Saturday, October 16, 2010

The Nicene Creed

Just for a bit of fun, I thought I would look at the Catholic version of the trinity doctrine. It is based on the Nicene Creed. I used the 1975 ecumenical version (ICET) from Wikipedia "English versions of the Nicene Creed in current use". I have numbered the lines for ease of reference.

In 1975, ICET published, in the book Prayers We Have in Common, an ecumenical English translation of the Nicene Creed that was adopted by many Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Following is the text of this 1975 version as printed in the English-language Roman Missal used outside the United States. The only difference between this presentation and the way ICET presented the text is that ICET printed the Filioque clause as a parenthesis, thus: "[and the Son]".
1 We believe in one God,
2 the Father, the Almighty
3 maker of heaven and earth,
4 of all that is, seen and unseen.
5
6 We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
7 the only Son of God,
8 eternally begotten of the Father,
9 God from God, Light from Light,
10 true God from true God,
11 begotten, not made,
12 of one Being with the Father.
13 Through him all things were made.
14 For us men and for our salvation
15 he came down from heaven:
16 by the power of the Holy Spirit
17 he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
18 For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
19 he suffered death and was buried.
20 On the third day he rose again
21 in accordance with the Scriptures;
22 he ascended into heaven
23 and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
24 He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
25 and his kingdom will have no end
26
27 We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life,
28 who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
29 With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.
30 He has spoken through the Prophets.
31 We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
32 We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
33 We look for the resurrection of the dead,
34 and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Both mainline SDAs and antitrinitarians would agree with most of this.

Mainline SDAs disagree with lines 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 28 and depending on interpretation, 31. That is a total of seven lines

Antitrinitarians would disagree with lines 8, 12, 27, 29 and depending on interpretation, 31. That is a total of five lines.

Therefore the antitrinitarians are closer to the Catholic doctrine of the trinity, as expressed in the Nicene Creed, than are mainline SDAs.

Comments and corrections welcome.

2 comments:

geoff said...

Seems strange to conclude that anti-trinitarians are closer to the Nicene creed, when since officially voting for the trinity doctrine in 1980, the Catholic church now says SDA's no longer regarded as a cult.
Would they say that if we had moved further from the Nicene creed than before?

Bruce Thompson said...

Strange conclusion but true! You are closer to the Nicene creed than I am! But its only a bit of fun.

Yes, I also notice from the last full post you put up that you rely on Catholics quite a bit to determine whether things are true of not.