Consciencebound

Will You Pass The Test?

If you are a conservative Evangelical Christian, then you undoubtedly think that believing the correct doctrine is very very important. In fact, you probably believe that if a person has a mistaken view of the nature of God that they will be punished in Hell forever and ever after they die. One example of this is the debate that Evangelicals have with groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Jehovah’s Witness believes that Jesus Christ is divine in some manner, but that he is separate from the Father and the Spirit and that they are not in fact “One God”. Evangelicals will usually try and show how it is the case that the Jehovah’s Witness must in fact believe that Jesus was one with the Father and that that there is only one God which means that Jesus and the Father are the same being (along with the Holy Spirit). To reject this, says the Evangelical Christian, is to reject God Himself. No amount of piety or even faith will save a person if they believe in a “different God” than the one found in the Bible (or at least the one that Evangelicals say is in the Bible).

 

It seems to me that this amounts to a scenario in heaven where we must all stand before God and will be given a theological examination to see where we will be spending our afterlife. This is certainly the sort of thing that I used to believe and it is what I am now told by people who have a problem with my current beliefs. On many occasions since I have begun to question the “orthodox” view of the Bible, I am given a test to see what camp I am in. The test usually has to do with my views on the Bible as well as my views on Jesus, Heaven, Hell, Salvation, Sin etc. If I do not answer in an acceptable manner or even if I answer that I am honestly not sure what I think on these things any more given the problems that I see in the Bible, then I am said to be a heretic and an unbeliever and that I am in danger of Hell fire.

 

Now, if this is in fact the way that it is then I guess that I am in grave danger of Hell fire but the question that I would pose is that doesn’t that mean that most people who consider themself a Christian will also find themselves in Hell? What I mean is that in my experience most Christians (or at least those who call themselves Christians) do not hold to a specifically orthodox theology when it comes to the particulars of the Christian religion. Sure they may go to a church that has a doctrinal statement that looks to be orthodox, but do they actually hold to a truly orthodox theology themselves?

 

As an example of this problem, I would like to look at the doctrine of the Trinity that I mentioned above. My guess is that the vast majority of Christians would be considered heretics if they actually had to articulate what they believed the nature of God was. How many times of have you come across analogies like the following when someone is trying to explain the Trinity:

 

- The Trinity is like an egg. There’s the yolk, the white and the shell. Each are

separate but they all from the egg.

 

- The Trinity is like water. It is one substance that can exist in three separate

and distinct forms: liquid, solid and gas.

 

- The Trinity is like a man: a man can be a husband, a father and a son all at the

same time.

 

Each of these examples which I have heard given many times by Sunday school teachers and various believers is a heretical position on the nature of God and has been condemned by the Church at one time or another. According to Evangelical Theology, a person must understand and articulate the Trinity correctly if they are to be saved from Hell. When pressed on this they will usually say that nobody can fully know and understand the Trinity and so they will attempt to be gracious with people who seem to have a faulty understanding. It will be said that this person who is believing an unorthodox doctrine just needs to be corrected and that they do not hold to this position in a malicious manner. They may even say that this person means well but they they have simply had a misunderstanding. But once a person seems to be sure of their faulty understanding, then they are considered a heretic. A person cannot be “sure” about their bad doctrine or they are endangering their souls.

 

Here is a copy of part of the Athanasian Creed and is taken from this web site. Even though many Protestant Christians today do not think that creeds hold any kind of authority over them, this creed does in fact articulate very clearly what the orthodox doctrine of the trinity is.

 

The Athanasian Creed

 

This creed is named after Athanasius (A.D. 293-373), the champion of orthodoxy against Arian attacks on the doctrine of the trinity. Although Athanasius did not write this creed and it is improperly named after him, the name persists because until the seventeenth century it was commonly ascribed to him. It is not from Greek (Eastern), but from Latin (Western) origin, and is not recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church today. Apart from the opening and closing sentences, this creed consists of two parts, the first setting forth the orthodox doctrine of the trinity, and the second dealing chiefly with the incarnation and the two-natures doctrine. The translation above was adopted by the CRC Synod of 1988.

 

Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic faith.

Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless(small “c” meaning universal) perish eternally.

Now this is the catholic faith:

 

That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,

neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence.

For the person of the Father is a distinct person,

the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another.

But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal,

their majesty coeternal.

 

What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has.

The Father is uncreated,

the Son is uncreated,

the Holy Spirit is uncreated.

 

The Father is immeasurable,

the Son is immeasurable,

the Holy Spirit is immeasurable.

 

The Father is eternal,

the Son is eternal,

the Holy Spirit is eternal.

 

And yet there are not three eternal beings;

there is but one eternal being.

So too there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings;

there is but one uncreated and immeasurable being.

 

Similarly, the Father is almighty,

the Son is almighty,

the Holy Spirit is almighty.

Yet there are not three almighty beings;

there is but one almighty being.

 

Thus the Father is God,

the Son is God,

the Holy Spirit is God.

Yet there are not three gods;

there is but one God.

 

Thus the Father is Lord,

the Son is Lord,

the Holy Spirit is Lord.

Yet there are not three lords;

there is but one Lord.

 

Just as Christian truth compels us

to confess each person individually

as both God and Lord,

so catholic religion forbids us

to say that there are three gods or lords.

 

The Father was neither made nor created

nor begotten from anyone.

The Son was neither made nor created;

he was begotten from the Father alone.

The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten;

he proceeds from the Father and the Son.

 

Accordingly there is one Father, not three fathers;

there is one Son, not three sons;

there is one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits.

 

Nothing in this trinity is before or after,

nothing is greater or smaller;

in their entirety the three persons

are coeternal and coequal with each other.

 

So in everything, as was said earlier,

we must worship their trinity in their unity

and their unity in their trinity.

 

Anyone then who desires to be saved

should think thus about the trinity.

 

 

This creed was written to combat the false teachings of the time who were popularized by a man named Arius who was considered to be a heretic. As you can see from reading the above creed, it is not an easy matter to define the trinity in fact it is quite technical and rather difficult unless you are familiar with the nuances of the history of Christian doctrine. So the question that remains in my mind is what are we to think of our children, or even most adults who do not have such an informed understanding of this doctrine but without which will not enter into heaven? Do we really think that God will demand such a technical articulation of His nature when we stand at the pearly gates? Does the 6 yr old who has “asked Jesus into their heart” know these things about God? I think most Evangelicals themselves would say that they don’t and that it is not necessary. They might even quote Jesus’ statement that we must all become like little children in order to enter into heaven and that we must have a child like faith. But a child like faith in what, I would ask? If it is not the specific doctrine laid out above, is not this faith in a different God all together? And is not this child like faith probably the same as my Muslim neighbor’s kid? Or even the child like faith of my Hindu coworker?

 

This is where the difficulty comes in. Many modern Evangelicals want to have their theological cake and eat it too. On the one hand they want to be able to take a hard line stance against somebody like myself who either denies these doctrines or is at best unsure about them. They want to be able to say with confidence that the Jehovah’s Witness at their door is going to Hell because of their false understanding of the nature of God. On the other hand, they want to be able to say to their children that they will go to heaven for having a child like faith in Christ even though they clearly do not have the ability to understand the Trinity as it is expressed in the Athenasian Creed. They also want to say about themselves that their simple belief in “Jesus” is enough to guarantee them eternal life.

 

It seems to me that the Evangelical has to choose which it is going to be if they are to be consistent. If God is so particular about the nuances of theological precision that he will send people to a fiery Hell for getting too many wrong on the exam, then the stakes seem to be too high for even most professing Christians. But if God is gracious and does not hold such high standards, then it seems that he would also not keep those out of the Kingdom of Heaven who we perceive to have wrong views of God be they Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Agnostics, Buddhists or even Atheists. We are all going on what we perceive to be the truth and we are acting accordingly. It may be that some of us are closer to the whole truth than others of us are, but the others are no less sincere. We all make collosal mistakes in our understanding, even those who consider the Bible to be the infallible word of God for we are fallible ourselves. As the apostle Paul says, “we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

 

There is a parable that I think illustrates this point:

 

There was a king who once entertained himself by gathering up several men who had never seen an elephant. The king blindfolded them and then had an elephant brought out. He asked them to touch one part of the animal and then tell him what they thought it was. The one who touched a leg declared that it was a pillar. Another who held the tail said it was a rope, while another who felt one of its tusks was sure that it was a plowshare. Each man was “seeing” only one part of the elephant, and so each of their views was very subjective. Yet, they insisted they knew the whole truth and that their own idea was the one, true reality.

 

 

This is not to say that all roads lead to the same place necessarily, but it rather emphasizes that we are all fallible human beings and that our ability to understand the great mysteries of the universe is severely limited by our fallibility. It seems that if we believe that God will be merciful to the child or adult or to the mentally challenged individual who does not “fully” comprehend the specifics of the nature of God, then we should extend the same measure of grace to people who we think are “misunderstanding” God’s nature and are considered to be “outside the camp” of Christian thinking.

Jeff Lord

Similar Posts:

• Who Would You Rather Trust: God or Man?
• The Testimony of the Holy Spirit as it Relates to Knowing the Truth of Scripture
• Conversation with a Christian Friend #2
• Loving God by Distorting His Word
• Can An All Just God Be All Merciful As Well?
• Prayer: Shouldn’t it Work Like the Bible Says it Does?
• Book Review: The Language of God by Francis Collins