We now begin our examination of that summary of the core of Orthodox faith that is found in the Nicene Creed.

While every thing that is professed in the creed is true and its confession is essential to every member of the Orthodox Church, the creed does not "say it all." It is a useful tool, a summary statement of doctrine that has stood the test of time.

The first five words of the creed, "I believe in one God," will be the subject of this session. But first, some background on the creed itself.

In the year 325 A.D. a council of Bishops met in the city of Nicea, a "suburb" of Constantinople, having been summoned by the Emperor Constantine. Constantine was the emperor who put an end to the persecution of Christians by the Roman government. Christianity was on its way to becoming the majority religion in the Empire. There were disputes within the Church over various teachings and Constantine saw the turmoil as a threat to societal cohesion, law, and order. He charged the bishops with settling the major disputes regarding the teachings of the Church. The bishops didn’t seek anything new. Rather, they sought to resolve controversies by establishing what had been believed in the Church, everywhere, by all, from the beginning with increased clarity. What emerged from this council and the second council (Constantinople, 381) was the statement known as the Nicene Creed. It has become a widely used standard and summary of the Church’s most basic doctrine.

"Creed" comes from the Latin "credo," which means, "I believe." We will examine the following: "I," "believe," and "in one God."

Regarding the first person singular, "I," only on two occasions in the Divine Liturgy do we pray in the first person singular." They are the confession of the creed itself and in the prayer before communion ("I believe, O Lord, and I confess…"). Most often the prayers of the Church are collective, "we," "our," etc. Indeed the prayer the Lord Jesus Christ taught His disciplines begins, "Our Father…"

The personal professional of faith, "I believe…." is the entrance into the collective "we" of the Church. It is not recited – it is deeply, personally professed. Every time we profess the creed at the Sunday Liturgy, for example, we renew the essential condition of entering and remaining in the communion of Christ.

"Believe," deals with the critical issue of faith. Everything depends on whether or not we have faith.

There are two levels of faith, two ways of understanding or experiencing it.

First, faith is the acknowledgement that something or someone exists. In the case of faith in God, the first level of faith is the admission of the existence of a Being who is completely outside our sensual (empirical) experience.

The majority of the human population of the world believes in "god" because they conclude that everything that exists was created by some one (or some thing) and is not the product of blind chance.

Second, this God who exists is not some sort of vague entity but, rather, is a personal God. God is a real person (in fact, three persons) with whom we as human persons have an intimate relationship. Faith, if it is really faith, brings us to a level of personal trust in, and communion with, God. The entire Scriptural revelation is based on the response in faith of human beings to God.

I believe in "one" God. The God of the Judeo-Christian revelation is the one, true, and only God.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the God of Israel is the only God.

This claim, that the Lord God of Israel is the only God; is what sets Israel apart from all the peoples of the world - what makes the revelation that is given to Israel unique. And you either accept that claim or you reject it.

God is not the product of human imagination. He reveals Himself from outside the creation. He is the creator of everything that is. Even though the human creature is called to have communion with the Creator, there is an immeasurable difference between the creature and the Creator.

The attributes of God include such things as goodness, wisdom, beauty, truth, eternity, and holiness. Love is not an attribute. Rather, God is love. Our words that describe God are adequate but not exhaustive. God is ultimately beyond all of our words.

One of the most essential attributes of God is that He is eternal. God always was. God always will be. He has no beginning. He has no end. In God, therefore, there is no time. God exists outside of time. God lives in the eternal present, the eternal "now" (having no past or future). We are just the opposite. For us, as we live in history, there is really no present. The moment we speak of the present it is already past.

God revealed to Moses (Exodus 3:14) that His name is – "I AM WHO I AM" (Yahweh). Notice that God’s name is in the present tense. In the New Testament,

A second attribute to focus on is that God reveals Himself as the Holy God. In the Greek the word for holy is agios. The center of the word, gi, means that which is earthly, of this world, experienced by the senses. It is the same root that the word geology comes from. In Greek the prefix "a" means "not." The root meaning of agios, holy, is "not earthly", not of this world, not of human experience. The God who is "Holy" is "wholly" other – completely outside the experience of everything that is of this world. When God reveals Himself to those who He chooses to do so in the Judeo-Christian revelation it is always as the holy God. Encounters with the living God in the Scriptures are never casual or presumptuous. Here are a few examples.

Perhaps the most important illustration is one that colors everything one experiences when one comes to Orthodox worship because the whole experience of the worship of the Church (New Testament and Old) is this reverence in the presence of the Holy God - this response of faith to the one who reveals Himself as the eternal Holy One from outside our experience. This is the experience of the Apostle John (the apostle whom Jesus loved, who rested his head on Christ’s chest at the last supper). What happens to him when he encounters Christ in His Glory as an old man?

The falling down in adoration before the Holy One in Orthodox worship and the Jewish worship that prefigured it is essential. God is all and we are dust. God is agios and we are very much of this world. But God responds by calling us (creatures of dust, creatures of the past and the future) to share in His very life, His divine presence. Everything that we believe and profess in the Church is how He has made that possible, how that was His destiny for the human being, and how when the human being ruined that destiny He did everything possible to restore it. That is the faith we express in the words, "I believe in one God."

The infinite God cannot be comprehended by the finite human mind. Human reason and logic are among God’s greatest gifts and surely are to be used in our relationship with God. Nothing the Church teaches is contrary to reason, none of it is illogical, on the one hand. But on the other hand, it transcends – it is in the end beyond our intellectual ability. Ultimately faith in God transcends the emotions, transcends the imagination, and transcends the reason. When it becomes mature the emotions and the reason are able to act adequately within a mature faith. But the mature faith, the faith the that life in the Orthodox Church makes possible for us, calls us into the communion of that revelation that comes from the Holy God to the creation in general and specifically to the human person.

The next time we’ll speak of God as father and God as creator.