On Heresy & Biblical Worldviews
“That’s heretical…” I said to my brother on the other end of the phone. It was late at night, the sky was clear, and the moon’s light fell across the fields like a luminous shadow as I drove the curvy and windy roads in the backcountry of North Carolina. I was driving the thirty-plus minute commute home after a long study session at the seminary’s library.
My brother, still on the line, as I drove the windy roads and continued my rant. I talked faster, my voice and inflection points were perfect for each point I was making. A casual onlooker might have thought that this epic theological battle, playing out in the silence of my car, was a reenactment of St. Nicholas at the council of Nicea defending the truth for future generations!
I don’t remember the details of my argument. Maybe it was the importance of the Trinity or some moral dogma that I had recently discovered through my own studious blood, sweat, and tears, I can’t remember, but it was important! So important — the most important!
My brother listened patiently on the other end waiting for his turn to speak. He waited…and waited…waited some more…still waiting…finally, “Ok, I understand that, but how do we know what is heretical and what’s not?”
I reasoned out some response that would satisfy me, leave him justified in his skepticism, allow the conversation to pause for the time being, and we said our goodbyes. But the problem stuck in my mind for a long time after that; sometimes Protestants don’t realize how well they evangelize the Catholic faith.
It’s a serious question, how do we know who is a heretic and who isn’t? St. Paul, discussing heretics in the Church, says,
After a first and second warning, break off contact with a heretic, realizing that such a person is perverted and sinful and stands self-condemned.
Tit. 3:10-11 (NABRE)
These are some fightin’ words: “Stands self-condemned”, “perverted”, “sinful”. The NABRE uses the word heretic but the NIV and ESV replace it with division or one who stirs up division,
As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
Ibid. (ESV)
This use of the word “division” creates a serious problem for a person who desires to have a Biblical Worldview. In the very next line, St. Paul prescribes the very thing that he condemns (presuming the ESV is the better translation). If someone is divisive, we are to separate from them [scratches head]? But how do we know who is a heretic and who isn’t?
Paul is saying, again, according to Protestant translations, that we punish the divisive members by dividing ourselves against them. Is this a contradiction? It is if someone holds to a sola scriptura or a Biblical Worldview rhetoric. When someone says “I have a Biblical Worldview” this is ultimately a smokescreen to say “I’m right, and you’re wrong.” But the only way we can know a heretic is present is if there is doctrine that is true for all Christians. In other words, it would have to be universal doctrine, or Catholic doctrine.
In a piece earlier this week titled Sound Doctrine, I made the point that institutions, not local churches, define their doctrines. Similarly, if a Church defines the doctrine, then it also determines who is and is not a heretic. But with so many Churches claiming a Biblical Worldview and at the same time declaring those who disagree with them heretics, how can we know who is a heretic and who is not, especially when we consider the adjectives that go along with such a person? For a good video on these challenges, check out Joe Heschmeyer’s video The One Question that Unravels Protestantism1
In the end, my brother’s question was what one Protestant evangelist called “a pebble in [my] shoe”. It stuck with me, rolled around in the back of my mind, and was probably the first rock I threw across the Tiber when I converted. I know friends who have that same pebble rolling around in their shoes too. Some things are clear: God exists, Jesus died for our sins, etc., but others are not. In short, doctrine is a matter of authority, not merely scripture. So the question remains, how do you know which doctrines are heretical and which ones aren’t?
Joe H. YouTube Video: The One Question that Unravels Protestantism