I.

Historical Review

II. Introduction

I BELIEVE.

The very first word of the Nicene Creed is credo—I believe. That belief is the central component
of Christian identity seems only natural to us, but only because we are Christians. Other religions
and ideologies are not different set of beliefs, but define themselves in radically different ways.
The ancient Roman pagans, for example, invented the term religio—to bind. For them, religion
had nothing to do with belief and everything to do with observing the established rites: rites they
were bound to observe, or the gods would destroy their civilization. The fledgling Church was
not persecuted because it had different beliefs than the established paganism, but because
Christians refused to partake in its rites. Of course, their refusal even under martyrdom was a
result of their beliefs. Even the anterior religion of Second Temple Judaism, and the rabbinical
Judaism of today does not define itself as a set of beliefs to hold, but a set of commandments, i.e.
laws to be obeyed. Christianity in this very first word enters the world as something wholly new.
With the passage of the twenty centuries since Christ, the novelty of belief has been worn
down such that its essence is rather lost on us Christians today. We thus have lost a sense of
Christianity itself, causing our identity as Christians to be always an imitation infinitely
approaching the real thing. The first task of understanding the creeds of our faith then is to
understand what is signified by the word “believe.”
There are two common mistakes made when explaining the nature of belief. First, belief
is not merely the observation of certain facts. When we recite “I believe in one God” we do not
only mean “One God exists and I passively note this as true.” The second error is like the first,
taking belief to be a mere assertion, i.e. “I believe in one God” to be “I personally think for
myself that one God exists.” These are both certainly part of what we mean, but remain at the
lowest level of understanding. Rather, belief is an active assent to these divine truths which we
actualize in our lives. That is why the Creed occupies such a prominent location in the liturgy.
Belief is the active willing to the deepest conviction of the objects of divine revelation. In
this sense, it is primarily an attitude or a habit of the person who does not consider whatever lies
in his field of vision to be the complete facts of the world. In another terms, belief is first
admitting that the objects of our senses do not constitute the whole of reality, but the deliberative
view that what goes unseen is indeed more real; that “eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
(Romans x, 10). Christianity centers on belief because it is a decision a person takes, a decision
that his life cannot be sustained on the tangible things of this world, but that he depends upon
what cannot be seen. By the confession of the credo, he moves from the seemingly all of the
visible world to the seemingly nothing of the invisible and intangible. Belief is thus nothing more
nor less than the theological virtue of faith, which Saint Thomas Aquinas defines as “[that
which] adheres to the testimony of one in whom faith is infallibly found” (De veritate xiv, 8)
who is God himself.
Belief-qua-faith excludes doubt and curiosity. The knowledge of truths derived from
faith, namely the objects of divine revelation as given in the Creed, is no less certain than those
derived from the sciences “[for] the divine light by which we know them, although it does not
render them evident… suffers us not to doubt them” (Tridentine Catechism). Indeed, these
articles of faith cannot be made the subject of scientific experimentation. They cannot be proven
nor demonstrated except by appeal to God alone. Faith indeed excludes any desire for such
demonstration, rather it demands we have the same spirit as the Psalmist: “I have believed,
therefore have I spoken” (Ps. cxv, 1), which is to say it requires quite the opposite: that we
demonstrate our faith through witness. Saints Peter and John the Apostles also bear witness to
this faith: “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts iv, 20). We
cannot be ashamed of the Gospel, as Saint Paul says (Romans i, 16), but must in all things be
animated by the faith God has graced us with. “With the heart we believe unto justice; but with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans x, 10): that is the meaning of belief and
the meaning of professing this belief freely and publicly in liturgy, to hold inviolable and beyond
reproach the objects of divine revelation and to profess them to the world.
Having established the act of believing itself, we are now free to examine its objects so
that we may understand precisely what we give assent of the will to. The Creed consists of
twenty-six articles, each of which we affirm I believe in the sense outlined.

III. God the Father

I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY.

MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.

IV. God the Son

V. Vita Christi: the Mystery of Salvation

VI. God the Holy Spirit

VII. The Church

VIII. Conclusion

AMEN.