24. 4 The leaders of the Protestant Reformation do indeed describe good works as an appendage to faith and even an integral part of faith, but they say we are passive in the doing of them, whereas Roman Catholics say we are active in the doing of them. There is actually strong agreement between Protestants and Catholics on the subjects of faith, works, and our rewards.

34. Consider the fact that the Apostles’ Creed says “I believe in God, the Father,” “in Jesus Christ,” and “in the Holy Spirit”; and the Nicene Creed says “I believe in one God, the Father,” “in one Lord, Jesus Christ,” “and in the Holy Spirit.” These are statements of belief in one God. The Athanasian Creed, however, speaks of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; therefore this is a statement of belief in three gods.

Because the authors of and adherents to the Athanasian Creed saw very clearly that the statements it makes would lead inevitably to the idea of three gods, they aimed to remedy this problem by saying that the three share the same substance and essence. All that this accomplished, however, was to make people think that the three gods agree and share the same point of view. Attributing one undivided substance and essence to three things does not eliminate the idea that there are three things. It merely introduces confusion, because “substance” and “essence” are metaphysical terms, and for all the power that metaphysics possesses, it cannot make one entity out of three persons, each of whom is God. It can lead people to speak of three as one, but it can never make them think of three as one.