We believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
begotten from the Father before all ages.
…
And we believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life.
He proceeds from the Father and the Son,
and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.[1]
1. In this essay, I quote from the version of the Nicene Creed found on the Christian Reformed Church website. This version of the creed is very similar in word choice to the one found in Norman P. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1 (London: Sheed & Ward, 1990), 24.
The Nicene Creed is built on the confession of God as one in nature and three in persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Motivated to clarify the identity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God incarnate, the Council of Nicaea framed its recognition of Jesus Christ as having the same nature as the Father in the context of God as Trinity.
The profession of this trinitarian account of God has architectural significance for the Christian faith. All aspects of the Christian life (doctrine, ethics, liturgy, mission, church, worldview) are shaped by it. The Father’s relationship to his Son and his Spirit stands behind everything about his relationship to us and the world, eternity and history, salvation and judgement. The biblical gospel stands or falls on the reality of God—creator, provider, and redeemer—being the only and true God as Father, Son, and Spirit.
Unlike the fourth-century heresy of Arianism, which depicted God as one and the Son as ‘similar’ but not equal to the Father in his deity, the Nicene Council understood biblical revelation as presenting God as both one and three. This articulation set a foundational parameter for Christian orthodoxy for the church to build on in subsequent centuries.[2]
2. For more on this, see Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Today, the trinitarian confession of the Christian faith is often assumed to belong to all mainstream forms of Christianity—Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant. In one sense, this is true. Formally speaking, all Christian bodies (be they single congregations, denominations, or councils/federations of churches) representing Christianity for the past thousand years have adhered to the trinitarian core of the Nicene Creed. They have embedded it in their confessional standards, recite it, and use it in their teaching and liturgies.
Protestant and Catholic Christianity
In his survey of the Protestant tradition, Scott Swain argues that the Reformers …
… were committed to the doctrine [of the Trinity]’s traditional modes of expression and to its propagation in the Protestant church. Many of the major Protestant confessions produced in the sixteenth century employed tradition and affirmed the early creeds as reliable summaries of biblical teaching.[3]
3. Scott Swain, “The Reformers and the Ecumenical Doctrine of the Trinity,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 228.
In other words, we can say that Protestant Christianity is Nicene Christianity because it is rooted in the trinitarian foundations of the biblical faith.
What about Roman Catholicism? In their widely acclaimed book Is the Reformation Over?, Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom survey the contents of the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), an important reference work that summarizes the teaching of the Catholic Church. Noll and Nystrom argue that evangelicals can embrace at least two-thirds of this catechism.[4]
4. Mark A. Noll and Carolyn Nystrom, Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 119. For an additional evangelical assessment of the catechism, see Gregg R. Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014).
This alleged consensus stems from a ‘common orthodoxy’ based on the ancient trinitarian creeds, like Nicaea, which articulate the triune nature of God, the incarnation of Jesus Christ as the God-man, the need for salvation, the reality of the church, the hope of eternal salvation, and so on. This is to say that Roman Catholicism allegedly espouses Nicene—and therefore trinitarian—Christianity. Indeed, the first part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a commentary on the creed and is structured under these headings:
- “I believe in God the Father” (section 2, chapter 1). This chapter includes articles on God the Father, God the Almighty, heaven and earth, as well as man and the Fall.
- “I believe in Jesus Christ, the Only Son of God” (section 2, chapter 2). This chapter includes articles on the incarnation, the virgin Mary, and the life, crucifixion, burial, descent into hell, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, as well as the last judgement.
- “I believe in the Holy Spirit” (section 2, chapter 3). This chapter includes articles on the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of the saints, Mary, the forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body, and eternal life.
This first part of the catechism is structured according to the wording of the Nicene Creed, and this pattern seemingly permeates the rest of the catechism. But before we rush to the conclusion that evangelicals and Catholics embrace the same trinitarian faith on this basis, let’s look more closely at the Catholic Catechism’s trinitarian confession, as well as what comes before and after it.
1. What Precedes the Trinitarian Confession is Misconceived
Before it refers to the Trinity, chapter 1 of the catechism opens with a programmatic statement that man is capax Dei, or ‘capable of God’—that is, man is naturally oriented towards God. This is not only the recognition of the religious dimension of human life but the belief in the inherent openness of humanity to God. Indeed, in their natural capacity for God, human beings are thought of as having an innate and permanent desire for God.
Certainly, Roman Catholic theology recognizes the debilitating effects of sin, but sin is not so bad that it undermines the ability of every man and woman to be ‘capable’ of God. Because of sin’s limited impact, grace finds in our nature a receptive attitude. Although sin has touched nature, the latter is still programmatically open to be infused, elevated, and supplemented by God’s grace. This ‘nature-grace interdependence,’ in all why Roman its various forms and degrees, is the reason Catholicism is optimistic about a human being’s ability to know God, to follow his will, and to cooperate with his grace. Roman Catholicism has a strong view of the intrinsic openness of nature, but a mild view of sin (see CCC 1849–1875).[5]
5. See the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). The number following ‘CCC’ refers to the paragraph being quoted in the catechism.
Because nature is seen as ‘open’ to grace, it follows that the physical world can be seen to transmit the grace of God. It is because of this that even an inanimate object like bread can be seen to become the body of Christ during the Eucharist. This openness of nature to grace also helps explain the ability of Roman Catholicism to embrace and integrate the whole of humanity into its liturgies, practices, and devotions (meaning that the Catholic Church often falls into syncretism as a result).[6]
6. On the ‘nature-grace interdependence,’ see Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice, 46–55.
Rome holds a view of nature that is tainted by sin but not depraved, obscured but not blinded, wounded but not alienated, morally disordered but not spiritually dead, inclined to evil but still having a ‘capacity’ for God. By changing our understanding of how we relate to God, we are most fundamentally changing our understanding of God: who is this trinitarian God, and how does he therefore relate to us?
It is no coincidence that the Roman Catholic understanding of salvation has always prioritized ‘participatory’ categories that presuppose our cooperation with grace. It has always refused the ‘declarative’ categories that focus on the primacy of grace alone and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness on the sinner.
This is, of course, in contrast to the evangelical emphasis, which sees that, while we retain our imago Dei, we have radically and permanently lost our natural capacity for God unless God himself regenerates it in our hearts. We find ourselves under God’s righteous judgment without any ability to bypass it ourselves.
Rather than the capax Dei, the evangelical faith insists on the coram Deo (‘in the presence of God’) dimension of life. Our life is before God, whose presence cannot be avoided whenever we try to escape him. We are always inexcusable. It is Christ’s righteousness, external to us, that saves us. This gift must be received by faith alone.
Here is the first crossroad that radically separates the Catholic and evangelical perspectives. Before we even get to any explicit reference to the Trinity in Catholic thought, we see that this prior commitment of Roman Catholicism shapes all that follows in terms of its doctrine and practice.
2. What is Contained in the Trinitarian Confession is Puzzling
Christ and the Holy Spirit
So, what happens when we do get to an explicit trinitarian confession in the Catechism of the Catholic Church?
We’ve already touched on what is covered in the catechism under each heading of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Looking more closely under each heading, we see that in the chapter on Jesus Christ, the Roman Catholic teaching on Mary is presented in terms of her own immaculate conception (CCC 490–493) and her perpetual virginity (CCC 496–507). In the subsequent chapter on the Holy Spirit, we find that Mary is the “Mother of the Church” who was bodily assumed[7] and is to be venerated (CCC 963–972) to the point of arguing that “the Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship” (CCC 971). What does the insertion of this Catholic Mariology—the study of Mary—in the articles on Christ and the Holy Spirit mean? It shows that for Rome, Mariology is inseparable from trinitarian doctrine. In a sense, the Catholic confession of Christ and the Holy Spirit opens the way for the Roman Catholic elevation of Mary. Mariology is not a separate attachment to the trinitarian foundation but an organic part of the Roman Catholic account of it. For evangelicals, much of Roman Catholic Mariology is an unwarranted development away from Scripture and, therefore, in contrast with the biblical revelation of God as one and three.
7. The assumption of Mary is the belief that because she was without the stain of original sin, Mary’s body and soul were assumed up into heaven at the end of her earthly life, and she didn’t suffer the corruption of the grave as a consequence of sin. For more on the virgin Mary, see Lauren J. Montenegro, “The Virgin Mary,” in The Nicene Creed, ed. Mark Gilbert and Leonardo de Chirico (Youngstown, OH: Matthias Media, 2024), 99–112.
8. More on how Roman Catholic Mariology undermines the trinitarian account of God can be found in my book: Leonardo de Chirico, A Christian’s Pocket Guide to Mary: Mother of God? (Fearn, Ross-shire: Christian Focus Publications, 2017), 83–87.
Despite the intention not to divert attention from the Son and the Spirit, Mariology tends to be an intruder into trinitarian harmony and an obstacle to fully appreciating who the triune God is and what he has done for us. Jesus says, “Come to me” (Matt. 11:28) and “no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6), but Roman Catholicism encourages people to invoke Mary for help. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us (Rom. 8:26–27), but Mary is approached as an intercessor.[8]
Evangelicals and Catholics may recite the same trinitarian formulations of the Nicene Creed, but there are fundamental differences in how they appreciate its significance, not least because major components of Roman Catholic Mariology are found in the Catholic view of the Trinity.
The Church
The other important offshoot of the Roman Catholic understanding of the Trinity is its doctrine of the church. In the Catholic Catechism, the blueprint of Rome’s view of church stems from the chapter on the Holy Spirit (CCC 748–959). Roman Catholic ecclesiology (the study of the church) is embedded in the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Spirit not only in its general contours (e.g., the church as the people of God, the body of Christ and the temple of Holy Spirit) but also in the specific Roman features (e.g., its hierarchical nature and the papacy).
If Jesus Christ is truly man and truly God (as affirmed in the creed), the catechism argues that the Roman Catholic Church, by virtue of “no weak analogy,” is also “one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element.”[9] In the words of a papal document of Pius XII from 1943, the Church subsists almost like “another Christ.”[10] Thus, the Catholic Church’s understanding of itself is based on a Christological point. As Jesus Christ is fully man and fully God, so the Church is a theandric (human and divine) organism united to Christ and one with him.
9. Lumen Gentium: 8.
10. Mystici Corporis Christ: Encyclical of Pope Pius XII on the Mystical Body of Christ: 53.
11. On the ‘Christ-Church interconnection,’ see Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice, 56–66.
12. Henri Blocher, La doctrine de l’Église et des sacrements, vol. 1 (Edifac, 2022), 151. ‘Monophysitism’ was the heresy according to which the divine nature of Christ had swallowed the human nature. Applied to the church, “larval monophysitism” means that the Roman Catholic view of the church is at risk of elevating the divine prerogatives of the church over its human elements. Blocher further argues that “Roman theology is too little Trinitarian” (156).
13. For more on this, see Matthew Johnston, “The Person of Jesus Christ,” in The Nicene Creed, ed. Mark Gilbert and Leonardo de Chirico (Youngstown, OH: Matthias Media, 2024), 49–66; Robbie Bellis, “The Work of Jesus Christ,” in The Nicene Creed, ed. Mark Gilbert and Leonardo de Chirico (Youngstown, OH: Matthias Media, 2024), 67–82; and Gregg R. Allison, “The Holy Spirit,” in The Nicene Creed, ed. Mark Gilbert and Leonardo de Chirico (Youngstown, OH: Matthias Media, 2024), 83–98.
14. Noll and Nystrom, Is the Reformation Over?, 147–149.
The emphasis on this ‘Christ-Church interconnection’ seems to forget that the church is still a divine creature, belonging to the reality created by God and marked by sin, while Christ is the divine Creator, the one from whom all things are created, and who is perfect now and always.[11]
It’s key that we appreciate the distinction between Creator and creature in order to avoid falling into the trap of elevating the church into a quasi-divine body. As French theologian Henri Blocher argues, in Roman Catholicism, a “larval monophysitism” manifests itself —that is, the church is attributed divine traits that override human ones.[12] Thus, we see that while Rome may confess the historical Jesus Christ as the Son of God become man and the Holy Spirit as God, the Catholic Church uses the same ‘Christ’ and the same ‘Spirit’ to support other doctrines and practices that are not biblical.[13]
Noll and Nystrom admit that when the catechism speaks of Christ, it interweaves him with the Church to the point of making them one.[14] This intermingling is unacceptable for evangelicals, who consider the exaltation of a created reality to be idolatry. On this extension of the meaning of ‘Christ’ in the catechism, Rome believes that the Church is endowed with the authority of Christ the King, the priesthood of Christ the Mediator, and the truth of Christ the Prophet. The catechism gives voice only to this interpretation of the Nicene faith.
While on first inspection we might observe an apparent ‘common orthodoxy’ based on the Catholic Church’s trinitarian confession of faith, we don’t have to look far to see that, actually, there is a profound difference in how we view the doctrines of Christ and the Holy Spirit (and therefore the Trinity).
3. What Follows the Trinitarian Confession is Wrong
After the deviating premise of our capacity for God, and after the compromising interpretation of the Trinity as the source for Catholic Mariology and ecclesiology, the rest of the catechism gives voice to the standard Roman Catholic teaching on the sacraments, life in Christ, the human community, salvation, the ten commandments, and prayer. The evangelical faith has significantly different accounts of how the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper work, how we are justified by faith alone, and how we are gathered in the church. The catechism uses arguments from the Trinity to support its contradictory theology on each of these points.[15] Thus, we can see that Rome’s account of the Trinity leads to doctrines and practices that are distant, if not opposed, to the evangelical faith.
15. For example, see the catechism’s sections on the sacramental economy (CCC 1077–1109), on grace and justification (CCC 1987–2011), and on the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church (CCC 2032–2040).
Nicene Christianity as a Common Ground?
While this is true at one level, we’ve seen that a closer look shows some cracks in this widespread assumption. While it is true that the contrast between the various interpretations of the creed becomes more evident in the areas of salvation and the church, both are inextricably related to trinitarian doctrine as the core of Christian theology.
As Gerald Bray puts it, “The great issues of Reformation theology—justification by faith, election, assurance of salvation—can be properly understood only against the background of Trinitarian theology which gave these matters their peculiar importance.”[16] Against this background, the alleged consensus on the trinitarian framework of the Christian faith is more limited than often thought.
16. Gerald Lewis Bray, The Doctrine of God (Leicester: Intervarsity Press, 1993), 197–198. On this crucial point, see also Michael Reeves, “The Holy Trinity” in Reformation Theology: A Systematic Summary, ed. Matthew Barrett (Wheaton: Crossway, 2017), 189–216.
All attempts to point to ‘Nicene Christianity’ and ‘creedal orthodoxy’ as the common ground between Roman Catholicism and evangelicalism are historically simplistic and theologically superficial. How the trinitarian framework is received, believed, and applied indicates a significant distance between the two traditions despite formal points of agreement. The words used are the same, but the theological worlds they open are different.[17]
