At five years old, Thomas Aquinas is said to have posed to his catechism teacher the question of all questions: “But master, what is God?” The Creed gives us a succinct but inexhaustible answer. The one God, unlike any other being in the cosmos, is fully actual and unconditioned.
Furthermore, God is Father: he generates, cherishes, and directs all things. And God is Creator—the noncontingent source of all contingent reality.
Up Next in English
-
Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son
“I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ.” With these words of the Creed, we come to the heart of the matter, for all of distinctively Christian faith begins and ends with a particular person: Yeshua from Nazareth, the only begotten Son of the God of Israel—“Light from Light, true God from
true God.” ... -
He Suffered Death
What matters most about Jesus? The Creed centers not on his ministry, his teachings, his miracles, or his words, but on the great drama of the Paschal Mystery: the Son of God’s descent into godforsakenness; his suffering, his death, his Resurrection and Ascension. The risen and
ascended Christ, t... -
Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life
Following a Trinitarian structure, the Creed moves from the Father, to the Son, to the Holy Spirit, the Spiritus Sanctus, “the holy breath.” The Spirit is not a “what” but a “who”—the same God of Israel we adore and glorify—and he is Zoopoeion (giver of life), who has spoken through the prophets....
