Coequality?

Early in my Christian upbringing I learned that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were “coequal” [as well as coeternal]. When I Googled it, I found an exquisite apology of the coequality of the three persons of the Trinity in the creed of St. Athanasius, dated 1642. There is also a statement affirming this in the preface for Trinity Sunday on page 380 of our Book of Common Prayer. And a lengthy treatise in “Christianity Revealed” on the web tries to disprove coequality, with [to me] unconvincing success. But the grumblings persist; they’ve been debated by church officials for centuries. Based on what seems the traditional opinion that they are coequal, I’m curious: why isn’t there a colon after “God” in the beginning of both the Apostles’ and the Nicene creeds? Shouldn’t they proclaim the coequality by stating [Nicene] “We believe in one God: the Father, the Almighty, etc…” instead of “We believe in one God, the Father…” and similarly in the Apostles’ “I believe in God: the Father…” Of course, if you don’t believe that they’re equal, this is nonsense. Do you? Is it important?

Faith in...?

“Do you have faith” “ He’s a man/she’s a woman of faith.“ “ How strong is your faith?“ How many times have we heard—or said—these? When I hear or read about unqualified faith, I always expect to hear words leading to trust, which means the answers to two questions. 1: Faith in whom or in what? 2. Faith that whom or what will do what? Without this information, faith seems simply to hover in the air, unattached, non-productive. With it, faith seems solid and reliable. My faith is in God—I trust that He exists, that He loves me beyond my wildest dreams, and that He will make his perfect will happen in my life at a time that will turn out to be best for me. “He writes straight with crooked lines.” It’s that simple, and was carved out of almost ninety years’ experience learning about, then ignoring, and finally loving him. What about you?