Are creeds “good” and useful for building Christian unity?
Some Christians cherish their creeds, while others are leery of them, but why this difference, especially between Christians who all profess to accept the principle of Sola Scriptura? Are creeds effective guards against compromise and heresy in the Church? Are they useful for upholding essential Christian unity? Or do they simply distract Christians from the whole counsel of God and divide the Church along religious lines of human tradition and dogma?
My purpose in this writing is to argue that Christians should neither rely on creeds, nor ignore them altogether. Instead, we should be informed but not bound by the creeds as we look together upon the full counsel of God’s word and seek to reach “unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness“.
And since I’m arguing that while we should be informed by creeds, we shouldn’t be bound by them, I thought it fitting to begin with a sober warning about what seems to motivate different people to reject creeds from R.H. Boll, who was born into a prominent Catholic family in Badenweiler, Germany in 1875, but who later traveled to the States and surrendered the dogma of his upbringing to Biblical faith and became an important-though-controversial voice in the restoration movement.
He wrote:
There are two sorts pleading for the abolition of creeds, but from utterly opposed motives. The one wants to shake them off that they may follow their own thoughts without restraint or fear of criticism; the other that they may enjoy the light and fullness of the whole word of God.
R.H. Boll on “Unity and Creeds”
Among those who dislike creeds there seems to be some who do so simply because they dislike being held accountable to any standard for what they believe and simply want to be free to follow whatever seems right in their own eyes. I’ve encountered such people many times, as I’m sure we all have, and discovered in them a fiercely divisive spirit that wrecks havoc on the unity of all around them.
Such motives are very dangerous, as Scripture says “no prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet’s own interpretation” (2 Peter 1:20) and wisdom teaches that “all a person’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs hearts.” (Proverbs 21:2). Since Scripture does not come from human will, it’s also not subject to private interpretation. Instead, God weighs the thoughts and intents of our heart as the one to whom we must give an account. We must answer to God for the things we believe. So those who want to simply venture out on their own to interpret God’s word as they see fit are in danger of deceiving themselves having no accountability.
Creeds are an important part of the Church ‘s growth and maturity because they reflect the understanding that has come before us. No Christian should be so arrogant as to presume that they stand alone enlightened! As is often observed, “we’re not the first ones to read the Bible“. So Christians should know and study the creeds because they reflect the thoughts of other serious Christians who have studied the truths of God’s word before them. And by reading the creeds that came before us, our own biases and errors in thinking are often exposed.
However, there is a vital flaw in the paradigm of unity that is based solely on creeds.
I think R.H. Boll identifies this fatal flaw:
Unity in Christ is the concord of many varying sounds. It is a “harmony of differences.” It does not consist merely in sameness and uniformity, but also in mutually supplementing powers and gifts. We are not one because we have identical concepts of the truth, but because each has his share in the same Life and in the same Truth and contributes his life to the building up of all. The whole truth is with the whole Body, and no one member has it except as he is perfected in the fellowship of all the rest. It is in our peculiar differences that the possibility of mutual helpfulness lies. Not because we are of the same type and thought and talent, but because we differ in these things, we are bound and welded together into one organism. It is because each supplies what others need and what all have not got, the members of the Body are mutually interdependent. They are also mutually corrective and balancing. Thus they grow up into him who is the Head “—Christ. From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part” (Ephesians 4:15–16, CSB). This is the unity of God’s intention, the symphony of a multitude of instruments under the direction of the Spirit of truth and love in Christ Jesus.
R.H. Boll on Creeds and Unity
Boll observes that unity “does not consist merely in sameness and uniformity [to] identical concepts of the truth, but [in sharing together] in the same Life and in the same Truth…” observing that “The whole truth is with the whole Body, and no one member has it except as he is perfected in the fellowship of all the rest.” Put simply, unity is not principally the result of sameness and uniformity of thought, but of commitment to one life and truth. Do you see the difference?
Unity that is based solely on conformity of confessions presumes that any one isolated Christian or groups of Christians possesses the whole of Jesus’ truth. But this is never the case, for just as “Jesus is the Truth”, so we are collectively his body! We all have a share in the truth of Jesus our Lord!
Now, does this mean that everyone’s truth is valid? Certainly not! But because no one person or one group can possibly possess the sum of all truth in themselves, it stands to follow that we need one another to grow up into full maturity.
I suggest reading and re-reading this passage carefully:
Ephesians 4:11–16 (CSB) — 11 And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. 14 Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. 15 But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ. 16 From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part.
Let me propose that we need one another to grow into the maturity that is measured by Christ’s fullness!
“Yes”, we have Christian brothers and sisters who are wrong in their theological persuasions. But we still need them, not for their errors, but for what they do provide that we lack. And perhaps the God who entered human corruption without corruption himself will even use their errors to humble us so that we might be even further conformed to the fullness of Christ!
A Dedicated Faith 