Living Belief: A Short Introduction to Christian Faith

By Douglas F. Ottati

A leading theologian’s concise guide to the beliefs, commitments, and practices of Christianity. 

What do Christians believe? But also, what do they do? And feel? 

With decades of experience teaching the essentials of Christian faith, Douglas Ottati still finds these questions—and more like them—dynamic and compelling. In Living Belief, he moves beyond trite answers, drawing from the deep well of tradition to offer up wisdom from the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Lord’s Prayer. In so doing, Ottati explores key Christian themes, such as creation, redemption, and love—of neighbor, enemy, and the weak and dependent. 

Concise and approachable, Living Belief makes no claims to be a definitive account of Christianity but rather attempts “to introduce a faith that remains a source of meaning and direction, that orients, that encourages and assures, that supplies moral standards and calls for contrition, and that furnishes grounds for perseverance and hope.” In connection with each chapter, Ottati includes questions for discussion, so that readers—those revisiting the core components of their Christian faith and those learning about it for the first time—can together continue the work, begun here, of understanding the multifaceted life of devotion that is Christianity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781467465427

Douglas F. Ottati

 Douglas F. Ottati is the Craig Family Distinguished Professor of Reformed Theology and Justice at Davidson College in North Carolina. He taught for many years at what is now Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and is a past president of the Society of Christian Ethics. He is also a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Among his other books are A Theology for the Twenty-First Century and Hopeful Realism: Reclaiming the Poetry of Theology.

Book preview

Part One

THE APOSTLES’ CREED

1

The Text, History, and General Theology of the Apostles’ Creed

Our focus in part one ( chapters 1 through 9 ) is on the Apostles’ Creed, a text we will use as a guide to some key Christian affirmations and beliefs. A traditional English translation of the Latin text recorded in 1568, and still used today in many churches, is as follows: ¹

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.²

This important summary of Christian faith comes to us from early medieval Europe, but the longer story of creedal statements begins already with the Bible.

Biblical Recitals and Summaries

Consider the Song of Miriam in Exodus 15:20–21, one of the oldest biblical texts. It is a recital that commemorates a central and even religiously determinative event.

Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. And Miriam sang to them: Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

These few lines indicate that a woman named Miriam was an important prophet, and that prophecy can involve singing and dancing.³ They rehearse and respond to the escape of Hebrew slaves from Egyptian armies—a crucial part of the exodus, the most fundamental saving event in the Hebrew Scriptures. Substantively, Miriam’s song indicates that the Lord (YHWH) is the God who liberates Israel and brings the Hebrews up out of slavery to become an independent people and nation. The glorious triumph of the Lord is this act of deliverance. The recital, which is a way to ritualize and remember, affirms that God is Israel’s Deliverer and Redeemer, while the dancing with tambourines marks and celebrates the event with gratitude.

There are other summaries in the Hebrew Scriptures as well. A famous one is the Shema Israel in Deuteronomy 6:4–9.

Hear, O Israel [Shema Israel]: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

These words, which Moses speaks just after having delivered the law to the people of Israel, serve another crucial function. They remind the people of the core of their faith and also the importance of the commandments, or of the law given through Moses that enables slaves who have escaped oppression to live a good life together in their own society.

Deliverance, allegiance to the God who bestows a good life together, the law that makes this good life possible—why summarize these things? These elements, though sometimes complicated and rather lengthy, also need to be handed down to children, discussed and reflected upon, internalized, and held in the Hebrews’ hearts if their community is to retain its integral identity and way of living. Repetitive remembrance and recital are ways to internalize heartfelt devotion, means to form people in a set of beliefs, a worldview, a loyalty, and a collection of moral norms. The continuation of Israel as a people devoted and obedient to the Deliverer who brought them up out of Egypt depends on these practices. The integrity of the people of God hinges on repetitive remembrances.

Turn now to the New Testament. First Corinthians 15:1–11, a text to which we shall return again and again, includes yet another recital and creed-like summary.

Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

Note that here Paul reminds the Christian community at Corinth of what he proclaimed to them earlier, a message that he had also received from others. When he proclaimed it to them earlier, he was handing on the good news (or the gospel) through which he believes they are being saved, if they hold to it firmly.

This is a good place to observe that the word tradition, which so many moderns associate with an inert and dead past, actually means the continuing activity of handing on something to others and to subsequent generations. So here we have a bit of tradition, or Paul transmitting what was transmitted to him. Now, handing on commitments, values, and practices to communities in different places and to subsequent generations is no rote or uncreative activity. The traditions of democracy, liberal arts education, and jazz saxophone pretty clearly demonstrate this. Still, it’s important to focus on Paul’s summary of just what he received and then handed on, which I have placed in italics in the passage from 1 Corinthians above. The summary—Christ died for our sins, was raised, and then appeared to followers—amounts to a brief recital of the gospel, a concentrated statement of the fuller saving event of Jesus Christ. It is a part that stands for a whole, or for a longer message. It is something like Miriam’s song and something like a creed, and it needs to be repeated, remembered, and reflected upon again and again.

If we suppose that the summary is something like a basic melody, then, rather like a jazz saxophonist, Paul elaborates on it creatively in Romans 6 when he says that we die with Christ so that we too may be raised up to walk in newness of life. There in Romans, he claims that part of the meaning of the gospel is that our old self is crucified so that we may die to sin and become servants of righteousness. That is, he applies the basic melody, the message of Jesus’s death and resurrection, somewhat metaphorically to the present lives of faithful people.

But consider also that the emergence of recitals or summaries represents an effort to ensure continuity by devising more or less fixed literary compositions. The coherence of the summary enables the integrity and survival of the religious movement. Does the community continue to ponder the same message, to understand and enact itself in light of the same saving events, the same commitments, and the same Lord? Does it play the same song? Yes it does, but only if it hands on the same good news and then also interprets the message in preaching, teaching, and worship.

Unsurprisingly, then, the rise of creed-like summaries goes together with the emergence of social structures and forms of institutional leadership that enable the community to hand on and to ritualize the message. Paul, therefore, is also concerned to say in 1 Corinthians 15 that Christ has appeared to followers and apostles, or to those authorized to hand on the authentic teaching to others. This is why, once he completes his recital of what Christ endured, as well as a list of Christ’s appearances to Cephas, then to the twelve, and then to James, then to all the apostles, Paul finally turns to his own experience. Last of all, … he appeared also to me. Thus, while Paul says [I am] the least of the apostles … because I persecuted the church, he claims that by the grace of God he, too, is an apostle. (He also insists—momentarily succumbing to a touch of egoism—that I worked harder than any of them. But then he recovers to say, Though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.) In any case, a fundamental claim here is that he, too, is authorized to proclaim the authentic message (though there are others who are not). Thus, whether his readers heard Paul or any of the other apostles, they heard the same (authorized) message. Indeed, that Paul believes there are others who are authorized to baptize and to teach seems apparent from 1 Corinthians 1:10–17, where he says that he baptized only some members of the Corinthian congregation, and from 3:1–9, where he says, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. But that he believes there also are false apostles who proclaim a different gospel is apparent from 1 Corinthians 11:3–6: For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different Spirit … or a different gospel …

Turn now to another key text—the words of the risen Christ in Matthew 28:19–20 that later become the core of Christian creeds during the first and second centuries.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

This sometimes is called the Great Commission. Why? Because here, following his crucifixion and appearance to Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph after they have left the empty tomb, the risen Jesus charges the eleven remaining disciples (the Twelve minus Judas) to go to all peoples and to baptize and teach. These are the only appearances narrated in the Gospel of Matthew, and the second one forms an especially crucial link to the subsequent gathering of the church in the ancient Mediterranean world. Moreover, embedded in the commission there is a Trinitarian formula—in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—essential to the liturgical practice of baptism and in close connection with appropriate teaching.

We see in these New Testament passages, then, a movement similar to the one toward fixed roles, formulas, and practices discernible in the passages from Deuteronomy and Exodus mentioned above. Deuteronomy 6:4–9 tells the Israelites to recite a summary to their children, and it commends regular repetitions, conversations, and devotions in the evening and the morning. That is, it commends regular practices of devotion. Miriam, as we noted earlier, is not only a singer and a dancer but also a prophet. She fulfills an important function by repeating and celebrating a message about the escape from Egypt that is also the substance of the song of Moses in Exodus 15:1. As an apostle, Paul hands on and teaches from the message he has received (1 Cor. 15:3). Matthew 28:19–20 portrays the commissioning of the disciples to baptize according to the formula of Father, Son, and Spirit and also to teach.

The Development of the Apostles’ Creed

How and why did the Apostles’ Creed emerge? Illuminated manuscripts sometimes portray each apostle contributing a word or a phrase. For example, a manuscript from circa 1300 preserved in the Mazarine Library of Paris depicts Peter saying the first line, I believe in God the Father, omnipotent Creator of heaven and earth, Andrew following with And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, and so on.⁴ Historically, this is far-fetched, though perhaps we may take it to illustrate the claim that the substance of the creed remains consistent with the teachings of early Christian communities.

What we know about the development of the Apostles’ Creed is a bit different from what the medieval pictures imply. It owes much to the emergence of local creedal statements that were used to summarize a course of catechetical instruction when people (very often adults) were received into the membership of congregations through baptism in both the Greek-speaking East and the Latin-speaking West. Initially, the practice was for candidates to respond to a series of questions modeled on the injunction of Matthew 28:19–20. For example, Do you believe in God the Father? Answer: I believe. This was followed by a question about Jesus Christ and another about the Spirit. Then, after the candidate’s affirmations, she or he was immersed.

The questions and answers developed over time into local declaratory creeds. These statements were handed down by specific congregations, and while they were similar, they were not identical. In 325 CE a local declaratory creed of the Greek or Eastern type (much like the one in use at Caesarea) was modified at Nicaea by a formal council of church fathers called by the Emperor Constantine. The council’s purpose was to settle some theological disputes concerning the Father and the Son, as well as to regularize institutional and liturgical practices such as the appointment of bishops and the practice of standing to offer prayers in services from Easter to Pentecost. A subsequent council at Constantinople in 381 CE expanded the third affirmation in the creed, concerning the Holy Spirit. Except for a change made only in the West during the late fourth or early fifth century, when communities in Spain added that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son rather than from the Father alone, the text of what we call the Nicene Creed is the one agreed upon in 381. Here is an English translation:

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, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with 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, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who 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.⁵

We shall have more than one occasion as we proceed to refer to this important statement and also compare it with the text of the Apostles’ Creed. For now let me emphasize that, whereas the older local creeds were for catechumens, the Nicene Creed was a somewhat more elaborate and technical creed devised as the touchstone by which the doctrines of Church teachers and leaders might be certified as correct.⁶ Its technical character is especially apparent in the phrase italicized above, of one Being with the Father (Greek homoousion tō Patri), that does not itself appear in the Bible and that, in turn, precipitated subsequent reflections about the Trinity, as well as about Christ’s divine and human natures.

By contrast, the Apostles’ Creed developed over time from a local Latin creed in use at the church at Rome, which was preeminent in the West. But it was never worked on or revised at a formal council by a group of bishops and theologians charged with resolving theological disputes. Here is one historian’s reconstruction of a version in use at Rome sometime during the second century:

I believe in God the Father Almighty,

and in Christ Jesus, His only Son, our Lord,

and in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh.⁷

It is entirely possible that the words His only Son and our Lord are later additions to a still earlier core. The same may be true of the holy Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of flesh. In that case, the early core was I believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Christ Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit. But even when the additions are included, note the comparative brevity and simplicity of the second-century statement.

The creed continued to develop during subsequent centuries within the context of Western Christianity that came to dominate Europe. The received version with which we began this chapter achieved authoritative status in the West when, in an effort to standardize baptismal services as well as doctrinal teaching, Emperor Charlemagne (d. 814) elevated to wider use a local creed in use at Arles, in northern France, and in southern Germany. This creed was to be studied together with the Lord’s Prayer, and its elevation was part of a drive toward liturgical uniformity and improvements to the education of clergy and catechumens alike. It was this comparatively new baptismal confession, says J. N. D. Kelly, that the church from beyond the Alps then handed back to the church at Rome.⁸

As we have noted, the second-century Roman creed already shows signs of development from an earlier core. Yet when we compare it with the received text from 1568, we see that the later text, the one still in use by so many churches today, is quite significantly expanded. This is especially the case with respect to affirmations about Jesus Christ, but also with respect to the statements about God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

One way to approach the theology of the Apostles’ Creed is to ask after the significance of specific terms and phrases in relation to the Trinitarian core, as well as about the changes that were introduced over time. Why, for example, add Maker of heaven and earth to the initial affirmation of God the Father Almighty? Why does the earlier Roman text use the expression Christ Jesus, whereas the received text says Jesus Christ? What is the importance of the rather lengthy series of sentences that were added about Jesus Christ, including the claims that he descended into hell and then ascended into heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand? Are the items that follow the Holy Spirit simply a list of disconnected things it seemed wise not to leave out, or do they bear some integral relations to the Spirit and its work? Why does the traditional English translation of the received text refer to the resurrection of the body, whereas the translation of the earlier Roman creed speaks of the resurrection of flesh? Why in both the earlier and the received texts does sin only come in for explicit mention following the Holy Spirit, and then only in connection with forgiveness? These are among the questions we shall ask.

Interpreting the Basic Theology of the Apostles’ Creed

To initiate a preliminary estimate of the theology of received text of the Apostles’ Creed, consider two classical commentators: Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the late medieval scholastic Catholic theologians, and Martin Luther, the monk and preacher who became a central figure in the early phase of the Protestant Reformation. Aquinas delivered a set of sermon-lectures on the Apostles’ Creed to laypeople at Naples during Lent of 1273, about a year before he died. His lectures are catechetical instruction for adults, and his Lenten cycle probably included sermons on the Lord’s Prayer, possibly also the Hail Mary and the Ten Commandments.⁹

In any case, informed by the traditional notion that the Apostles’ Creed contains twelve articles of faith, Aquinas focuses each of his sermon-conferences on just a few words—for example, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, or the holy catholic Church. Conflating the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, as he sometimes does, Aquinas devotes the first sermon to the words I believe in one God (Credo in unum Deum), and his opening sentence says, "the first thing necessary for any Christian is faith [fides]," thus introducing an alternative Latin term for believing.

Faith, says Aquinas, yields four benefits, and these clearly indicate that, for him, faith is more than merely believing that God exists. Through faith the soul is wedded to God; and thus there is a changed relationship with God symbolized by baptism. Again, faith begins eternal life, or a relationship that lasts forever. Third, faith has practical significance; it guides the present life because it teaches all those things necessary for living well, such as there is one God, who rewards good and punishes evil. Fourth, it invests people with the power to resist both worldly and devilish temptations, such as enticements of prosperity and fears of adversity, because through faith (per fidem) we know (cognoscimus) that God rules all and we "believe [credere] that there is a better life than this one."¹⁰

Following his description of faith’s benefits, Aquinas responds to a key objection, namely that "it is foolish to believe [credere] in what is not seen. He notes that we must believe because the human intellect is weak. Indeed, we believe what God says because the divine intellect infinitely surpasses our own, as well as the intellects of the best philosophers and the angels. Moreover, to live in this world we must believe some things we do not know with certainty. "How would anyone be able to live unless they put belief in [crederet] someone? How would they even believe who their own father might be?"¹¹ So we note that believing indicates a kind of trust. Finally, Aquinas asserts that God uses miracles to confirm the truth of what faith teaches, especially the miracle of the conversion of persons to Christ. He elaborates this last claim, somewhat humorously, as follows. Either the conversion of pagans, the wise, the rich, the powerful, and the multitude is miraculous, in which case, he says, I have made my point. Or, if it is not miraculous, I say that there cannot be a greater miracle than that the world should be converted without miracles. No need to search further.¹²

Scroll forward. Luther preached a sermon on the creed as part of a series on the catechism (including sermons on the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer) in 1528. (As an aside, it is interesting to note that both Aquinas and Luther—two of the most important theologians in the history of Christianity— spent some of their time teaching laypeople.) In the Large Catechism, Luther asks what it means to have a god, and he answers, a god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need. To have faith in a god, therefore, is to trust or have confidence in that god with one’s whole heart. For these two things belong together, faith and God. Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, is really your god.¹³

This line of thinking clearly leaves room for more than a few forms of idolatry, and it also indicates that theology may have a broader relevance than many often suppose. We may, for example, place our heartfelt confidence and trust in the pursuit of wealth or in the might of the nation. We may rely on these false gods to furnish life with meaning and direction; we may take refuge in them when we are distressed, and our theologies may therefore be presented as theories of rational economic interest or as political ideologies. For now, however, let me simply emphasize that Luther understands the first line of the Apostles’ Creed, "I believe [Credo] in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth," to mean that I have heartfelt confidence in this God. I trust the transcendent and almighty Creator of heaven and earth, and this trust or heartfelt confidence thrusts my life into a broader context and lends to it a certain meaning and direction.

Luther departs from the older tradition which held that the creed contains twelve articles of faith. He notes that his audience, which he claims are the uneducated and the children, has heard preaching on twelve articles of the Creed in times past, and one might easily divide it further still since every word has significance. But instead you should divide the Creed into the main parts indicated by the fact that there are three persons. The articles, in fact, correlate with three questions. What do you believe about the Father? Answer: He is the creator. About the Son? He is the redeemer. About the Holy Spirit? He is the sanctifier. So, for Luther, each article focuses on a specific activity of God in relation to us. The first one teaches how we are created together with all creatures; the second, how we are redeemed; the third, how we are to become holy and pure.¹⁴

The essential meaning of confessing the first article, for Luther, is that I believe in and trust in God the Creator, the giver of all good gifts, including my own life and capacities. God has given to me body, soul, good eyes, reason, a good wife, children, fields, meadows, pigs, and cows (a list that, today, one surely would modify).¹⁵ Of myself, I would be and have nothing. Everything that exists is comprehended in that little word ‘creator.’ This, according to Luther, should induce both gratitude and humility. Do not let us think we have created ourselves, as the proud princes do. Here, in a turn of phrase as pertinent today as it was in 1528, Luther makes a fundamental point. No one, not even a powerful political figure, is literally self-made; all owe everything to the Creator. Practical consequences follow. We live and move within God’s world of good gifts, and so, because of our indebtedness, we ought to serve, obey, praise and thank God.¹⁶

Luther’s comments on the second article emphasize that Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, has become my Lord … by freeing me from death, sin, hell, and all evil.¹⁷ These other lords whom we have served—remember, Luther is a sixteenth-century thinker for whom the words my lord have a number of applications—have all been conquered and driven out and in their stead there has been given to us … the Lord of righteousness, salvation, and all good. That is, Jesus has become your Lord because he has redeemed you at great cost—not with gold, silver, or an army of knights, but with his own self … , his own body. For Luther, the whole gospel is contained in this article, and it means we are saved not by our own actions or works but through Christ. We do not earn or merit our own salvation by being good or being moral. Salvation is not a reward for good behavior, but simply an undeserved gift of grace in Christ.¹⁸ This fundamental idea, so counterintuitive to many people, is one to which we shall return. For now, simply note that if it is true, then we turn toward Christ and endeavor to fight against his adversaries out of gratitude for his act of deliverance. We should be moral and follow Jesus, not out of self-interest or to gain something for ourselves but, yet again, out of gratitude for God’s good and free gift. This is why Christian faith challenges some of our more ordinary motives for being moral.

The third article, says Luther, focuses on the Holy Spirit, whose office or function is to make us holy or to vivify.¹⁹ Aquinas