Why Should We Submit to an Early Christian Creed?

What should a pastor do when he finds a member of his church promoting the ancient heresy of Arianism? I recently returned home to Canada from Melbourne, Australia where I undertook doctoral research on fourth century Trinitarian theology. While there, I had the pleasure of spending some time with a Baptist pastor from up north. At the time, he was leading his church through a case of church discipline. A young member denied that Jesus Christ is one essence with the Father and maintained that he is a creature. Out of curiosity, he had come across self-proclaimed YouTube or podcast personalities and wound up finding himself in the court of the local church. Could this have been avoided? With all the talk these days around issues of race, sexuality, politics, issues of gender roles, is there any need for Baptists to go digging through a creed written in the 300s from a place called Nicaea? After speaking with this pastor, I was reminded that we need not only dig, but to confess, and not only confess, but teach our congregants to submit to it. But don’t our confessions, such as the Second London Baptist Confession, The New Hampshire Confession of Faith, the Abstract of Principles, or the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, already presuppose the Nicene Creed? If so, why bother submitting to another creed—from the early church, no less?

The Nicene Creed is like no other statement in the history of the Church. It was confessed in confusion, abruptly abandoned, forgotten, chanced upon, polished, lifted up as the rallying point for orthodoxy, and all this in a span of sixty odd years. For those unfamiliar with this history, I will briefly trace it below. It is rivaled only by the Apostles Creed in terms of antiquity and unanimity—or what we Baptists once upon a time were comfortable calling “catholicity”. The reaffirmation of the Nicene Creed at the Council of Constantinople in 381 proves to be one of the greatest comeback stories in the history of the church. As true and glorious as this may be, why should Baptists submit to it today?

There are several compelling reasons to do so. I will, however, limit myself to only two. Baptists should cheerfully and eagerly submit to a creed from the early church if it is necessary and useful. I will explain how I use the word “necessary” below. The Nicene Creed was and still is necessary and useful. Therefore, Baptist churches should submit to it. To show this, in the first part of the article, I will give an overview of the conditions that made it useful and necessary for Christians in the fourth century. In the second part, I will show how these conditions have not fundamentally changed. In the final section, I will consider in what context it is possible to submit the Nicene Creed.

The Nicene Creed: Necessary and Useful in the Fourth Century

It is neither useful nor necessary for Baptists to affirm any old creed or confession. Antiquity does not equal veracity. The Dedication Creed of 341, for example, had quite a bit of traction among certain bishops in the East (and West if you include Hilary of Poitiers). Yet it is in many ways theologically deficient, at best, and theologically erroneous, at worst. This creed was the most influential of its kind in the mid-fourth century, as it formed the basis for numerous other creeds throughout the 340s and 350s. But it ceased to be the basis of theological and ecclesiastical unity after the debate shifted in the late 350s to whether the Father and Son are similar or dissimilar in essence. The Dedication Creed’s language speaks of the unity of the Father and Son in imprecise terms, and in ways that were open to more extreme subordinationist readings, like Asterius the Sophist, or more conservative readings, such as with Hilary of Poitiers. All that to say, the Dedication Creed is important in the history of doctrine in the fourth century, but it would neither be useful nor necessary for Baptists to submit to it because it is theologically erroneous, it was only confessed by a smaller contingent of the early church for a short window of time, and it became, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant after the 360s. But what about the Nicene Creed of 325? Well, the Nicene Creed is also not without its difficulties. But in time, the creed did become useful and even necessary for the church to confess.

The Nicene Creed has proven to be the fulcrum of basic theological unity among Christians with diverse theological beliefs across the Christian world and down through the centuries. Click To TweetThe Nicene Creed’s now shining legacy often obscures its early checkered history. Yes, it was “catholic” in the sense that it was signed by hundreds of bishops throughout the church. Yet it was not initially given the kind of weight that it would later receive some 40 years later. It was also plagued by suspicions of modalism due to the involvement of Marcellus of Ancyra and Eustathius of Antioch at the council and the phrase “homoousios”. The original words of the creed were not a silver bullet to solving the quandary of unity and diversity in God. It was effective only in ousting Arius. Yet some around him seem to have escaped unscathed. Even Eusebius of Caesarea could sign on despite articulating a doctrine of God of a subordinationist bent. So if the Nicene creed did not resolve the “Arian controversy”, what made it so necessary and useful to the early church?

The forty years that followed the council of Nicaea 325 are convoluted and often difficult to parse. What seems to be clear is that the Nicene creed and the language of homoousios (“one in essence”)  was not appealed to as an authority until the 350s, some 30 years after Nicaea. It is not that prior to this that Christian leaders were opposed to the Nicene creed. They were simply non-Nicene. There were some, namely the Heterousians, in the 350s who were openly opposed to the Nicene language of essence because they insisted that the Father and Son were dissimilar in essence. They are referred to as “anti-Nicene”.

In the 350s, Athanasius found the Nicene language of homoousios as theologically necessary for forcing the issue of how the Father and Son are said to be one. The theological waters were muddy as various parties sought to articulate how in God there is unity and diversity. His way of articulating homoousios lacked the technical precision we see in later thinkers like Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa. We see this especially in his De Decretis and De Synodis. The Nicene creed was also strategically useful to build a theological coalition unified around a set confession that their greatest opponents, Heterousians, could in no way compromise with.

In the late 350s the Heterousians, led by Aetius, and eventually his student Eunomius, pushed a more radical subordinationism which maintained that the Son is unlike the Father in essence but like the Father only in will. This theological pressure alienated the conservative wing of the Eusebian alliance, such as George of Laodicea, Basil of Ancyra, and Cyril of Jerusalem. Scholars often refer to these three as Homoiousians. As a result, the ad hoc Eusebian alliance among predominantly eastern bishops, that began in the early 320s with Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebius of Nicomedia, splintered. For the Homoiousians wished to maintain that the Son is like the Father in essence. On the other hand, Athanasius made irenic overtures to the Homoiousians in the 350s, beckoning them to the Nicene Creed. We see this irenic plea in Athanasius’ Tomus ad Antiochenos where disparate parties were encouraged to denounce Arius’s doctrines and to affirm that the Father and Son are one in essence and that they are not different beings. The homoiousians welcomed the olive branch from Athanasius and the emerging pro-Nicene coalition.

As a result of these realignments and the reunification of certain eastern and western bishops, the theological and political middle was hollowed out, leaving no room for indifference to the Nicene Creed. It became the rallying point for orthodoxy. There was no consistent alternative to the anti-Nicene or pro-Nicene positions after the theological debates of the 360s and 370s. Given the historical pressures, it was theologically necessary to affirm the Nicene creed. Either you confess the Nicene creed or you reject it. This diverse coalition that nonetheless found unity around the Nicene Creed triumphed at the Council of Constantinople. The Heterousians, led by Eunomius of Cyzicus, were routed. It seems to me that no alternative doctrinal confession could have possibly resolved the dispute.

What made the Nicene Creed necessary at the time was that there was not a tenable alternative for confessing the doctrine of the Trinity as taught by the Holy Scriptures. What made it useful is that, although there could have been alternative means of promoting unity among Christians and promulgating orthodox doctrine, no means would do as prudently and effectively. Not all roads lead to Rome, and those that do vary in their expediency. The Nicene Creed has proven to be the fulcrum of basic theological unity among Christians with diverse theological beliefs across the Christian world and down through the centuries. It was a point of common cooperation between local churches and synods. It was also most useful for liturgically shaping the mind and instructing the young in the confession of the church. The creed has proven itself most necessary and useful.

The Nicene Creed: Necessary and Useful for Baptists Today

I was able to help this pastor, and friend, mentioned above, with some resources on the early Christian debates. Sadly the young man, however, was too far gone. He persisted in his error and was excommunicated from the church. Of course, “they went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2:19). But could things have gone differently had this young man been raised under, corporately confessed, and taught the Nicene Creed as a formal standard of the church?

It is necessary for Baptists to submit to Nicene Creed for the same reasons that compelled fourth century Christians. Click To TweetWe find ourselves in a different cultural, political, theological, and ecclesiastical context from the early church. We Baptists must consider whether the biblical, intellectual, and social conditions that made the Nicene Creed most useful and necessary to confess in the latter half of the fourth century still exist today, or not. Baptists should only refrain from submitting to the Nicene Creed if the conditions have changed. I submit to you that they have not, despite the innumerable differences between us and them. The fundamental theological pressures remain the same and the Word of God—namely, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament—has not changed.

First, it is necessary for Baptists to submit to Nicene Creed for the same reasons that compelled fourth century Christians. What I mean by “necessary” is not to say that confessing or submitting to a creed is necessary for salvation. The Scriptures alone are sufficient in principle, we Protestants maintain. Everything we ought to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man is contained therein. But the Scriptures are not ordinarily sufficient in practice divorced from the Christian tradition, the church, and the community of faith. We are neither anabaptists, nor ought we be biblicists. Churches given to the mantra “no creed but the bible” are most susceptible to doctrinal poisoning. It should also be said that it is not necessary, especially as Baptists, to submit to the creed because of the authority of the state to call a council. Nor was this the primary appeal for Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea and others in the pro-Nicene alliance. It was appealed to because of the veracity of the Father’s confession as retrospectively understood in light of the debates between 325 and 381.

With this in mind, I say that the creed is necessary to affirm because there are no other options available for Christians today. The theological, protological, soteriological, and eschatological doctrines contained in the creed are essential. We cannot plead the fifth on the Nicene Creed. Either the Son is one essence with the Father and “true God of true God”, or he is not. This is just as pressing a confession as it was when it was first proclaimed. Moreover, it is necessary for catholicity. The Nicene Creed is a unifying document. Distinct theological trajectories in the fourth century among the Eusebians, Homoiousians, those around Athanasius, and the Cappadocians were brought together under a common confession. Today, it remains necessary for unity with the church throughout the ages and with those believers who have gone before us to glory. Unity with them necessitates such a formal and ecclesiastical subscription.  Creeds and confessions help us identify lines of unity and disunity, where gospel cooperation, fellowship, and encouragement can exist between churches and where they cannot.

To return to the scenario of my friend’s church in Australia, we must consider the weight of excommunication in the light of a universal confession of the church. His tuck was not with the 2LBC, BFM, or the New Hampshire. It was with the Nicene Creed, as an alleged accretion of the early church. How much more fitting— and hopefully salvific—is it that he be warned, rebuked, and anathemized (Matthew 18) by that very creed that he explicitly rejects? To think that one is not merely being cut off from an idiosyncrasy of the Baptist tradition or the Protestant faith, but that he is being cut off from fellowship with all Christians down through the ages. Subscription to this early Christian creed is most necessary in these regards.

Second, it is helpful for Baptists to submit to the Nicene Creed for much of the same reasons as it was for early Christians. It is both politically and ecclesiastically helpful for organizing the body of Christ in its diverse and local expressions. We are commanded by God through the writings of Paul to “guard the deposit entrusted to you” (1 Timothy 6:10 and 2 Timothy 1:13-14). We might also look at Paul’s urging the Colossians to “continue in the faith” and that which they “heard” from him through Epaphras (Colossians 1:23). It is as true today as it was in the early church to guard the faith. There is, though, more than one way to skin a cat. Prudence is required. Bear with me, but if you are outside in the winter and the cat is frozen, the approach taken will differ from that taken on a hot summer’s day. The approach will also differ if you happen to have only one hand, no hands, or two hands. The specific ways Paul gives to the primitive church to guard the faith are prudential and circumstance contingent. He does not give us an exhaustive list of how to guard it under every possible circumstance, let alone what we are to do when tens of thousands of Christians confess Christ across the world in various languages. God expects us to use our head.

I suggest that we think of a creed as a prudential application of the principle to guard the faith. I am here proposing what I call “prudential creedalism” (and by extension “prudential confessionalism”). If a creed effectively shapes the minds of our congregations in align with the truths of Scripture, then it is prudent. Here are just a few reasons that make it so. A creed has a liturgical function and form, whereas a confession or statement of faith often does not. Unlike a creed, confessions or faith statements also do not lend themselves to corporate liturgical inoculation against error recitation and memorization. One can only speculate, but many of the recent theological and trinitarian errors within evangelicalism may not have gained as widespread an acceptance, nor taken root had the Nicene Creed been confessed formally by local churches and associations.

The Nicene creed is helpful for guarding the good deposit and preserving a church in the long run in orthodoxy. It is not a silver bullet. But it is a prudent bullet. Click To TweetMoreover, the creed is the most prudent way to bring about theological unity among disparate parties in the Baptist and broader evangelical world. The Homoiousians and Athanasius had various disagreements, but their negotiations and ultimate unity in the Nicene Creed bore the fruit of an eventual unanimous pro-Nicene orthodoxy, as articulated by Didymus the Blind, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and others. The Nicene Creed did not offer monolithicity, but it did provide confessional boundaries for cooperation and fellowship. The Nicene creed is helpful for guarding the good deposit and preserving a church in the long run in orthodoxy. It is not a silver bullet. But it is a prudent bullet. It seems to me that for this reason, among others, Baptists have historically maintained the subordinate authority of creeds and confessions.

One might object that it is not necessary to submit to the creed formally as a church or association because one’s confession or statement of faith already implicitly contains it. Since it already contains it, the church is already confessing it, so the argument goes. I suggest to the contrary that it is not enough for a church to trace all the disparate elements of the creed to different sections of one’s current ecclesiastical documents. Even in such documents the creed, is at best, only implicitly concealed under different terms, idioms, and grammatical phrases. Not to mention that whole phrases and concepts from the creed are missing from Baptist statements of faith. For example, the Nicene creed uses the language of “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God” and “begotten, not made”. These are both absent from the 2LBC and the BFM. One might respond that these doctrines are contained in them implicitly or by necessary consequence. So it is not necessary to formally submit to the creed.

Such a rejoinder is self-defeating. If we say that it is unnecessary to explicitly and formally confess a doctrine when it is contained implicitly or by necessary consequence in the documents we already have, then why make any confession or statement of faith to begin with? Wouldn’t one wish to say that all of the 2LBC or BFM is contained implicitly or by necessary consequence in the Holy Scriptures? If so, then, by the same principle, it is also not necessary to make those explicit.

We are not after a merely material unity—the kind of unity a bronze statue of emperor has to the bronze in the mine. We are after a formal unity with the universal and catholic church—the kind of unity the form of the emperor in the statue has with the emperor himself. The form determines what kind of species or thing it is. The kind of unity that the 2LBC or BFM has with the Nicene Creed is more a material unity than formal. The former is materially dependent on the latter. But lest we only desire a material catholicity, the kind of unity that is both useful and necessary with the catholic church is formal. Hence why we must confess it formally as a church in order be the same whatness, that is, in order to be in the most important sense “Nicene”. So it is necessary and useful for churches to formally confess the Nicene Creed, just as it is necessary and useful for churches to formally submit to their own confessions and faith statements.

Creedal Teeth

What is the context within which a creed is most useful and necessary? Christians should submit themselves to a creed by the early church in the context of the local church and church associations. Unless we have some ethereal notion of submission in mind, would it even be possible to submit outside of a context of the formal structures of the church? This is not to undermine the personal and devotional benefits the creed offers. My concern is that to reduce creedal subscription to one’s personal profession is to woefully misunderstand the nature of the Nicene creed and the authority that it carries for the catholic church, the Baptist tradition included. Who cares if you are personally “pro-Nicene” and have it in your X.com or Facebook bio? The Nicene creed is an ecclesiastical document, like the 2LBC, WCF, and BFM. It is conciliar. The real question is whether your church and church’s association formally confess the Nicene Creed. We do not profess the creed, like a personal profession of faith in Christ prior to baptism. The fuss is all in the prefix to the “fess”. To profess is an individual act; to confess is communal. So we confess the creed as a church and submit to it within the church.

It is only here that the Nicene Creed can function as a true subordinate authority to Scripture. In this context, Nicaea has creedal teeth by which apostates can receive a truly catholic excommunication, the repentant can receive a truly catholic restoration, and the faithful can be edified in the worship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Outside of a formal submission, the Nicene Creed is merely a theological tattoo—endemic of expressive individualism. Tattoos don’t possess authority. We aren’t accountable to tattoos. We do not submit to them. They are a matter of personal preference, and the unity they confer with others is merely, at best, a concord of aesthetic.

I have argued that the Nicene Creed remains for us necessary and useful as it was for the early Church. Those who are prone to disregard a creed merelys because it is old should ask whether in 500 years the 2LBC or BFM, for example, should be overlooked merely because it was confessed by a people in a different historical, political, ecclesiastical, theological, and social context. We can only hope that they would look back and see how it was both necessary and useful for us today and remains so for them in the future.