454 - Believing Three Ways in One God: A Reading of the Apostles' Creed

Believing Three Ways in One God: A Reading of the Apostles' Creed
By Nicholas Lash
Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1993. 136 pp. $21.95.

Nicholas Lash has given us the gift of a creative and evocative reading of the Apostles' Creed. The subtitle to the book is an important clue to its character. Lash does not claim to supply the reader with an authoritative interpretation of the creed. Rather, he gives a "reading" of this ancient creed, which has shaped and continues to shape the expression of the believing community. Lash's reading is often profound and genuinely expansive, and for this the reader is grateful. At other times, however, it is ambiguous. Lash has been strongly influenced by apophatic approaches to theology and so his exposition is at times opaque and circuitous. For this, the reader feels a sense of vexation. The end result, however, is a small book with many opportunities, not only for theological musings, and mutterings but also pastoral and homilectical angles and approaches.

Lash has a keen sense for the confessional and personal purpose of creedal language. He notes that the Apostles' Creed is declarative and narrative but also autobiographical. In other words, it not only states who God is but also who the believer is. The Apostles' Creed "does not simply say where the world comes from and where it is being brought, but where I come from and hope to go." This feature of creedal documents-that they help to shape and form the believing self-is a compelling apology for their continuing significance.

The apophatic fascination that Lash exhibits in this book can be seen best in his initial discussion on the nature of God and what it might mean to "believe in one God." He says, for example, "If God were an individual with a nature we could, in principle, presumably, give some direct account of what that nature was. But, since God is not a creature, an object of some kind, what we continue (nevertheless!) to call God's 'nature' can only be spoken of indirectly, under the discipline of negation, and in abstraction from the modes or aspects of our relationship to him." Here, one can see both the insight and the obfuscation. The insight is that language in reference to God is not trivially similar to language about concrete objects in our experience. The obfuscation, it seems to me, is taking this insight to an apophatic (or, perhaps Kantian) extreme. Surely we cannot give a direct account of the nature of God in the same way we can give an account of the nature of a rooster or a radio. But that does not

456 - Believing Three Ways in One God: A Reading of the Apostles' Creed

mean that our language about God must necessarily be indirect, negative, or abstract. At times, apophatic theology is helpful, corrective, and appropriately open to mystery. But it is not our only valid theological option.

Lash's trinity doctrine, as evidenced in his reflections on the Apostles' Creed, is an eclectic mix of sources and tendencies. For instance he says, "We have relationships; God is the relations that he has," and "there are three articles because there are, in God, three ways, three 'modes of being'. " Here we have a combination of classical simplicity doctrine, namely, a conflation of God and God's attributes or qualities as well as the old error of modalism. This eclectic mix of images and approaches Produces a trinity doctrine without clear contour and character.

Yet the purpose of Lash's exposition of the trinity is clear-and demonstrates again the genuine insight and discernment that Lash displays at times in this book. He says that the trinitarian structure of the Apostles' Creed affirms the "radically trinitarian character of human existence lived and understood within the framework furnished by the Creed." In short, Lash sees quite clearly that trinity doctrine has repercussions in the believing community and that the community can, in some ways, reflect the reality of the triune God.

The most innovative aspect of the book is Lash's use of verbal forms as key or summary words for the articles of the Apostles' Creed. That is, the first article, on the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth, is revealed by the word "Producing." The second article, on Jesus, the Christ is disclosed in the word "Appearing." The third article, on the Holy Spirit and the church, is summed up in the word "Peacemaking."

Lash does not propose these key verbal forms as a new trinitarian option. Rather, his purpose is to emphasize the dynamic, relational character of the triune God. There is much in these chapters on the articles of the creed that may be helpful for preaching and teaching the creed.

Leanne Van Dyk
San Francisco Theological Seminary
San Anselmo, CA