The Christian Heretichumility | The Christian Heretic http://www.christianheretic.com Just because it's "orthodox" doesn't mean it's true Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:42:55 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Theology is Theory http://www.christianheretic.com/2008/12/theology-is-theory.html http://www.christianheretic.com/2008/12/theology-is-theory.html#comments Mon, 22 Dec 2008 01:30:00 +0000 Drew Costen http://www.christianheretic.com/?p=47
No matter what theological conclusions you might have come to over your lifetime, one of the most important factors to remember is that theology is just theory.

Whether you believe in biblical literalism and inerrancy or a more figurative method of interpreting Scripture, whether you lean towards a pre-trib/pre-mil rapture or towards an amillennial eschatology, whether you think that God is a triune set of persons or think that He is actually just one being manifesting in different forms, and even whether you are convinced that non-believers will suffer forever in hell or are sure that everyone will eventually make it to heaven, we all have to realize that any of us could be wrong about any of these subjects because in the end there’s no way to know with absolute certainty that what we believe is true.

Even if an angel or a being claiming to be God appeared before you telling you that “this particular doctrine is absolutely true,” you can’t know that this entity is being entirely truthful, and even if said being wasn’t lying, you very well might be confused about what it was that you were told actually meant.

It might sound like I’m calling for agnosticism here, and you’d be absolutely right, except that you might be confused here as well because agnosticism is not necessarily what you think it is. To be agnostic doesn’t mean that one has to reject all forms of spiritual belief. Rather, to be agnostic about theological claims can simply mean that one is humble enough to admit that one can’t know things for certain that can’t be proven and recognizing that one might actually be wrong about their metaphysical ideas.

So embrace your faith, but have the humility of the agnostic. Proclaim your doctrinal views, but do so with the understanding that you might have it all wrong and may one day have to admit to everyone that you no longer believe as you once did. I’ve had to do this more than a few times in my life and it’s taught me to be much more careful about just how dogmatic I am when discussing what is ultimately nothing more than theory.

]]> http://www.christianheretic.com/2008/12/theology-is-theory.html/feed 0 Theological Evolution http://www.christianheretic.com/2007/12/theological-evolution.html http://www.christianheretic.com/2007/12/theological-evolution.html#comments Fri, 21 Dec 2007 22:25:00 +0000 Drew Costen http://www.christianheretic.com/?p=39 While I’ve been a Christian Universalist for about seven or eight years now, there was a time when I believed very strongly that non-Christians would spend eternity in hell (and did lots of street preaching to try to prevent as many people as I could from experiencing this fate). After being introduced to the doctrine of Universal Reconciliation, and after much study and soul searching, I had to admit that I was probably wrong about my belief in everlasting torment and changed my mind.

Likewise, if you were to ask me for my views on any number of other theological and philosophical issues, you’d find that my beliefs have changed in many different ways from year to year. Some people have seen this as a negative thing and criticized my theological fluidity from time to time, but, as I recently said in a post on another blog, “my opinion is that if your theological views aren’t at least slightly different from year to year then you’re not to be trusted since it shows lack of growth. There’s no way that your beliefs (I’m speaking to everyone here) are so spot-on correct that you have no need to adjust them, or even completely reject them, every so often.”

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