We Believe is a six-part series on the Nicene Creed, which marks its 1,700th anniversary in 2025. 

“We believe in one God the Father almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.”—Nicene Creed

For millennia, the question was which god or gods people bowed to—Ba’al or Yahweh or Caesar, and so on. Today, the question is whether people believe in any god. In 1971, seven percent of Canadians identified as atheists or agnostics or claimed no religious affiliation; now they number more than one-third of all Canadians. Those who believe in God are a shrinking number. The fastest growing “religion” is “none.”

In the face of this, the Nicene Creed boldly asserts three things: God is one, God is Father and God is Maker. Let’s look at these three in reverse order.

Maker: Note that Maker is not past tense. God is not a cosmic engineer who spoke the universe into existence and then left it to its own devices. God is involved in the making of what exists in the present as much as in the past. And God will be the Maker of whatever exists in the future. Even in eternity God is the Maker.

God makes it all, things visible and invisible. People, wheat and algae. Electrons, black holes and prime numbers. God makes angels, principalities and powers. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). 

Father: The Maker is not just an impersonal “force.” That may do for Star Wars, but not for Christian belief. We believe the universe is held together by an intelligent personality that sustains its natural and moral order.

Look at how the world is put together. The universe is orderly, not haphazard. “The sun … runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them” (Psalm 19:4-6 NRSVUE). Scientists may be more prosaic, calling the daily sunrise and sunset a natural law. But scientist and psalmist are noticing the same thing—the world is an orderly place.

The universe discloses a moral order too. It is wrong to torture children, and we know that just as surely as we know gravity causes apples to fall from trees. We know that a loving marriage is to be celebrated as certainly as we know spring follows winter. Even when we violate the standards of morality, we can be grateful for the moral order built into the fabric of our universe. “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul…. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold” (Psalm 19:7, 10 ESV).

Moral order and natural order are what we would expect if the Maker of it all also has a fatherly concern for what he makes. Jesus teaches us to pray “our Father which art in heaven” (Matthew 6:9 KJV).

God our Maker loves people and opens the way for all to be children of God. We can have an intimate, unguarded, unreservedly trusting relationship with God, and the human spirit can respond, “Abba, Father” (see Galatians 4:6). 

One God: Some may think this is too obvious for comment, but there are implications worth thinking about.

When I say I believe in one God, I’m not merely saying that God is one of the things that I love, alongside politics and finances and family and sports. If God is my one God, then I should be devoted to him with my whole mind and heart and soul and strength and anything else that makes me up. Nothing else should compete. “You cannot serve both God and money,” Jesus says in Matthew 6:24.

All our decisions—whether they concern money, politicians and political power, our love for our family, our concern about self-esteem and success—all our decisions and concerns need to be tied to our belief in God.

Exactly how to fit these concerns together will be a challenge. However, if we truly believe in one (and only one) God—a God who is both Maker and Father—life will, in turn, be cohesive and unified. 

DR. JAMES READ was the executive director of The Salvation Army Ethics Centre for 27 years and was a member of the International Theological Council. His co-author of this series, Major Ray Harris, is a retired Salvation Army officer and author of Convictions Matter. Major Harris and Dr. Read attend Heritage Park Temple in Winnipeg.

Illustration: jozefklopacka/stock.Adobe.com

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