Over on my Google+ world a little conversation is unfolding around a question I asked regarding the Rule of Faith, and I thought I’d bring it over here as well.
In his landmark work, The Creeds of Christendom, Philip Schaff says the Ecumenical creeds contain articles of Christian faith “necessary and sufficient for salvation.”
Do they contain what’s necessary?
Are they sufficient?
I incline toward “neither.”
Did Christians without Matthew attain salvation without a virgin birth or is that not really necessary to believe in order to follow Jesus?
If a Jesus follower today believed that Jesus was raised from the dead, that he was the exalted Lord over all things, and devoted himself to serving Jesus, loving his destitute neighbors, and the like, but didn’t believe in a virginal conception and birth, would that person be excluded from the kingdom of heaven at the final judgment because he failed to believe this necessary point of the creed?
If we believe all these things but act like nincompoops our whole lives, is that sufficient for salvation or will Jesus say, “Depart from me, I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness,” thereby showing “belief” in these creeds to be insufficient?
I worry that the whole paradigm of points of doctrine that need to be believed for salvation is misguided. What do you think?
These are good questions Daniel, and definitely a conversation I think is worth having. At the heart of this seems to be issues of universalism, destiny of the unevangelized etc. But I do wonder what role believing in the resurrection plays in your understanding of salvation, being ‘born again,’ or something like confessing Jesus as Lord, as the first apostles did. In my mind, either these are ‘doctrines’ with salvific significance or they are entirely insignificant. There’s a kind of climax in Mark’s narrative in the confession of Jesus as Christ, which leads to his elucidating how he had to suffer. Even in narratives/stories, plots contain characters, which leads us to ontological/metaphysical questions. What do you think?
Well, first, I want to distance this from the question of universalism, though there will be implications. Even within the church, those who belie e the story and want to follow Jesus, what does it mean to truly and faithfully follow?
On your last point, I do think that there is a narrative we have to affirm as the story within which God worked and by which we identify ourselves. But I do not believe that this inherently conjures up a necessary set of correlate metaphysical and ontological questions that must be answered in the right way in order to truly believe the story.
Case in point: Judaism. We share their Bible, but Judaism has taken the road of law and story as their way of defining the faith. Could Christianity not, theoretically, be the same (had it not been directed so early on by non-Jewish sensibilities)?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe to some degree you would affirm a level of dogma as well. Where the difference may lie is where to draw the boundary (I know this is exactly what you’re disputing, bear with me). Shakespeare was wrong—though his point was different—when he asked rhetorically, “What’s in a name?” To name a person speaks to identity. Jesus was a historical figure, named in within a situated context who had a level of self-understanding; Christ himself had a christology so to speak. Does it not require knowledge of who Jesus is where he was headed in order to truly and faithfully follow him?
Indeed, everyone has a dogma (and I believe narrative is dogma as well), but not everyone agrees on what’s required to be ‘in or out.’ Again, if we are believing the Story, why does this exclude the nature of the characters? Saying anything at minimum—even naming the characters—is making an ontological claim, as postmodernism has taught us (“There is nothing outside the text”). One may disagree with the creedal formulations, but a degree of dogma will always be involved in faith.
Hello Daniel,
I believe there is an important clarification you should make between someone who is genuinely misguided and doesn’t know a point of doctrine versus someone who stubbornly rejects a point of doctrine.
With that distinction in place, I don’t think anyone would say that a Christian who followed Christ to the best of their knowledge but didn’t know a point of doctrine (e.g. Virgin Birth) would be excluded from Heaven.
If you’re talking about individuals who simply don’t believe this or that doctrine is Biblical or ‘necessary for salvation’ (under normal circumstances), then I’d say the problem is due to Sola Scriptura in which each person decides for them self what is ‘necessary’. At that point they’re on a slippery slope to doctrinal relativism.
A Creed only has binding authority in so far as those who composed it have genuine Ecclesial authority. If someone believes the Nicene Creed is simply a product of men (even if it contains orthodox info), then obviously one can object and say such a summary is “misguided” (as you said) since the ‘essential criteria’ is purely man-made.
Anytime I ask this question, people respond with something like, “Well, even if you just say that one has to love Jesus you’re making lots of assumptions about what it means to love and who this Jesus is.”
Perhaps it’s my (reaction to?) my background that leads me to side with those who are suspicious of the doctrinal points gospel, but I’m afraid I don’t know how to articulate an alternative. I’ll be interested in following the discussion here.
I’m inclined to think that the Nicene Creed is a product of a particular culture and history; if things had been slightly different, we’d have had a different creed, or no creed. I can’t believe God would have shovelled us all into hell on that account. It’s effectively saying that we’re saved by our doctrines; it’s easy, it’s undemanding, and to my mind it’s the cheapest of cheap grace. Doesn’t our behaviour towards each other come into it somewhere?
Just to clarify a bit, I’m specifically thinking of passages like Acts 16:31 that present a rather scaled down version of the doctrinal points approach: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” The question typically arises: What do you mean “Lord”? What do you mean “Christ”? The assumption is that one can’t believe on the Lord Jesus “Christ” without believing in the virgin birth, for instance.
So while I want to agree with the “I incline toward ‘neither’” sentiment, I’m interested in how to articulate an alternative.
Good point Will,
That’s why I said the “alternative” ultimately reduces to doctrinal relativism. Then Christianity reduces to affirming a slogan “Jesus is Lord,” without even being definitive on what “Jesus” or Lord” even mean.
Will, I think you are on the right track. ‘Christ’ and ‘Lord’ were all terms charged with theological, social, political etc. meaning in the world of the first church. They were attributed to Jesus by his followers and claimed by himself, flowing out of the context of 2nd Temple Judaism(s) and Jesus’ self-understanding of his vocation as the Messiah figure who fulfilled the Torah. Surely understanding what ‘Lord’ and ‘Christ’ meant were important for joining the people of God in the new covenant.
“And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.” Acts 16:32
Also, I think it’s important to remember that speeches and sayings we have in histories (!) such as the book of Acts are usually summaries. The way orthodoxy’s importance has traditionally been understood is that there are various levels—dogma, doctrine, persuasion, etc. The way forward may be going backward to Scripture to see what was ‘dogmatic’ in the Apostle’s gospel proclamation. There are still some today who think this is a fruitful and exciting project.
And the problem with the notion that one can’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ without certain points of doctrine has to do with something Barth describes using Anslem: fides quaerens intellectum. Understanding follows belief — it is not a precondition for it. And it must be so, no matter how often we develop deeply metaphysically conditioned doctrinal explanations and try to require them for the faith. That produces orthodoxy on one hand, and heresy on the other, but not either faith or salvation in either case. We may dabble in intellection in order to understand the consequences of our faith, and to make sense of that faith in the world, but the faith is always the thing, and never the doctrines that pursue it. The doctrines describe how we understand Jesus and the rest of the things we think about in response to faith, but they are always both secondary and penultimate to faith itself.
“Doctrinal relativism” is not to be feared. It is the result of faith meeting the million different situations of created existence. Of the two, I would far rather sustain a healthy suspicion of claims to “orthodoxy.” Relativism cannot destroy faith; it can only break down supposed certainties of knowledge. Relativism leads to learning, because positions are set relative to one another, and in faith, relative to the God of common belief. What relativism can destroy, on the other hand, is claims to a sort of universal orthodoxy, one position that is always and everywhere true, and absolutely both sufficient and necessary for salvation. We apply claims that belong to the ground of faith and extend them into objects of our knowledge, and we go wrong.
“Understanding follows belief.”
I’m not sure that I have the categories I need to really grasp what that means. If you tell me to believe in Jesus but I have no understanding of who Jesus is, what do I do? Would it be better to say that understanding and belief function more like a “hermeneutical spiral” than in a real chronological or series relationship?
Of course, I don’t know exactly how that solves anything in the question Daniel is addressing here. Because even if we say understanding and belief go hand-in-hand, we have still not answered exactly what it is that we must understand or have faith in. And I get the sense that even phrasing the question that way would be problematic for Daniel’s (or my or your) suspicion of a “paradigm of points of doctrine that need to be believed for salvation.”
The point being that a “paradigm of points of doctrine that need to be believed for salvation” deserves suspicion. I have to void your move to place understanding and faith “hand-in-hand” — because it doesn’t solve anything in the question at issue. As a Paulinist, among other things, I’m inclined to believe that God’s action is always prior to any action of ours. That the action that sets us in relationship with God as creatures is what creates faith, and then pushes us to understand. We may try to walk the chain backwards, up through our understanding toward the object of our faith, but nothing permits us to place our understanding, as doctrine, in place of the one thing that is necessary for salvation: God’s action.
And so I am leery of the creeds when they say “you must believe this to be saved” — while at the same time I understand them, and the ecumenical councils that produced them, to be engaged in mapping out the grammar of that faith.
To put it more simply, I like to borrow a phrase from Islamic religious thought. We believe it, bi-la kaifa. We believe it “without how.” Speculation about how is always subordinate to the brute fact *that*. Orthodoxy and heresy are about the how; faith and salvation derive from the “that” of the event. And this is also a positive distinction that may be made between gospel and law. The gospel is proclamation of the “that” of God’s salvation, and faith comes by hearing it. Certainly, to preach it you must understand, but not simply to believe it. And living it is a process of growing in understanding. But the gospel is the root, the proclamation of God’s action to save. Law of all sort derives from the fact that God has acted, as we try to live in light of it.
The creeds are well informed guides to explore what is “necessary and sufficient”–namely Word and Spirit. They are pointers to salvation and do not possess that power in and of themselves.
Who decides what is necessary and sufficient for salvation? Answer this question, and you will have you answer Kirk’s original question. But as I see it, you won’t ever answer my question. Therefore, it is more important to see how creed’s and doctrinal questions/statements function socially to create insiders and outsiders. When we do this, we may ask better questions about whether our doctrines and creeds really promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Agree. But I also think this: move on!
Once established that it doesn’t matter how many angels fit on a pin, why not leave the pin/angel discussion to others.
Mark, see today’s post!
I was fourteen years old when I “accepted Jesus into my life,” or at least realized I wanted to do so…I believed in my heart that I needed Him and that He was willing and able to accept me and conform me into His image. An exchange of promises occurred that day…Father God promised to make me like Jesus, and I promised to let Him. Did I at this young age understand what that would mean over the next years…? No, what I did know was I wanted to be like Jesus and was willing to start the journey.
It is very much the same in marriage. We fall in love and join our lives not really knowing or understanding the fullness of the commitment. The questions that follow are often difficult as two lives are melded into one. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to say there are no doubts, no challenges to belief in promises shared?? That just isn’t the human condition. What we can say, is that as we get to know our loved one, and choose daily to recommit and lay our lives down for each other, we are reassured of love’s endurance, if we will let it be so.
It is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that brings the understanding of the character of God and the assurance of our eternal standing with Him through the Blood of Jesus.
I didn’t “understand” then and I barely understand now almost 50 years later….What I do understand is the Holy Spirit compelled me to submit my life to Jesus for transformation…and I did…*: ) I just might be a Calvinistic-Barthian…, but what I am sure of is I am a Christian and remain so even if I haven’t yet heard of all the theological possibilities…
A new paradigm is needed not merely in “what” we think, but in “how” we think. The subjective-objective knowledge of secular science defies the kind of knowing Jesus and Paul demanded for salvation. One who is a “subject” cannot study points of doctrine or even Christ simply as an “object”. Jesus didn’t just demand we believe the historical story of His cross. He demanded we know it in our own organic way by picking up our own cross. Paul himself was co-crucified with Christ in Gal.2:20. Neither did he know the doctrine of the suffering, death,and resurrection of Jesus apart from his own life,in Phil.3. The New Testament is replete with demands for our “identification” with the Christ event rather than a safe, detached (albeit appreciative) worship of Him. It’s not enough for a christian to simply be redeemed. We ourselves must be a redemptive presence in this world. The repudiation of the subject-object paradigm of knowing is what truly separates christianity from other religions. Not it’s doctrine.