02. I believe in God the Father, Almighty

Without love nothing will be able to save people even if they possess faith, understanding, knowledge ... or any other gift. - St. John Chrysostom

And so, we arrive at the first line of the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in God the Father, Almighty." (If you want an introduction to what I'm up to here, it might help you to go back to the Introduction.) Before we get to the specifics of the meaning of the first line of the Creed, it'll be worth first asking a question: How do we make meaning? It's a good question to ask, especially since the focus here is on what the Apostles' Creed says, as well as how that relates to the question of finding meaning in life.

To get a sense of how we make meaning, it helps to turn to a story-telling principle explained by the playwright Anton Chekhov. The principle is affectionately known as "Chekhov's gun," because of Chekhov's use of a gun as part of his explanation. The general idea is those irrelevant elements in any story should be removed, so as not to mislead the reader or audience into thinking that certain things are important or meaningful when they clearly are not. In other words, elements should not appear to make “false promises” to the reader or audience by never coming into play. Chekhov puts it like this:

Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there. ... It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep.

As this suggests, there is a 'promise-fulfillment' or 'setup-payoff' structure to meaning: the truth of meaning is found in the matching-up of the promise with the fulfillment of the promise, or linking of the setup with the payoff. For there to be meaning, there is an expectation that needs to be met. Put otherwise, there is a receiver and a gift that must be received. When we ask the question about the meaning of anything, we are, more or less, asking the question of how potential (receiver) becomes actual (gift), or how an idea becomes reality. The meaning of a cup is to be filled; the meaning of music is to be listened to and (hopefully) enjoyed, among other things. 

Asking about the meaning of anything is to ask about its purpose, point or end.

So how does this relate to us? The meaning of human life can be understood as being about finding what resonates with our true essence. The meaning of your life is about finding what allows you to be your truest and best self. This isn't yet a complete answer, but the beginning of an answer. A more complete answer will need to operate on two levels that intersect. 

Let's call the first type of meaning the horizontal.

This is about finding resonance between ourselves and the world (including people and things in it). It's about clicking with what brings out the best parts of you (and in the world). Looking for meaning will involve discovering what resonates with your specific gifts. You know this already: some people are just more naturally gifted to work with specific things or in particular environments or with certain people than others are. This is part of their particular way of being 'set up' for meaning-finding and meaning-making in the world.

This horizontal level of meaning will often offer us a sense of fulfillment for a short time. But because it is rooted in a higher and more ultimate level of meaning, that sense of fulfillment will not persist for very long. We are made for specific 'jobs' in the world (including the endlessly interesting one of being ourselves)—that is true, but what, or rather who, is it that sets us up for those 'jobs'.

Since this horizontal level of meaning won't sustain us in any permanent or ultimate sense, in terms of truly living out the life we are made for, a richer, deeper, higher level of meaning is needed. And while this is a more general level of meaning, since it applies to all of us by virtue of the fact that we are all human, it will turn out to be even more personal and more intimate than the lower-level of meaning that I've just written about.

Let's call this type of meaning the vertical.

It is this vertical type of meaning that the Apostles' Creed reveals in the first line (aka. first article): "I believe in God the Father, Almighty." This kind of meaning is reinforced in the second and third articles regarding belief in the Son and the Holy Spirit. Here it is suggested that the "I" that believes has been set up by God to need God. The “I” is the container, and “God” is the only one who can fill it. This is perhaps too simplistically put, so I'll put it differently:Ultimate meaning is found in that which is most Ultimate. Nothing else will suffice.

The early Christians spoke of union with God as the primary aim of human life. I've already mentioned what Augustine has said on this front: God made us for himself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in him. But this is echoed endlessly in the Christian tradition. Think, for instance, of  the Westminster Catechism, which puts it like this: "The chief end of man [i.e. humanity] is to glorify God and enjoy him forever."

Again, this is not a complete answer, because it requires explaining (or perhaps a great deal of explaining), but at least now we're getting somewhere. So, how about looking at that first line of the Creed in a little more detail by asking and answering two questions: (1) Who is this "I" that believes? and (2) What is the Creed's primary idea concerning "God the Father, Almighty"? Both of the answers that I give below are only provisional, meaning that they're (hopefully) enough to get us onto the right track but will certainly fall short in terms of being complete.

So, question 1: Who is the "I" in the Creed who believes?

For starters, this "I" is not the modern, individualist “I”—the lonely subject wandering the internet searching Google for answers without knowing which questions to ask. Rather, the “I” in the Creed is the "I" who lives and participates in the community of fellow believers. The writer Paul speaks of this community as a body that has many parts (1 Corinthians 12:12-27), and the "I" can be thought of as being one of those parts. It's a metaphor, so we don't have to fuss with the question of who gets to be the big toe and who of us gets to be the bellybutton.

The idea is this: each part or member of this body has specific gifts, desires, ways of feeling their way through life and towards the Ultimate Reality that is God. The point here is that the horizontal kind of meaning, where we find meaning in being and doing what resonates with us in the world—this horizontal type of meaning is like a stained glass window in a cathedral, always pointing to the light behind it—the God who is the giver of all good things (James 1:17). Which is why we are told by St. Paul that whatever we do, we should do it "to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). The horizontal type of meaning always points to the vertical. 

The immediate always indicates the ultimate.

So that's one idea about the "I" that believes. To go deeper, we need to see that to be part of the body of Christ means to be part of a collective that is unified in the love of the Triune God and known by their love for each other (cf. Colossians 3:14). Jesus says this clearly: “By this, everyone will know that you are my followers: if you love one another” (John 13:35). The writer of 1 John puts it like this:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. (1 John 4:7-8)

In this, we have a partial answer to the second question stated above, namely: What is the Creed's primary idea concerning "God the Father, Almighty"? The primary idea here, by naming God as "Father," is that God is love. It's amazing to think of it. The Apostles' Creed's first idea of God is that he is a "Father." A Father is one who loves his children, and who wants them to have abundant lives, rich in meaning. In fact, there is a link with meaning here: it is impossible to find meaning without love: without being loved and without also loving. And this meaning is widest, deepest, the highest meaning is found in the love of God (cf. Ephesians 3:18). This God is also described as "Almighty"—by which the Creed means (among other things) that God acts perfectly in accordance with his very own nature. Put differently: there is nothing God does that isn't in perfect harmony with who he is as our Father; as Goodness, Truth, Unity, and Beauty.

But there's another question that must be asked in light of the above: What is love?

This is a tricky thing to answer, so I just have a few ideas to put forward on the subject. I'll start with the most (potentially) alarming idea: Love is not an emotion, but is primarily a stance or posture towards reality. Love is the affirmation of the goodness of the Creator and of his creation. You could put it this way: love is what seeks wholeness and harmony; it is a protest against evil and entropy. Love is a positive thing. It is an action, not just a reaction. It involves our who being and a choice to act to bring what is loved to its fullness. Love is also the primary means by which we discern our way through the world and find what is real. To love anything properly means to seek the deep truth of that thing.

And this (the meaning of love) offers us a clue into the meaning of life. The question of the meaning of life, as I've already suggested, is the question of what life is for. It’s the same as asking “Why am I here?” or “What am I meant to do?” It cannot be answered in strictly/only universal terms, because we are all unique and have unique paths to travel. But at its heart, the question of the meaning of life regards what and how to love.

The Christian claim would be that we are here to love, as is noted in what Jesus calls the greatest commandment: to love God and our neighbor (Mark 12:30-31). We are here to attune ourselves to God, who is the Ultimate Reality and source of all reality. And, in receiving love from God, we can then affirm goodness in the created being of others and the world. The meaning of life emerges as we respond to every situation in terms of this attunement.

At every moment, the world presents itself to us in accordance with our love. In fact, one of the ancient principles in the Scriptures is the idea that we will become like what we love (cf. Psalm 115:7-8). This applies in both negative and positive ways. To love things (idols) will make us stupid and meaningless like idols. To love God will make us like him. And our task, as people who have recognized and received this love from God, is to actualize the potentialities that we encounter in keeping with our unique being and its capacities and gifts. In brief, the question we are faced with at every moment is this: 

How can we love well as we participate in the life of God, who is love?