I Believe
A Mid-week Study on The Apostles’ Creed
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting. Amen.
-The Apostles’ Creed
Introduction
“Attention is the beginning of devotion.” (Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays)
“You become what you give your attention to.” (Epictetus, Discourses)
The fascinating thing about small, repetitive practices are their cumulative effect over long periods of time. If you go to the gym 5 days a week, for 30 minute sessions, over the course of 6 months or more, while paired with a healthy diet, you start to see progress with regard to your weight, body image, energy, sleep, and self-confidence. Or, instead of binging a show before bed, if you read a book, fiction or non-fiction, for the last 30 minutes of each day, you start to see improvements in your attention span, your creative output, your morning anxiety, and your ability to give a thoughtful opinion on the current cultural, historical, and/or technological moment. James Clear has a lot of great content on this topic.
The Rosary, a ritual from the Catholic tradition, is a practice of repetitive attention. It typically begins with the Sign of the Cross, and is then followed by a recitation of the Apostles’ Creed as well as other prayers. As I’ve recently started including the Rosary in my daily prayer practice, I’ve become fascinated with the Apostles’ Creed and what it teaches us about our discipleship to Jesus. So I wanted to do a textual analysis of the Apostles’ Creed.
Or, to put it another way: I wanted to give my sustained attention to the text of the Apostles’ Creed.
In this study, we’ll explore faith, theology, history, and practice—all through the lens of the Apostles’ Creed by way of the Rosary. Let’s jump in…
Faith
“I believe”
What did historical Christians mean when, by the 8th century, they would recite, together, in Latin, the Apostles’ Creed, starting with, “I believe in God the Father…”? (my emphasis added)
The Latin word used for “I believe” in the Apostles’ Creed is credo. Credo is the first person singular of the verb credere, and credo means “I believe”. Credere is where we get the English word “creed”, and the verb can also mean “to entrust,” or “to have faith.” (ChatGPT). More, the root components of the word in Latin are cor meaning “heart” and dare meaning “to give.” So credere literally means: “To give one’s heart to” (ChatGPT).
That’s what Christians down through the centuries are saying when we recite the Apostles’ Creed: I give my heart to this specific statement about reality. This type of faith statement also exists in present-day, western, non-denominational Christianity when those believers say they have “given their hearts” to God in Jesus.
Theology
“[I believe] In God, The Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord […]
I believe in the Holy Spirit”
In these lines of the Apostles’ Creed, we get theology: namely, the Christian concept of the Trinity. This triune God is puzzling to many outside the faith, as the common objections are, “Wait. I thought Christians were monotheists. Do Christians believe in 3 gods? How does that work?”
I readily admit that I don’t fully understand how the Trinity works. But, from the earliest biblical texts, as early as Genesis 1:26, God is written of as a Community, a They: “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness’” (NIV, my emphasis added).
Wild, but true.
More, as a kid, I was always taught to think about the Trinity in the following manner: God can be thought of like water. Water can be three forms: solid, liquid, and gas. Yet, all three are still water, the same essence.
Same with God: God is Father, God is Son, and God is Holy Spirit. Three forms. But all of the same essence.
Richard Rohr succinctly explains the doctrine of the Trinity in his book The Universal Christ: “God is Relationship itself, a dynamism of Infinite Love between Divine Diversity.”
Any deeper exploration of the theology of the Trinity is out of my intellectual reach at this point. Maybe someday I’ll have a more informed take, but not today. LOL
History
“[Jesus was] born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty”
In this portion of the Apostles’ Creed, Christians move from faith and theology to history. Christians believe Jesus was an actual person who actually walked the earth 2000+ years ago. We believe that he was born of Mary after an immaculate conception, that he lived for around 30 years before he started his earthly ministry, that his ministry drew a huge following but was seen as a threat by the religious and political establishment, that he was eventually betrayed by one of his closest friends and handed over to the authorities, was tortured under Pilate’s acquiescence, was crucified on a Roman cross, and died and was buried.
Christians state this as historical fact.
Then, Christians also believe Jesus descended into hell, and, on the third day, resurrected from the dead. (!)
Christians then believe that Jesus appeared to several hundred people over the next 40 days, before ascending into heaven, where he is “seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty” and “will come to judge the living and the dead.”
I know, for non-Christians, this take on history is a bit outlandish—to say the least! But C.S. Lewis says it best: “The story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened” (my emphasis added).
Practice
“I believe in[…]
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.”
This final section of the Apostles’ Creed is about how Christians practice their discipleship to Jesus. In this section, we see that Christians “give their hearts” to several things practically:
Firstly is “the holy catholic Church.” Notice that “catholic” is a lower-case “c”—denoting not the Roman Catholic Church, but, instead, the “catholic” or “universal” church.
“The word ‘catholic’ comes from the Greek word katholikos (καθολικός), which means ‘universal’ or ‘according to the whole’” (ChatGPT). I know it’s a bit confusing, since “catholic” and “Catholic” can get mixed up. But, overall, this phrase in the Apostles’ Creed means that Christians give their hearts to the “universal” or “whole” church.
Secondly is “the communion of saints.” Again, this is not a reference to those saints as denoted by the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, this refers to “the spiritual unity and fellowship of all believers in Christ, across all times and places—both living and dead” (ChatGPT). So Christians are here professing that they give their hearts to “spiritual unity” and “fellowship” with others who profess Jesus as Lord.
Thirdly is “the forgiveness of sins.” For Christians, this “expresses the Christian belief that God freely and fully pardons human sin through the grace offered in Jesus Christ” (ChatGPT). This is the “all-encompassing, liberal, free and freedom-giving, perfect and perfecting, cosmic, intimate, substitutionary, creative, scandalous love of God” that I’ve written about previously. A great teaching of Jesus on this topic is the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32.
Next is “the resurrection of the body.” In the historical profession of the Apostles’ Creed, Christian speak here of “the Christian belief that at the end of time, God will raise the dead and restore their bodies, reuniting them with their souls for eternal life” (ChatGPT). The theology of this specific topic is above my pay grade, but I know I’m not alone in asking what this means, exactly, for life after death. Questions include: what happens to my soul after I die? what happens to my body? is there a difference between what happens to my soul and what happens to my body after I die? Morbid, yes, and complicated, yes, but you’d be surprised how often these questions come up.
Lastly, “life everlasting.” This historically refers to the Christian belief in “eternal life with God—a life that begins now through faith and continues forever beyond death, free from suffering, sin, and separation from God” (ChatGPT, my emphasis added). This is what C.S. Lewis means when he says we are all immortals (“The Weight of Glory”). I’m fascinated by this topic, and previously wrote about this in my essay “World Without End.”
Conclusion
“Amen.”
There’s a lot to unpack in the Apostles’ Creed—even for me as a life-long disciple of Jesus. ChatGPT was incredibly helpful and enlightening for me on this topic, and I hope this study has been helpful for you, too.
I’ll end this study with what it means to say “Amen” to the Apostles’ Creed.
“Amen” is the reiteration of the Hebrew word אָמֵן found in the Old Testament. אָמֵן means “truly” or “so be it” or “it is firm.” I love that final meaning: “it is firm.” Amen.
To say “Amen” to any belief—Apostles’ Creed or otherwise— is to assent that something is true, that it is “firm.” In a world that is careening through technoligical advances and geopolitical reorderings at break-neck speeds, to have something firm to rely on is really valuable.
All said, I hope you’ve enjoyed this study on the Apostles’ Creed. I’m sure you have read more on this topic than I have, and have done better textual analysis than I have—so please feel free to respond with any thoughts, questions, or thoughtful disagreements. I always appreciate the reader feedback here at Weekend Posts.
Take care today.
From one student to another,
KGC
📚