---
title: "The Creed"
url: "https://seekabove.com/guides/the-creed"
description: "The short summary of the Christian faith that the Church has said together for over 1,700 years — what it means, line by line, with the full words to pray."
published: "2026-06-05"
updated: "2026-06-05"
category: "Foundations"
---

# The Creed

The short summary of the Christian faith that the Church has said together for over 1,700 years — what it means, line by line, with the full words to pray.

Ask a Christian what they believe and you might get a different answer from each
person you ask. But for almost two thousand years the Church has had a single,
short answer that Christians of every language and century can say together — a
handful of lines memorized by farmers and emperors, whispered by martyrs before
they died, and recited out loud at Mass every Sunday. We call it the Creed, from
the Latin *credo*, "I believe."

A creed is simply the faith boiled down to its bones: the few things that, if you
lost them, you would lose Christianity itself. It is not the whole of what
Christians believe — there is a lifetime more to discover — but it is the
trellis everything else grows on. When you say it, you are not reading a
contract. You are joining a chorus that started before you were born and will go
on after you, and you are saying, *this is the story I'm staking my life on.*

There are two great creeds, and they are close cousins. The **Apostles' Creed**
is the older and simpler — a short baptismal summary that goes back, in seed, to
the earliest Church. The **Nicene Creed** is longer and more precise; it was
hammered out by bishops at the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381)
to say clearly, against the confusions of the day, exactly who Jesus is. Both say
the same faith, and the rest of this guide walks through what they actually mean.

## "I Believe" — the first word

Everything hangs on the opening word. To say "I believe" is not to say "I am
certain of the following facts." It is closer to what you mean when you say "I
believe in you" to a friend — it is *trust*, a handing-over of yourself to
Someone. The Creed is personal before it is propositional: it begins with God,
not with an idea about God.

Notice too that it is "**I** believe" (in the Nicene Creed prayed at Mass), and
yet it is never said alone. You say "I" while standing in a room full of people
all saying "I" with you, and while joining the one faith of the whole Church.
Your small, sometimes shaky belief is held up by everyone else's. On the mornings
when your own faith feels thin, you can lean on the Church's.

## God the Father

The first thing the Creed says about God is that he is **Father** and
**almighty**, the **maker of heaven and earth**. Two truths sit side by side
here. He is powerful enough to make everything that exists out of nothing — every
galaxy and every blade of grass — and he is tender enough to be called Father.
Power without love would be a tyrant; love without power could not save us. The
God of the Creed is both.

"Maker of all things visible and invisible" quietly insists that the physical
world is good — God made it on purpose — and that there is more to reality than
what we can see.

## Jesus the Son

This is the longest section, because this is where the Creed is most careful. The
early Church fought hard to get the words exactly right, because everything
depends on who Jesus is. He is "**God from God, Light from Light, true God from
true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father**." That mouthful
means one thing: Jesus is not a great creature, not a junior god, not merely a
wise teacher — he is fully God, of the very same being as the Father.

And then, just as insistently: "**and became man**." The same eternal Son "came
down from heaven," was "incarnate of the Virgin Mary," was "crucified under
Pontius Pilate" — a real death, under a named Roman governor, at a real point in
history — "suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day." The
Creed roots the gospel in fact, not myth. God himself entered our story, died our
death, and walked out of the tomb.

## The Holy Spirit

The Creed calls the Holy Spirit "**the Lord, the giver of life**" — fully God
alongside the Father and the Son. The Spirit is not a vague force or a good
feeling; he is the living presence of God at work now: speaking through the
prophets, breathing life into the Church, and quietly making us holy from the
inside out. When you pray, it is the Spirit who prays in you.

## The Church and the Life to Come

The Creed ends not in the clouds but with us. It names the **Church** — "one,
holy, catholic and apostolic" — as part of the faith, not an afterthought: God
gathers a people, not just individuals. It names **one Baptism for the
forgiveness of sins**, the doorway in. And it ends looking forward, on tiptoe:
"**I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to
come.**" The Christian hope is not escape from the body into a ghostly heaven but
the raising of the body and the healing of all things. The Creed begins with God
making the world and ends with God remaking it. **Amen** — "let it be so" — is
your signature at the bottom.

## The Nicene Creed

Prayed at Mass every Sunday — the fuller, more precise of the two, hammered out at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople to say exactly who Jesus is.

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

## The Apostles' Creed

The older and simpler — a short baptismal summary that goes back, in seed, to the earliest Church.

I believe in God,
the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting. Amen.

## Reflect

The Creed isn't a test to pass — it's the family story you're being handed, the same words said by the martyrs, your grandparents, and the Church around the world this Sunday.

1. The Creed begins with two words: 'I believe.' What do you think it means to say 'I believe' — is it about being certain, or about trusting someone?
2. Which line of the Creed is hardest for you to say honestly right now, and why?
3. What is one line of the Creed you could carry with you this week — saying it slowly each morning as a prayer rather than rushing through it?