Colin Gunton and Ben Myers on the Apostles’ Creed

I’m reading through my collection of Colin Gunton books at the moment and came across the following passage in his essay ‘The End of Causality?’:

Tradition, as in the Apostles’ Creed, and even in the confessions of the rule of faith that are quoted by Irenaeus, attributes creation to the Father, salvation to the Son and life in the Church (etc.) to the Spirit. Dogmatically, that not only encourages modalism, but also draws attention away from the New Testament affirmations of the place of Jesus Christ in the mediation of creation as well as of salvation. That is perhaps the reason why the doctrine of creation is so often merely monotheistically, perhaps better unitarianly, construed. Rather, it should be said that creation, reconciliation and redemption are all attributed to the Father, all realised through the work of his two hands, the Son and the Spirit, who are, of course, themselves substantially God. There is mediation, but it is through God, not ontological intermediaries.

Colin E. Gunton, Theology Through the Theologians: Selected Essays, 1972–1995 (London: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 144–145

I suppose this quotation stands out to me because my local church is going through the Apostles’ Creed in a sermon series. When I was preparing my sermon on the first article (‘I believe in God, the Father almighty’), it occurred to me, fleetingly, that there is no explicit connection between that article and the second; there is no suggestion that creation is from the Father but through or by the Son, as there is in Scripture and in the Nicene Creed. This lack of connection possibly arises from the creed’s origins in baptismal practice, where candidates simply articulate their belief and trust in the triune God. Still, Gunton is right: the possibility of modalism, however small, is there. This is why it’s necessary for teachers in the Church to show the connections between the three articles, to show that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God and not different guises of one God.

There are quite a few introductions to the Apostles’ Creed available, but I want to draw attention to Ben Myers’s The Apostles’ Creed, published recently by Lexham Press. Ben is a gifted communicator and has the enviable skill of condensing wide and deep reading into almost beautiful prose. Here’s a quotation from a passage that particularly stood out to me:

In the ancient church, the confession of Jesus’ lordship began to change the way Christians thought about slavery. Christianity took root in societies that were rigidly stratified and hierarchical. There were clearly marked distinctions between men and women, rich and poor, Jews and gentiles, slaves and free. But the Christian community did not accept that people were defined by those social distinctions. All came to the same baptismal waters and confessed the same Lord. When they entered naked into the waters of baptism, no one could tell the difference between rich and poor, slave and free.

Ben Myers, The Apostles’ Creed: A Guide to the Ancient Catechism. Christian Essentials (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), pp. 38–39

If you’re looking for a thoughtful introduction to the theology of the Apostles’ Creed, I thoroughly recommend Ben’s book.