This week we begin looking at the content of the Apostles’ Creed starting with “God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” We take each of the key words in turn.
What does the Creed mean when it uses the very vague three-letter word “G-O-D”? What does it mean to call God “Father”? Is there gender in God? Is God more masculine than feminine? What does God’s “almightiness” mean? How does this particular God have power? Why do we need faith to believe that the Father of Jesus is the creator of the world we find ourselves in?
Lots of thorny—but life-giving—things to contemplate.
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Here is the quote from Karl Barth’s lecture on “the Father Almighty” from 1946 in Germany in the ruins of the University of Berlin:
“Perhaps you recall how, when Hitler used to speak about God, he called Him ‘the Almighty.’ But it is not ‘the Almighty’ who is God; we cannot understand from the standpoint of a supreme concept of power, who God is. And the man who calls God ‘the Almighty’ misses God in the most terrible way. For the ‘Almighty’ is bad, as ‘power in itself’ is bad. The ‘Almighty’ means Chaos, Evil, the Devil. We could not better describe and define the Devil [than by these words]…”
I would love if there were any lingering questions or comments about the teaching. We can keep the conversation going in the comment section of this post.
Here are a few of the books I drew on as resources for this teaching:
* Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline
* Ben Myers, The Apostles’ Creed
* Robert Jenson, A Large Catechism
* Chris Green, Surprised by God
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