One Statement from the Creed: One in Being with the Father

Omar Berrocal

THE 123 Intro to Theology Father Clint McDonell March 24, 2010

Every week we go to Mass and proclaim our faith with the Creed. Our Creed is the Nicene version of our proclamation. This Creed has a statement that, although recited every week, we lack to fully understand; well, we understand it but we do not comprehend it, and it is One in Being with the Father. This same statement is in Spanish de la misma naturaleza del Padre, which literally translated means from the same nature of the Father. This translation makes a little more sense. Then, why do we use One in being with the Father? And, why don!t we use the same nature as the creed!s spanish translation proclaims? Along the third and fourth centuries one of the principle theological concerns was to dene the exact relationship of Jesus the Son to the Father. The Arians said that the Son or Word was the rst creature that God created the noblest of all, but still a creature. This idea is not in accord with traditional Christian belief. We can nd that it also conicted with Scripture, for Jesus had said, "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30; 14:9-10). So it was a question of whether or not Jesus was fully divine. Some of the early Fathers said that Jesus was "of one substance" with the Father. Some of the Greek Fathers, notably St. Athanasius, said that he was "consubstantial" (homoousios) with the Father. Is Jesus God in the same sense in which the Father is God? There was much discussion about the question and

this was one of the questions that led to the calling of the rst ecumenical council at the city of Nicea, near Constantinople, in the year 325 A.D. The bishops at that council rejected the Arian contention that the Word of God (Jesus) is the rst creature of the Father. They proclaimed instead that the Catholic belief holds that the Son is fully equal to the Father. They said that he is "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made." The council then summarized all of these statements in the key expression, that was to become the test of orthodoxy, by adding that Jesus is "one in Being (consubstantial) with the Father". The rst question has been answered. Still the question of the choice of words remain. Why One in being with the Father and not the same nature of the Father? The choice of words comes from Greek philosophy and the Latin version of the word consubstantial. Since most of us Catholics are not familiar with Greek philosophy and did not really know what the word "consubstantial" meant, the decision was made to translate the Latin consubstantialis (Greek: homoousios) by the English expression "one in Being". The hope was that this expression would more clearly convey to all the faithful the orthodox belief of the Church concerning the relationship of Jesus (the Son) to his Father. Although the word was Greek in origin, the idea expressed by it is implied in the words of Jesus in the Gospels (see Jn 14:9-10).

The Analogy of Being comes to mind in this topic. Jesus is not a separate being from the Father, as is the case among creatures when a man and a woman generate a son. The son has the same specic nature as his parents (similarity), but he is a separate, independent being (dissimilarity). Not so in the divine inner life. The Son is and exists by the same identical being as the Father does. This key idea was proclaimed by the rst Council of Nicea and is now found in the Nicene Creed which has been prayed by the Church since that time. We are dealing here with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In this matter it is always important to remember that there is only one God who is tri-personal Father, Son and Holy Spirit. By saying that Jesus is "one in Being with the Father", the Church is asserting that Jesus is fully God, just as the Father is. Both share in the one divine nature or substance. Jesus proceeds from the Father but he retains the same being as the Father. The signicance of the expression is that Jesus, who is one of us, is also God himself. This means that God is no longer removed from man. He has come near to us in Jesus of Nazareth: A divine man that walked the earth and died for us, to share the love of God, and forgive all of our sins.