While I was away on vacation last week, I took the opportunity to read Bishop Robert Barron’s outstanding new book entitled What Christians Believe: Understanding the Nicene Creed. It’s short – only 139 pages – but filled with deeply insightful reflections on the basic tenets of our faith that we recite every Sunday at Mass. I strongly recommend it for everyone and offer some reflections on it to whet your appetite.
Bishop Barron begins with an excellent reflection on the very first two words of the Nicene Creed: “I believe.” Many of you will remember that the Nicene Creed began with “We believe” until a new translation of the Creed and several other formulas in the Mass were introduced in 2011 to be more faithful to the official Latin text. As Bishop Barron points out, the original Greek “pisteuomen,” (we believe) dates back to the Church Fathers during the Council of Nicea in 325AD, but as the Creed was passed on, translated, and used in liturgical settings, it became the Latin word “credo” (I believe). Bishop Barron speaks of this change as an example of “eloquent ambiguity” since there is value in both forms.
“On the one hand,” Bishop Barron explains, “‘we believe’ effectively emphasizes the communal and corporate dimension of the Church’s faith: we are in this Christian project together and never individualistically.” On the other hand, he counters, “the ‘we believe’ also allows us to escape, at least to some degree, personal responsibility.” He goes on to explain that “what is at stake in agreeing to this ancient statement is not a triviality. …Rather, the issues raised by the Creed have to do with where a person stands most fundamentally.” The rest of the book explains, with wonderful clarity, how each word and phrase in this milestone creedal declaration of the Christian faith calls us believers to attest to the radical aspects of our faith: belief in one God who, in His very essence, is love, who is one in nature but three persons, who created the universe by the power of His Spirit and saved humanity from the power of the devil by the humiliating crucifixion and glorious Resurrection of His Son.
Bishop Barron continues with a very important discussion of the second word of the Nicene Creed: “believe.” He asserts that “authentic faith or belief has nothing to do with naïve credulity or accepting claims on the basis of no evidence. Faith, in a word, is never below reason, never infra-rational. …Rather, real faith is supra-rational, above what reason can grasp.” He then offers this very powerful image: “If we must speak of a certain darkness in regard to the matters of faith, it is the darkness that comes from too much light, rather than from defect of light.”
Turning to the history of the Church, Bishop Barron reminds us that the “Catholic Church has long maintained that the existence of God can be known through the light of natural reason.” He observes that the “principal challenge to religious belief is coming, today, from a materialist and secularist ideology that often claims the warrant of physical sciences.” Bishop Barron goes on to explain that many today rely on the manmade laws of nature to explain the existence of reality. Turning to Paul Davies, the renowned English physicist, who asked, “where do the laws of nature come from?” Bishop Barron responds with the well-known argument that the then Father Joseph Ratzinger posited in his very convincing book entitled Introduction to Christianity, “that the only finally satisfying explanation for objective intelligibility is something like a great intelligence that embedded these sophisticated patterns into the structure of the universe.”
These first two words of the Nicene Creed are critical to the Christian faith. The Creed goes on to posit our belief in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and with the same clarity with which he spoke of the first two words of the Creed, Bishop Barron offers insight after insight for our reflection and edification. Again, I encourage you to read and reflect on this new book. It will serve you well in deepening your understanding of the fundamentals of our faith.