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Fides Quaerens Verbum Hodiernum:  les crédos alternatifs

par van Noppen, Jean Pierre
Référence Ad veritatem (Bruxelles), 31, page (24-42)
Publication Publié, 1991

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Résumé :

In the communal use of creeds (i.e. the act of confessing one's belief), one may discern various levels of linguistic activity. Originally, the Christian confessions of faith were essentially expressive acts; but the exclamations eventually crystallised into formulas which had the same locutionary force (since the facts referred to did not change), but which at the illocutionary level were given the shape of informative representations. The confessions subsequently came to be adopted as doctrinal propositions, which acquired a declarative, normative, or even polemical value, frozen at one stage of their historic evolution, and handed down to later generations in this stereotyped form: since a Church's faith is defined through these propositions, a change, however slight, in the formulations entails the risk of altering the content and substance of a faith presumed to be immutable. For at the locutionary level, the creed claims to be the «systematic and objective repository» of the basic truths on which the faith is founded, i.e. the detailed (if not literal) description of the fundamental doctrine; and from this first function derives the creed's present-day illocutionary force. In the Church community, however, the creed plays a role of praise and worship in the liturgical context, but also functions as the local community's act of adhesion to the Church at large. The individual believers reciting their creed affirm their allegiance to the Church as well as their obedience. As the main emphasis thus shifts from locutionary content towards illocutionary function, the uncritical believers may actually adhere to the Church faith without understanding all the creed's (locutionary) terms, trusting that Church authorities will be able to elucidate its propositions at the locutionary level. Alternative creeds are problematic if they are understood as essentially representative, normative speech acts. The Protestant and Roman Catholic attitudes to this phenomenon differ widely.