All posts tagged Nicene Creed
I'm not always wearing my full habit...
In the creeds of Christendom [Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed], we are confronted with a set of documents which purport to be not expressions of opinion but statements of fact. Some of these statements are historical, and … others are theological, which means that they claim to be statements of fact about the nature of God and the universe.
Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker
This is an excellent quick definition for theology. And I love how she follows up:
The proper question to be asked about any creed is not ‘Is it pleasant?’ but ‘Is it true?’
One would be hard pressed to prove — as the Articles of Religion require, from Scripture — that belief in heterosexual marriage is necessary to salvation. Lacking that demonstration, it cannot be a matter of the faith.
Brother Tobias Stanislas Haller, BSG, at In a Godward direction: The missing QED
From the comment thread below this marvelous statement, Br. Tobias clarifies that this is based on documents that are foundational to Anglican/Episcopalian spirituality: the Thirty-Nine Articles, the writings of Richard Hooker, and the Lambeth Quadrilateral.
Basically, this is saying that we can find in scripture the basic matters of the faith, which are pretty well summed up in the historic creeds. Beyond those things, faithful people can disagree. Yes, the Church can (and does) speak out on matters of morality. However, that does not make these matters of morality to be matters of the faith.
I love the commenter who took this one step further to monogamous heterosexual marriage. I know that polygamous (usually, polygynous) and polyamorous marriages are, of necessity, more complex; however, I’ve never really gotten what the big deal is over them.
