From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Christology 101 [was: There are two years left!]
Summary: which creed are you reading?
Date: 11 Sep 92 00:48:26 GMT
Organization: AT&T

In article <1992Sep10.201136.19830@cass.ma02.bull.com>, ddavis@cass.ma02.bull.com (Dave Davis)  quotes:

> In article <1992Sep10.115525.7438@ac.dal.ca> hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes,
> in response to Chuck Hedrick's posting,

> >In fact, it [the English version of the Creed] DOES say that "Jesus Christ" 
> >is of the same substance as the Father.

> Christology is notoriously difficult to 'get right'. No one I know

So, it would appear is English.  The relevant section of the creed has
"Jesus Christ" as an identifying appositive to the object of the second
clause:

	"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, ...

As with ANY appositive, this is meant to clarify the term it relates to,
but it is not (except maybe in _Time_ magazine :-)) an instrument of
either definition or a term that should enter into futher parsing of
the sentence.

Before continuing I will note that a hostile reading could attempt to
claim that we are thereby refering purely to the human Jesus -- yet
by Chalcedon and communication of attributes, there is nothing going
on here but naming, the standard Christian naming: Jesus asked, "but
who do YOU say I am?"  We say he is and was the Christ.  The nature
of the identification being made (i.e., the Incarnation) comes later.
What comes immediately is simply,

	the only Son of God,
	eternally begotten of the Father ...

That is, the object of our belief, as far as this clause is concerned,
is the eternally begotten Son, whom Christians take as the second
person of the eternal Trinity, and when it is important (if it ever
is) to distinguish eternal God from the mortal Jesus who died, this
person is conventionally (for theological clarity) the Logos.

	God etc. begotten not made,
	of one Being with the Father.

Note that "substance" is NOT used, as tending to bring in metaphysical
baggage that is left undefined by the more generic word "being."

	Through him all things were made.

Again, this is all rather BEFORE there was a man Jesus.  Do, please,
keep that in mind.

	For us and for our salvation
	he came down from heaven:
	by the power of the Holy Spirit
	he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary
	and was made man.

There it finally is.  The "Nicene" Creed is not really an exposition
of the Trinity, just a collection of the basic statements.  But it is
quite obvious to anyone who can read that the structure of this is
-- independently of whether it is coherent, or you believe it, or it
makes you convulse with laughter -- more complex than saying that the
human being, the son of Mary, was (in any way OTHER than through the
Incarnation) the Person of one Being with the Father.

The explication of "what the Nicene Creed means" -- and most especially
what the "of one Being with the Father" means -- was not decided at
Nicea, and the Creed as we have it is as vague in some ways as the
Nicene bishops were.  It took about 150 years after that for consensus
to be worked out.  If you take the Creed *without* that consensus,
you may be within Nicene orthodoxy by a hair, but are more likely to
be forcing a reading that would be regarded as heretical under any
kind of examination (not just the strait inquisition Dave suggests.)

Not only do I think, like Dave, that this person's comment is "over-
simplification" -- I tend to hear the grinding of an axe.
-- 
Michael L. Siemon			"I know of nothing -- I suspect
					not even death -- that is so fixed
mls@usl.com				in the present tense as love."
standard disclaimer					-- Jess Anderson
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc