An Alternate IDIC:
Infinite Doctrine in Infinite Christianities
The most basic teachings of Christianity are claims to Absolute Truth. We say, "There is a God, and Jesus Christ is His Son." We even dare to say that this God, who stepped out of the infinite reaches of unreachable infinity and into the finite world that He created, lived a human life at a specific time, in a specific place on this very specific planet. By this, we claim that the Transcendent God─the Being by whom the existence of every sub-atomic particle in the inconceivable enormity of the vastness of the entire universe is constantly, wilfully preserved─gave Himself a human Body, was born of a particular Jewish girl, one named Miriam (a.k.a. Mary), during the reign of a documented Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, in the town of Bethlehem, lived for about 33 years, was killed under the authority of a Roman governor named Pontius Pilatus, and rose from the grave 3 days (by Jewish reckoning) later. This is an audacious claim. It is utterly ludicrous. The specificity alone is unfathomably uncalled for, especially when compared to the Truth-claims of all other religions throughout the world before our little "upstart sect" of Judaism appeared. Yet it is True, it is historical, and it is so astoundingly important that this one Life has shaped the entirety of human history both before and since.
But what else do we know of this God-Man? What did He teach? History tells us that He taught for 3 years before His death. The Bible and many other ancient writings confirm this. And the Bible dares even to say that He taught for 40 more days after His Death (and Resurrection)! But, again, what did He really teach? Some Christians say that He founded a Church on Peter, that His Church was given authority from Heaven that would last forever, and that Christ Himself instituted seven Sacraments whereby the very grace of Almighty God is actually, really conferred on those who receive them, and moreover that the Sacrament of Baptism actually saves us from eternal damnation. Others say instead that Jesus founded His Church only on the faith of Peter (not on Peter himself), that His Church is not visible but is made up of certain believers known only to God, and that there are no Sacraments, that Baptism is nothing more than a voluntary (and unnecessary) practice by which we only profess the faith by which we are saved. And thousands of other Christians believe thousands of other things about the teachings of this ancient Jewish Rabbi that fit somewhere in between these two positions (or somewhere wildly outside of both). The point, of course, is that although all of these people claim to live by and to believe what Jesus Christ taught, many of their beliefs are completely contradictory to the beliefs of other Christians.
Growing up, I suppose I was vaguely aware of this diversity of beliefs about Jesus and His teachings, but I didn't think anything of it. In fact, I didn't think on it at all; no one seemed to. It was normal because we've been living in this sea of theological diversity (perhaps we should call it anarchy) for at least 500 years. No one remembers a time when unity was not only expected, but of primary importance, because none of us were alive when that was the case. But, thanks to my wife, who in college was told about the entire history of Christianity (not just the history since A.D. 1510 or so), I was awakened to the idea of questioning this status quo.
The questions I asked myself were these: is this the way God wants it to be? is it enough for Christians to only have a shared belief regarding "the essentials" (whatever those are) and to let every other question of Truth be settled in Heaven? does anyone even know what "the essentials" are?
Leaving the Door Open
The status quo is this: from One infallible Teacher, the Man who is God Himself, we claim to have a dizzying menagerie of competing and incompatible teachings, and almost no one among us claims to be infallible in teaching them. The question is this: does that One infallible Teacher want that to be the status qou? To discern whether this is or is not a problem, let's see what Jesus and the Apostles, whom He commissioned to "[g]o therefore and make disciples of all nations, ... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you;" (Matthew 28:19-20), have to say about differing teachings.
To start with, St. Paul expresses a strong concern for correct teaching in all matters. In Romans 16:17-18, he says, "I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded." Notice, there is no qualification of which doctrines are being opposed, no mention of "essential" doctrines at all, but merely of "the doctrine which you have been taught." Paul emphasizes in many passages the importance of keeping all teachings in line with those passed on from Christ through himself and the other Apostles.
In his first letter to Timothy, for instance, he begins with this very message:
"As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the divine training that is in faith; whereas the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith. Certain persons by swerving from these have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the Law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions."
-I Timothy 1:3-7, emphasis added
Again, he gives no qualification about which false doctrines are to be opposed and which might be acceptable. Instead he tells Timothy to make sure no one teaches "any different doctrine." In fact, he gives examples that, to the modern Protestant ear, are not essential at all, but are perhaps the most trivial ideas of all: "myths and endless genealogies." And remember, he says that any who teach anything "in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught ... do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites". Those are pretty harsh words!
The danger, Paul explains, is that, "by swerving... [they] have wandered away into vain discussions... without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions" (v. 7) Or, to put it another way, by allowing any seemingly "non-essential" (a.k.a. "vain") false doctrine to slip in, the whole foundation could become rotten. Like a house, any tiny crack in the exterior, not matter how small, if left untended, leaves the whole house open to leaks. And under the right circumstances, those leaks could become a flood that in turn does so much damage that the entire house must be condemned. Though these persons may think they're merely discussing inconsequential minutia, they may inadvertently miss the implications of their musings and stumble into grave errors. G.K. Chesterton likens this danger to balancing a massive structure on the edge of a precipice. If we waver too far on the side of pacifism, we live in danger of failing to protect the most innocent and vulnerable among us, but if we lean too far the other way, we find ourselves engaging in the excesses of fanatical suicide bombing to kill those who disagree with us rather than attempting, through love and reason, to peaceably convert them. Either way, the slightest imbalance in any doctrine causes the entire structure (i.e. the soul of the individual who believes it) to topple, making everything plummet into the pit below.
The reason that the Catholic Church sees nothing that the Apostles passed down to us through the centuries as non-essential, to put it another way, is this: "so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles" (Ephesians 4:14). Paul's command that we not change any doctrine at all is merely the boundary that the Church sets around us in order to protect us from the deadliness of these winds. I have always liked the analogy used by G.K. Chesterton to describe this:
"Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge, they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased."
-Orthodoxy, IX
Without boundaries, we either get so excited about "freedom" that we dash ourselves on the rocks below, or we become so terrified by "the naked peril of the precipice" that we are no longer excited about anything. Yet, it is the same island, the same faith in which God wants us to frolic. The only difference is that we have removed the walls that kept us safe.
Or, as Paul puts it elsewhere, allowing the "godless chatter" of unchecked doctrinal speculation "will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will eat its way like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the Truth by holding that the Resurrection is past already. They are upsetting the faith of some" (II Timothy 2:16-18). Notice that these two men "have swerved from the Truth by holding that the Resurrection is past already." In another place, he shows how those who reject the idea of resurrection altogether have lost the claim to Christ's saving Resurrection (cf. I Corinthians 15:12-19), but these two "are upsetting the faith of some" by simply believing in the wrong timetable for the Resurrection. (This warning is especially pertinent to this century, where we have multiple teachings about that timetable swirling about our heads─Pre-Millenialism, Post-Millenialism, Amillenialism, etc.) Paul extols us, "Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings; for it is well that the heart be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited their adherents" (Hebrews 13:9).
In Jesus' day, too, the Pharisees and the Sadducees disagreed about a great many things; there was confusion in Israel over the Truth of God, not unlike there is today (although, I dare say there are a great many more competing theologies in Christianity today than there were in first century Judaism). So, when all this finally broke into my consciousness, I had to ask myself, did Jesus sit back and say, "well, as long as they agree on the essentials, it's not a problem"? What I found was that Matthew 15:1-9, & 12-14 cast quite a different picture:
"Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 'Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.' He answered them, 'And why do you transgress the Commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, "Honour your father and your mother," and, "He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die." But you say, "If any one tells his father or his mother, 'What you would have gained from me is given to God,' he need not honour his father." So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the Word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:`This people honours Me with their lips,but their heart is far from Me;in vain do they worship Me,teaching as doctrines the precepts of men."'""...Then the disciples came and said to him, 'Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?' He answered, 'Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.'"
"So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the Word of God. You hypocrites!" Jesus says. This is an astonishingly sharp criticism; could it be because they're misleading the Jews on "the essentials"? Look at the example Jesus uses. It's about honouring one's parents and it's in response to a question about hand-washing; this is hardly the stuff of obviously eternal consequences. I don't think many today would call these disagreements "the essentials", yet Jesus is livid, telling the Pharisees that they are far from the heart of God because of them, and telling his disciples that they were liable to "fall into a pit" (an obvious metaphor for Hell). Again, it looks like Jesus takes the position that there is no such thing as a "non-essential" teaching.
Perhaps this is because these are some of the things that still divide us. "God commanded, 'Honour your father and your mother,'" yet by their actions so many Protestants say, "What [Mary] would have gained from me is given to God, [so I] need not honour [the Mother of My Lord.]" Yet, aside from being just the Mother of God (as if that were any small thing), did not the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation also reveal her as the mother of all Christians (cf. John 19:26, Rev 12:17)? and did not the Gospel of Luke also say of Mary, "behold, henceforth all generations will call [her] blessed" (Luke 1:48)? As my Marian pages show, the Catholic Church has fulfilled this prophesy throughout every generation, but it is precisely this hypocrisy of the Pharisees that persists to this very day in many people's hearts, dividing brother from brother and sister from sister, because some honour the Blessed Mother, but some ignore her, worsening the centuries of division that Christ's Body, the Church, has suffered. Perhaps it wasn't so inconsequential after all...
Matthew 5:17-20 also suggests that, like Catholics (and St. Paul), Jesus taught that no teaching is non-essential:
"'Think not that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till Heaven and Earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven'" (emphasis added).
To Jesus, even a relaxed teaching on just "one of the least of these commandments" is enough to bring serious and eternal disgrace on the teacher. How much more would we be disgraced for relaxing one of the medium-level commandments? or one of the most important? And what if we fully reject the least one? Will we then no longer be in the Kingdom at all?? These are not trivial questions. They are clearly incredibly important to Our Lord, so they should be incredibly important to us as well.
John, "the Disciple whom Jesus loved," is also very strict on this matter. He says, "Any one who goes ahead and does not abide in the Doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the Doctrine has both the Father and the Son. If any one comes to you and does not bring this Doctrine, do not receive him into the house or give him any greeting; for he who greets him shares his wicked work" (II John 1:9-11). And James too cautions us, saying, "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness" (James 3:1).
When I finally noticed these verses, I was glad that I had not followed my initial impulse and endeavoured to become a Protestant pastor, with no authority behind my teaching but my own interpretations of the Bible. If believing some wrong doctrine can lead to grave error, and God judges those who then go on to teach those errors to others even more harshly than he does those who merely believe the wrong things, I most certainly didn't want to be held responsible for the souls of others when I didn't even know how to be sure that what I taught them was the whole Truth of God and nothing but the Truth of God. I wanted to know God's eternal and universal Truth, but I also knew from experience that it is far too easy to fool myself.
When I was in high school, I was rather pathetically infatuated with a certain girl, but, in "loving" her from afar, it often became painfully apparent (usually whenever I occasionally made romantic overtures toward her) that the girl I "loved" (i.e. the girl in my head) was quite a bit different from the real-life girl. The one in my head was going to respond, "Why of course, I'd love to be your girlfriend! You're the most kind, loving, romantic man I've ever met!" while the real one said things more like, "O, um," (painfully awkward pause,) "I value your friendship, but I can't," (painful pause #2,) "...right now." While I'm not in a position to judge how real or intimate any particular Christian's relationship with Jesus is─and I would never presume to─the innumerable conceptions of who He is and of what He wants us to believe do suggest that at least some of us aren't sufficiently well acquainted with Him and have, no doubt inadvertently, constructed imaginary Jesuses in our minds in lieu of the Real One. In high school, I saw and even spoke to the girl nearly every day, but I was still able to construct a false mental version of who she was and what she wanted of me. Jesus lived 2000 years ago in a land that many of us have never even seen. Isn't it possible that our mental versions of Him and of what He wants of us is flawed too?
There Can Be Only One
Returning, then to the idea that the doctrines we proclaim as Christians are inherently claims of absolute Truth, we must realize that each and every one─not merely the so-called "essentials" but all Christian Teaching─by its very nature, claims to apply universally to every human being everywhere and at all times, indeed to every speck of reality in the created universe. No one is exempted. No Christian Truth is good for you but not for me. That's not to say that every specific practice, personal and public, must be practiced by all; but the Truths─the Doctrines, the Teachings, those things that apply to matters of faith and morals─all apply universally. So when we have a disagreement among Christians about any one of these things, we cannot all be right. It is a logical impossibility that every Christian or every group or denomination has come up with a correct interpretation of a Teaching. Someone has to be wrong, whenever our interpretations are fundamentally incompatible. For true Christian unity─the very thing for which Jesus begged the Father, just prior to His final act of ultimate love for us (cf. John 17:20-26)─a "union" of permissive relativism will never do; in fact it is no union at all. Where you and I disagree, we are not unified, no matter how amicably we do so. For true Christian unity, only a universal acknowledgement of the One Universal Truth will suffice.
As a matter of example, we cannot call ourselves one, as Jesus and the Father are One, while simultaneously professing, a) that Jesus' Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity is absolutely and incontrovertibly 100% truly and substantially present in Holy Communion, and b) that the very same Holy Communion is nothing more than a memorial meal that we do in obedience to cognitively remember the night before He died on the Cross for us. Either "This is My Body" (Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19, & I Corinthians 11:24), or "This is [not] My Body." These are mutually exclusive statements and we cannot claim to be perfectly one with one another until we all proclaim the same Truth-claims about reality, the same all-encompassing Creed. Either "Baptism... now saves you" (I Peter 3:21) or "Baptism... now [only signifies that faith which] saves you." Either "the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Matthew 7:14), or "the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to [eternal damnation], and those who find it are few." In any such disparity of creeds, one belief (at least) must be false. There can be only One Truth, and His Name is Jesus. He is not many, but One. His Teaching is One, Universal, Eternal, and Unchangeable; just as the Father is; just as the Spirit is. For the Christian, relativism, even in the supposedly narrow framework of "disagreeing only on the non-essentials," is simply not an option.
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