The correct preface to the ancient creeds is not "Christian, what do you believe" but "Christian, in whom do you believe"

Because their chief goal is not to distill general core doctrines of the faith, their chief goal is to distill the specific core of who our God is

The Apostle& #39;s and Nicene Creeds are more rightly pledges of allegience than they are mere doctrinal summaries, meant to identify the God to whom we are committed against false perversions

And this makes sense given they evolved from baptismal confessions

Coincidentally, this is why many people are disappointed in the how much the Creeds leave out; if you approach them primarily as summaries of core doctrines of the faith you& #39;re going to notice giant holes

But that is an error in approach, not a shortcoming in the Creeds

Part of the reason the Creeds are so often misunderstood is because we tend to teach their origin primarily as reactions against heresy

But that& #39;s false

They were developed out of baptismal confessions, and expanded to provide clarity in reaction against heresy

The Creeds were expanded to provide clarity, to clarify that the God we profess is not the god of the heretics

The point is not what, but who

The point is that *this* is the God we worship, the Triune God of grace - Father, Son, and Spirit - not some cheap ineffectual imitation