“… and of all things visible and invisible.”

When the Creed refers to all things invisible it is referring to angels. God created the angels before creating the material world and human beings. The word “angelos” in Greek means ‘messenger” and being messengers is one of angels’ most important roles. We will remember that in St. Luke’s gospel we read about the angel Gabriel being sent to the Virgin Mary to tell her that she has been chosen to become the mother of Jesus Christ.
We know the names of only a few angels, but a 5th-6th century book, The Celestial Hierarchy, written by St. Dionysius the Areopagate, tells us that the angels are divided into nine choirs or groups. The highest of these choirs are those who serve God directly, that is, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. The choir closest to us is composed of Dominions, Archangels and Angels. Scripture and tradition tell us that angels are always around us, especially at the Divine Liturgy. In the Old Testament we read about the Cherubim present at the service in the temple in Jerusalem:
“In the year that King Uzzi’ah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;…” (Isaiah 6:1-3).

The Book of Revelation describes the Liturgy in heaven:

“And round the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and within, and day and night they never cease to sing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (Rev 4:6-8).

The four living creatures mentioned here are the angels worshipping before the throne of God. At our Divine Liturgy, during the Great Entrance when the priest carries the bread and wine into the sanctuary the choir sings the Cherubic Hymn showing the presence of angels:
Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim, and who sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-creating Trinity, now lay aside all earthly cares. That we may receive the King of All, who comes invisibly upborne by the angelic hosts. Alleluia!”
We can see the continuity of the presence of angels at work in the New Testament and the Divine Liturgy in the Orthodox Church.
In addition to angels being at Liturgy we all have our own Guardian Angel and we should frequently pray to them. One short prayer we can say is: “O holy angel of God, my guardian, pray to God for me.” There are other longer prayers to our guardian angel that we can find in an Orthodox prayer book either in print or online. Of course, in addition to the good angels there are the fallen angels, the demons.
These are the angels headed by Lucifer (or Satan) who rebelled against God. We read about this in the Book of Revelation

“Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world — he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” (Rev 12:7-9) and the Gospel of Luke: “And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:18).

No one knows for sure why some of the angels rebelled against God but many believe it was because Satan and his followers could not tolerate being subordinate to God because they were so filled with pride. We know that Satan wants to lead us into rebellion against God. We remember the devil in the form of a serpent tempting Eve in the Book of Genesis and Satan tempting Jesus in the Gospels during his stay in the wilderness.
In general, we see the demons being very active during Christ’s ministry, opposing Him in various ways. For example, Christ deals with people who were possessed by demons and we also see that Satan “entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve…” (Luke 22:3) leading him to betray Christ. But the Gospel makes clear that Christ has complete authority over demons and that Christians then and now have nothing to fear from demons if we put our faith in Christ.
In baptism we are set free from the powers of the devil and if when we sin after baptism, through Confession we are set free again from the Evil One. Finally, by partaking of Holy Communion we participate in the resurrected Christ and his victory of Satan and the demons.

Fr. John

Maker of heaven and earth…..

In this part of the Creed we confess God as creator of all that exists, the angels, the material universe and human beings. And right here we should note the difference between create and make. We, as human beings, make things out of materials which already exist. God creates from nothing. In in some forms of early Greek philosophy it was thought that God created out of something. This something might be without form, shape or dimension, but it still was something, some prime matter. However, we as Christians believe that God created from nothing.
It is interesting that human beings don’t naturally come to the idea of creation out of nothing very easily. In Greek and Indian philosophy it was thought that the material world was eternal, that in some sense it emanates from God and that at the end of time it will ‘retract’ into God. This is the cyclical view of the world. There is no beginning or end in the proper sense of these terms. But the Semitic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, believe in creation as revealed by God. In this way of looking at things the world was created at a certain time and will end at a certain time and is not cyclical.
We see God as creator in the first sentence in Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen 1:1) and following. Of course, Jews don’t believe in the doctrine of the Trinity so when they read this first chapter of Genesis, they see this as the story of an solitary God creating all things. However, we as Christians, believe that God is one in essence but tripersonal. And so when we read this chapter we see indirect pointers to the belief in the Trinity. For example, in Genesis 1:2 “…….and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters”. When we read this word spirit, we can see a reference to the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity.
The action of the Holy Spirit in creation is in Psalm 104:30, “When thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the ground.” And throughout this chapter we see “… and God said…” being repeated over and over. Here we see a reference to the Word of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, i.e., Jesus Christ before he came into this world. This is found in John 1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”
So, in a Christian reading of this chapter we see the three divine persons participating in the act of creation.
Another reference to the Trinity is in Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” because we see God using the plural pronouns “our” and “us” to express His actions.
It is probably worth mentioning that it is not necessary to take the six days of creation as six 24-hour days, as we reckon time now, although many Christians do take this literally. Even some of the early Fathers of the church saw these days as representing longer periods of time. For that matter, there was not time before God created it, along with the matter of the universe.
Of course, when non-Christians read this first chapter of Genesis they do not see the presence of the Holy Trinity. However we believe that God has guided us in this understanding show us the deepest and true meaning of the chapter and the whole Bible.

Fr. John

In the Old Testament God is not that often spoken about as father. God is described as a king, lord, mighty one and so on. When God is spoken about as father he is usually depicted as the father of the Jewish people and nation.
However, things changed drastically in the New Testament times. Jesus frequently addresses and speaks about God as father. The Aramaic word (at this time the Jews did not speak Hebrew. Hebrew was for scripture and liturgy, but they spoke Aramaic) is “Abba”. This is an unusual use of the word. Usually, when a Jew prayed to God as father he used a somewhat more formal term. Sometimes it is said the word “Abba” means “daddy”, but that is not quite the case because it is no childish word.
Rather it indicates a strong, mature love between Jesus and his Father. Abba is a word of deep intimacy and this is the usual way Christ addresses God. And, as far as we know, Jesus was the only Jew on record speaking to God in this way. Others did not, so the use of this word is one of the indications that Jesus thought of himself as the son of God in a unique sense. Sometimes it is said that Jesus did not claim explicitly to be God (except in the Fourth Gospel), but Jesus ‘ use of this word is an example of his having a unique relationship with God.
It should be noticed that in speaking to the apostles he never referred to God as “Our Father” but always made a distinction between how Jesus viewed God in relation to him and to his apostles. Some will object and say that Jesus taught his disciples the Our Father. This is true. However, it is not really an exception. When Jesus Christ was teaching them this prayer he was speaking as one of the apostles In effect, he was teaching a liturgical form rather than speaking to his Abba personally. An example of this way of speaking is found in Christ’s words to Mary Magdalen after his resurrection:
“I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (Jn 20:17)
To sum up, Jesus’ use of the word Abba to address God shows Jesus’ sense of having a uniquely intimate relationship with God.
However, Jesus did teach his apostles the “Our Father”. This shows that through our Christian faith we become sons and daughters of God. We never become God in substance, but by grace. We become sons and daughters of God through baptism.
Baptism is our “adoption ceremony” so to speak. As St. Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians (Gal 4:4-7): “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so  that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.”
We can see why Jesus gives us the parable of the Prodigal Son. The young man takes his father’s money and wastes it in riotous living in a far country. When he is completely out of money he realizes what he has done and decides to go back to his father and ask him to hire him as his servant. However, the father rejoices to see himand forgives him. This parable, of course, is for us. Through the sins we have committed we have distanced ourselves from God, but God is waiting for us to come back to Him. And the way we do this is through baptism, in which we participate, in a certain sense, in Jesus Christ’s “Abba” experience.

Fr. John

The Greek word for God is Theos. It is from this word we get many English words referring to God, as we shall see. For example, polytheism is the belief in many gods.
This belief was common before the coming of Christianity. In a Christian context polytheism was essentially the faith that the apostles had to confront when they began to evangelize the non-Jews. It has to be said, though, that by the time of Christ many of the philosophically-minded, educated pagans were moving beyond polytheism to a belief in one God, somehow beyond and above the many lesser gods and goddesses.
We now move on to monotheism, the belief in one God. This is common to Christianity, as well as Judaism and Islam. In addition, many Hindus are monotheistic. Of course, we as Christians believe in the Trinity, one God in three persons, but this doesn’t negate our belief that God is one. This doctrine is not based on philosophical consideration, but on the apostles personal experience of God made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. In other words, the apostleals, as good Jews, believed in God, but their experience of Jesus Christ, especially after His resurrection, convinced them that Jesus was God.
Atheism, of course, is the denial of the existence of God. Although there probably have always been atheists, their numbers are growing in our society and they are becoming more militant. One cannot prove the existence of God with arguments that would convert an atheist to Christianity, but we can certainly be witnesses to our faith and give reasons for our faith, but we should never argue. If we have friends or relatives who are atheists, the best thing we can do is pray for them.
Hinduism, of course, is basically polytheistic. However, there are many forms of Hinduism that are monotheistic. In addition, some forms of Hinduism believe in one,  divine reality of which everything else, the cosmos, human beings, the various gods and goddesses, are simply manifestations this.
Buddhism does not have any concept of God at all. However, it is better to say that Buddhism is non-theistic rather than atheistic. Buddhists themselves realize that atheism in its modern form is a reaction to Christianity, whereas Buddhism grew in a different context entirely.
If we look at the Judaism from which Christianity has arisen, the belief in one God is expressed more succinctly in the most basic creed of Judaism “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord….” (Deut 6:4)
Pious Jews recite this daily in public and private prayer. It is out of this creed with its uncompromising, monotheism that the Christian creed has developed. Although Jews disagree with the Christian belief in the Holy Trinity, it is a development of this monotheism, not a denial if it.

Fr. John

In our religion we often hear the word faith. We are told how important it is. We don’t want to lose it. In difficult times people may tell us to have faith. But what is faith?
In the letter to the Hebrews we find “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Heb 11:1)” This may not be a complete definition, but it shows that faith is something that takes us beyond our usual, physical, psychological world. It is clear that faith is not proof. Throughout the ages, philosophers, including the ancient Greeks and Indians, and later Moslems, have tried to ‘prove’ the existence of God. These attempts continued through the Middle Ages, though the Reformation and Enlightenment until today. There are still philosophers of different religions or no religion who try to prove the existence of God though philosophy.
It is clear that these philosophical arguments are not proof in a mathematical or scientific sense. Probably no atheist has become Christian simply by reading these proofs. However, if we think of these arguments not as proofs but as ways of understanding, they can be helpful. They can show us that our faith is not irrational.
They can also help us to make sense of the faith we already have. Faith can be divided into two broad categories: faith that something is true and faith as trust.
The first kind of faith is faith in the first sense meaning that some idea or concept or feeling is true. So, we say that we believe in God. This means that with our whole person, including our reason, tells us that there is a God, that God exists. We can call this faith propositional faith, faith that some proposition is true, i.e., “God exists”. The statements of the Creed are all propositional in the sense that we assent to certain statements. In this kind of faith the role of reason is prominent, but this kind of faith is not simply a product of reason. Our whole person is involved.
The second kind is faith as trust. In that sense we have a strong feeling that God or a family member or friend will always be there for us, will always ‘have our backs”.
This feeling is not something we can prove rationally. It is a conviction that comes from deep within us. It is a faith built up from experience.
Obviously Christian faith encompasses both kinds of faith. There is the intellectual faith that God exists and that all the other doctrines of the Creed are true.
This kind of faith is important. It is a statement about reality. It is not simply an expression of our feelings. However, this kind of faith is not enough. It is possible to intellectually assent to the existence of God and be a terrible person. As the Epistle of James says: “……You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe–and shudder.” (James 2:19) In other words, the demons and Satan himself know with certainty that God exists, but they are filled with such hatred of God that this kind of faith does them no good.
We need to trust God, to believe that God is there for us. How do we attain to this kind of faith? Partly this comes from looking at our lives. If we carefully review our life story, we can often see the hand of God guiding it. We can also learn this by looking at the lives of other people, whether they may be friends, family members or the saints.
One good way to strengthen this kind of faith is every night before sleep, look at the events of the day and our response to them. If we get in this habit it can help us to see God acting in our lives. Another way faith as trust is experienced is by answered prayer.
No doubt we can recall when God has answered our prayers. He may have not answered one prayer as quickly, or in the way we have imagined, but again when we look at our answered prayer we can see the hand of God.
Faith in both senses grows through the practice of our religion. We grow in faith through prayer, liturgy and the reading of scripture. If we neglect the practice of our religion we can hardly expect to maintain our faith.
We can see then that when we say “I believe in one God….” This is a response of our entire humanity, body, soul and spirit, to a reality which goes far beyond us, but is always present to us.

Fr. John