The Definition of Heresy

I must have missed a few sentences of the conversation while I was up getting dessert, but when I got back Danny was explaining how the whole question for him, perhaps, came down to “how do you define what is heresy?”

Whatever may have been said in those sentences by way of a preface obviously wasn’t needed, as we proceeded to get into a discussion over the issue. Note that I say discussion, not debate, as this was quite an enjoyable conversation. I referenced it in my previous post as part of feeling like a “college student”. For purposes of posterity, I intend to recollect my position on the issue here. With that introduction…

How do you define what is heresy?

The issue is one over which you can argue for hours and only have run in circles. In the end I believe we must resort to the singularly unsatisfying, yet somehow complete definition of orthodoxy as “what has been held always, everywhere, by everybody.”

The funny thing is that, of course, nothing has been believed everywhere, by everybody, at all times. Thusly nothing is considered truly orthodox. Yet, as in so many cases, it’s the principle of the thing that counts. The idea of the Great Tradition is that the Church is able to distinguish what is heresy from what is not because of the communion of the saints.

The Islamic world has a similar concept: the Prophet said that his community would never agree upon something in error. Granted, that does not hold for Christianity, as the majority of the church has at points agreed upon an erroneous belief. Just look at the Arian controversy in the 4^th century for an example.

So it seems that another idea should be considered: heresy is much easier to see in retrospect. We can look back at the church across the centuries and say that Pelagius, despite being a devout Christian and known scholar, was still a heretic. But this leaves open the question of heresy today.

Take, for example, the question of homosexuality in the church. Perhaps in a hundred years the majority of Christians will accept the practice and look back on the debates of today as we do on Arius and Athanasius. If this happens, what does it mean for those who today argue that homosexuality is morally incorrect? They may be a small sect then, but are they wrong?

Which brings us back to ancient heresies. The gnostics are almost universally considered heretical, yet there are still gnostic churches today. Thus, is gnosticism truly a heresy? (See what I mean about going to circles?)

The answer, I think, lies in an intangible aspect of the debate over any issue. Yes, gnosticism is a heresy, and few would argue with that. But what about the argument over free will vs. predestination? (Suddenly heresy has become a touchy subject, hasn’t it?) Unless you are willing to alienate half of the global church on certain positions and declare them heretics, you must take both sides into consideration.

It occurs to me that in many of these cases, God has given us two sides in order to help us understand a mystery. An example would be the trinitarian debate. God is one and God is three. Yet if we emphasize his oneness too much we risk the heresy of modalism, and if we emphasize his threeness, we risk subordination or worse. But that does not make either side of the debate inherently incorrect.

The same applies to free will vs. predestination. God has ordained our salvation, by grace, before the foundations of the world. Yet if we are not automatons, we must have chosen God freely. What then? I believe God has given us the two sides of the debate not so we can point at the other and yell “heretic!” but so we can seek to understand the mysteries and paradoxes of Christianity more fully.

Not all issues work this way. This is where the retrospective aspect comes in. Some issues have been condemned and relegated to minority sects ever since, though they may never completely disappear. But other major issues have come up again and again throughout history. God, it seems, is not letting them disappear or be settled. We have argued about free will since the early church and debated it hotly since Augustine, but it isn’t settled yet. Will it ever be? I doubt it. God knows we need both views to have any hope of understanding the paradox, and by his grace he has kept both views around.

The chances of any of us having all our theology perfectly correct are virtually nil. This does not mean that we should give up on theology and resort to mysticism or other answers. But it does mean that we should consider that fact when looking to label another view as heresy. We can, through the principle embodied in “everywhere, by everybody, at all times,” label ideas as heresy, but we must be careful.

Heresy and debate will occur in the church. In the end, either the right belief will become apparent or both sides will remain, to teach us about the mystery of God.  Thus, until the end of the age, we must dialogue on issues and carefully exclude some ideas from the church.  But most importantly, we must rely on God’s grace to guide his church in right belief.

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Of course, there is no way for me to provide anything near a complete answer to such a complicated issue.  This was simply my argument given to a friend yesterday and expressed, I hope, in some sort of coherent format.  Please leave a comment, a disagreement, or a question if you feel inclined to.