Will God save those led astray by heresy?

[ViaCrucis]

So for you, it more than Christology, but a proper understanding of the Trinity? I wonder, though, if someone can still truly be a believer of the gospel who may be also, and perhaps unconsciously, a Modalist.

Having spent a long time discussing theology with other Christians, a lot of Christians are accidental Modalists. They don't know what Modalism is, but neither have they been properly been taught good Trinitarian theology--so they simply don't know any better. If we say that they can't be saved for this reason, we make salvation a theological examination rather than the power and work of God through the Gospel--which is an entirely different kind of bad theology.

That said, seeing as Modalism undermines and destroys the integrity of the Christian confession of faith, good teaching is always necessary. We don't have to treat it as a matter of damnation in order to take it seriously; but rather treat it as a matter of good confession, in order that we as the people of God bear faithful witness to Jesus Christ our Lord.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Roymond]

So for you, it more than Christology, but a proper understanding of the Trinity? I wonder, though, if someone can still truly be a believer of the gospel who may be also, and perhaps unconsciously, a Modalist.

As the fourth- and fifth-century disputes over Christology show, Christology is intertwined with the Trinity; going wrong on one inevitably means going wrong on the other. Modalism is technically a Trinitarian heresy, but it is also a Christological one because if God the Word is just a role being played then Jesus can't be a Redeemer in the Old Testament sense, and if not a Redeemer then He can also not be a Savior.
What connects the two is ontology, something western Christians are mostly strangers to: salvation is not just a legal transaction performed by one Person to satisfy another Person, it is a process engaged in by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit both in unity and each in His own way because no matter what else may be the case to be God is not just for one Person to act apart from the others but for the Triune God to act in unity because they cannot be separated. I think a lot of western Christians actually think of the Trinity as something like three LEGO-type bricks where each one connects to both the others but they are still very different bricks, a "stitched-together unity" as one theology professor I knew put it (quoting someone, probably a church Father) rather than a "baked-together unity" (yeah, he was into very domestic-ish illustrations), the difference being that with a stitched-together unity you can snip the threads and each Person remains intact, but with a baked-together unity if you try to isolate one member you destroy the cake.
The east has managed to not slip into this version of sloppy thinking because they emphasize that in everything concerning the Godhead the beginning must be made from the Unity.

 

[Roymond]

There is a saying by one of the saints of the Eastern Churches, St. Theophan the Recluse that I have heard a number of times, (I apologize if my quoting from memory butchers it a bit), "Do not worry about the salvation of the heterodox, for they have a Savior who cares very deeply for their salvation too." Theophan then goes on, however, to warn against knowingly turning away from the truth.

In other words, leave the salvation of the heterodox to God, but as for those of us who believe in the truth, abide in it. If we knowingly turn away from the truth, rather than merely being ignorant of it, we jeopardize ourselves by making shipwreck of our faith.

Not because salvation is about "having the right beliefs" or making sure all our i's are dotted and t's are crossed. But because Jesus calls us to abide in Him, and outside of the Safe Harbor of Jesus Christ there is only the tumultuous waves and storms of the open sea.

-CryptoLutheran

St. Theophan was quite correct, and he was restating a theme from the ancient church. My memory is telling me it was Chrysostom but it couldn't be since it was said during the council of Ephesus that preceded Chalcedon, that the ears of the believers are more pious than the words of the preachers, and another that the hearts of believers guide better than the thoughts of the mind. This is why the early church never condemned the flocks of heretics, only the heretics, because except in some extreme circumstances the hearts of the believers were set on Jesus regardless of what their minds understood. It's taken up by a number of theologians through the ages who have noted that God isn't looking for ways to disqualify people from Heaven but is looking for ways to get them there! [A great illustration of that view comes from a presentation by Walter Martin that I got to attend: he said that despite the errors of their leaders he fully expected to see believers from various cults in heaven because their hearts trusted the Savior and not the image of Him painted by false teachers.

This raises the question of heretics who aren't able to see their errors: if they are not knowingly turning away from the truth, despite being condemned by the church are they nevertheless saved?

 

[Jonaitis]

As the fourth- and fifth-century disputes over Christology shows, Christology is intertwined with the Trinity; going wrong on one inevitably means going wrong on the other. Modalism is technically a Trinitarian heresy, but it is also a Christological one because if God the Word is just a role being played then Jesus can't be a Redeemer in the Old Testament sense, and if not a Redeemer then He can also not be a Savior.
What connects the two is ontology, something western Christians are mostly strangers to: salvation is not just a legal transaction performed by one Person to satisfy another Person, it is a process engaged in by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit both in unity and each in His own way because no matter what else may be the case to be God is not just for one Person to act apart from the others but for the Triune God to act in unity because they cannot be separated. I think a lot of western Christians actually think of the Trinity as something like three LEGO-type bricks where each one connects to both the others but they are still very different bricks, a "stitched-together unity" as one theology professor I knew put it (quoting someone, probably a church Father) rather than a "baked-together unity" (yeah, he was into very domestic-ish illustrations), the difference being that with a stitched-together unity you can snip the threads and each Person remains intact, but with a baked-together unity if you try to isolate one member you destroy the cake.
The east has managed to not slip into this version of sloppy thinking because they emphasize that in everything concerning the Godhead the beginning must be made from the Unity.

While I express my faith in creedal language, I do not find the language itself necessary for salvation. I'm of the opinion that the minimum that was required of the elect in the Old Testament is sufficient for elect in the New Testament, and that is, the meanest understanding of Christ's person and work: Jesus is God in flesh and suffered in the place of sinful humans to reconcile them to Himself. This is the heart of the message of Christianity, everything else surrounding it are annotations. An individual may not have the mental process to philosophically conceptualize the Trinitarian work the moment of their conversion, but nonetheless, they are converted and reconciled!

 

[Roymond]

Having spent a long time discussing theology with other Christians, a lot of Christians are accidental Modalists. They don't know what Modalism is, but neither have they been properly been taught good Trinitarian theology--so they simply don't know any better. If we say that they can't be saved for this reason, we make salvation a theological examination rather than the power and work of God through the Gospel--which is an entirely different kind of bad theology.

That said, seeing as Modalism undermines and destroys the integrity of the Christian confession of faith, good teaching is always necessary. We don't have to treat it as a matter of damnation in order to take it seriously; but rather treat it as a matter of good confession, in order that we as the people of God bear faithful witness to Jesus Christ our Lord.

-CryptoLutheran

It doesn't help that some of the most common illustrations use to try to "make sense" of the Trinity are Modalist (or that those very illustrations are turned around by cults to "prove" that the Trinity concept is false). I can't tolerate the "Father, husband, brother (or whatever)" meme, but ice/water/steam is no better. What I've called the "Feynman Analogy" gets closer, referencing a particle having spin, mass, and charge, and none can be taken away without doing away with the particle; it's mildly modalist because you can't say that spin is fully the particle or mass is fully the particle or charge is fully the particle, they're just essential aspects of the particle (Okay, there are quantum physicists who will say that no, the particle IS the spin plus mass plus charge, but they'll still grant that none is the full particle).

 

[Roymond]

While I express my faith in creedal language, I do not find the language itself necessary for salvation. I'm of the opinion that the minimum that was required of the elect in the Old Testament is sufficient for elect in the New Testament, and that is, the meanest understanding of Christ's person and work: Jesus is God in flesh and suffered in the place of sinful humans to reconcile them to Himself. This is the heart of the message of Christianity, everything else surrounding it are annotations. An individual may not have the mental process to philosophically conceptualize the Trinitarian work the moment of their conversion, but nonetheless, they are converted and reconciled!

You'd like St. Bonaventure: When a poor woman one day said he must be so much closer to God because of all his theological knowledge, he countered that all that abundance of knowledge made it easy to think he understood God, so the woman was probably closer to God as she had no such illusions.

 

[Fervent]

It doesn't help that some of the most common illustrations use to try to "make sense" of the Trinity are Modalist (or that those very illustrations are turned around by cults to "prove" that the Trinity concept is false). I can't tolerate the "Father, husband, brother (or whatever)" meme, but ice/water/steam is no better. What I've called the "Feynman Analogy" gets closer, referencing a particle having spin, mass, and charge, and none can be taken away without doing away with the particle; it's mildly modalist because you can't say that spin is fully the particle or mass is fully the particle or charge is fully the particle, they're just essential aspects of the particle (Okay, there are quantum physicists who will say that no, the particle IS the spin plus mass plus charge, but they'll still grant that none is the full particle).

The problem here is in all we're speaking analogously, so there are going to be things that are true of the object we're using and the subject of the analoogy. My favored analogy is in line with the original "persona" idea in highlighting an actor's real personality and 2 characters they've given a life of their own. My favored version is the Harrison Ford analogy, in that Harrison Ford is not Han Solo or Indiana Jones, but Harrison Ford, Han Solo, and Indiana Jones all share a single essence. It's got modalist flavoring, can certainly be reduced to modalism especially if the characters brought to life are not fleshed out but gets the idea across. As long as we remember we're talking analogy and not identity they are useful, simply not true.

 

[SeventhFisherofMen]

I would like to think that those who fall victim to erroneous doctrines and teachings about the Christian faith, God would redeem by their sincerity. He is merciful, after all. Is it really anyone's fault if they are taken in by a deceiver but mean well in their profession? We know so little and are so limited in our understandings. Paul warned about believing a different (heretical) gospel though, a gospel that doesn't save. Will God excuse our ignorance, which may be great, if we are spiritually attached to faith in Christ's propitiation? A verse for context below:

2 Peter 2
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping

A verse that came to mind when i read this was:

their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them." Romans 2:15

 

[Desert Squatch]

I would like to think that those who fall victim to erroneous doctrines and teachings about the Christian faith, God would redeem by their sincerity. He is merciful, after all. Is it really anyone's fault if they are taken in by a deceiver but mean well in their profession? We know so little and are so limited in our understandings. Paul warned about believing a different (heretical) gospel though, a gospel that doesn't save. Will God excuse our ignorance, which may be great, if we are spiritually attached to faith in Christ's propitiation? A verse for context below:

2 Peter 2
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sle

I would like to think that those who fall victim to erroneous doctrines and teachings about the Christian faith, God would redeem by their sincerity. He is merciful, after all. Is it really anyone's fault if they are taken in by a deceiver but mean well in their profession? We know so little and are so limited in our understandings. Paul warned about believing a different (heretical) gospel though, a gospel that doesn't save. Will God excuse our ignorance, which may be great, if we are spiritually attached to faith in Christ's propitiation? A verse for context below:

2 Peter 2
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping

If your personal doctrinal slant is arminianism, I believe the answer would be "no". If your personal doctrinal slant is REform (Calvinism) the answer would be "Not sure but if the person was truly saved earlier, then 'yes; ". If your personal doctrinal slant is Patristic universalism, the answer will be, "Yep -- eventually"

 

[Hawkins]

The simple answer is no.

2 Peter 2:4-9
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;
if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless
(for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—
if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.

It basically says that a fair God will do in accordance with established Law and covenants. By Law, the angels will be judged. By covenants humans are judged, with the righteous rescued and and unrighteous punished. God knows how to rescue His sheep legally with the standard specified in His covenants.

 

[concretecamper]

Will God excuse our ignorance, which may be great, if we are spiritually attached to faith in Christ's propitiation?

Heresy is precisely because we are opposed to Christ by follow teachings which are opposed to what His Church teaches.

I don't see how one can profess a heresy and be attached in faith to Christ's propitiation.