This is easy Matthias.
The earlier Christians were so be default....as we said: They HAD to leave the Jewish faith.
I see that I need to clarify my position: They didn’t have to leave the Jewish faith. They didn’t leave the Jewish faith. They eventually had to leave the synagogues.
Where I can agree with your point is that Christianity later did leave the Jewish faith.
They were booted out and thus had to start a new church - which were home churches at the time.
Christianity began as a sect of Judaism. The earliest Christians still met at the Temple and in synagogues. The home churches became the meeting places for the Jewish sect after they were “booted out” by the other sects of Judaism.
But then different heresies began to spread which had to be addressed.
Jewish monotheism in the Church came before the post-biblical creeds. Harold O.J. Brown (another in your theological camp, this time a Protestant) poses a brilliant question to readers in his book
Heresies: Heresy And Orthodoxy In The History Of The Church. I’ll have to think about whether or not posting it as a rhetorical question would be a problem.
***
I thought about. I think it will be okay.
”Was the transition from the personal monotheism of Israel to the tri-personal theism of Nicaea a legitimate development of Old Testament revelation?”
When Dr. Brown says “personal monotheism” he is referring to Jewish monotheism. I don’t think I need to explain what he means when he says “tri-personal theism”. You know what that is.
Everyone should be able to acknowledge that a theological shift / transition has occurred in the history of the Church and then ask themselves the question Dr. Brown posed.
So Christianity became more defined than it had been at the beginning.
My position is that Christianity is fully defined in the first century. Further definition happened after the days of the Apostles, as history attests.
I do understand you point and it's a very interesting one that I'd never thought of before...
but I do believe that the above is why additional creeds had to develop.
***
Just for your information...the time period I can accept for the ECFs is up to and about 325AD....
Thanks. Do you accept then Tertullian as an ECF?
after that I believer there were just too many changes happening and the church had aligned itself with governments
and the original and "pure" church began to fade into man-made ideas.
After 325 -> The Nicene Creed had to be modified in 381. (Again, the comment by Gregory of Nyssa is truly remarkable.) The Hypostatic Union comes to us from 451. I‘ve presumed that you accept these as valid developments. Please let me know if I’m mistaken about that.
So, the people of the 1st century were Christian by default....
The people of the 4th century were Christian by definition.
That’s an interesting distinction that you’re drawing. I would say that the people in the first century are Christian by definition.
Interesting. WHO did he allow to be themselves?
The early Christians?
Yes, including the Apostles.
Right. But the CC developed TOO MUCH doctrine through the centuries.
Not to change the topic at hand.
***
I understand now why this forum uses the Nicene Creed as a litmus test.
It’s fine for this forum to make that a litmus test but in doing so, if enforced, puts out all who lived without ever knowing in their lifetimes that years after there day - as much as three hundred years later - such a creed would even come into existence. They didn’t meet the litmus test in their day - the litmus test didn’t even exist - and they were still Christians.
Sure.
But THEY didn't know any better.
The connotation, perhaps unintended, is that what they believed is in some way lacking.
Why didn’t they know any better? You commented earlier that you would still believe what you do even if the post-biblical creeds had never been formulated. They weren’t affirming what you’re affirming.
I’m with them.
Not sure I could add much more to this conversation.
You're not the first person with whom I've had this discussion.
And I really do understand the difficulty here....I've had to travel this road myself
but I came to a different destination...
My road, my destination, ends in the first century.
