A Liberal says the Creed

"How can you recite the Creed every week, when you don't believe a word of it?"
Most liberals have been asked that question. And most have replied (if at all) by explaining that they take the words to be understood in some non-literal sense and that they believe the underlying claims. And they do believe some of the words, too.

A stronger response would be to ask how the questioner manages. The question suggests the the asker takes the words of the Creed literally and bearing all the baggage of traditional Christianity, but, in the modern world, even the most profoundly ignorant must have heard enough to have occasional doubts.

"We believe in God the Father Almighty" Big guy, with a white beard and a penis, or stern but loving Being who is always there to help you? The first is blasphemous, the second unlike most fathers we know and demonstrably not true. What is God really like?

"Creator of Heaven and Earth" In six days plus a break, but this specimen, this rock, this.... the more particular reasons to doubt are calmed by inventing special acts of nature, the more doubts arise.

A lot of stuff I don't understand but which must be right since its in the Creed. But what am I really committed to by this? "begotten not made" "of one Being with the Father" "True God from True God"?

"Through him all things were made" But didn't the Father make everything. To be sure, He does say "We" and "Us" a lot while He is doing it, so maybe Jesus was there too. But how "through," For the most part, we don't get a notion of what tools God used, if any; a couple of times He speaks things into existence and one time He seems use His hands to mold a body, but not other person seems to be involved.

"For us and our salvation" Substitutionary redemption makes God a pretty horrible Person, setting things up so that his only Son has to die and excruciating (literally, no less) death to fix a mess that an all-knowing God should have foreseen (come to that, setting things up so that such a minor act of disobedience should have such eternal consequences).

"He came down from Heaven" Does everybody pre-exist in Heaven or is Jesus a special case? And if Jesus is a special case, being God, how can God all fit in one tiny body and who is minding the universal store while Jesus is on Earth (Ahhah! that's why there has to be at least two Persons)? And where is Heaven in a universe without up and down?

"Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary" Wait, a male child born without a male gene getting in there somehow -- the Holy Spirit can do that: create a male gamete without a male? And Virgin Mary -- my daughter better not try that one on me. Not even if she claims to have seen the Angel Gabriel.

"He rose again on the third day, according to Scripture" Now, I really have trouble with a three- day-dead body getting up and walking around, even without the walking through walls bit and the disappearing and reappearing. (I have trouble with "buried" too -- who would ask for the body of a convicted insurrectionist? And who would give it up to be made a center for further insurrection?)

"He ascended into Heaven" Even if He traveled at the speed of light, He is still in this galaxy, wherever Heaven is.

"I believe in the Holy Spirit" and another load of stuff I don't understand, but that people seem to argue about. But the whole Trinity thing is not terribly clear to begin with.

"the resurrection of the dead" I don't know about that.

Even if the asker does not meet with all some of these questions (and there are others, of course) every time he says the Creed (and listens to what he is saying -- which may be rarely), he surely does some times. But a person who believes what the Creed says, ratherthan the words it uses to say it, can get through the whole thing without a qualm.