On creeds and what is important

So, why were certain things left out of the creeds (see my previous post)? I really liked the two replies that I received for some of the reasons listed. Let’s summarize:

1. I agree with David. The creeds were responses to circumstances at their time and place. They dealt with then current controversies. There is usually no reason to write a creed about something which is not a problem because everyone agrees on the theology. So, if there is no controversy no one writes about a certain subject. This is why trying to make arguments from silence is so dangerous. Sometimes the reason there is silence is not because the Church had no opinion, but because the opinion was so clear to everyone that there was no need to write about it.
2. Some converts do spend too much time on the Councils. Because we come out of the West, we tend to think juridically. That means that we make everything into a law. We have an extremely difficult time differentiating between law, rule, principle, and common sense. We treat every one of those classifications as “law.” And, so converts read the Council canons and try to mine them for the “laws” of Orthodoxy. But, that is not how it worked. In fact, just like the Greeks had four words for “love,” so they had more than one word to deal with the idea of regulation. In particular, a law was a “nomos,” but, they had a word called “kanon” that spoke to something that was more than just a nice principle but less than an unbreakable law. And, when one actually reads the church fathers on the subject of canons, one finds out that they treated theological canons different than what are called disciplinary canons. Over and over again, one finds Church Fathers from Chrysostom to Basil writing about exceptions to the disciplinary canons and about not necessarily enforcing them as written. Moreover, later councils, and even synods, made free to change some of the disciplinary canons approved by Ecumenical Councils. And, approved canonical commentators, such as Balsamon, not only recognize that the disciplinary canons changed, but even approve of it. Orthodox converts need to quit trying to mine the canons of the Ecumenical Councils for the laws of Orthodoxy. That is not really how it works.
3. Many theologians argue that the Early Church was concentrated on defining the Trinity and the Person of Jesus. So, Terry has a point in noting that the Nicene Creed is essentially Christological. Much of its time is spent on defining who is Jesus.

But, there were some controversies that never made it into the creed, why not? For instance, there were discussions that were akin to our current creationism / not-creationism controversy. Some of the Early Church Fathers believed in six-day creationism while others saw it as merely a poetical or allegorical passage in the Book of Genesis. At the other end of the Creed, there were arguments over the end-times. In fact, millenarianism was eventually declared to be a heresy. So, why did these subjects not make it into the Creed?

https://solomedicalsupply.com/2024/08/07/crx2qm1wx39 Well, I would suggest that when we meet with subjects that were debated, but over which no decision is reached, it means that we need to tread lightly before we declare what God wants us to believe. Yes, that means that no Orthodox Church is going to declare itself to be a creationist church. But, more than that, it means that many of us converts had built an entire set of arguments about the “truth” of Scripture based on a doctrine which the Early Church never defined other than, “maker of heaven and earth.” That is, the Early Church did not see creationism as being a lynchpin in a debate over Scriptural truthfulness, despite the fact that it was discussed. What about the end-times? Well, in spite of the arguments about millenarianism, and its being declared unbiblical, nevertheless, it did not rate high enough on the priority list to make it into the Creed. All that is said is that Our Lord Jesus will return again. In other words, the debatable details were not important. So, the Early Church did not see a particular eschatological viewpoint as being a lynchpin in understanding God’s plan for us.

Buy Alprazolam From India When the Creed (or the other canons of the Ecumenical Councils) fail to talk about a subject that was being discussed by the Early Church Fathers, it should warn us that it is probably not a subject that we should make into a “lynchpin” subject in our theology. Mind you, the subject may end up defined a little later in Church history. But, unless that definition is present a little later, we probably need to be very cautious in declaring it a necessary doctrine.

Buy Xanax France And, so, the silences in the Creed (and the other canons) in the presence of an ongoing discussion between the Church Fathers, generally means that we should take care and not be too dogmatic in our pronunciations on that subject.