I’m trying neither to prop up orthodoxy nor to kick the props out from under it, Sam. In the inerrancy discussion it was proposed that the Christian faith stood on a three-legged platform of Scripture, community, and inner conviction. Since the first century the community has tried to understand who Christ is, and the creeds, like the Scriptures themselves, came forward from within the community. Whether the tradition got it right or not isn’t the central focus of this particular thought experiment, but in passing we can recognize some of the complexities with which Christian theologians have wrestled over the centuries.

In a different experiment we might explore whether some of the prooftexts might have been inserted for polemical purposes; e.g., to add weight to Christ’s claims to divinity and his priority over the Law. We could also explore whether the orthodox creedal statements might have unjustly suppressed alternative opinions. But again, that’s not the central focus.