The Bible or the Creeds — Take Your Pick?

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7 responses to “The Bible or the Creeds — Take Your Pick?”

1. 

   2005-06-20

   bls

   Well, I’m not a theologian or a seminarian, but I am a deep appreciator of “poetic justice.”
   😉

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2. 

   2005-06-20

   bls

   (P.S.: Now you can see why I support keeping the Creeds in place….)

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3. 

   2005-06-21

   John Wilkins

   I think he’s onto something. The creeds are our lens for interpreting how God relates and communicates to the world. It delineates what is crucial and what is human in scripture. The conservatives can’t tell the difference between the words of the Bible and the Word, the Logos of God, who we call Christ.

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4. 

   2005-06-22

   Derek

   I’m not sure I’d go that far. The best way to think about the creeds is that they set the boundaries. You may interpret Scripture as you will, just don’t transgress these boundaries. Obviously, none of the creeds deals with the gay question. I’d have to see more of the context to see where the Aristotle piece fits in.

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5. 

   2005-06-24

   The Anglican Scotist

   When the chips were down, the Church Fathers at least from Justin Martyr forward reached out for the best philosophy they could find to help them make sense of Scripture and Christian practice: Greek philosophy. In particular, they had at their disposal a heady brew of Aristotelian metaphysics cut with Neo-platonism. They had a precedent: Philo of Alexandria, and a host of Hellenistic Judaism’s late wisdom writings oputside of what would later be the Canon. Bits of Greek speculation surfaced in the Creeds–see the Nicene Creed’s distinction between being begotten and being made, as well as the phrase “of one Being with the Father” (BCP 358). In the Athanasian Creed and Council of Chalcedon (BCP 864-5) there are many more such explicit instances. And these are not accidents–right belief and heresy hinged on the use of all this philosophical jargon. Even today, these Creeds are integral to Christian tradition (e.g. every proper Eucharist), yet these Creeds, at least in the Greek thinking they employ, go far beyond what is evident from Scripture. Point: Christian tradition unequivocally establishes a precedent of going outside the Scripture to secular thought for interpreting Scripture. That is, Scripture alone is not enough for determining its meaning. Anglican conservatives, wedded to the primacy of Scripture,tend to miss this fact and the precedent it provides.

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6. 

   2005-06-24

   The Anglican Scotist

   I do not mean to consign the Creeds to the dustbin of history; welcome them, even assent to them with their
   Greek baggage. Just recognize the price in what your assent implies for the interpretation of Scripture.

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7. 

   2005-07-02

   Anonymous

   Frankly, the authority for accepting both the Bible and the Creeds is the Church, which also teaches the truth about issues of sexual morality. Even authentic Anglicanism adhered to “the faith once delievered to the saints” which in practice included the teachings of the early councils of the church. And reformation Protestantism was not starting from ground zero either, in its interpretation of the Bible; it accepted the creeds, which were the reflection of the Christian church of the early centuries on scripture and the tradition which had been handed down..sometimes making use of Greek philosophical thought as well. Actually, I suspect that even the most Bible only fundamentalists can’t help to some degree reading the Bible in the tradition of the Church, without knowing it. Certain texts are seen to refer to the understanding of the Trinity and the Incarnation hashed out in the early centuries of the church-all the alternate possibilities which would be there if one really saw the text naked of tradition, do not even arise in the mind. And that’s a good thing.
   Susan Peterson

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