I could tell I was tired this morning… During the Divine Liturgy I went into autopilot as we sung the Creed, which unfortunately meant that I sang loudly “I believe in the Holy Spirit…who proceeds from the Father and the Son“. Oops!
In case you are unaware, in Eastern Christianity, the last part of that sentence is not included in the Nicene Creed. This creed was the product of two Ecumenical Councils, Nicaea and Constantinople, so technically we should call it the Nicene-Constantinoplean Creed.
The argument surrounding the clause “and the Son” is known as the “Filioque Controversy”, since “Filioque” is the Latin word which was added to the Creed in the West. This controversy dates back to the Great Schism of 1054. The history surrounding it is a little complicated, but the long and the short of it is that one of the reasons much of the Eastern Church broke communion with Rome was due to the addition of this word to the Creed in the West.
However, my purpose in this post isn’t so much to speak about the Filioque, but to talk about another slip up I made today when I sang “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God…”
More changes?!
Back when I lived in San Diego, I often attended the San Diego Orthodox Young Adults Group. Once when I was hanging out with them, one of my Eastern Orthodox friends asked me why the Catholic Church made so many changes to the Creed. What did he mean? There were changes in addition to the Filioque?! That was news to me! However, he then pointed out that in the West we say:
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
In the East, however, the phrase in bold, “God from God”, does not appear!
Creedal Variations
I spent a little bit of time digging into this issue and I was rather surprised to find out that there were actually quite a few creedal variations in the ancient Church. In fact, you could go as far as to say that all the ancient versions differ at least to some degree from the official text given at Nicaea and Constantinople.
For example, the Councils used the first person plural throughout: “We believe… We confess… We await…”. However, the Byzantine Churches changed it to the first person singular: “I believe… I confess… I await”. Historically, the Latin Church did the same, although until relatively recently, English-speaking Catholics would say “We”. However, following the liturgical reforms of 2011 and retranslation of the Roman Missal to represent more faithfully the Latin text, all Catholics now say “I” instead.
Another textual variation in the Latin text is the one mentioned by my Eastern Orthodox friend. It is true that, in addition to the Filioque clause, the Latin liturgical text has another difference. In the Latin, it reads “Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero”, which translates as “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God”. It turns out that the clause, “God from God”, although not found in the Creed from Constantinople, is actually found in the earlier creed from Nicaea. For some reason, this was retained in the Latin. The Armenian text includes this and other variations as well.
Conclusions?
So what should we conclude? I’m not really sure, but I think we can acknowledge two things. The first is simply that there is more variation in the “Nicene Creed” than we commonly think, and the second is that I need to make sure I have a nice cup of tea before I attempt to sing any complex theology in the mornings.
UPDATE: Michael Lofton just recorded a livestream with even more details on this subject:
In a couple of weeks I’m going to be publishing a series written by a guest writer on the subject of Catholics dating online. I’ve had guest posts before and I’d like to see more of them! So, if you have an article in mind and would like a platform on which to publish it, please contact me!
As we move into Chapter 2 of Book IV, we dive into the Trinity! What does it mean to say that God is a Trinity and how do we come to know this God better? How can we become one with God and yet not lose all individuality? All will be revealed in the latest episode of “The Eagle and Child”…
Matt and I are in Montreat for the International C.S. Lewis Symposium. It’s the end of the first day and so we pull out the microphones and have a quick chat…
S2E37: “David and Matt party in Montreat. Day 1” (Download)
It has been my desire for a while to introduce the listeners to other members of the Inklings, as well as authors who greatly influenced Lewis. Today we look at G.K. Chesterton and our special guest who will be introducing us to this great man is renowned Chesterton scholar and champion, Dale Ahlquist.
S2E28: “After Hours” with Dale Ahlquist (Download)
In case your podcast application has the ability to jump to certain time codes, here are the timestamps for the different parts of the episode.
00:30 – Why we’re talking about G.K. Chesterton 02:02 – Introduction of Dale Ahlquist 03:13 – The drink-of-the-week (and GKC’s favourites) 04:13 – The quote-of-the-week 04:45 – How did you first encounter G.K. Chesterton? 09:00 – What are some of your favourite Chesterton aphorisms? 09:44 – Who was Chesterton? 12:49 – What was his faith background? 16:27 – What was his dynamic with his wife, Frances? 21:24 – What kinds of things did he write and what were some of his most famous works? 24:24 – What was The Everlasting Man about and why did it have such an effect on Lewis? 26:41 – Why is Chesterton not better known? 29:05 – How should people go about starting to read Chesterton? 30:39 – What tips do you have for someone reading Orthodoxy for the first time? 32:10 – Which biography will give you the best sense for the man himself? 33:28 – What do you think of the decision not to open Chesterton’s cause for Sainthood? 37:37 – Is it true that Chesterton inspired Michael Collins and Mohandas Gandhi? 40:17 – How can listeners find out more about The Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton? 42:28 – Book giveaway information
I just had a very strange interaction on Facebook… A friend of mine posted the following video of the Protestant evangelist Todd Friel:
One of his friends, a man called Simon, responded with the following curious assertions:
His response struck me as a strange for several reasons, but first and foremost because it demonstrated very clearly that Simon was rather unfamiliar with the New Testament! I responded by pointing out that Jesus would absolutely call other people wrong. In fact, at times He could be quite mean, even to the point of calling people names:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites… You fools and blind men… For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness… you brood of vipers”
Matthew 23:15, 17, 27-28, 33
He was even known on occasion to flip tables!
And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables – John 2:15
John 2:15
Naturally, there are many other Scripture passages which I could have quoted, not least Jesus’ exclusive claims about Himself:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
John 14:6
With wearying predictability, rather than adjusting his statement, Simon immediately accused me of “judging” him. Some folks really love to jump to play the victim card even at the mildest of challenges. I wonder if he would have said exactly the same thing if I had pointed out an error in his arithmetic…
Amusingly, he then tried to quote Romans 2 to me:
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?
Romans 2:1-3
At this point I suggested to him that, while I’d be happy to discuss that passage with him, it probably isn’t a good idea to quote the Bible at a Christian right on the heels of making a demonstrably false statement about Jesus. He then said that he didn’t want to discuss his beliefs with me any more, so I closed by saying that hopefully I had at least disabused you of the notion that “Jesus would never call other people wrong”. I concluded with a passage which denies this explicitly:
“[Jesus said] ‘You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God'”
Matthew 22:29
…and, for good measure, I also included a passage where Jesus teaches His followers about judgement:
“Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly”
John 7:24
Needless to say, he wrote with the following:
…and then thirty seconds later deleted the thread.
Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…
Notes & Quotes
1. Many people think of morality as something which interferes, particularly with our enjoyment.
(a) However, morality is there for our own good.
“…moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine”
(b) What might initially seem right to us will cause problems.
“When you are being taught how to use any machine, the instructor keeps on saying, ‘No, don’t do it like that,’ because, of course, there are all sorts of things that look all right and seem to you the natural way of treating the machine, but do not really work”
2. Some people prefer to talk about “ideals” and “idealism” rather than “rules” and “obedience”.
(a) However, it is misleading to call moral perfection an ideal because it implies that it’s a private taste and therefore not binding on all
“When a man says that a certain woman…is ‘his ideal’ he does not mean…that everyone else ought to have the same ideal. In such matters we are entitled to have different tastes and, therefore, different ideals”
(b) It could lead to pride…
“It might lead you to become a prig and to think you were rather a special person who deserved to be congratulated on his ‘idealism'”
(c) …and this is as foolish as being congratulated in trying to not make a mistake in your arithmetic
“…you might just as well expect to be congratulated because, whenever you do a sum, you try to get it quite right. To be sure, perfect arithmetic is ‘an ideal’; you will certainly make some mistakes in some calculations. But there is nothing very fine about trying to be quite accurate at each step in each sum.
It would be idiotic not to try; for every mistake is going to cause you trouble later on. In the same way every moral failure is going to cause trouble, probably to others and certainly to yourself. By talking about rules and obedience instead of “ideals” and ‘idealism’ we help to remind ourselves of these facts”
3. Morality can be expressed in the metaphor of a fleet of ships
(a) The ships must have internal integrity and external integrity in relation to one another
“The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another’s way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order
…you cannot have either of these two things without the other. If the ships keep on having collisions they will not remain seaworthy very long. On the other hand, if their steering gears are out of order they will not be able to avoid collisions”
(c) Additionally, the final destination is fundamentally important
“…however well the fleet sailed, its voyage would be a failure if it were meant to reach New York and actually arrived at Calcutta”
4. An alternative metaphor is that of a musical band
“…think of humanity as a band playing a tune. To get a good result, you need two things. Each player’s individual instrument must be in tune and also each must come in at the right moment so as to combine with all the others.
…The instruments might be all in tune and might all come in at the right moment, but even so the performance would not be a success if they had been engaged to provide dance music and actually played nothing but Dead Marches”
5. We may therefore conclude that morality concerns three things:
(a) Exterior: Social relations with other humans
(b) Interior: The harmonising of the interior life
(c) Teleological: In relation to the purpose of man and his creator
6. When speaking about morality, modernity tends to ignore the last two
“When people say in the newspapers that we are striving for Christian moral standards, they usually mean that we are striving for kindness and fair play between nations, and classes, and individuals; that is, they are thinking only of the first thing”
(a) It is quite natural to focus on the first one because its effects are obvious and there is general agreement
“…the results of bad morality in that sphere are so obvious and press on us every day: war and poverty and graft and lies and shoddy work. And also, as long as you stick to the first thing, there is very little disagreement about morality”
(b) However, we can’t stop there…
“Unless we go on to the second thing-the tidying up inside each human being-we are only deceiving ourselves.
What is the good of telling the ships how to steer so as to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all? What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them?”
(c) We must consider the individual’s morality (the “second thing”) because we rely upon it
“…nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly
It is easy enough to remove the particular kinds of graft or bullying that go on under the present system: but as long as men are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of carrying on the old game under the new system. You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society. That is why we must go on to think of the second thing: of morality inside the individual”
(d) We must also consider our purpose (the “third thing”)…
“…religion involves a series of statements about facts, which must be either true or false. If they are true, one set of conclusions will follow about the right sailing of the human fleet: if they are false, quite a different set”
(i) …because the answer to this question may reveal responsibilities
“…If somebody else made me, for his own purposes, then I shall have a lot of duties which I should not have if I simply belonged to myself”
(ii) …and because it makes a difference whether we live forever
“…there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever”
(A) Moral Trajectory
“Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse – so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be”
(B) The individual and society
“If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment”
7. Jack is going to assume the Christian point of view moving forward
“For the rest of this book I am going to assume the Christian point of view, and look at the whole picture as it will be if Christianity is true”
Discussion Questions
1. How do many people view morality? How does Jack present it?
2. Why should we not be surprised when we find that morality “interferes”?
3. What is the problem with talking about morals as “ideals”?
4. What are the two metaphors Jack uses to explain the different components of morality?
5. What are these three parts of morality? Around which parts are there consensus?
6. What can we not just stop at inter-personal morality? Why does interior morality matter? What are the consequences for society?
