The Athanasian Creed Buried and Forgotten
What about the extremely polite Mormon missionaries who knock on your home door? Are they "Christian?" Do they believe in the same God?
Mormons believe that Jesus is the "Son" of God, but not God incarnate. What the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints means by "Son of God" is not the same thing that Christians have come to understand is the God of the Bible. When they come the next time ask them: "Did Jesus exist eternally as the Son of God, personally distinct from the Father, yet fully God?" And they will say "Well, no." Ask them: "Do Mormons believe that Jesus became the Son of God for his obedience to the Father?" And they will answer "Yes! now you're getting it!" Mormons are not Trinitarian. They believe that Jesus is Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, and although he is different from the Father (Elohim), he will always be lesser.
Orthodox Christians, Protestants and Catholics, on the other hand believe (as Augustine Bishop of Hippo taught):
1. The Father is God
2. The Son is God
3. The Holy Spirit is God
(And because the three existed before creation and are not just different names for the same thing...)
4. The Father is not the Son
5. The Son is not the Holy Spirit
6. The Holy Spirit is not the Father
(And because there are not three Gods...)
7. There is only one God.
"God in three Persons, blessed Trinity." What we believe about God matters. Can anyone other that the One who is fully God and fully man be an adequate atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world - the Great High Priest who sacrifices AND the Lamb that is sacrificed?
But, as Michael Reeves, rightly observes, “All of this [Augustine’s proposition] is true, but it can leave one with the hollow sense that one has successfully avoided all sorts of nasty-sounding heresies, but at the cost of wondering who or what one is actually to worship.” He goes on the explain that knowing and understanding the Trinity is to understand that relationships within the Godhead picture for us the life we are invited to have with God and with one another. “Without Jesus the Son we cannot know that God is truly a loving Father. Without Jesus the Son, we cannot know him as our Father.”
Athanasius died on May 2, 373. He is remembered as the church father who fought long and hard for Christ’s full divinity. Five times he was forced into exile, yet he remained faithful to his conviction that Jesus is both fully God and fully man. Today might be a good day to read The Creed of Saint Athanasius. It’s named after Athanasius, not because he wrote it, but because the church believed it expressed the teaching of Athanasius. It likely originated in the century after Athanasius. The 1571 version, the final revision of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, ascents to the three creeds “for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture”: the Nicene, Apostles’, and Athanasian Creeds (Article 8). The 1552 and 1662 Books of Common Prayer required that the Athanasian Creed be used on the feast days of St. Matthias, St. John the Baptist, St. James, St. Bartholomew, St. Matthew, St. Simeon and St. Jude, and St. Andrew, guaranteeing that it would be used liturgically at least once a month. For flaky reasons it was dropped from the first American Book of Common Prayer (1789) and was not in American Prayer Books until the revision of 1979 where it was kept on ice in the “Historical Documents” section, and not appointed for liturgical use. The 2019 Book of Common Prayer purports to be based on the standard of the 1662 Prayer Book, and although the Athanasius Creed is found in the section titled “Documentary Foundations,” it is not appointed for liturgical use.
“THE CREED OF SAINT ATHANASIUS
Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith.
Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.
The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal.
And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal.
As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three
uncreated, but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and
the Holy Ghost Almighty.
And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God.
And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord.
And yet not three Lords, but one Lord.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be both God and Lord,
So are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion, to say, There be three Gods, or three Lords.
The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but
begotten.
The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is afore, or after other; none is
greater, or less than another;
But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal.
So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
He therefore that will be saved must think thus of the Trinity.
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;
God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man of the substance of his Mother, born in the world.
Perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his manhood;
Who, although he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ;
One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh but by taking of the Manhood into God;
One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person.
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ;
Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead.
He ascended into heaven, he sitteth at the right hand of the Father, God Almighty, from whence he will come to judge the quick and the dead.
At whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies and shall give account for their own works.
And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.”