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From: bennet@gymble.UUCP (Tom Bennet)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: the need for correct doctrine
Message-ID: <358@gymble.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Sep-85 02:19:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: gymble.358
Posted: Sun Sep 29 02:19:25 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 03:52:01 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 61

>From charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips) Fri Sep 20 13:03:34 1985
>Message-ID: <304@cylixd.UUCP>
>
>The following seem like obvious questions for discussion:  
>
>Is correct faith or correct doctrine necessary to salvation?
>If so, to what extent?  What differentiates an unbeliever from
>a believer holding a "bad doctrine"?
>
>Should the Athanasian Creed be "cleaned up"?  If so, what would you
>change?
>

Concerning the first:

Christianity is, after all, the religion of belief in Christ ("...whoever
believes in Him should not perish...").  It is clear that this does not mean
just any kind of belief concerning Christ (historical existence, that he had
two legs, etc.), but some particular kind of belief is required.

On the other hand, we must be careful not to think that more kinds of belief
are included than actually are, since this tends to result in a lot of extra
burdens on people and division amongst Christians.  Christ criticized the
Pharisees for making up extra rules, and it is important that any such list of
beliefs does not extend farther than the New Testament permits.

In the doctrinal discussions of the NT epistles, what thing is it about Christ
which is most often discussed?  The idea of Christ's death for sin is always
central; it seems to be the starting point for all of Christian doctrine.  As
such, I would tend to list (approximately) the following as bare essential
Christian doctrine:

  1. Belief that Christ's death is in payment for one's own sin.

  2. Some form of deity of Christ, since the NT discussion of #1 always assumes
     this.  I think this could be held rather weakly: the main thing is to
     assert that he was not just "a good man," but was in some unique sense
     divine: "the Son of God."

  3. Enough of a Christian worldview for 1 & 2 to make sense: existence of God,
     existence of sin, etc.

It is important to remember that any statement of essential doctrine will be at
best a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a Christian; the book
of James speaks well to that point.

Concerning the second:

My only familiarity with the Creed is having read the copy which someone
thoughtfully posted earlier, but I think it's clear that I would consider it
far too strong a statement to be called essential.

-- 
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"That we have made a hero of Howard Hughes tells us ... that the secret point
of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor
power for power's sake ..., but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy."
						-- Joan Didion
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Tom Bennet @ U of MD Comp Sci Dept    |   ..!ihnp4!seismo!umcp-cs!gymble!bennet
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