Primary sources
The Library
The creeds, confessions, catechisms, and treatises that the conversation keeps returning to. Public-domain texts, read them straight or follow them from an essay.
Patristic
The Nicene Creed
Councils of Nicaea (325) & Constantinople (381) · 381
The foundational statement of trinitarian and christological orthodoxy, affirming the full divinity of the Son and the Spirit.
Read the text →The Apostles' Creed
Western Church (received text, c. 4th–8th c.) · c. 700
A short baptismal creed of the Western church, structured around the three persons of the Trinity.
Read the text →The Chalcedonian Definition
Council of Chalcedon · 451
The decisive statement of how Christ is one person in two natures, fully divine and fully human, without confusion or division.
Read the text →On the Incarnation
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 318
Athanasius's defense of why the Word became flesh, including the famous formula of deification.
Read the text →Medieval
The Five Ways
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, q.2, a.3 · c. 1265
Aquinas's five arguments for the existence of God, from motion, causation, contingency, gradation, and final ends.
Read the text →Proslogion (The Ontological Argument)
Anselm of Canterbury · 1078
Anselm's celebrated argument that God, understood as that than which nothing greater can be conceived, must exist in reality.
Read the text →Reformation
Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 1–4)
Westminster Assembly · 1647
The opening questions of the Reformed catechism, including its famous statement of humanity's chief end.
Read the text →Heidelberg Catechism (Q. 1)
Zacharias Ursinus & Caspar Olevianus · 1563
The tender opening question of the Heidelberg Catechism on the believer's only comfort in life and death.
Read the text →Westminster Confession of Faith (Ch. I)
Westminster Assembly · 1646
The confession's opening chapter on Holy Scripture — why special revelation is necessary and how Scripture stands as the supreme rule of faith and life.
Read the text →The Canons of Dort (First Head: Election)
Synod of Dort · 1619
The Synod's definition of divine election — grace grounded in God's sovereign good pleasure rather than in foreseen faith.
Read the text →The Belgic Confession (Art. 1–2)
Guido de Brès · 1561
The confession's opening articles: the one simple and spiritual being of God, and the two means — creation and Scripture — by which he is known.
Read the text →Institutes of the Christian Religion (I.1)
John Calvin (trans. Henry Beveridge) · 1559
Calvin's famous opening: true and solid wisdom consists of two parts — the knowledge of God and of ourselves — each bound up with the other.
Read the text →The Second Helvetic Confession (Ch. I)
Heinrich Bullinger · 1566
Bullinger's confession on Holy Scripture as the true Word of God — possessing authority of itself, and sufficient for the church.
Read the text →Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 1–2)
Westminster Assembly · 1647
The opening questions of the Larger Catechism — the chief and highest end of man, and how it appears that there is a God.
Read the text →