Hey! Thanks for tuning in! Whether you're new or have been following along with the sessions, I'm teaching a class on the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381). In this week's episode, we start talking about the articles of the Creed, starting with the first article on God the Father.  

The first article of the Creed is THE sine qua non (without which, nothing) of the rest of the Creed and, arguably, of all of Jewish and Christian tradition. “It is the root out of which all the rest grows” (Johnson, p65). It contains, as a whole, the first critical theological judgment necessary for the development of an orthodox Christian theological grammar. Employing the linguistic principles discussed previously (i.e., positive, negative, and analogical language) we can affirm that the Creed, while not exhaustive or “full,” still speaks truly of the One God.

Here is the passage of Luke Timothy Johnson's book, The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters, which I read in the second half of the class:

“My aim [in the commentary to follow] is…to provide Christians a better sense of [1] what the words they declare each week in the liturgy mean, [2] how they are grounded in Scripture, [3] how they express the experience of the church, and [4] how they affect the way one lives as a creedal Christian” (p65; emphasis and numbering added). This is the framework for the rest of the book and will provide a nice handy "heuristic" for the rest of the class. So buckle up, 'cuz it's going to be a wild ride from here on in!

You can find resources for further study at my blog, hermeneuticaetc.wordpress.com.