A Different Jesus, Part 2: The Nicene Creed

 

First Council of Nicaea by Theophanes Strelitzas

Latter Day Saints reject the concept of creatio ex nihilo, the idea that the universe was created from nothing, instead embracing a creatio ex materia, that the universe was organized from existing materials, because creatio ex nihilo is not found in the Bible and it also doesn’t fit with revelation given to Joseph Smith. (PERSONAL OPINION WARNING! THE FOLLOWING ARE MY OWN HYPOTHESES! TAKE THEM HOW YOU WILL! I AM NOT AN AUTHORITY)  I think, perhaps, the reason that our belief in creatio ex nihilo offends other Christian denominations is that they feel that we are diminishing God’s greatness by saying that anything could have existed before Him or that there could be any other Beings like Him and that we might possibly become like Him ourselves. I think this might also be the reason that Muslims don’t accept Jesus as the Savior because they feel that it would diminish God. I remember pondering on this one day in a GNC parking lot not long after my husband and I got married. He asked me what I was thinking about because I looked lost in thought and I explained the aforementioned musings to him. He had a very good response: “God is God. There is nothing we mortals can do that would diminish Him.” And he made a very good point. I remember hearing this interpretation of Moses and the burning bush. When Jehovah appeared to Moses and said “I AM that I AM”, He meant that He is eternal. He created us, not the other way around. What we say or think about Him does not change His nature because He exists independent of our belief. We may choose to believe in Him or not or we may choose to believe He has a body or not, we can choose to believe any number of things about Him or not believe things, but none of that changes His nature. This is why He is called Unchangeable.

Moving on, consubstantiality refers to the concept that God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are of the same divine substance and are one God, whole and entire. Of course, Latter Day Saints do not hold this view and believe the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to be separate beings who are one on purpose— and that it might be possible for humans to one day become Gods themselves. The Trinity is not something Jesus taught in the Bible, which is why Latter Day Saints can’t accept it as doctrine. It comes from the Nicene Creed. It seems to have been a way to find some kind of compromise about questions of whether the Son was subject to the Father— the question that really kicked off the Council of Nicea. 

The concept of the Trinity is a little complicated. It’s tricky to understand for me, even after looking up several sources on the subject. I’m an amateur at this though, so my abilities are more limited. Former Evangelical Christian and Anglican pastor Jennifer Roach Lees in her FAIR Come Follow Me series On Latter Day Saint and Evangelical Christians and the New Testament from 2022 walked through the concept of the Trinity and consubstantiality and said according to the doctrine of the Trinity, the Father and the Son are of the same substance and that substance is different from humans and isn’t something humans could ever become. But this issue of consubstantiality is where especially many Evangelical Christians start to feel like Latter Day Saints are not understanding who Jesus really is. Lees (2022) said that to Evangelical Christians, it is important that you “get Jesus right” in order to be saved. So if we as Latter Day Saints don’t “get Jesus right” (have the proper understanding of His divine nature), it doesn’t matter how much we talk, preach about or rejoice in Christ, we can’t be Christians. 

And that takes us into salvation. Doctrinally, Latter Day Saints have more in common with Catholics when it comes to salvation (Harline, 2017). Like Catholics, we believe that works are necessary and that one can’t receive God’s saving grace without living a life in accordance with His commandments. Protestants have a very different view. They believe in sola fide, that salvation comes by grace alone and that there is nothing humans can do that could ever contribute to their own salvation other than to have faith in Jesus Christ and His saving power. Like the doctrine of the Trinity, this is also not something Jesus taught in the Bible. It comes from Martin Luther. It seems like Martin Luther struggled with scrupulosity (Harline, 2017)— a type of obsessive compulsive disorder that focuses on religious or moral obsessions with anxiety, fear or guilt about violating religious or moral beliefs (International OCD Foundation, 2026). Luther felt a great deal of anxiety because he felt that there was no way a person could ever receive an assurance that he had done enough good works to receive God’s grace. And so he concluded that the only thing a person had to do is have faith that Jesus would save him (Harline, 2017). Growing out of this was a belief that the only thing you had to do to receive grace was to say the Sinners Prayer and affirm that you accept Jesus into your heart as your Lord and Savior (Lees, 2022). Much Protestant doctrine ascribes to a belief in eternal conscious torment for those who do not say the Sinner’s Prayer, no matter how many good works they did during life. Of course, this wasn’t something Jesus or His apostles taught, which is why Latter Day Saints don’t accept sola fide. 

There is a certain way of logic that, in my opinion (PERSONAL OPINION ALERT), forms the basis of many Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant doctrines and it is inherently at odds with Latter Day Saint theology. It starts from a conclusion— that God is all powerful and mighty to save— and then works from there to deduce what the character of God and the nature of salvation must be. If God is all powerful and mighty to save, then nothing could have existed without Him. If God is all powerful and mighty to save, then there is nothing we can do to procure salvation, etc. Many tenants of the Nicene Creed were also the product of trying to find an agreement about the competing ideas circulating about the nature of God in the 4th century, such as the relationship between the Father and the Son. Instead of having to decide whether or not the Son was subject to the Father, it seems like the Council agreed on a compromise that They were consubstantial. (Lincoln Blumell said in his 2019 interview on Latter Day Saint Perspectives podcast that the higher concern, particularly from Emperor Constantine at the time, was on finding an agreement on Christian doctrine, rather than what was true.) Latter Day Saints approach theology differently. From its beginnings in the Sacred Grove, Latter Day Saint theology has been concerned with what God has revealed and will reveal about Himself, through the scriptures and through prophets, rather than trying to figure out God’s nature through human ideas and philosophies.