The Apostles’ Creed: A Critical Loyalty

September 10, 2007

The Apostles’ Creed is a theological statement constructed by the early Christian community and, given that the Creed is an element of many Christian worship services, it is a somewhat familiar theological statement. However, when said or heard or thought in the context of the Church in post/modern America, the Credo may feel antiquated and inaccessible and, therefore, irritate one’s post/modern senses. The Credo strikes me as significant material for theological interpretation precisely because it is irritating, antiquated (pre-modern), and, in more than a few ways, inaccessible to the contemporary Church. This type of theological material can cause constructive theological thought.

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I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

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Prior to addressing the Creed, it may be helpful to outline an interpretive approach. The most fruitful approach to the Credo is one of critical loyalty. The commentaries of Karl Barth and Theodore Jennings will help make clear why a critical loyalty is a fruitful interpretative approach to the Credo.¹ In this post, the critical approach will be explored.

0.I Critical Loyalty

Karl Barth begins his exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, Dogmatics In Outline, with a statement regarding the task of dogmatics. Barth argues, “Dogmatics is a science in which the Church, in accordance with the state of its knowledge at different times, takes account of the content of its proclamation critically, that is, by the standard of Holy Scripture and under the guidance of its confessions” (emphasis added).² The following outline is helpful for our purposes:

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For Barth, science is an attempt at “comprehension and exposition” and is related to an object and sphere of activity. The object of dogmatics, according to Barth, is the Church. In Barth’s view, dogmatics presupposes being a free participant in the Church’s life.³ Dogmatics, therefore, is a science of the Church.⁴

The Church’s primary task, according to Barth, is the “proclamation of the Gospel in witness to the Word spoken by God.”⁵ This understanding of the Church tightens the definition above: dogmatics is a science employed to understand whether or not the Church is, in fact, “proclaiming the Gospel in witness to the Word spoken by God.”

Barth asserts that “dogmatics measures the Church’s proclamation by the standard of the Holy Scriptures, of the Old and New Testaments [...]. We cannot pursue dogmatics without this standard being kept in sight.”⁶ Additionally, though less significantly, the Church’s proclamation is measured by the Church’s Confessions. Dogmatics is not limited by a “chronological snobbery.”⁷ Christians of other eras have left modern Christians an abundance of faithful and insightful interpretations of the Gospel, and their witness may be the key to the question: what should the Church say today?

Barth concludes: “We call dogma only that which has validity for the Church, that is, only that which reproduces the Word of God [...]. The correction, the deepening, the increasing precision of what is taught in our Church can only be God’s work although not apart from [human] effort. One part of this effort is dogmatics.”⁸

The critical approach to the Credo, then, can be defined as dogmatics, that is, as the asking of a critical question: is it proper for the Church to speak the Credo? That is, is the Credo a “reproduction” of the Word of God?

Footnotes:

1. Barth, Dogmatics in Outline (New York: Harper & Row, 1959) and Jennings, Loyalty To God: The Apostles Creed in Life and Liturgy (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992). ↩
2. Dogmatics In Outline, 9.↩
3. ibid. , 9, 10.↩
4. ibid. , 10.↩
5. ibid. , 11, 12.↩
6. Dogmatics In Outline, 13.↩
7. C.S Lewis.↩
8. Dogmatics In Outline. , 13, 14.↩

Posted by Tony Posted in Books, Posts by Tony, Queer / Theology, The Church