{"id":137050,"date":"2025-05-15T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=137050"},"modified":"2025-05-15T18:27:46","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T22:27:46","slug":"stephen-noll-we-believe-of-all-that-is-visible-and-invisible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=137050","title":{"rendered":"(Anglican Compass) Stephen Noll–We Believe: Of All That Is, Visible and Invisible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Traditional Anglican Prayer Books<\/a> render the Greek wording of the Creed \u201call that is, visible and invisible<\/em>,\u201d which in turn reflects St. Paul\u2019s usage, when he says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible<\/em>, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities\u2014all things were created through him and for him.Colossians 1:15-16<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In the 1970s, an international commission of translators rendered the phrase \u201call things seen and unseen<\/em>,\u201d and this rendering appears in many contemporary liturgies, including the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. No doubt this translation reflects the rising secularism of the day, as when the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin reported from space that \u201cI looked and looked, but I didn\u2019t see God,\u201d and when Episcopal Bishop John Spong claimed that \u201cGod can no longer be understood with credibility as a being, supernatural in power, living above the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gagarin and Spong are guilty of a category error. They assume that invisible things are either not yet seen by the latest telescope or are fantasies fit only for the gullible. In truth, they are, in effect, the intellectual flat-earthers. Prince Hamlet<\/a>\u2019s rebuke to his fellow scholar Horatio fits their case: \u201cThere are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The perspective of the Bible and the Creed is far deeper than these caricatures, and the ACNA Prayer Book<\/a> rightly returns to the traditional and accurate translation of the Greek text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>

It's almost too easy to be in awe of the beauty of the visible creation. It can be harder to appreciate the invisible. Stephen Noll tackles the incredible realities around the Creator and creation "of all that is, visible and invisible":https:\/\/t.co\/Y90GISIqmC<\/a><\/p>— Anglican Compass (@AnglicanCompass) May 15, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>