you finally get to the end, you can say, ‘Amen! Yes, I believe!’ But faith’s not really like that. It’s much more about catching a vision of the big picture that lies at the heart of Christianity, being drawn to it and beginning to explore it further. Or like falling in love with someone and then wanting to know more about them. Loving and trusting come first. Finding out more comes later.
Consider the Gospel accounts of the calling of Peter and Andrew, the fishermen Jesus of Nazareth encountered on the shores of Lake Galilee (Mark 1.16–20). Jesus speaks these simple words to them: ‘Come, follow me.’ No explanation is offered of who he is. But finding Jesus to be an utterly compelling figure, the first disciples leave behind their nets – on which their living depended completely – and follow. They choose to entrust themselves totally to him, discerning that he is someone truly special yet not quite understanding who.
We might think wistfully that it is a pity things could not have stayed so simple. The first disciples were not required to recite a creed before they were allowed to follow Jesus! So why do we need them today? If the heart of faith is about entrusting ourselves to Jesus Christ, why make it more complicated?
These are perfectly fair questions. Perhaps we need to remember, however, that although Peter’s and Andrew’s journey of faith began on the shores of Lake Galilee, it did not end there. As we read the Gospels, we recognize that the disciples’ faith deepens as they gradually come to understand more about the identity and significance of Jesus of Nazareth. In the beginning, they trust him; as time passes, this personal trust is supplemented with – but never displaced by – beliefs about him as they work through a series of questions. How does Jesus of Nazareth fit into the story of Israel? What is so special about this person? What are the implications of following him? How will he impact their own personal stories? It is in answering these questions and explaining to others why Jesus was so important that the disciples find themselves having to use words to express their beliefs about him. The creeds are the carefully chosen words that the early Church agreed on to try and capture what lay at the heart of the Christian faith. They describe the Christian faith as a sketch map describes a landscape.
Another way we might think of the creeds is as a skeleton that supports the life-giving organs of faith. Without its rigid framework, the human body would collapse, unable to support itself. Its network of interconnected bones provides stability and structure to the organs that are necessary for life – the heart, pumping blood around the body; the lungs, transferring life-giving oxygen to the bloodstream; and the arteries and veins, transporting the blood to the sites at which it is needed. These organs really matter. But they need the skeleton for support if they are to work properly.
Taken on their own, away from the context of a living faith, the creeds are simply a collection of words. They can be recited by people who have no idea of their potential significance. Think of a medical student’s skeleton: it is a symbol of death because the vital organs that give life to the body are not there. A creed could be a statement of a faith that has gone cold and become quite lifeless – something that is merely recited, when it is meant to be trusted.
Yet the creeds are not meant to be taken on their own, in isolation. They are part of a greater whole – the external protective shell of the inner living reality of faith based on a loving relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. And the vital organs of such a faith are prayer, worship and adoration.
Faith, belief and creeds
The two main creeds of the Christian churches (the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed; see the
One of the most moving scenes in the Gospels concerns the two criminals who were crucified with Jesus Christ at Calvary. The first, representing a world-weary cynicism, ridicules Christ. The second, however, recognizes that there is something different about him. Though unsure how to put this insight into words, he knows that this man is to be depended upon. ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’ (Luke 23.43). His simple statement of confidence and entrustment lacks theological rigour, but it is enough. Christ’s response has resonated down the ages: ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’
The crucified criminal – about whom we know nothing, not even his name – is a model of Christian faith. He demonstrates what really matters: a deep and passionate conviction that he can hand himself over to Jesus. He trusts him. Many of us are drawn to Christ in his strange loneliness on the cross and intuitively realize that he holds the key to life. Theological refinement can easily come after personal commitment has taken place.
With this point in mind, Christian writers down the ages have distinguished two senses of the word ‘faith’. First, it refers to a ‘faith by which we believe’ – that is to say, the act of trust and assent that says ‘yes’ to God and reaches out to hold fast to God as the secure ground of life and thought. Second, it refers to a ‘faith which we believe’ – that is to say, a set of beliefs. In this sense of the word, faith refers to the content of what we believe rather than the act of believing and trusting. Although these two ways of understanding the word ‘faith’ are inseparable in that they are like two sides of the same coin, it is nevertheless helpful to distinguish between them. Creeds relate mainly to faith in the second sense of the word – but they presuppose faith in the first sense.
Having faith in God is about trusting God. Beliefs represent an attempt to put the substance of that faith into words. While creeds are secondary to our trust and commitment, that does not mean that they are unimportant or that we can do without them. The relationship between the believer and God, expressed in prayer and worship, needs to be explored in words and ideas. The medieval theologian Anselm of Canterbury (c.1033–1109) made this point in his slogan ‘faith seeking understanding’. We are called upon to love God with our minds, as well as our hearts and souls (Matthew 22.37). Part of the life of faith is a desire to understand more about who and what we trust.
G. K. Chesterton had much to say on this, suggesting that a human being was ‘an animal that makes dogmas’. Trees, he observed, ‘have no dogmas’. Everyone is an agnostic until agnosticism fails them in moments of crisis and need. The person who boldly proclaims that ‘humanity needs freedom from dogma’ is, Chesterton suggests, like a scientist confidently asserting that ‘people can live without oxygen’. Creeds, whether explicit or implicit, religious or secular, are just part of human existence.
Dorothy L. Sayers made a similar point. She ridiculed those who, in the name of ‘tolerance’, refused to believe anything. This cynical disengagement from the big questions of life, she wrote, ‘believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die’. This, she declared, was not an affirmation of tolerance; it was a confession of despair.
Sayers is correct. We just can’t live without structures of meaning. And when you find the answers to these questions, you hang on to them. Why? Because they matter. They make a difference. Cynics believe that there are no answers to the big questions of life, and get angry with those who have found them, secretly fearing that those answers might be right. The person who defiantly asserts ‘I have no creed’ very often really means, ‘I don’t want to think about deep questions, as I am worried that I might find answers that turn out to be inconvenient.’
That was what C. S. Lewis discovered as he pondered life’s big questions back in the 1920s. He didn’t want to believe in God. He found the idea threatening, not least because it would compromise his independence. ‘Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about “man’s search for God”. To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse’s search for the cat.’
Christian creeds set out a framework of meaning that we can use to position ourselves on the map of history and make sense of things around us. In what follows, we will explore how the creeds emerged, what role they played and how they help shape Christian thought and life today.
How the creeds emerged
For the first three centuries, Christians managed to get along without any formal creeds. This was not because they had no interest in what they believed, but simply because there were no agreed universal public norms of faith throughout the Christian world. It’s not hard to see what the problem was. At its height, in the early second century, the Roman Empire included the entire Mediterranean region. Christianity spread through this area with astonishing speed, but because it was an illegal religion, its believers were forced to meet in secret to worship. There was no way Christian leaders could gather together to discuss a common set of beliefs: the risk of arrest by the Roman authorities was simply too great.
Yet the historical records show a remarkable degree of consensus emerging within the Christian world of the late second century. For reasons that are not fully understood, believers throughout the Roman Empire were beginning to converge on a particular set of writings that they read aloud in public worship and regarded as authoritative in matters of life and thought. There were local variations of course, but by around 190 we can begin to see collections of texts very similar to the modern New Testament taking shape, along with ‘confessions of faith’ that looked a lot like the modern Apostles’ Creed.
These collections of texts and confessions of faith were used by individual congregations, and seem to have been adopted primarily through the movement of Christians across imperial frontiers. Certain congregations were particularly highly regarded and tended to set the trend for others. The leaders of Christian communities in the metropolitan cities – such as Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Rome – developed their own distinct ways of teaching the faith, giving rise to prototypes of the creeds. Those used in Rome were especially significant, on account of the status of Rome as the ‘eternal city’, the capital of the empire.
Admission to Christian worship was a serious and solemn matter. New Christians only gained entry once they had been carefully vetted (they might, after all, be Roman spies) and thoroughly instructed in the basics. At baptism, which marked formal admission to the Christian community, believers were asked to confirm their faith, by responding to three questions:
1 Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?
2 Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
3 Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?
Though these questions were sometimes asked in more extended and elaborate forms, this basic threefold pattern was widely used in both the western and eastern churches. In part, it reflects the ‘Great Commission’ of the risen Christ to his disciples: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 28.19). By answering ‘I believe’ to each question, the person who was about to be baptized was affirming his commitment to the Christian way of thinking – to its overall big picture, not simply to three of its components.
The ‘rules of faith’
From the end of the second century, documents that are clearly recognizable as creeds began to be used by prominent churches and Christian leaders as convenient summaries of faith. Although slightly different forms of words appeared across the Christian world, the shared features of these statements are more obvious than their minor divergences. The statements gradually became known as regulae fidei (a Latin phrase meaning ‘rules of faith’). Tertullian (c.160–c.225), a Latin-speaking theologian writing in the early third century, provided one of his own. Christians, he declared, believed:
… that there is one only God, the Creator of the world, who produced all things out of nothing through his own Word, sent forth first of all; that this Word is called his Son, and, under the name of God, was seen in various ways by the patriarchs, heard at all times in the prophets, at last brought down by the Spirit and Power of the Father into the Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and, being born of her, went forth as Jesus Christ; he then preached the new law and the new promise of the kingdom of heaven, and worked miracles; having been crucified, he rose again on the third day; having ascended into the heavens, he sat at the right hand of the Father; sent in his place the power of the Holy Spirit to guide those who believe; and will come with glory to take the saints to the enjoyment of everlasting life and of the heavenly promises.
Despite some obvious differences, there are remarkable similarities between Tertullian’s ‘rule of faith’ and the Apostles’ Creed. Both these and other rules of faith commanded respect on account of their merits, and were adopted and adapted over a period of several generations, until a degree of consensus emerged. The Apostles’ Creed was the final outcome of a long process of reflection and refinement across the Christian world, leading to a rule of faith that was accepted not on account of any external authority, but because of its internal excellence.
The Apostles’ Creed served two important functions. First, it was a shared statement of faith, easily memorized through constant repetition in public worship, through which new Christians could confess and summarize their faith in Jesus Christ. And second, it served as a highly useful preaching and teaching tool, giving an outline of the basic themes of faith for further discussion and exploration, especially in sermons.
So what of the Nicene Creed? To understand the development of this document, we need to appreciate the radical change to the status of Christianity in the early fourth century, as a result of the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine. Christianity was now a legal religion. Its laity and leaders were no longer subject to any form of state harassment, victimization or persecution. Christian worship no longer had to take place in secret. Christian leaders were free to meet and travel.
As Christianity moved towards becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire, the Roman emperor Constantine made it clear that he expected it to fulfil the functions of classical Roman religion – above all, by acting as a unifying force. Divisions within Christianity had to be sorted out, so that the Church could both model and encourage the unity that Constantine wished to see prevail throughout his empire.
There were several issues of contention within Christianity at this time, including the status of the bishops of the leading cities of the age. Christianity had firmly established itself in the great cities of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. It also had an important presence in the ancient city of Jerusalem. So which church took priority within the empire? Who was the most senior bishop? (In the end, Rome was given pride of place.) Other divisions of a more theological nature included, most notably, the best way of expressing the identity and significance of Jesus Christ.
Constantine summoned a council of Christian bishops. They met in 325 at the town of Nicaea in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), and the agreement they reached on these matters formed the basis of a new creed. (What we now know as the ‘Nicene Creed’ is actually a later version of the creed of 325, agreed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.) This 325 creed was imposed on the Church by its bishops and the emperor. Notably, it did not initially command the strong popular consensus that the Apostles’ Creed had won over many generations.
So we see – although the point is not generally appreciated – that the two most widely used creeds within Christianity today developed in quite different ways. The Apostles’ Creed arose within grass-root Christian communities over many generations, and commanded wide assent and support. The Nicene Creed was developed by a committee of bishops, in response to the Roman emperor’s demand for religious consensus within his empire. There has always been a sense in which the Apostles’ Creed is a ‘people’s creed’, whereas the Nicene Creed is a ‘bishops’ creed’.
This brief historical account of the origins of the two main creeds in widespread use today helps us understand how they came about. But it does not offer an explanation for their statements. We need to dig deeper if we are to make sense of the specific form they take.
Weaving together biblical themes
A central function of Christian creeds is that they weave together the great themes found in the Bible. Early Christian statements of faith were often very short – for example, the simple confession, ‘Jesus is Lord!’ (Romans 10.9; 1 Corinthians 12.3). Yet the New Testament also contains a number of slightly longer creed-like statements, such as the following:
There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
(1 Corinthians 8.6)
I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
(1 Corinthians 15.3–4)
[Jesus Christ] was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.
(1 Timothy 3.16)
These and other similar statements are scattered throughout the biblical texts. They are not integrated into what we might today call a ‘systematic theology’. The New Testament letters, for example, bring together wise advice on living in a non-Christian world, reflections on how Christian families should behave, instructions on conducting public worship, and invaluable nuggets of theological teaching.
But what of those who want more information specifically about Christian beliefs? Christian writers have always been clear that the creeds do not add anything to the Bible. Their function is to summarize its leading themes and provide a framework for understanding its overall concerns. Cyril of Jerusalem (c.313–86) made this point well in the fourth century. After asking his readers to commit the creed to memory and engrave it on their hearts, he explained its relation to the Bible.
This synthesis of faith was made … to present the one teaching of the faith in its totality, in which what is of greatest importance is gathered together from all the Scriptures. And just as a mustard seed contains a great number of branches in its tiny grain, so also this summary of faith brings together in a few words the entire knowledge of the true religion which is contained in the Old and New Testaments.
Cyril’s approach – which clearly draws on that of earlier writers – has found widespread acceptance within all the Christian churches. The creed is not a personal statement of faith, drawn up by an individual (however important); it is a public statement of the faith of the Christian community, which developed within those communities as they reflected on their rich heritage and sought to express this as succinctly as possible.
Yet it is clear that there are biblical topics many would regard as important that are not discussed in either of the creeds. For example, there is no reference to the relation of the Christian Church and Israel, or to Jesus Christ representing the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy – a major theme in Matthew’s Gospel and some of Paul’s letters. The Apostles’ Creed leaves out any explicit reference to the divinity of Christ, a major theme of the Nicene Creed.
But if the creeds do not – and were never intended to – displace the Bible, they certainly offer a framework for interpreting it. This is one of the major themes in Christian theology – how to achieve the ‘right’ or ‘best’ interpretation of the Bible – and has always been important, even in early Christianity. Irenaeus of Lyons, a key theologian of the second century, complained that some mavericks were interpreting the Bible in ways that bore no relation to Christianity, and argued that they had no right to do this. He believed that the way in which the apostles read the Bible was normative for Christians. What the New Testament calls the ‘deposit of faith’ (1 Timothy 6.19) refers to the fundamental themes of the Christian faith, entrusted to the apostles and passed on to their successors. In effect, Irenaeus argued that we inherited two things from the apostles: the texts that we now call the New Testament, and the right way of interpreting these texts. Irenaeus saw the ‘apostolic tradition’ as a safeguard against misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the Bible.
The creeds sum up the Christian community’s extended reflections on how best to make sense of the Bible and weave its threads together to give the most satisfactory and authentic account of faith. They are keys to unlocking the Bible – a map to enable us to find treasure rather than the treasure itself.
Let’s linger here for a moment. In the great age of exploration, European seafarers opened up new trade routes from Europe to Asia, including the newly discovered Americas. They kept a record of their voyages, telling of the landmarks by which they set their course, safe harbours in which to shelter from storms, and dangerous reefs that might sink a ship. These journals were called ‘rutters’ (from the French word routier, ‘a map’). They were a summary of a navigator’s experience, which could be passed down to others to allow them to make the same journey.
The creeds are a rutter of faith. They tell how the Christian community of faith navigated its way to the best interpretation of the Bible, and pass down to us their experiences, in order that we might benefit from them. Our forebears wrestled with these questions before us, and we can learn from their wisdom. At times the creeds tell of reefs that are to be avoided – such as Jesus of Nazareth simply being ‘like’ God. At times they tell us about safe anchorages – such as the doctrine of the Trinity, which the early Christians found to be a reliable and rich summary of the biblical witness.
This brings us to a theme that is clearly hinted at by the creeds – the importance of connecting with the Christian past.
Solidarity with the Christian past
As we have seen, early versions of the Apostles’ Creed began to emerge in Christian communities spread across the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries. The confession of Christian faith was regarded by the authorities as subversive, and those who admitted to being Christians in Rome were liable to be executed.
Justin Martyr (100–165), a Christian theologian based in the city, was arrested in 165. At his trial before the Roman prefect, he refused to worship or sacrifice to the traditional Roman gods, and instead declared his faith in the following terms:
We worship the God of the Christians, whom we believe to be one from the beginning, the maker and fashioner of the whole creation, visible and invisible; and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whose coming to be present with the human race as the herald of salvation and teacher of good disciples had been proclaimed beforehand by the prophets.
It is a recognizable precedent of modern creeds; and uttering it cost Justin his life. He was beheaded as a martyr.
We are beginning to see that reciting the Apostles’ Creed involves rather more than simply checklisting our convictions. For in reconnecting us with Christian family history – as we honour and celebrate the faith and witness of earlier generations of believers whose confession led them into danger and death – the creed assumes a new significance. We might regard it as a roll-call of Christian witnesses down the ages, a precious heirloom, like the family silver, passed down from one generation to another.
This great theme of acting in solidarity with the saints, martyrs and ordinary believers of the past is set out in the ‘bidding prayer’ of the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge (in a different section from the one we looked at in
Let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore, and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom in the Lord Jesus we are for ever one.
Knowing that reciting the creeds aligns us with a community of faithful believers stretching back into the days of the Roman Empire is both exciting and humbling. It invites us to recognize that a ‘great cloud of witnesses’ (Hebrews 12.1) surrounds us as we ourselves run the race of faith in the amphitheatre of the world. Those who have already completed that race are cheering us on, as we struggle to keep going.
If the words of the creeds have become dulled by familiarity, remember that our forebears in Christ are encouraging us to view them afresh as an act of defiance and self-definition, as a refusal to compromise and a mark of discipleship. When you say the creed, see yourself as in the presence of the martyrs and saints of old, who used these same words to confess that same faith and who smile on us as we try to live out our faith in the world.
There is another point worth considering here. Those who made the journey of faith before us can help us as we undertake the same pilgrimage. They asked the same questions we ask, and their answers can encourage us as we wrestle today. The great medieval theologian John of Salisbury (1120–80) used a memorable image to help us think about this point.
We are sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they were, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours.
C. S. Lewis often pointed out that we need an enlargement of our vision of divine reality. The great writings of Christians down the ages enable us ‘to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as our own’.
The creeds are a reminder of the importance of inter-generational transmission of faith, in which one generation hands down to the next the words, ideas, practices and images that it has found helpful in expressing and nourishing its faith. C. S. Lewis observed that we live in an age of ‘chronological snobbery’ that believes that the most recent is the best. For Lewis, older approaches often represent tried and tested ways that have proved to be reliable and trustworthy down the ages. We need to keep ‘the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds’,
Growing into the creeds
The creeds are primarily communal confessions of faith, setting out the vision of reality that has given – and still gives – life, purpose and direction to the Christian community down the ages. When I recite the creeds, I think of myself as doing three things. First, I am remembering the ‘big picture’ that underlies the Christian faith. Second, I am affirming that I am part of this believing community. And third, I am declaring my willingness to explore what I have not yet encountered and affirm what I have not yet understood. The creeds are aspirational: they set out a vision that they invite us to share, even though many of us are still exploring individual aspects of that vision.
At this point some will possibly want to raise a concern, such as: ‘Yes, I do indeed believe and trust in God. But the creeds say some things that I can’t quite understand. And there are some bits that I’m not sure about at all!’
However, let’s remember that Christianity is about a big picture. Part of the life of faith is growing into it. Things that don’t make much sense to begin with can grow clearer later. When I first became a Christian, I found the idea of the Trinity to be very strange and puzzling. Now, I can see what it’s all about. We simply have to take some things on trust and never limit the Christian vision of reality to that which we have personally experienced, understood or grasped. Others, past and present, urge us to go further and deeper. For example, when Paul speaks of the ‘boundless’ or ‘unsearchable’ riches of Christ (Ephesians 3.8), he is not prohibiting us from investigating further, but encouraging us to do so. We are to be caught up in the proper and enriching exploration of something that is greater and more wonderful than we realize.
Reciting the creeds is thus about both affirming what we have already discovered and come to trust, and setting an agenda for the enlargement of our appreciation of God and Christ.
Creeds and Christian identity
One of the many challenges faced by early Christians was that of intellectual or religious assimilation. Christians were clear that their faith set them apart from the world-views around them, whether these were religious or secular. Christian believers and communities were called to be the ‘salt of the earth’. But what if the salt were to lose its saltiness?
As Christianity became a growing presence within the Roman Empire, it faced pressure to conform to Roman religious and cultural norms and drop its distinctive identity. Hippolytus of Rome (c.170–c.236) compared the Church to a boat, tossed about in a stormy ocean. ‘The world is a sea in which the Church, like a ship, is beaten by the waves, but not submerged.’ Yet the risk of being swamped by the prevailing culture was real. The integrity of the Church had to be preserved if it was to survive.
The creeds were a way in which Christian identity could be affirmed, maintained and safeguarded. Reciting the creed was a way of ensuring that individual believers and their communities were different. The creeds reminded believers of their real identity and goal. Although their physical bodies might be rooted in the world in which they lived and worked, the big picture of reality set out by the creeds meant that their hopes lay elsewhere. A Christian might be a Roman citizen, but this was far less important than also being a citizen of heaven.
This issue remains important today, especially where Christianity has been of major historical significance. In the United States of America, Christianity can too easily become part of a general cultural package, a kind of ‘civil religion’ that provides a religious veneer for American culture. However, Christianity is not, and must not be allowed to be, simply a bastion of traditional values. For example, although some argue that the churches ought to be defenders of traditional notions of marriage, we find nothing of this idea in the New Testament or early Christianity. It is dangerous to think of churches simply as repositories of the past, lending religious weight to cultural values that are seen to be under threat.
This point was famously made in a lecture entitled ‘Creed or Chaos?’ given in England during the Second World War by Dorothy L. Sayers. Many were worried about the threat to traditional moral values posed by the rise of Nazism, and the rapid military advance of German armies across Western Europe. Sayers argued that moral values reflect a dogma on which they depended for their credibility. British intellectuals, anxious to get rid of Christian ideas but keep its moral framework, had failed to realize that you cannot sustain Christian values without the world-view on which they are based. Nazi beliefs gave rise to one set of moral values; Christian beliefs to another. You can’t keep Christian ethics without also keeping the Christian world-view. Sayers ridiculed secularists who were trying ‘to uphold a particular standard of ethical values which derives from Christian dogma’ while at the same time trying to get rid of ‘the very dogma which is the sole rational foundation for those values’.
In the end, Sayers declared, this real battle was not about moral values, but about the world-views on which these values were based. Safeguarding Christian distinctiveness is the essential precondition for safeguarding Christian values. The creeds set out Christianity’s distinct ‘take’ on reality and reminded Christians that, in the end, their life and thought are shaped by this view. Without a creed there would be moral chaos. A ‘doctrineless’ Christianity is simply an impossibility, in that Christians think – and need to think and must be encouraged to think – about the nature of their faith and its implications for the way they live.
We have spent quite some time exploring the nature of Christian belief and the place of creeds in the Christian life. Yet we still need to reflect a little more on one of the great themes of Christianity – the difference that beliefs make to the way we live. This we shall do in the next chapter, as we consider the opening statement of the creeds: ‘I believe’.