What Christians Believe

Many core Christian beliefs are summed up in the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith that the Orthodox Church in America traces to church councils at Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381.¹ Orthodox and Catholic worship both use the creed, and the Lutheran Augsburg Confession accepts the Nicene council's teaching on the one God in three persons.¹²³

This page covers that shared Nicene core. Where the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant branches teach differently, it names the branch. Its Orthodox sources come from the Eastern Orthodox churches. The Branches page explains how the branches divided and describes the Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Latter-day Saint faith's own teaching about God is on its Beliefs page.

What is ultimate reality?

For Christians, ultimate reality is one God who exists eternally as three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This teaching is called the Trinity. The Catholic Catechism calls it the central mystery of Christian faith and life, and states it plainly: We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the "consubstantial Trinity".² Consubstantial means sharing one and the same being. Each person is fully God, yet the three are really distinct from one another.² The Westminster Confession, a Reformed Protestant statement, teaches the same: three persons of one substance, power, and eternity⁴.

Christians also hold that the Son became human as Jesus. This is the Incarnation: the Son of God took on a human nature to bring about salvation.⁵ Lutheran teaching describes Jesus as one person with two natures, true God and true man³.

The branches part on one phrase about the Holy Spirit. The creed as used in Orthodox churches describes the Spirit as the one who proceeds from the Father¹. The Latin tradition used in Catholic worship says the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son², in Latin filioque. Reformed Protestant teaching holds the same, as the Westminster Confession shows.⁴

The two sides weigh the difference differently. The Catechism notes that the addition remains a point of disagreement with the Orthodox churches, and holds that the Eastern and Western wordings can complement each other, provided neither becomes rigid.² Thomas Hopko (1939 to 2015), an Orthodox priest and professor of theology, wrote a four-volume teaching series on the faith for the Orthodox Church in America.⁶ He notes that Catholic and Protestant churches use the longer form. He holds that the addition is unacceptable to Orthodoxy, because it is unscriptural and does not fit the Orthodox vision of God.⁷

What is a human being?

Christians teach that a human being is a creature made in the image of God, with a body and a soul that form one person. The phrase comes from Genesis: God created man in his own image. (Genesis 1:27)⁸ In Catholic teaching, this image is the source of human dignity: Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone.⁹

The Catechism adds that body and soul are so closely joined that they make a single nature. The soul is created directly by God, does not die, and will be reunited with the body at the resurrection.⁹

Orthodox teaching stresses growth. Hopko writes that humans are made to become more like God forever, sharing by grace in what God is by nature. Human life, he teaches, is never finished, because God has no limits.¹⁰ Reformed teaching, in the Westminster Confession, holds that God made humans male and female, with souls that do not die, and wrote his law on their hearts.⁴

What is wrong with the world?

Christians teach that sin has broken humanity's friendship with God, and that its effects reach every person and the world itself. Hopko defines it this way: The word sin means literally "missing the mark."¹¹ All three branches read the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis as the account of the first sin, which Christians call the Fall. The Catechism notes that the story uses figurative language while affirming a real event at the start of human history.^1212114

The branches describe the results in different terms. Catholic teaching holds that every person is born with original sin, a state a person inherits rather than an act the person commits. Human nature, in this view, is wounded and inclined to evil, but not totally corrupted.¹² Lutheran and Reformed confessions describe the damage more strongly. The Augsburg Confession teaches that people are born without fear of God or trust in him.³ The Westminster Confession says that the guilt of the first sin is counted to all the descendants of the first parents, who inherit a corrupted nature, wholly inclined to all evil⁴.⁴

Orthodox teaching, as Hopko presents it, focuses on sin's link to death. Sin, evil, suffering, and death always go together, he writes. Every child of Adam is born into a world that is still good but bound to death, he writes, and no one escapes, even those who are personally innocent.¹¹¹³ An answer on the Orthodox Church in America's website states the Eastern Orthodox view plainly. Everyone bears the consequences of the first sin, above all death, but only Adam and Eve are guilty of it.¹⁴

What is the way forward?

Christians teach that salvation comes from God through Jesus, whose death and resurrection reconcile people to God and defeat death. Hopko describes it as atonement, being made one with God, and quotes the Easter hymn that Christ trampled down death by death.¹⁵

The branches differ on how a person receives salvation. Catholic teaching holds that justification, being made right with God, is given in baptism and makes a person inwardly just.¹⁶ The Catechism puts it this way: Justification establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom.¹⁶ It also teaches that justification comes from God's grace, which it calls free and undeserved help, and that no one can merit the first grace of forgiveness and justification.¹⁷¹⁸ Lutheran teaching holds that people are freely justified for Christ's sake, through faith³, not by their own merits or works. Good works must follow, it adds, but they do not earn justification.³

In 1999 the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation confirmed a joint declaration. Together they confess that people are accepted by God by grace alone, through faith in Christ, and not because of any merit. They hold that the differences that remain do not break this agreement on basic truths.¹⁹

Reformed teaching holds that God justifies by pardoning sins and counting Christ's righteousness to believers, not by putting righteousness into them. Faith, it says, is the alone instrument of justification⁴, though it always works by love.⁴

Protestants also describe God's choice and the human response in different terms. Reformed teaching holds that God, before the world began, chose some people for everlasting life out of free grace, not because he foresaw their faith or good works. The confession adds that God passed by the rest and ordained them to dishonor and wrath for their sin.⁴ Methodist teaching holds that after the fall no one can turn to God by natural strength. God's grace goes before people, so that they may have a good will, and then works with them.²⁰

Orthodox teaching describes the purpose of human life as theosis, Greek for deification: sharing in God's own life.²¹ Hopko, following the church fathers, writes that people are called to become by divine grace what God is by nature.¹⁰ An Orthodox writer calls theosis a gift from God, attained within the Church.²¹ Hopko quotes the church fathers: God became man that man might become god.²² Catholic teaching uses the same language. The Catechism quotes Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Thomas Aquinas, who wrote that the Son of God became man so that people might share in his divinity.⁵ It also quotes Athanasius, who wrote that those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized¹⁶.

What happens after death?

Christians teach that every person will face God's judgment, and that at the end of time the dead will rise in body to everlasting life or everlasting loss. The Nicene Creed ends with that hope: I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.¹ Lutheran and Reformed confessions teach that Christ will return, raise the dead, and judge them, giving eternal life to the righteous and condemning the wicked.³⁴

Catholic teaching holds that each soul is judged at the moment of death. It enters heaven, at once or after a time of purification, or it is condemned. Heaven is perfect life and love with God. Purgatory is the name for the cleansing of those who die in God's friendship but are still imperfectly purified, and the Catholic Church prays for them.²³²⁴²⁵ Hell, in the Catechism's words, is a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed²⁶, and God predestines no one to go there.²⁶

Reformed teaching holds that there are only two destinations. After death, the Westminster Confession holds, the souls of the righteous go to heaven and those of the wicked to hell: Besides these two places, for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledgeth none.⁴

Orthodox teaching, as Hopko presents it, holds that God's presence will fill all things at the end. For those who love God, resurrection from the dead and the presence of God will be paradise. For those who hate God, resurrection from the dead and the presence of God will be hell.²⁷ He adds that the whole created world will be renewed, not destroyed.²⁸ Orthodox churches also pray for the dead: during Great Lent, the Saturday liturgy usually includes prayers for them.²⁹

How should a person live?

Christians teach that a person should love God completely and love others as themselves, following the example of Jesus. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus names these as the two greatest commandments: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. (Matthew 22:37)⁸ The second, he said, is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:39)⁸

The branches agree on this center. The Catholic Catechism teaches that the Ten Commandments must be read in the light of this double command of love.³⁰ Hopko writes that the new commandment Jesus gave goes further: believers are to love one another as Christ loved them, with a self-giving love.²² The Westminster Shorter Catechism, a Reformed teaching text, opens with the purpose of a human life: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.³¹

This love reaches beyond friends. In the same Gospel, Jesus tells his followers: But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you (Matthew 5:44)⁸. Catholic teaching holds that following Jesus includes keeping the commandments, and that the moral life is a response to God's loving initiative. A holy life, the Catechism says, is made fruitful by union with Christ.³⁰ Lutheran teaching holds that faith is bound to bring forth good fruits, but that no one should rely on those works to merit justification.³

Key terms

Term	Meaning
Trinity	One God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.2
Incarnation	The Son of God taking on a human nature as Jesus.5
Nicene Creed	The statement of faith from the councils of 325 and 381.1
Filioque	Latin for and the Son, a phrase about the Holy Spirit in the Western creed.2
Original sin	The fallen state Catholic and Protestant teaching say all people inherit from Adam.124
Justification	Being made or declared right with God.164
Theosis, or divinization	Sharing by grace in God's own life, a central theme of Orthodox teaching that Catholic teaching also uses.212216
Purgatory	Catholic term for purification after death before heaven.25