The creeds and the Scripture are not on par with one another.


I never said they were. However, they do clearly lay out the standard interpretation of scripture held by the early church, and were produced to clearly distinguish what was the correct interpretation of scripture from the wrong interpretations put forth by others.

It really is no different than a local church's doctrinal statement: it's not "on par" with scripture, but it's that church's interpretation of scripture. If you disagree with a church's doctrinal statement, you should not consider yourself a member of that church. The Creeds are simply doctrinal statements at a less-localized level. There are regional creeds which are doctrinal statements for specific regions (or groups of churches), and there are "catholic" (universal) Creeds which are doctrinal statements for the Christian church at the universal level - just like there are municipal laws, state laws, and national laws. You are free to disagree with the Creeds but you should then not consider yourself part of the catholic (universal) Christian church - just as when you disagree with a particular local church's doctrinal statement, you should not consider yourself part of that local church. Rejecting the creeds (or even rejecting the common, historical understanding of them) is to consciously remove yourself from orthodox Christianity, just as rejecting a particular local church's doctrinal statement is to consciously remove yourself from association with that local church.


 We have the exact words in English to translate the original languages accurately. But back to the creeds, my definition of person is not wrong as I told you the correct word is hypostases as both are found in my dictionary. If the two words mean exactly the same thing, they would have the same definition


The creeds were written before English was a language. When they were eventually translated into English, they were done so long before your dictionary was produced. You cannot judge millennia-old terminology soley by a modern English dictionary.


but the word person is used because the translators of those creeds did not translate accurately, for the word person is not sufficient in defining hypostases.


Hypostasis is originally a Greek word, and its use as an English word is only relatively recent. If it is "inaccurate" and "not sufficient" to translate "hypostasis" as "person", then Heb 1:3 is "inaccurate" and "not sufficient" in the KJV.


 Do not despise my dictionary either, this is the life's work of a man of higher education than most anyone you would ever meet today.


I don't despise your dictionary, but you are proving my point. The use of "hypostasis" and "person", as well as affirmation, explanation and defense of orthodox Trinitarianism is the result of the work of thousands of Christian theologians of "higher education" (across nearly 20 centuries) than any modalist you will ever meet today, including yourself. By opposing orthodox Trinitarianism, you are implying you know more about this subject than all these orthodox Christian theologians throughout history. It is like a grade 2 student claiming "I don't really understand this long division stuff, but I know all the math teachers are wrong!"


"The early church laid out the Creeds, and the early church laid out the NT Canon."

You are wrong, wrong, wrong.


No, my statement is correct. The early church laid out both.


The first council of Nicea was convened by guess who....Emperor Constantine, the founder of the Roman Catholic Church. This is also a direct quote from the Nicene Creed...."We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church."


I do not believe Constantine was the "founder", but that is beside the point. Constantine was no more responsible for the content of the Nicean Creed than King James was responsible for the translation of Psalm 100 in the KJV or King Henry VIII was responsible for the content of the 39 Articles of Religion that Anglicans use. Also, at Nicea they didn't just invent the doctrines in the Creed they produced - those doctrines were already old and widely accepted, they just made it official that the universal church accepts those doctrines. Like a new local church plant, the doctrines they put in their doctrinal statement are not new then, but are just an official proclamation of the beliefs those people already have.


 There is not one catholic (universal) church


Really? Which local church is referred to in Acts 20:28? 1 Cor 10:32? Eph 1:22? Eph 5:23-32? Col 1:18?


 but as a Baptist I


You my consider yourself a Baptist, but I do not consider you one. One of the defining aspects of the Baptist faith (and Anabaptists) is affirmation of orthodox Trinitiarianism. Even of those Baptist churches which have an aversion to the Creeds are still strictly Trinitarianism anyway. A non-Trinitarian Baptist is like a non-NT-Canon Baptist or an anti-Mary Catholic or a anti-Mohammed Muslim: by definition, they don't exist.


"by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary" Who other than Catholics use the title...."The Virgin"? Mary is not "The Virgin", but she was "a virgin" when she concieved.


Please explain further: how is referring to Mary as "the Virgin" wrong???


From the Anathasian Creed...."Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith except every one does keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." Do you keep the catholic faith Brian?


Yes, I keep the catholic (universal) faith as detailed in the Athanasian Creed.


"And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;" That is Catholic my friend.


Yep, it is. It is also Baptist, etc.


"And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire." More Catholic doctrine from this creed. We have all done evil and none of us do good, there is only one good and that is God which is why we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, not our works, or the keeping of a catholic dogma.


That part of the Creed is simply summarizing passages like Matt 25:31-46.


"This is the catholic faith; which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved." So says all the catholics.


So say all Christians. It is not enough to say "I have faith in Christ" for salvation, if you have a wrong underlying definition of who Christ is in the first place. Mormons have faith in Christ. Muslims have faith in Christ. But they have wrong definitions of Christ. If someone says "I have faith in Christ and believe he died for my sins", but by "Christ" he means his plumber, and by "died for my sins" he means his plumber was hit by a bus, then that person is not saved. The Creeds lay out what is (and indirectly, what isn't) the correct, orthodox understanding of what "faith in Christ" really means.


You can try to deny all you want Brian, but I am not as unlearned in these matters as you may hope.


I am only going by your own comments about what you don't know about, what you've never heard of before, what doesn't make sense to you (which has made sense to thousands of others), etc.


You are not taking one thing into account. The Ana-baptists doctrine is not really recorded in that "fundamental Christian doctrine", oh wait yes it is! The BIBLE.


Anabaptists are strictly Trinitarian, and would consider anyone who opposes orthodox Trinitarianism to be a cult at best.


 Also, I never argued against it,


You most certainly have, almost constantly.


In fact, I really believe that you don't even understand it. If you do, then answer this....

How or in what way are the Father, Word, and Holy Ghost distinct from one another? What makes them different?


There are several ways in which the three are distinct. Scriptures are full of examples. In fact, there are so many, that is why there are so many who deny the deity of Christ and the person of the Holy Spirit in the first place. But perhaps the most technical and most well-known is from the Athanasian Creed itself: "The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten; the Son was neither made nor created, but was alone begotten of the Father; the Spirit was neither made nor created, but is proceeding from the Father and the Son."

Brian