YOUCAT Question n. 25 - Part I. Why does the faith require definitions and formulas?
(Youcat answer) Faith is not about empty words but about
reality. In the Church, condensed formulas of faith developed over the course
of time; with their help we can contemplate, express, learn, hand on,
celebrate, and live out this reality.
A deepening through
CCC
(CCC 170) We do not believe in formulas, but in those
realities they express, which faith allows us to touch. "The believer's
act [of faith] does not terminate in the propositions, but in the realities
[which they express]" (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 1,2, ad 2). All the same, we do approach these realities
with the help of formulations of the faith which permit us to express the faith
and to hand it on, to celebrate it in community, to assimilate and live on it
more and more. (CCC 171) The Church, "the pillar and bulwark of the
truth", faithfully guards "the faith which was once for all delivered
to the saints". She guards the memory of Christ's words; it is she who
from generation to generation hands on the apostles' confession of faith (I Tim
3:15; Jude 3). As a mother who teaches her children to speak and so to
understand and communicate, the Church our Mother teaches us the language of
faith in order to introduce us to the understanding and the life of faith.
Reflecting and
meditating
(Youcat comment)
Without fixed forms, the content of the
faith would dissipate. That is why the Church attaches great importance to
definite sentences, the precise wording of which was usually achieved
painstakingly, so as to protect the message of Christ from misunderstandings
and falsifications. Furthermore, creeds are important when the Church’s faith
has to be translated into different cultures while being preserved in its
essentials, because a common faith is the foundation for the Church’s unity.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 172) Through the centuries, in so many languages,
cultures, peoples and nations, the Church has constantly confessed this one
faith, received from the one Lord, transmitted by one Baptism, and grounded in
the conviction that all people have only one God and Father (Cf. Eph 4:4-6).
St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a witness of this faith, declared: (CCC 173)
"Indeed, the Church, though scattered throughout the whole world, even to
the ends of the earth, having received the faith from the apostles and their
disciples… guards [this preaching and faith] with care, as dwelling in but a
single house, and similarly believes as if having but one soul and a single
heart, and preaches, teaches and hands on this faith with a unanimous voice, as
if possessing only one mouth" (St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 1, 10, 1-2: PG 7/1, 549-552).
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