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Course 25 · Lesson 6.2

Independent faith and historic Christianity: where they agree and differ

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 25 outline

Module 1: Integrating Scripture and History

  1. The four theological disciplines and the questions each asks
  2. Biblical theology: the story of Scripture from creation to new creation
  3. Historical theology: how doctrine was formed, tested and defined
  4. Tracing one doctrine from Scripture through the councils

Module 2: Integrating Doctrine and Philosophy

  1. Systematic theology: coherence among doctrines
  2. Philosophical theology: clarifying and testing concepts
  3. Faith and reason: four historic accounts of their relation
  4. When the disciplines seem to conflict

Module 3: What Is Real and What Is a Human Being

  1. Creation, contingency and the God-world relation
  2. Christian metaphysics compared with materialism, pantheism and dualism
  3. The image of God and the dignity of the person
  4. Body, soul, the fall and the hope of resurrection

Module 4: How We Know and How We Live

  1. Christian epistemology: revelation, Scripture, tradition, reason and experience
  2. Christian ethics: command, virtue and natural law
  3. How doctrine shapes prayer, worship and conduct
  4. How practice tests and sometimes corrects doctrine

Module 5: Tensions and Commitments

  1. Stating a theological tension precisely
  2. Case studies: divine sovereignty and human freedom, one God and three persons, faith and works
  3. Telling a firm conviction from an open question
  4. Auditing your own commitments: reasons, evidence and uncertainty

Module 6: Building a Coherent Worldview

  1. What makes a worldview coherent: consistency, comprehensiveness and fit with experience
  2. Independent faith and historic Christianity: where they agree and differ
  3. Outlining the synthesis
  4. Drafting, testing and revising the synthesis

All courses

Program / Course 25: Theological Synthesis / Lesson 6.2

What you will learn

  • Describe what it means to hold an independent, examined faith in relation to the historic church.
  • Use the Nicene Creed as a standard to compare your convictions with the historic faith.
  • Explain how the major traditions would respond to the idea of an independent faith.
  • State the real value of the church’s long witness and the real limits of private judgment.

The big idea

An independent faith is one that the believer has examined and made their own, rather than merely received. It stands in relation to historic Christianity, the faith of the creeds and the great traditions. The student must say honestly where their convictions agree with that faith and where they differ, and why. The church’s long witness is evidence worth weighing seriously. Private judgment, for its part, has real uses and real dangers, and the major traditions assess it differently.

Key terms

Independent faith
A personal faith that the believer has examined and holds as their own conviction. The term does not mean faith that rejects others or the church.
Historic Christianity
The faith expressed in the early creeds and held in common, in its main features, by the Catholic, Orthodox and historic Protestant churches.
Private judgment
The principle that each believer has the right and duty to interpret Scripture and test teaching by conscience.
Nicene Creed
A statement of faith from the councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), used in worship by most Christians.
Schism
A break in the unity of the church.
Communion
Fellowship with other Christians and with God, and in some traditions, the formal unity of a church.
Consensus
A general agreement. The consensus of the fathers is the shared view of the early teachers. Vincent of Lerins, in the fifth century, proposed holding what has been believed everywhere, always and by all.

Background

Throughout the history of the church, there have been believers who stood apart from the majority: some were later seen as heretics and others as saints and reformers. Athanasius stood almost alone at one point against the majority of bishops. Luther at Worms appealed to Scripture and conscience against the authority of the church. Their examples show both the value and the risk of independent judgment. Thoughtful people have disagreed about when it is right to stand alone.

Today many people hold a faith that is not tied to any church. Some are sincere and well-informed, and others are poorly informed. This program does not claim that private study replaces the church or its worship, and does not oppose clergy or churches. It asks the student to place their view honestly in relation to the faith of the church, and to treat that faith as a serious witness, not a rival.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Say what independent means

Independent does not mean isolated or self-taught only. It means that the believer has considered the grounds of their faith and holds it by conviction. This is possible inside a church as well as outside one. Many members of churches hold an independent faith in this sense, and many people outside churches hold beliefs that they have borrowed from their culture without examining them.

The question for this lesson is not whether to belong to a church, which the traditions answer differently, but how a personal faith relates to the faith that has been handed down.

Step 2: Take the church’s witness seriously as evidence

The creeds were formed over centuries by many people reading the same Scripture, praying, arguing and suffering for their convictions. That does not make them true, but it is evidence. A student who differs from the creeds should expect to give reasons and should consider why so many thoughtful people held otherwise. This is not deference for its own sake. It is the ordinary respect that one gives to a long record of careful inquiry.

Vincent of Lerins gave a rule: hold what has been believed everywhere, always and by all. The rule is not easy to apply, and traditions differ about what counts, but it expresses the weight of the church’s agreement.

Step 3: Compare yourself with the Nicene Creed

Take the creed clause by clause and mark each as agree, differ or unsure. The clauses include belief in one God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, in one Lord Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father and of one substance with him, in his incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and return, in the Holy Spirit, in one holy catholic and apostolic church, in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

The word catholic in the creed means universal, and does not refer only to the Roman Catholic Church. Notice also that the clause on the Spirit differs between East and West because of the filioque. For each point of difference, write the reason and your confidence. Where you differ, say whether you reject the clause, read it differently or do not know what to make of it.

Step 4: Understand how the traditions see independence

Catholic teaching holds that the believer receives the faith through the church, which interprets Scripture authoritatively, so that private judgment is limited by the church’s teaching. Orthodox teaching holds that the faith is kept by the whole church and that individuals find it within the community. Protestant traditions generally hold that each believer may and should test teaching by Scripture, while valuing the church and its confessions, and that the principle of private judgment is a gift that can be abused.

These differences are real and bear on how a student should regard their own findings. A student who concludes that they differ from a historic teaching should weigh how their tradition would respond, and also how others would.

Step 5: State agreement and difference honestly

The finished statement should say where the student stands: in full agreement with the creed, in agreement with a particular tradition’s reading, or with stated differences. It should avoid two failures. One is to claim agreement with the historic faith without having read it. The other is to claim independence as though it were itself a reason for being right. A single plain sentence, such as I affirm the creed except for this clause, which I read in this way, is better than a vague claim of general agreement.

  1. Which clauses of the Nicene Creed do I affirm without hesitation?
  2. Which do I read in a way that differs from the traditional reading?
  3. How much weight do I give the agreement of the church over time, and why?
  4. What does my tradition say about private judgment?
  5. What would persuade me that I was mistaken on a point where I differ?
  6. Is there a church or tradition whose faith I find closest to mine, and what does that tell me?

Examples

Athanasius contra mundum

In the fourth century Athanasius was exiled several times for defending the Nicene faith against powerful opposition. He is remembered as an example of faithful independence, since his view later became the church’s. His case does not show that every dissenter is right, only that majority and truth are not always the same.

A careful dissent

A student studies the creed and finds that she affirms every clause but reads the phrase descended into hell (in the Apostles’ Creed) differently from her tradition. She writes down her reading, the reasons and the readings of others, and notes that this is a level three matter. This is a model of honest difference. (A constructed example.)

Claimed agreement without reading

Someone says that he follows the early church, but has read none of its writings and knows the councils only through a website. Whatever his sincerity, the claim has not been tested. The remedy is to read at least some of the sources.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholics hold that the church is the guardian and interpreter of revelation, and that the faith of the individual is a response within the church. The Catechism says that no one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone. Catholics also honor the individual conscience, which must be formed by the church’s teaching.

Orthodox

Orthodox Christians hold that the faith is found in the life of the church and that a believer outside communion lacks a part of the fullness. They also honor individual saints who stood for the faith against majority error, and say that the believing people are guardians of the faith.

Protestant

Protestant traditions generally uphold the right and responsibility of each believer to read Scripture and test teaching, along with the priesthood of all believers. Many nevertheless stress membership in a congregation and adherence to confessions. Critics, including Catholics and Orthodox, say that private judgment has led to extreme fragmentation, and Protestants reply that unity is found in the common faith of the creeds.

Secular and scholarly views

Sociologists describe a growing number of people who hold a personal spirituality apart from institutions. Historians note that the independent believer has always been present, from desert hermits to modern writers. Some scholars argue that the historic faith was a construction of the winners of early disputes, and others that it was a faithful development of the apostles’ teaching.

Why it matters

A synthesis that does not say how it relates to the historic faith is incomplete. Placing oneself honestly in relation to the creed protects against two things: the pride of treating one’s own judgment as final, and the passivity of accepting whatever one has been told. It also prepares the student for conversation with believers from every tradition.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: An independent faith means rejecting the church.

Correction: It means that the believer has examined their faith. Many independent believers are active church members, and the program does not claim that private study replaces worship or community.

Misunderstanding: Agreeing with the creed means giving up one’s own thinking.

Correction: Many Christians have thought carefully and arrived at the creed. Agreement reached by examination is independent in the relevant sense.

Misunderstanding: If I differ from the church, I am more likely to be right.

Correction: Differing is not evidence of truth. The question is whether the reasons are good.

Misunderstanding: The church fathers all agreed on everything.

Correction: They disagreed on many points, which is why the appeal to consensus requires care. The creeds record the points on which agreement was reached.

Knowledge check

What does it mean to hold an independent faith?

It means holding a faith that the believer has examined and made their own, as opposed to merely inheriting it. It does not imply isolation or rejection of the church. A person can hold an independent faith inside a church, and a person outside a church may hold unexamined beliefs.

Why should the church’s long witness count as evidence?

Because the creeds came from many people over centuries, reading the same Scripture, reasoning and often suffering for what they held. A student who differs should give reasons and consider why so many thoughtful people thought otherwise. It is ordinary respect for a long record of careful inquiry, not blind deference.

How do Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions differ on private judgment?

Catholics hold that the church interprets revelation authoritatively and that conscience is formed by its teaching. Orthodox Christians hold that the faith is kept by the whole church and found in its life. Protestants generally hold that each believer should test teaching by Scripture, while valuing the church and its confessions.

What should an honest statement of agreement and difference look like?

It should state clause by clause where the student agrees, differs or is unsure, with reasons and confidence, and name the tradition closest to their view. It should avoid claiming agreement without reading the sources, and avoid treating independence as a reason for being right.

Think it through

  1. What is the strongest reason to take the church’s agreement seriously, and what is the strongest reason to question it?
  2. Is there a clause in the creed that you find hard to affirm? Why?
  3. How do you feel about disagreeing with your own tradition or family on a matter of faith?

Independent assignment

The creed and me

In your own notebook, write 500 to 700 words. Go through the Nicene Creed clause by clause and mark each clause agree, differ or unsure. For each difference or doubt, give your reasons, the strongest reason on the other side and your confidence. Name the tradition closest to your view and one respect in which you differ from it. Keep it in your notebook.

Further study