Heresy |
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Heresy is belief that denies or casts doubt upon "orthodox" doctrine. This means, for instance, that if the Catholic Church as a whole has agreed that a particular doctrine is biblically true, then any serious variance from that doctrine is heresy. This means that what some people would consider to be orthodox, others may often consider heretical because the days in which the whole Catholic Church can agree on all areas of doctrine have long passed, if they ever existed. It is necessary to remember that there are several major divisions in the Catholic Church. They are:
While it is true that these four branches of the Church agree upon most of the important doctrines, yet there are differences which have been sufficient to divide the Church. Each section has distinctives which have been seen by the others as heretical. Nevertheless, there are some movements and teachings which are so far from the Catholic faith that they are evidently heresy. In modern times these include churches that deny the doctrine of the Holy Trinity or which teach reincarnation. Heresy, however, is far from a modern phenomenon. From the very earliest days of the Church there were challenges to the orthodox faith. Some of these challenges are actually dealt with in the New Testament. There were, for example, Jewish Christians who believed that Gentiles could only become Christians by first becoming Jews, and there were Gentile Christians who came to believe that the God of the Jews was a different God from that of the Christians. Major early heresies included:
Some movements have been branded as heretical but the evidence of their heresy is uncertain. In this class I would include Montanism, in which most of the evidence seems to come from its enemies and, when shorn of emotive phraseology, shows more in the way of unpopular enthusiasm and, perhaps, some unwise criticism than real error. (While Pelagianism is heretical, it is not clear that Pelagius actually taught or believed it. We only have the evidence of Augustine who was seriously biased!) Modern heresies include:
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