questions regarding error and heresy terminology

[lynnie]

Hi all-

In today's Reformed circles, and 300-500 years ago if it was different, what exactly is an error and what is a heresy?

To be more specific to a current situation and discussion I've been in, we here believe the word of faith movement is wrong when they say that it is what your mouth speaks into being that saves you and other people, heals you, prospers you, keeps you persevering to the end, etc. They think our words have the very authority and power of God's word, to do the things that orthodox Christians believe are only the work of the Holy Spirit. We can't speak salvation or spiritual fruit over people.

So are people beguiled by Joyce Meyer and Haganites under heresy, or merely in error? Are you saved if you are teaching heresy?

To broaden this, is Roman Catholicism an error or a heresy? Or both- Justification by works is heresy, but praying to dead saints is just an error? Don't you know catholics who seem to be saved.......can you be saved but under heresy?

Some people say heresy is what sends you to hell, and error just the things we believe that may not be true, but we are still saved. Would you all say Arminian doctrine is error but not heresy? How about dispensationalism?

Would it be correct to say that the leaders and teachers of false gospels like "word of faith" are heretics, but many of their followers are truly saved and in deception currently?

I guess to sum this up, how do you define heresy? Are heretics sometimes saved? What is error vs heresy?

Can you quote me how some famous dead Reformed dudes used the terms and understood them? The modern internet blogs are all over the map. I am more interested in old dead guys right now.....thanks.....

 

[NaphtaliPress]

"Heresy, is some error in doctrine, and that especially in fundamental doctrine, followed with pertinacy [ie Pertinacity], and endeavor to propagate the same." James Durham, Concerning Scandal (Naphtali Press, 2014) 223).

 

[py3ak]

I am more interested in old dead guys right now

This is how it should always be, unless you are seeking a husband.

Turretin identifies three kinds of error, and then applies additional distinctions (I.48-52).

There are errors against the foundation, which directly attack a fundamental article (e.g., denying the divinity of Christ); about it, which does not explicitly attack the foundation but maintains something incompatible with it (e.g., denying God's providence is not the same thing as denying his existence, and yet it is ultimately incompatible with affirming God's existence); beside it, which impacts the foundation slightly or not at all (this leads to loss, but not to death).

The first kind of error is deadly; the second kind could be, but is not necessarily.

Heresy is sometimes used with an ecclesiastical connotation - error joined to schism. I think the classification of various types of error as given by Turretin may enable a clearer discussion than trying to restrict the semantic range of heresy. The word has been used as a technical term, but also as a term of abuse, and it will likely prove impossible to make people stick to one or another usage.

 

[Wayne]

How often the Puritans seem to quote one another. There must have been a body of common knowledge:

"Error and heresy, among other things, differ in this: Heresy is accompanied with pertinacity, and therefore the heretic is self-condemned; his own conscience condemns him, while men labour in vain to convince him. He doth not formally, and in terms, condemn himself; but he doth so equivalently, whilst he continues to own and maintain doctrines and opinions which he finds himself unable to defend against the evidence of truth. Human frailty may lead a man into the first [i.e., error], but devilish pride fixes him in the last. [i.e., heresy]
--John Flavel, "The Occasions, Causes, Nature, Rise, Growth and Remedies of Mental Errors," Works, vol. 3, pp. 425-426.

Elsewhere, Jeremiah Burroughs offers this thought-provoking comment:

The reason why there are such errors among us about God and his ways, it comes from the uncleanness of men's hearts. And mark it, either such men as heretofore have been professors of religion and fall off, and grow drossy and sensual and carnal, and give way to their lusts, they fall into strange opinions; or otherwise young ones, that have had very profane and unclean hearts, and as soon as ever their consciences begin to stir in them, why ,they will make a kind of profession of religion, but their hearts never emptied of their lusts, never humbled for their sins; yea, and the devil hath got a way now to keep men from that, to tell them it is but mere legal, and it will rather hinder them from Jesus Christ than further them, and so they fall upon profession of religion, and never know any work of humiliation, so that their hearts are as unclean as ever they were. And no marvel though these men have such misshapen thoughts of God and Christ, and the covenant of grace, and the things of eternal life; their hearts were never cleansed. Yet I say, mark it, your erroneous men that fall to so many vile and damnable errors, they are one of those two sorts, either men that have been forward professors, and beginning to be carnal and sensual and vain; or otherwise young ones that take upon them the profession of religion, yet never knew what the sight of sin meant. These see not God; their hearts are so foul and vile, they cannot see God as God, nor the things of God in the true beauty and excellency of them. I will give you a scripture or two to shew you how errors do follow from the lusts of men's hearts, rather than from the mistakes of the head: 2 Tim. iii.5, 8 . . . 2 Peter ii.18-19 . . .

-- J. Burroughs, Sermon XXVI, on Matt. v.8, in The Saints' Happiness (SDG, 1992), pp. 162-163.

 

[Cymro]

Error is usually in the head but not in the heart. Whereas heresy is in the heart and head.

 

[jwithnell]

I've seen heresy defined as a teaching outside the agreement of the catholic church, basically defined as what is found in the creeds. Further creeds have not been possible since 1054 since at that point the west and east split.

 

[C. M. Sheffield]

This is similar to Ruben's remarks:

The Reformed orthodox in connection with the idea of fundamental articles, note three kinds of doctrinal error:

1. Errors directly against a fundamental article (contra fundamentum)
2. Errors around a fundamental or in indirect contradiction to it (circa fundamentum)
3. Errors beyond a fundamental article (praeter fundamentum)

The first kind of error is a direct attack--such as those launched by the Socinians--against the divinity of Christ or the Trinity. The second is not a direct negation or an antithesis but rather an indirect or secondary error ultimately subversive of a fundamental--such as a belief in God that refuses to acknowledge his providence. The third category of error does not address fundamental articles directly or indirectly but rather involves faith in problematic and curious questions (quaestiones problematicas et curiosas) that do not arise out of the revealed Word--hay and stubble!--and that, because of their curiosity and vanity, constitute diversions from and impediments to salvation.

Richard Muller, Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1, pp. 422-3​

I think a detailed taxonomy of error from a Reformed perspective would be very helpful. Anyone want to take that ball and run with it?

 

[lynnie]

Ruben- ha, good one.

Thanks for these interesting and helpful replies. I really like the quotes. This is a powerful sentence: Human frailty may lead a man into the first [i.e., error], but devilish pride fixes him in the last. [i.e., heresy]

So to clarify further, I thought justification by faith is a fundamental. The RCC ( and I suppose the Haganites) hold to the creeds, but if you teach from the pulpit a salvation by works, is that heresy?

 

[C. M. Sheffield]

Lynnie,

The principle thrust of Paul's teaching in the Epistle to the Galatians was justification by faith alone apart from the works of the Law. That was Paul's gospel. His thoughts toward those perverting this Gospel:

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. -- Galatians 1:6-9​

In light of this, I think it is safe to conclude that teaching salvation by works is indeed heresy.

 

[lynnie]

Thanks Pastor CMF.

I was going to make a joke about all the matches and firewood we have around here, but the truth is, I mostly feel grief and sick at heart. If I didn't have some post mil vision in my head it would be hard to rub up against many people God has put in my path......

 

[Jack K]

I usually save "heresy" for describing those errors which go against the historic creeds. By that definition, Catholics are not heretics.

Given the fact that at times the church has done things like burn people alive for heresy, I think it's important not to toss the word around lightly. Of course, not everyone agrees. Once, I had a person on this board call me a heretic for a matter that wasn't even a disagreement in avowed doctrine, but merely a difference in teaching emphasis.* So usage varies widely, for sure.

*Obviously, I respectfully disagreed with that particular usage