Why do we keep saying the Nicene Creed?

I suspect relatively few of you have much formal education in Philosophy. Most parents would not be happy to get a call from their son or daughter at college saying they have decided to switch their major to Philosophy. After all most Philosophy majors can look forward to great careers pumping gas, or waiting tables.

My own search for a major in college was a dialogue between my interests and my abilities (or more correctly, my limitations). I started off as a Psychology major. After taking all of the courses in human psychological development, and dysfunction, I learned I would have to take a course in statistical analysis as a part of the psych major requirements. I have a horrible history as a math student. I did poorly in grade school math and have never progressed, barely surviving high school algebra and geometry. So I decided to look for a major that did not have a math requirement and I switched to Philosophy.
I became a Philosophy major and took all of the courses beginning with ancient Greek metaphysical philosophers all the way through to the 20th Century existentialists. I loved it, but there was one problem. In addition to being mathematically challenged, I am also a very slow reader. I was only accepted into college on the condition that I take, and pass a remedial reading course my first semester. I took the course and I passed it, barely.

As I progressed through my Philosophy courses I noticed the books kept getting bigger and bigger each semester. They were rapidly approaching the point where I could barely keep up with the reading. So I began the search for another major; one that did not require math and where the books were small enough I could keep up with the reading. I found the perfect solution: Sociology.

At that time a major in Sociology had no math requirement and the books were not nearly as intimidating as in Philosophy, and the subject was interesting. So I graduated from college with a major in Sociology, and with minors in Psychology, Philosophy, and in History. Which, all in all, is not a bad background for one going to seminary.

Because of this background I have been able to appreciate how philosophy and theology have been in a constant dialogue at any given time in history. You cannot fully understand the theology of a given time unless you also understand the dominant philosophical thinking of the same period.

Example: In the earliest years of the church the works of the great Greek philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, and their predecessors were focused on questions like: WHAT IS REALITY AND WHAT IS IT MADE UP OF. In the language of philosophy these are called "metaphysical" questions.

The oldest, most primitive philosophers said that the basic building blocks of REALITY, are the four basic elements: earth, air, fire and water. Plato addressed the same question only he said that the world we experience, and call reality, is not real at all, it is a reflection of the world of Ideas, and that only Ideas of things are real. (Don't focus too much here on Plato's answer, rather focus on the question that all ancient philosophers asked, which is: What is reality made up of? Plato's contribution was that there exists two realms of experience: the realm we experience daily, the material realm, which is NOT REAL, and the realm of Ideas which is the only REALITY. This later became refined to suggest that there are two realities, the physical/material realm and the spiritual/ideal realm.

The Gospel Jesus proclaimed and the story of His death and the resurrection of His body, was born in Judaism, by Jews, about Jews and primarily for Jews, all of whom understood their unique common history and traditions. Paul took this message and this story and introduced it to people living the Greek world, who wee steeped in Greek thinking and who know nothing of Jewish history or tradition. These Greek people immediately asked questions the Jews had never thought of (they did not read Greek Philosophy). Those questions had to do with the same questions they asked of all reality, what is it made of, and in this instance, what was Jesus made of? Was he made of human/material stuff (they used the word "essence" instead of "stuff", but they thought of it as we would think of "stuff", some undefined "substance") or was he made of spiritual/divine stuff. In other words, was JESUS a man, made up of the stuff of the material realm with some godly/spiritual qualities, or was he made up of the stuff from the realm if Spirit/Ideas, the divine realm, with just some human/material attributes.

In their Greek minds something, in this case Jesus, could only be made of one kind of stuff--Material or Spiritual stuff. What was Jesus made of? This theological discussion, dominated the theological dialogue for over 300 years. The issue was so critical to the life of the early church they called a series of Ecumenical Councils, gathering most of the bishops of the church throughout the world and produced what we now call the Nicene Creed as the final statement of the issue. That Creed clarified the following: Jesus was "God from God, Light from Light from Light, True God, from true God... of One Being with Father... and he became Man." Jesus therefore had two full , complete and absolute natures, one human and one divine, neither nature is diminished by the other.
We don't ask these questions anymore, like they did in those early centuries. This is because the dominant philosophy of our era, existentialism, has taught us to ask different questions. We no longer ask the metaphysical question: What is reality made of? We now ask the existential question: What is the meaning and purpose of life, including me and my life?
Though we no longer ask the metaphysical question in the same way they did in the early centuries of the church, each of us in our own mind, in our own image of Jesus, struggles with the notion that he was fully divine and fully human. If you see Jesus as someone who, because he was God was somehow different from you in any way, you are struggling with this question. Similarly, if you see Jesus as a good man, but not as the immediate and intimate presence of the ALL HOLY ONE, you struggle with this question also.
This basic Christian affirmation of the two full natures of Jesus in one person continues to be the most difficult thing for Christians to understand even today. We either allow our focus ion his divine nature to diminish his being human, exactly like us, or allow his human nature to diminish our appreciation of his absolute Holiness. This is why we must keep saying and pondering the Nicene Creed. It reminds us weekly of the mystery of Christ, fully divine, fully human," who "came into the world that had its being through Him, and the world didn't know him. He came to his own people and his own people did not accept him. But to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God." John 1: 10-12