Reflections on the creedal statement of God

After the opening session of the council, I can say that I am, overall, pleased with the our creedal statements regarding the nature of God. I particularly agree with the statement of “One and only true God.” This emphasizes our belief in one God, it distinguishes our belief of God from other beliefs and the belief of more than one God.

The Arians provided a strong argument when trying to describe God. They claimed that the description they were providing was expressing the magnitude and power of God. However, their excessive wording was limiting to the nature of God. By enumerating God’s qualities, one is implicitly categorizing and narrowing God’s expansiveness. The best way to describe God is to simply describe him, to say he is “who is over all and in all and through all” and leave it there. Our creedal statement is less repetitive and excessive than originally proposed, and is adequate enough to describe God.

I do struggle with the use of the word “alone” in describing God. This language allows us to be led into separating God and Jesus. If we say Jesus is lesser than God, we are turning away from Scriptures. We can refer to John 1:1 where it states “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Clearly, Jesus and God are of the same being, and to hint otherwise is pushing us towards a heretical point of view and breaking the unity of God. As much as I may despise this wording, I forgo opposing it. My fellow Alexandrians have bypassed this issue and see the use of “alone” as acceptable. To break unity and a unanimous vote is excessive and unnecessary. As much as I may have my reservations, I support our creedal statements of the nature of God.

It is imperative that we have an understandable creed. One that is understandable to converts who have had no previous understanding of Christ and God. We want to unite the empire in Christianity, and we must unite in our formation of our creed. We have done that in the first part of three in the making of our creed, and I urge my brothers in Christ to continue to unite and to understand that compromises have already been made and compromises will need to be made. We need to listen to each other and not attack one another to successfully form our creed.