Should a Protestant accept the Nicene Creed?

It's a very interesting question and after reading Bishop Hansen (Bishop Jon Paul Christian Hansen?) I question why the Protestant church accepts the creeds so readily.

However, against the backdrop of Bishop Hansen's Catholic theology, it does revive Reformation tensions. So caution must be urged, for example,

Arians clung blindly and woodenly to Scripture

"Blindly" contradicts scripture from a Protestants perspective at numerous points across the bible. Bishop JC Ryle would be the counter point to Bishop Hansen, albeit he was writing around a century ago (?).

Anyway, both the Nicene and Apostles Creed are widely used across the Anglican community without question, so essentially the Anglicans have adopted a pro-Nicene theology. However, the charismatic protestants I'm less sure.

Following from @Dottard, personally, I find a sub-sentence of the Apostles creed difficult

he [Jesus] descended to the dead.

Compared with Luke 23

⁴³ Jesus answered him [the penitent thief], “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Spoken as both Jesus and the thief were dying on their crosses.

I would be particularly unhappy if "the dead" was translated as "Sheol" because then there would be no metaphor in "descended to the dead" it would be a straight contradiction against scripture, in my opinion (I've a feeling it might be). At best the Apostles Creed contains ambiguous language.

Whilst the Apostle's Creed is widely recited Prima scripture would be the position across numerous Protestant Anglican churches (not all by any means) when an instance such "descended to the dead" is raised. I'm speaking from personal experience having raised this issue.

Luther is historically credited with the idea of "Sola Scriptura" (although earlier people used the principle extensively such as Wycliffe, and others). However, when Luther concluded his famous speech at the Diet of Worms he said something similar to:

Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.

Note that even Luther agreed that scripture must be used with reasoned arguments.

Wesley modified the approach and effectively renamed it (for him) as "Prima Scriptura" and used his "Wesleyan Quadrilateral". This essentially mean that he had four principles of which the first was and most important was the authority of Scripture.

The other three were Tradition, Reason, Experience. For a brief summary and references see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesleyan_Quadrilateral

Thus, tradition should not be ignored and should not dominate but the primacy of scripture must prevail.

I would add at least a fifth to Wesley's quadrilateral, that of what is now loosely described as the historical-grammatical method. The best example of this are the great evidence-based lexicons such as BDAG which attempts to understand the idiom and meaning of words, phrases and customs (including idiom) based on their local use at the time. Without such resources, exegesis would be impossible.

The Creeds

While I am in broad agreement with the Nicene creed (and some others), there are several statements in them that I struggle with. Recall that, ultimately, the Nicene creed (and others) was a compromise statement in some areas and was far from final - it was later refined by several subsequent councils that often debated very fine points of doctrine that, in some cases, the Bible says nothing about. The members of these councils, it appears to me, often forgot Paul's maxim, “Do not go beyond what is written.” 1 Cor 4:6. On some matters we must be content to remain ignorant.

Thus, if one truly believes in the principle of "Sola Scriptura" or "Prima Scriptura", then what a creed says, no matter how correct, is rather secondary to what the Bible teaches (but it should not be ignored). The big problem with creeds is that they have two unfortunate effects - they distract from the Bible and confine what people believe and thus tend to supplant the Bible. It is much better to be able to quote the Bible - we have much more to learn from the Bible yet (John 16:12). Let's just study what the bible says and teaches.

The creeds were man-made documents that were imperfect and had flaws (as pointed out above). I am happy to accept a creed generally so long as I am also permitted to have some reservations about a few of its statements. Further, I do not wish to be confined by a creed because with growing Bible knowledge I may discover that something of what a creed says is either incomplete or just wrong.

Creeds are extremely useful for making a clear statement about what people believed and taught at the time.

Footnote

When one takes an overview of the great debates over the nature of Christ that occurred between the 4th to 8th centuries, and then compares them to what the Scriptures actually say, very little was actually learned from what the scriptures teach. These debates taught more about what to avoid that what we should know. Too often they were trying to deduce something about which the Scriptures are silent.

Most Protestants accept the Nicene Creed. It's one of the most accepted creeds in the Christian world.

Those that do include:

• Anglicans and Episcopalians
• Lutherans
• Methodists
• Christian Reformed

The question of "should they" depends on whether you accept their beliefs or not, which this site is not a place to discuss.