n stated aloud in church service in both traditions, or at least acknowledged as a statement of basic Christian beliefs. More importantly, each statement coincides with one of the great doctrines of the Historic Christianity. In the next few blogs, I am going to post the words of Nicene Creed, and relate them to the doctrines they correspond to in Historic Christianity.
Before doing that, I want to give a brief background to it.
Though some attribute the Creed to Emperor Constantine's efforts, Constantine was urged to call the Council by bishops concerned by the teachings of Arius, who affirmed that even though Jesus was divine, God created him, and so he was less than the Father. The bishops by an overwhelming vote, not only asserted that Jesus was God, but that he existed eternally with the Father.
Later, at a 2nd Council, they also asserted that the Holy Spirit was also God, and the Creed we have today is usually a combination of both Councils of bishops.
The Creed forms the basis for an explicit statement of the Trinity. While some assert this doctrine was only formed at these Councils, the New Testament in many passages implies the Trinity, which was
acknowledged in the Church way before the Nicene Council. The Trinity answers many deep philosophical questions and problems the ancients asked. The Trinity, as well as the Nicene Creed, was not developed by the Church fathers to respond to these questions. Rather, as they studied these questions, and as they studied Scripture, they realized that the Scripture had the answer to the problems of unity and diversity explored in ancient philosophy, and so they excitedly put forward the Trinity as answer to these problems.
Go on and study Part 1 of the Nicene Creed.
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