| Part 1 The Theory of Faith | Hirohumi Hoshika |
However, apart from the bizarre wording of the Apostles' Creed, there was something about it that struck me as odd. At first, I thought this was due to the somewhat pagan atmosphere that the creed exuded, but I gradually came to realize that this was a sense of discomfort caused by the inconsistency of the Apostles' Creed itself. The strange thing is the third stanza.
The third stanza "... Lord, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, descended into hell, rose again from the dead on the third day, ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty, who will come again to judge the living and the dead."
This stanza continues from the first stanza, "I believe ...", and begins with a new sentence structure, incorporating the non-restrictive use of the "Lord" from the previous stanza. As a result, whereas the other stanzas are sentences of all "I believe ...", this makes this only stanza a normal declarative sentence.
This was what was bothering me. Considering that this is a normal affirmative sentence, it is probably an explanatory sentence about the life of Jesus Christ.
However, if this stanza were simply a descriptive passage, it would simply consist of a list of "ordinary facts", but it contains phrases such as "conceived by the Holy Spirit". It is clear that this is stated by belief. This is because "the Holy Spirit" can only be described as a belief. This is the belief in the miracle of the "virgin birth."
Nonetheless, if this stanza is not an explanatory passage but a confession of faith like the other passages, why, for example, the passage of "who suffered under Pontius Pilate" must be "confessed"? Is that something I should personally confess? Rather, shouldn't this section is a part that be recognized as a historical event by some sort of academic institution?
In other words, the third stanza is a jumble of statements of fact and a statement of faith. This was the source of the discomfort I felt.
Although tragic event, but "who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried" is, so to speak, a normal event. That is, it is not something to be believed, but something to be verified.
Certainly, if one traces these matters back, one can trace them back to records based on the testimony of a group of people, and ultimately it comes down to a question of whether or not those testimonies and records can be "believed".
However, this is a matter of assessing the veracity of sources, like all history. It contains nothing that deviates from everyday experience, such as the "Holy Spirit," "rose again from the dead," or "seated at the right hand of God".
In other words, when it comes to ordinary historical events, "believing" in them simply means "trusting" or "accepting" the testimony or records related to them, and should be different from what is commonly called "having faith."
Therefore, it is probably not faith to say "... suffered under Pontius Pilate" through to "... died and was buried", moreover, if one were to state this as part of a confession of faith, one would inevitably feel as if one was being made to make determinations about facts of which one was not aware.
It is hard to understand that such intellectual dishonesty should be embedded in a profession of faith that is supposed to be true to one's heart. I would like to add that, as I later learned, the Apostles' Creed has, as expected here, caused several controversies in the history of the church, from the standpoint that "faith and the recognition of historical facts are separate."