We Believe

Exploring The Nicene Faith

Alexander Irving

• Publisher: Apollos
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781789742718
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of ad 381 was a key statement in the context of the theological controversies and confessional atmosphere of the fourth-century church.

Alexander Irving explores Christian belief about God, creation and redemption, as it is expressed in the Creed. He thereby contributes to the continuing task of the church's self-examination of its talk about God.

Irving shows the importance of tradition and the intrinsic relationship between thought in the church today and thought in the church across time. He sets the Creed in its historical and theological contexts, and connects its theology to some areas of contemporary theological inquiry.






The Creed sets out the basic parameters of Christian belief. While the specifics of what is believed within those parameters are not determined, there is an internal logic to the Creed's presentation of the Christian faith. The contrast between God's internal and external relations is the theological motif that gives particular shape to the Creed, which expresses an expansive vision of the generosity of God, with his relation to creation grounded in his being as love.

1

Tradition

Tradition and the gospel

The word ‘tradition’ can provoke a strong response. For some, tradition is the tyranny of the dead, a force that protects self-interested hierarchies. For others, tradition is a fusty form of conservatism, a set of customs that are done that way because that is how they have always been done. For others, tradition refers to the continuity of a way of life or an ethos, preserving that which is good and necessary from one generation to the next. Within Christian thought, tradition takes on a more specific meaning.1 The tradition of the church is not mere conservativism; it is not only an ethos or way of life and – especially – it is not a callous elitism. Tradition, as derived from traditio, a Latin translation of the Greek paradōsis, means to ‘hand over’. Alongside the use of the term to refer to Paul’s heritage in Judaism (e.g. Gal. 1:14; Col. 2:8), Dunn identifies four categories of tradition in the Pauline corpus:

1. Kerygmatic tradition: the apostolic proclamation of the gospel (1 Cor. 15:1–3).
2. Church tradition: practices of the church instituted by Jesus that govern the activity of the worshipping community (e.g. 1 Cor. 11:23–25).
3. Ethical tradition (or the ‘Jesus tradition’): guidelines for conduct and moral responsibilities derived from the example of Jesus (e.g. 1 Cor. 7:10; Phil. 3:17).
4. Tradition in the Pastoral Epistles: a consolidated body of propositional sayings that represent a sound summary of the content of the three other categories of tradition (1 Tim. 1:20; 2 Tim. 3:10 [kerygmatic tradition]; 1 Tim. 4:8; 6:3 [ethical tradition]; 3:1 [church tradition]).2

Tradition, in this broad sense, is the apostolic gospel, including how this informs belief, worship, praxis and ethics, as they have been received and passed on by the church. Athanasius referred to ‘the actual original tradition, teaching and faith of the Catholic Church which the Lord bestowed, the apostles proclaimed and the fathers safeguarded’.3 This describes the living process whereby the community established around and within the person of Jesus Christ handed on that which was entrusted to them by the apostles. Tradition, then, has two aspects. It refers both to the body of convictions that formed the content of the apostolic preaching and to the living act by which the church passes on that which has been received.4 These two aspects form the basis of George Tavard’s delineation of tradition with the categories transmission, development and memory.5 This basic taxonomy is used here but developed slightly by the introduction of the category of the people of God.

Tradition and transmission

Eusebius of Caesarea described tradition as the succession from the apostles.6 Similarly, the document Dei Verbum suggests, ‘Tradition transmits in its entirety the word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit.’7 Tradition here refers to the act of handing on and to the object that is handed on.8 That which is handed on is the apostolic preaching (the kerygma) concerning Jesus, and the act of handing it on takes place within the community of the church. Understood as transmission, then, tradition is the continual handing on of God’s saving self-revelation in Christ, which was passed to us through the authoritative witness of the apostles. As Levering puts it ‘tradition is the Church’s faithful communication of the doctrines and practices of Christian faith across the generations’.9

The mechanism of this handing on is complex, including what the church does and also what the church is. The church is the community established by Christ and ‘through her [God] communicates truth and grace to all’.10 This takes place in the preaching of the church, its teaching and also in the life of the community as ways of being and worshipping have been received.11 As Williams has put it, tradition as transmission involves ‘the acceptance and the handing over of God’s Word, Jesus Christ, and how this took form in the apostles’ preaching’ and in baptism, the Lord’s supper and the worship of the Christian community.12 This perspective reminds us that this is not the transmission of a museum piece, but is the ongoing presence of the kingdom of God today, shining out in the church’s life, worship and witness.13

Congar has suggested that the tradition of the church needs to be understood within a broader view of transmission that has its origin in the will of the Father. The church is the recipient of a commission to guard the treasure of the apostolic witness to Christ. In this, the church is only part of a chain that extends to Jesus Christ’s sending out the apostles as witnesses to his resurrection, which itself is rooted in the sending out of the Son from the Father in the power of the Spirit (John 17:18; 20:21). Christ himself is the one in whom God has revealed himself, and this revelation was entrusted to the apostles and, through the apostles, to the church.14 For Congar, there is a flow of things being handed on from one to the other that ultimately ties the tradition of the church to the gospel itself.15 The tradition of the church is the church handing on that which has been given to it: the gospel of the Son obeying the will of the Father by the power of the Spirit. Or, as Clement of Rome wrote, ‘Now, the gospel was given to the Apostles for us by the Lord Jesus Christ; and Jesus the Christ was sent from God. That is to say, Christ received his commission from God, and the Apostles theirs from Christ.’16 This undergirds a fundamental unity of mind between Christ and his church, as Ignatius wrote, ‘[As Christ] represents the mind of the Father, so our bishops . . . represent the mind of Jesus Christ’.17

This perspective reminds us that the content of tradition does not belong to the church. While it may have its life within the people of God, it has its source beyond the people of God. A letter (probably from the second century ad) by an unnamed author makes this point very clearly:

It is not an earthly discovery that has been entrusted to [the church]. The thing they guard so jealously is no product of mortal thinking, and what has been committed to them is the stewardship of no human mysteries. The Almighty Himself, the Creator of the universe, the God whom no eye can discern, has sent down His very own Truth from heaven, His own holy and incomprehensible Word, to plant it among men and ground it in their hearts.18

The object the church cherishes and passes on has come from outside itself and is held by the church as something given to it.19 The tradition of the church is the apostolic gospel as it was passed to the first generation and believers and subsequently on through the various generations of the church. In his letters to Timothy, Paul encourages this apparently timid leader to ‘guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit’ (2 Tim. 1:14). This good treasure is the gospel as Timothy received it from Paul. It is the apostolic witness to the act of God: the incarnation of God the Son, and his obedience in the flesh, death, resurrection and ascension.20

Tradition and the people of God

As the content of tradition is given to the church from beyond itself and yet has its life within the people of God, it has a very particular relation to the church as the people of God. The church possesses its tradition as a gift that is the ground of its existence. Therefore, the apostolic tradition establishes the parameters of the church before the church establishes the parameters of tradition. As the second-century bishop Irenaeus of Lyons said, the church is given uniformity of belief by the tradition that has been given to it:

The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth . . . and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God . . . and in the Holy Spirit . . . The Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth.21

Despite its multiplicity of locations and languages there is a unity to the one church, which is grounded in the reception of that which has come from beyond itself. If this were not the case, then the tradition of the church would be fully justified in receiving an institutional expression that is earthed in nothing beyond the church. That would be the basis of a shallow, inflexible dogmatism. Instead, our relation to tradition should be expressed less in terms of servility and more in terms of a corporate fidelity.22 It is our corporate faithfulness to the gospel as we have received it. It is always open beyond itself to its fundamental content, which is the life and work of Jesus Christ as passed on to us by the apostles.

The second reason why tradition is best understood in relation to the category ‘the people of God’ is that revelation is inseparable from salvation. As Webster points out, God reveals himself in the economy of salvation in which ‘God wills, establishes and perfects saving fellowship with himself in which humankind come to know, love and fear him.’23 God’s act in Christ is instantly a movement of revelation and of reconciliation.24 In the same way Dei Verbum, reflecting on Ephesians 1:9, treats revelation and salvation as distinct but inseparable realities: ‘through this revelation [God] speaks to [humans] as friends and lives among them, so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with himself’.25 Revelation, in other words, is not merely the giving of propositions to bridge the ‘noetic divide’ between us and God.26 Instead, it is a personal act in which God communicates himself and establishes us in communion with him and with one another. For this reason, the only locus for theological thought is the people whom God has established in relation to himself.

Tradition is not controlled by the church, but is inseparable from the p...

Table of contents

• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• Conclusion: working dogmatic comments
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Search terms