What makes a Christian belief non-essential & essential?

[QuestionQuest74]

I know Jesus being Lord & what sin is are essential beliefs but what else ?

 

[Mark Quayle]

I know Jesus being Lord & what sin is are essential beliefs but what else ?

Essential to what? —to Salvation? —to Orthodoxy?

 

[d taylor]

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The absolute essential belief to receive God's free gift of Eternal Life, is to believe in Jesus. That is to believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, The promised Messiah only begotten Son of God.

You do not believe this and really nothing else you believe in matters.

 

[prodigalredeemed]

The ‘essential’ doctrines are the ones that, if you get wrong, would effect your salvation. They generally pertain to:
1) the attributes of God (having a right view of who God is and what He is like)
2) the virgin birth (no sin nature), sinless life (fulfilled the law), death (paid the penalty for our sin), burial (he was genuinely dead - not ‘mostly dead’), and resurrection (demonstrated the power to conquer death on our behalf) of Jesus Christ.
3) there will be a future return of Christ, there will be a final judgement, and He will establish a new earth and heaven.
4) the fallen/sinful nature of Man (we aren’t able to save ourselves)
5) the requirements of salvation (we must be born again through the work of the Holy Spirit to regenerate our spiritual life, enables us to receive the Gospel, be repent/turn away from our sins and turn towards a life of continuous, faithful obedience to Christ)
6) An understanding of the clear teachings and commands of Christ throughout the Bible.

There are many things God doesn’t reveal to us clearly in scripture. We should hold fast and be unified in those things that are clear, and have Grace with each other on those things that are more mysterious.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I know Jesus being Lord & what sin is are essential beliefs but what else ?

Difficult question to answer.

Because what is "essential" can be a highly contested issue depending on one's denomination and theological tradition.

It also is important to understand essential in what sense.

There are some things that I think are essential in order to even call oneself a Christian in the first place.
There are some things that I think are essential for the sake of preserving orthodoxy.
There are some things that I think are essential to a proper understanding of Christian faith and practice but which I don't use to deny someone else's Christianity or salvation.

A good starting place would be the Apostles' Creed. A step up from that would be the Nicene Creed. And even better would a more broadly creedal/confessional understanding of the theological debates and their significance in Christian late antiquity. The theological, and especially Christological, ideas that became wedge issues in the 4th and 5th centuries in particular. I'd say these things provide for us a theological bedrock of all (or at least most) meaningful theological conversation within Christianity.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[bling]

God judges the heart of the person, so some of their believes could be wrong, but their heart is right.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Difficult question to answer.

Because what is "essential" can be a highly contested issue depending on one's denomination and theological tradition.

It also is important to understand essential in what sense.

There are some things that I think are essential in order to even call oneself a Christian in the first place.
There are some things that I think are essential for the sake of preserving orthodoxy.
There are some things that I think are essential to a proper understanding of Christian faith and practice but which I don't use to deny someone else's Christianity or salvation.

A good starting place would be the Apostles' Creed. A step up from that would be the Nicene Creed. And even better would a more broadly creedal/confessional understanding of the theological debates and their significance in Christian late antiquity. The theological, and especially Christological, ideas that became wedge issues in the 4th and 5th centuries in particular. I'd say these things provide for us a theological bedrock of all (or at least most) meaningful theological conversation within Christianity.

I have often thought about this myself. I took a stab at this a few years back but can't find the thread.

My question here is: Does Scripture itself give us an objective criteria for deciding what is "essential" or "non-essential" concerning the articles of faith? For without an objective criteria, trying to figure out what is or is not "essential" is highly subjective with a high amount of viability person to person. As you said correctly..."because what is "essential" can be a highly contested issue depending on one's denomination and theological tradition." For example to usage of the Sacraments for Lutherans, RCC and the Orthodox are fundamental to the faith and life of a Christian whereas they would not be for the Salvation Army or certain baptist groups.

I also believe we also should avoid the error of minimalism....subjectively trying to figure out what is the minimal essentials and paying less to the other articles of faith.

Towards a Scriptural argument: The diagnostic doctrine here would be the Incarnation. The doctrine of the Incarnation is essential because it is presupposed on every page of the NT. The basis of the Incarnation are the virgin birth narratives, of which we only have two passages...Luke 1 and Matthew 1.

This now becomes the objective criteria for what is essential. An article of faith is considered "essential" if it based on two or more passages of Scripture. Two passages of two different authors, or two passages of Scripture from two different books of the same author, or two passages of Scripture from the same author within the same book, yet in from different contexts.

Defining what is "essential" takes on a whole new meaning and avoids minimalism.

What is "essential" is expansive for it encompasses the whole counsel of God. And no one person can decide what is essential because what is essential doesn't bubble from human reason. It is found in Scripture.

The "two passage" criteria for defining an article of faith clearly has advantage in interpreting Scripture as historic rules for interpreting Scripture are always based upon "two or more witnesses" from the Scriptural text. 1) Scriptura interpretur Scriptura 1) Clear texts intertpret obscure texts 3) the NT interprets the OT.

This "two text" approach avoids taking a single text out of context and developing a whole new doctrine contrary to Scripture.

Two examples:
Rick Warren's usage of Proverbs 29:18 "Where there is no vision the people perish." This passage of Scripture has nothing to do with contemporary church growth issues, it has to do with revelation. Where God's revelation does not exist the people perish.

The Thousand year reign of Christ. This passage of Scripture is only found in John 20. We have no other passage of Scripture to bind the Christian to it literal belief. An article of faith must be established by two or more teachings of Scripture....as the Scripture state elsewhere....two or more witnesses.

As stated before, the criteria for two or more passages for any one teaching of Scripture's teaching the is an impossible standard to adhere to. I believe you are quite right, that God in his eternal wisdom gave us the Creeds as a way out of this labyrinth of complexity. The Creeds in the most narrow aspects articulate all the things God does for us in Creation, Redemption and Sanctification (in the wide sense) and the sub articles of the Creed are examples of what is to be believed by the Christian. But the sub articles are never to be seen as exhaustive and minimalist.

All the sub articles of the Creed are based upon two or more passages from Scripture and serve as a starting point for deeper study and belief in God's Word.

The Nicene Creed is the ecumenical historical standard of the church which defines that which is to be believed. It is our standard here on CF. This standard is quite adequate for lay people, as history demonstrates. For pastors and teachers of local congregations it might the Creed plus the their Statement of Faith in the churches constitution; other standards might have to be developed to keep the one true faith such as the Chicago Statement on Scripture. For doctrinal, heretical or denominational disputes, the historic Church counsels can be used; Confessional statements need to be developed clearly articulating interpretation and meaning of the texts of Scripture.

Due to attacks on the church in each generation, essential doctrines become greater and greater as we defend the church.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

I know Jesus being Lord & what sin is are essential beliefs but what else ?

A pure heart is essential. This starts with love for Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Even Satan believes so there is something that sets us apart and it is not theology it is love, the kind of love that can not be shaken.
Blessings

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I know Jesus being Lord & what sin is are essential beliefs but what else ?

For the purposes of this Forum, it's the general contents of the Nicene Creed.

But on a practical scale, I personally think a person could just as easily take Paul's letter to the Galatians, read it thoroughly, and figure out what the "essentials" of belief are.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I know Jesus being Lord & what sin is are essential beliefs but what else ?

Nobody has used the term, on this thread, but there are what are called, The Cardinal Doctrines of Christianity. There are many other VERY important doctrines, which must not be ignored or rejected, but they are not essential in the same sense as the Cardinal Doctrines which are pretty much held in common between most "Christian" denominations.

But the Cardinal Doctrines, to me, are even then not to be confused with what one must know or believe or understand, in order to be saved.

I'm not sure what you are asking. Essential for what?

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

But on a practical scale, I personally think a person could just as easily take Paul's letter to the Galatians, read it thoroughly, and figure out what the "essentials" of belief are.

No mention of repentance or Creation in Galatians. Extremely hard to pick one and only Book to derive all the teaching of Scripture in.

IMO, the St. Matthew is the book that has the most doctrines in it. Has the descent into hell, "for as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for the days, the son of man will be in the heart of the earth" and also creation is mentioned "In the beginning, he made them male and female."

 

[2PhiloVoid]

No mention of repentance or Creation in Galatians. Extremely hard to pick one and only Book to derive all the teaching of Scripture in.

Those two concepts are implied and/or inferred in what Paul wrote to the Galatians. But keep in mind, no one is saying here that you can juts rip Galatians out of the New Testament and ignore all the rest or that that "method" is anything I'm implying. Because I'm not. I'm just being practical for the sake of the OP's question.

IMO, the St. Matthew is the book that has the most doctrines in it. Has the descent into hell, "for as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for the days, the son of man will be in the heart of the earth" and also creation is mentioned "In the beginning, he made them male and female."

Well, I have no intention to argue over which book or letter of the New Testament has the most doctrines in it any more than that I'm going to argue about "how many angels can dance upon the head of a pin?"

But let's just face facts: collecting biblical doctrines like baseball cards doesn't make one more of a Christian anymore than the baseball cards make one a baseball player.

 

[jamiec]

I know Jesus being Lord & what sin is are essential beliefs but what else ?

All that the Church teaches as Christian doctrine, should be believed. There are no "essential" & "non-essential" doctrines - except in the logical sense, that some doctrines taught by the Church, are logically dependent on others. The homoöusion taught by Nicea 1 in 325 could in principle be done without, as long as one confesses the truth it safeguards; the Church confesses it, in that formula, because the Spirit-led Church of God canonised it to ward off the error of Arius.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

that some doctrines taught by the Church, are logically dependent on others.

I would disagree. Each teaching of Scripture or article of faith is independent and stands on its own. No doctrine is dependent on others. If a particular doctrine were dependent on other doctrines for its validity, it would be a quagmire. Now, you would have a bizillion individuals offering their own theories of which articles of faith are dependent on others.... and the essential-non essential argument would be taken to a higher level. Now the "essential" teaching of scripture would be the articles of faith which are independent of others.

What would "independent" to some, would then of course be "dependent" doctrine to others. What a mess.