CHRISTIANITY TODAY has always been concerned with “pumping truth” (J. I. Packer’s colorful phrase), conveying in a responsible yet readable manner the important teachings of Christianity, even as we examine current trends in the church and the world. To start off this year’s collection of doctrinal articles, we asked Saint Louis University historian James Hitchcock to reflect on the question, “Why doctrine?”

God’s revelation to mankind is Jesus Christ, and acceptance of that revelation consists of nothing else but full and complete faith in Christ.

Virtually all Christian groups agree on that. And because of that agreement, it seems to many people unfortunate that those same groups proceed to disagree, often vehemently, over interpretations of the faith.

Both ecumenical Christians and bemused non-Christians often ask why it is not simply enough to accept Jesus as Lord. After all, faith in Christ manifests itself in ways that do not require interpretation: Christians are supposed to be distinguishable by their service and love, for which no particular theology seems to be necessary. And we can engage wholeheartedly in prayer and worship—even if we are completely uneducated.

For many people, therefore, doctrine—in the sense of explicit creedal statements which believers are expected to accept—seems at best superfluous, at worst divisive and unnecessarily complicating. “Doctrine divides; service unites” is a familiar contemporary ecumenical slogan.

A Deeper, More Holy Life

Properly understood, however, doctrines are not merely complicated abstractions. An understanding of the Trinity, for example, should deepen one’s prayer life and further reveal the richness of God’s love. And an understanding of the theology of the sacraments should make one live the life of grace more fully and consciously.

Moreover, doctrine can lead us not only into deeper spirituality, but also into higher morality. Unfortunately, nowhere in contemporary Christianity is doctrine more ignored, or more controverted, than here. Centuries of Christian history have shown that it is not enough simply to say, “Obey the commandments,” or “Love your neighbor as yourself.” People have been capable of the most widely varying, and mutually contradictory, interpretations of those exhortations. In order for its moral teachings to be more than platitudinous, the church has to be able to say with some specificity what are and what are not right actions, and why.

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But just as faith that rests primarily on personal experience can become overly subjective and hence distorted (as with people eager to see the hand of God in everything that makes them feel good), so faith based on doctrinal orthodoxy can be dead and barren (as with believers whose zeal for theological accuracy becomes a kind of nitpicking metaphysical etiquette). But in both cases the fault, obviously, lies in distortion and excess.

In The Beginning

Students of world religions point out that Christianity from the beginning has placed greater emphasis on doctrine than any other major faith. Apparently some Eastern religions contain no doctrine at all. This suggests that Christianity’s historical penchant for developing doctrine is no mere accident.

Indeed, the New Testament already embodies abstract doctrinal statements. Although the complexities of doctrine are sometimes contrasted with the simplicities of biblical faith, the first chapter of John and nearly the entire Letter to the Romans—to cite two examples—are already highly theological.

Formal doctrine served two distinct purposes in the early church: It was a way of explaining the faith to educated nonbelievers (the first chapter of John does this), and it was a way for educated Christians to explain their faith to themselves. Thus, doctrine developed in the early church not because Christians were getting farther away from the gospel, but because they sought to understand it more fully.

For example, the New Testament does not speak of the Trinity. But Jesus talks repeatedly about the Father to whom he will return and the Spirit whom the Father will send. Inevitably Christians sought to understand the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit. In doing so, they formulated doctrines, and already in the second century the church was distinguishing between true and false doctrines and declaring certain doctrines essential for Christians to believe. To have done otherwise would in effect have meant a refusal to think about the meaning of faith.

Homey Parables And Metaphysical Flights

Perhaps the most telling argument against doctrine is that the infinite cannot be encompassed within the finite—the eternal truth of God cannot be reduced to a verbal formula comprehensible to the human mind. This awareness is itself part of the patrimony of Christian doctrine. However, this is no more an argument against doctrine as such than it is against the Incarnation.

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To argue that doctrine pollutes divine revelation simply because it makes use of human categories is to ignore a key aspect of Scripture: The homey themes of Jesus’ parables build on the natural knowledge of human beings no less than do the metaphysical flights of John’s logos theology.

Of course, no doctrine can exhaust the truth it seeks to express. Because they are human formulations, doctrines can never be considered final and definitive. But at a minimum, doctrines establish boundary markers for belief—warning signs to tell us when we stray too close to danger. For example, the teaching of the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) keeps us from denying the fullness of God’s self-revelation in Christ by moving too far in the direction of Arianism (the heretical teaching that Christ was not coequal and coeternal with the Father). Likewise, the markers set up at Chalcedon (A.D. 451) keep us from making light of the reality of the Incarnation by warning us away from Monophysitism (the heresy that Christ had only one nature, and that one divine).

All doctrine involves some use of human philosophy. But if the philosophy is not explicit, it will be implicit, and a merely implicit philosophy is likely to fall into unrecognized errors. Economist John Maynard Keynes dismissed those “hardheaded” businessmen who pride themselves on espousing no economic theory by saying that they are, unknown to themselves, “followers of some long dead scribbler.” All people, even the least educated, have some implicit picture of the universe, into which they translate their faith. All things considered, it is better that that picture be explicit and conscious.

In adapting philosophical ideas to the exposition of the gospel, theologians have always had to make adjustments in the philosophy itself. (Thus Thomas Aquinas discarded Aristotle’s idea that the universe is eternal.) When a system of theology becomes too closely wedded to a particular philosophical school it becomes rigid and runs a high risk of distorting the gospel.

But, when a particular philosophical system has been carefully harmonized with Christian belief over a long period of time, the marriage between the two is not easily broken. The chief theological struggle in contemporary Roman Catholicism is precisely over how to express the truths of the faith in ways that are not necessarily Aristotelian. Unfortunately, in making the attempt, some theologians seem to have lost crucial elements of the faith itself.

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No Last Word

Certainly, no Christian can assume that any human thinker ever has the last word. In working with the dominant philosophy of a particular age, theologians run the risk of binding the gospel to a system of thought that will in time become at least partially outmoded, as one philosophical school succeeds another, or the insights of one age seem inadequate to the questions of a different era.

John Henry Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (written before he converted to Rome) remains the seminal work on the question how the doctrines of the church can change to meet the demands of succeeding ages, while at the same time remain faithful to the gospel once delivered to the saints. Newman concluded that every doctrinal development must be contained, at least in embryo, in the gospel and that every development must be compatible with earlier ones.

There is no implicit reason why doctrine should not change, in the sense of developing in accord with the changing perceptions of each age. Different periods of history tend to emphasize different aspects of Christian belief (for example, God’s wrath in one time, his mercy in another).

But it is necessary that no development negate authentic earlier doctrine. (Thus, properly understood, God’s wrath and his mercy are not contradictory.)

One of the main functions of doctrine is to preserve the comprehensiveness of Christian belief through the vicissitudes of historical change. Thus an age that finds itself drawn to the helpless, suffering Jesus on the cross is reminded, as it recites the Nicene Creed, that that same Jesus was the eternally begotten Son of the Father.

Properly understood then, doctrine does not inhibit theological development but is precisely that which makes responsible development possible. Modern believers can stretch their understanding of the gospel, secure in the knowledge that in the historic creeds they have reliable standards by which to measure the fidelity of their own efforts.

The great historic creeds, especially the Nicene Creed, have shown themselves enduring beyond all question in serving this purpose. In theory, it is possible to imagine a new creed cast in very different terms from that of Nicea, yet equally faithful to the gospel. In practice, such an achievement seems beyond the theological minds of this age. Even the great Catholic theologians of the Middle Ages, or the great Protestant thinkers of the sixteenth century, for the most part never thought they could replace the great early classic formulations.

For, if all doctrine is indeed embodied in the linguistic and philosophical clothing of a particular historical age, it is also, at its core, God’s own unchanging truth. In all authentic doctrinal statements, this continues to shine forth powerfully, across all the ages.

James Hitchcock is professor of history, Saint Louis University, and author of What Is Secular Humanism? (Servant).

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