In response to Shenglong’s comments in the previous post, I’ve decided to dedicate a post to the Nicene Creed, which the Catholic Church has adhered to for centuries.
The Creed goes like this:
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty
Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures
he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
And his kingdom will have no end We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic Church
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
However, I feel like I’m taking the easy way out here, as I’ve found the perfect article in the Catholic Answers site from their 1993 issue of “This Rock”. The article highlights the point that the creed is very much Catholic – with a capital “C”, as in the Church, as opposed to a lower-case “c” which is presently understood to mean ‘universal’. I’m just going to take note of certain sentences in the article that I found key.
Many Evangelical Protestants proclaim themselves to be “catholics” (catholics-with-a-small-”c”). They do this based on the original meaning of the word (Greek, katholikos), which was “general” or “universal.” Since they view Christ’s Church as an invisible union of all believers, a church visible only to God, membership in any particular visible communion is not necessary to be a full-fledged member of Christ’s church, hence many Protestants consider themselves to be catholic. This argument commits what is known as the etymological fallacy, the attempt to establish the meaning of a word based on its origins.Â
The term “Catholic” was applied to the Church at the beginning of the second century by Ignatius, the third bishop of Antioch. On the way to his death, Ignatius wrote letters to churches he was passing by or through. In his letter to the church of Smyrna, he wrote: “Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there, just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”[Epistle to the Smyrneans 8:2.]. This is the first recorded use of the phrase “Catholic Church,” but its usage almost certainly precedes Ignatius’s letter. He assumed his readers would be familiar with the term, and he uses it in an off-handed manner, suggesting he was not coining a new term, but picking up one already in use.
The attempt by non-Catholics to claim “catholic” for themselves is not new. Heretics and schismatics in the fourth century tried to claim the term, yet their attempts proved unsuccessful. In 397 Augustine pointed this out using an illustration from everyday life. “[T]he very name of Catholic . . . belongs to this Church alone . . . so much so that, although all heretics want to be called `catholic,’ when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house” (Against the Letter of Mani Called `The Foundation’ 4:5).
That “Catholic” very early acquired its modern sense of denoting a particular group of churches united in a single, visible communion is important for how we read the writings of the Church Fathers and how we read early creeds. Protestants accept the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, which make reference to the Catholic Church. The Apostles’ Creed states, “I believe . . . in the Holy Catholic Church”; the Nicene creed states, “I believe . . . in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.” Both of these statements were written after “Catholic” had acquired its current meaning.
The link for the full article is here.
Admittedly, the article is naturally subjective and dominated by pro-Catholic views. Perhaps a more objective point of view can be found at the decidedly neutral Wikipedia.
