Given
the Greek philosophical context of the Councils of Nicea (325) and
Constantinople (381) in which the Council Fathers articulated the Christian
belief and doctrine in the Creeds, it is helpful to come to an Aristotelian
philosophical understanding of the terms used in the Creed so that we may
understand it clearly.
The
Creed, as this word, which comes from the Latin word credo, suggests, is a statement of belief and it begins
accordingly: πιστεύω or, as the
Council Fathers actually put it, πιστεύομεν,
indicating that not only as individuals, but as a community do we believe (Decrees 5, 24). What we profess is a
shared belief, mutually substantiated and believed, revealed to the Church, not
only to individuals. It is what Aristotle would call ἔνδοξα, which is commonly accepted belief or opinion as
opposed to mere δόξα, which is simply
individual belief or opinion (Topica
100a30-100b24). This latter is an insufficient premise upon which to build
knowledge as Plato demonstrated in his Thaetetus
and Meno. Aristotle, however, in the
first book of his Topica, carefully
distinguishes δόξα from ἔνδοξα and further that which merely appears to be ἔνδοξα and that which really is ἔνδοξα (100b21-101a1).
I suggest that the plurality of πιστεύομεν
at the beginning of the Creed as written by the Council Fathers indicates something
of this same notion of ἔνδοξα. It indicates, that
is, a belief that is generally accepted and upon which it is possible to begin
true reasoning and not merely “contentious reasoning,” as Aristotle puts it (Topica 101a1-4).
Reasoning,
on the other hand, is 'dialectical', if it reasons from opinions
that are generally accepted (ἔνδοξα)….
Those opinions are 'generally accepted' which are accepted by
everyone or by the majority or by the philosophers - i.e. by
all, or by the majority, or by the most notable and illustrious
of them (Topica 100a30 -
100b23).
This true generality
of acceptance of the propositions made in the Creed is also indicated at its
end when it describes the Church as καθολικὴν, which means general or according to the whole (Decrees 24).
Further, the word πιστεύομεν comes
from πίστις,
indicating faith, trust, and confidence, which is more than mere δόξα. The Creed is not claiming an
opinion that what it professes may be true, but rather the confident assurance
that it is true. The πιστεύω does not
mean, “In my opinion there is a God,” but rather, “I have sure faith in God.” Aristotle
uses this word πίστις
in his Metaphysics when he
writes that “we can convince ourselves… by means of induction” (1067b13-14). Another translation might be, “we can have
faith by means of induction.” For Aristotle, then, πίστις indicates not merely an
asserted belief but a convinced knowledge that has been arrived at inductively.
All knowledge is built upon first principles, which “we must get to know… by
induction; for the method by which even sense-perception implants the universal
is induction” (Posterior Analytics
100b3-5). St. Paul might agree when he writes, “For faith comes by hearing”
(Rom 10:17).
Aristotle
writes, “Now reasoning is an argument in which, certain things being laid down, something other than these necessarily comes about through
them” (Topica 100a25-27). In the Creed,
the generally accepted faith (πίστις) is laid down and reasoned upon. Having
laid down the faith and begun from this established premise, then, the Creed
proceeds categorically to describe its essence. Aristotle lists his ten categories
thus: “Expressions which are in no way composite signify substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, or
affection” (Categories 1b25-27).
These categories describe a thing completely. That is what the Creed does with
God. It describes Him as completely as human words are capable. Herein I will
particularly examine the first four of these categories as they are used in the
Creed.
In
the Creed, the subject immediately follows the premise: “We believe in one God”
(Decrees 24). The subject, the
substance, the ουσία with which the Creed is concerned is God. A primary substance
is a particular thing itself. It is the subject about which the predicates are
identified and which itself cannot be predicated. For example, Aristotle is a
primary substance. Nothing is Aristotle except Aristotle. The primary substance
of God is God as we know Him, as He is revealed to us in His energies. Speaking
of primary substance, Aristotle writes, “Substance, in the truest and primary
and most definite sense of the word, is that which is neither
predicable of a subject nor present in a subject; for instance,
the individual man or horse” (Categories
2a11-13). “Father” is a primary substance. The Father cannot be made the
predicate of any other thing. Nothing is the Father except the Father. The Son
is not the Father and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. So it is also with the
other Persons in God. The quantity of the primary substance of God is three,
which is to say, there are three Persons in God, all identified in the Creed.
God is revealed to us and relates to us as Trinity. The Persons in God cannot
be predicated. While we rightly say that the Father is God, we do not
customarily say that God is the Father, because to do so would be insufficient
and would seem to exclude the Son and the Holy Spirit. God as God – the essence
of God – is the secondary substance.
Concerning
secondary substance, Aristotle writes, “In a secondary sense
those things are called substances within which, as species, the primary
substances are included; also those which, as genera, include the species”
(Categories 2a13-19). For example,
Aristotle is a man and a man is an animal. These notions of “species” and
“genera” can only be applied in a limited way to our understanding of God.
Nonetheless, there is a sense in which the concept works, I think. The essence
of God relates, by analogy, to the “species” and the spiritual nature of God
relates, by analogy to the “genus.” The Father, for example, is God and is
spiritual. “Of secondary substances,” writes Aristotle, “the species is more
truly substance than the genus, being more nearly related to primary substance”
(Categories 2b7-8). Here again, this works in a limited way. “God” is what the
Father is more absolutely than a spiritual being is what the Father is. Likewise,
Aristotle is more a man than an animal – though both are true. The essence, the
ουσία, of God is His secondary substance and it
is one and is unknowable beyond knowing that it is. God, as the One Who
Is, the Being One, the ὁ ὤν is, in
Aristotelian terms, the secondary substance, which is the absolute pure being,
the essence, the form. God as God is not the primary substance of God because
God is predicable to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each is God. The
Creed identifies the Father as God (“true God”), the Son as God (“true God from
true God”), and the Holy Spirit as God (“the holy, the lordly… co-worshipped
and co-glorified”) and it tells us that there is “one God” (Decrees 24). The Son is ὁμοούσιον with
the Father. The Holy Spirit is ὁμοούσιον
“together with the Father and the Son.” This one and only one ουσία
is the secondary substance of God. For this reason Jesus can say, “He who has
seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), not because Jesus is the Father in
His primary substance, which He is not, but because He and the Father are one
in their secondary substance (John 10:30). That is, they are both God.
Aristotle’s
second category is quantity, which has already been addressed to some degree in
that I have pointed out the Creed’s assertion that there is one God and three
Persons in God. However many primary substances there are, there is always only
one secondary substance, which is the form of the thing. There are billions of
people, of which Aristotle is one, and yet there is one human nature which all
people share. “Quantity is either discreet or continuous,” Aristotle points out
(Categories 4b20). The quantity of
the Persons in God as described above is a discreet number – three. Of continuous
quantities, Aristotle identifies many instances including time. “Time,” he
writes, “past, present, and future, forms a continuous whole” (Categories 5a6-7). The Creed refers to
this continuous whole only to point out that its subject, God, transcends it,
when it states that the Son is begotten “before all the ages” (Decrees 24). The Persons in God as God
are above this continuous quantity, unlike Aristotle who has a past, a present,
and a future.
The
only-begotten quality of the Son and the processional quality of the Holy
Spirit – both identified in the Creed – bring into focus the relational
category in God. Aristotle writes, “Those things are called relative, which,
being either said to be of something else or related to
something else, are explained by reference to that other thing”
(Categories 6a36-38).The very names
by which we identify two of the Persons in God in the Creed indicate relation.
The Father is Father as the one who begets the Son and the Son is the Son as
the one who is “only-begotten… begotten from the Father” (Decrees 24). The Son would
not be the Son without the Father and vice versa. Similarly, the Holy Spirit is
such as the one who is “proceeding forth from the Father” (Decrees 24). A helpful concept in Aristotle’s discussion of
relation is that “correlatives are thought to come into existence
simultaneously” (Categories 7b15). I
became a father at the moment that I had a son. Before I had a son, I was not a
father. As father, I came into existence at the moment my son came into
existence as son. In the case of the Persons in God, of course, it is necessary
to remember that this simultaneous interdependent existence does not come to be
but is “before all the ages” (Decrees
24). Aristotle continues, however, “Yet, it does not appear to be true in all
cases that correlatives come into existence simultaneously” (Categories 7b22-23). He gives the
example of knowledge, which is in relation to the object of knowledge and he
points out that the object of knowledge precedes the knowledge itself. There is
interdependent relation, independent relation, and dependent relation. Much of
the Creed is concerned with this latter type of relation, that is, it is
concerned with the relationship between God and Man, which most certainly did
not “come into existence simultaneously.”
It
is helpful to look at the side of the Creed that deals with the human and the
human’s relationship with God with the four causes that Aristotle identifies. The
categories help us understand God as He is described in the Creed, but the
causes help us understand that which God has caused. God as God is the uncaused
cause and so the use of causes in seeking to understand God as presented in the
Creed is futile. However, in seeking to understand the human of whom God is the
Creator and cause and which God became in the incarnation, it is
worthwhile.
The
first cause Aristotle identifies is the material cause, “that out of which a
thing comes to be and which persists” (Physics
194b23-24). This cause is notably absent in the Creed’s account of Father’s
creation “of heaven and of earth” and later of the Holy Spirit’s “life-giving”
because God created “all things both seen and unseen” – all material – out of
nothing, which is contrary to Aristotle’s belief in the eternity of matter (Decrees 24). However, the material cause
is present in the Creed’s description of the incarnation. Humanity having
already been created, it now provides the material cause of the incarnation
when the Son “became incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary [and] became
human” (Decrees 24). God the Son took
His humanity from the material of the human Virgin Mary by the power of the
Holy Spirit. The Virgin Mary is the material cause of the incarnation.
The
second cause Aristotle identifies is the formal cause, “the form or the
archetype, i.e. the statement of the essence” (Physics 194b27-28). The essence of the Son who “came down from the
heavens” and became man is God (Decrees
24). Yet, also, He took on the essence of Man. He who is ὁμοούσιον with
the Father also became ὁμοούσιον with
humanity and so there are two formal causes of the incarnation: the forms or
secondary substances of both God and Man. The form or essence of the incarnate
Jesus Christ is both God and Man.
The third cause Aristotle identifies is the
efficient or agent cause, “the primary source of the change or coming to rest”
(Physics 194b29). The agent cause of
the incarnation is the Holy Spirit, because the Son of God “became incarnate
from the Holy Spirit” (Decrees 24). As
Creator, God is the primary source of all that comes to be. In God, the Father
cannot be understood as the cause of the Son or the Holy Spirit, though some
may be tempted to come to that conclusion given that the Son is begotten of the
Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, because the Son and the
Holy Spirit, as God, are uncaused. However, the Father is the cause of the Son
being begotten and the Father is the cause of the Holy Spirit proceeding. It is
“from the Father” that the Son is begotten and it is “from the Father” that the
Holy Spirit proceeds (Decrees 24). I
will return to further efficient causes described in the Creed after I describe
for what purpose these agencies work, that is, their final cause.
The
fourth cause that Aristotle identifies is the final cause “in the sense of end
or ‘that for the sake of which’ a thing is done” (Physics 194b33-34). “For us humans and for our salvation” is the
final cause of what follows in the Creed: the incarnation, the crucifixion, the
suffering, the burial, the resurrection, the ascension, the session, the coming
again, the judgment, the kingdom, the prophets, the Church, and baptism (Decrees 24). All these things are the efficient
causes or agencies that bring about our salvation, which is “the forgiving of
sins…, resurrection of the dead and life in the age to come” (Decrees 24). This is a description of
our salvation, the final end of these acts of the Lord. These acts of the Lord
create the potential for our salvation, which we can cooperatively actualize in
ourselves by responding affirmatively to Him with our lives.
The
philosophical terms of Aristotle’s categories and causes are useful for
organizing our thinking and clearly expressing the truth that has been revealed
to us in the Church. It seems apparent that the Fathers of the First Nicene and
Constantinopolitan Councils allowed his philosophy to shape their understanding
and expression of the faith and it is good for us to learn his system of
thought so that we can more clearly understand them.
Works
Cited
Aristotle.
The Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed.
Richard McKeon. New York: Random House, 1941.
Decrees of the Ecumenical
Councils. Ed. Norman P. Tanner. Vol. 1. London: Sheed
& Ward, 1990.
