Haeresis as Doctrinal Choice

Thomas Oden is one of the prime movers in the “confessional movement” to reclaim catholic substance for oldline Protestantism. He is also a key participant in the project known as Evangelicals and Catholics Together. In his recent book The Rebirth of Orthodoxy (HarperSanFrancisco, 212 pages,, $24.95) he strongly affirms the Vincentian canon set forth by Vincent of Lerin (d. circa 450). Oden renders the canon this way: “In the worldwide community of believers every care should be taken to hold fast to what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.”

Roger E. Olson teaches theology at Baylor University, a Baptist institution, and he has his reservations. He writes: “We must remain open to the possibility that the Word of God—not some new revelation or personal opinion—may correct or supplement what the Church has always believed. Otherwise we must condemn Luther, for surely his doctrine of justification (simul justus et peccator) cannot be found within the consensual teaching of the Church before him (at least he did not think so, nor do most contemporary historical theologians). For that matter, can one find Wesley’s doctrine of entire sanctification in a moment in the consensual tradition? What about the Synod of Dort’s doctrine of limited atonement? Most significant for many evangelicals is that one cannot find believer baptism only (including ‘rebaptism’ of persons already baptized in the triune name as infants) in the consensual tradition as Oden defines it. In fact, Baptists should note, Oden sides with Pope Stephen I against the Donatists in condemning ‘rebaptism’ (a term no group uses for its own practice) and declares, ‘When an unprecedented claim on such an important subject as baptism stands in direct contrast to the previous consensual memory, it has to be rejected promptly and firmly. . . . After Stephen’s prompt response to the practice of rebaptism, the historical precedent was reconfirmed so conclusively that the issue was seldom reviewed again until much later.’ Oden does not tell us what he thinks about the outcome of that later ‘review.’ Are Baptists heretics? He does not say it, but it would seem so by Vincent’s canon and Oden’s logic. If not, why could there not be contemporary steps away from the ancient, consensual tradition of the Church insofar as they can be established by appeal to Scripture and not to private opinion, philosophy, or culture? In matters of theological examination of Christian teachings old and new the ancient, consensual tradition of the Church gets a strong vote but not an absolute veto.”

In sum, if St. Vincent and Oden are right, much of Protestantism is wrong, and that can’t be right. That puts Olson’s complaint a bit too simply, but only a bit. These are knotty questions that will not be untangled anytime soon. Thomas Oden is no doubt well aware that the Vincentian canon does not mean that there was ever a time when every single Christian or group of Christians believed exactly the same thing about everything. In the early centuries of the Church, there were maddeningly diverse and often conflicting beliefs on core issues such as the human and divine natures of Christ, the unity and trinity of God, and much else. That is why there were disputes, synods, and councils in which the tradition of identifiable continuity appealed—before there was agreement on which texts constituted the New Testament of Scriptures—to the authority of the apostles and apostolic churches. This early came to be called the “rule of faith” (regula fidei), of which St. Vincent’s formula is one expression.

Adjudication of differences by appeal to the rule of faith continues to this day in all Christian communions that intend to be catholic, and is, of course, most carefully observed in the churches called Catholic and Orthodox. It is easy to say that “the Word of God—not some new revelation or personal opinion—may correct or supplement what the Church has always believed,” but it is in fact the opinion of a person or group of persons about the Word of God that is set against the continuing tradition. This is what John Henry Newman called the tyranny of “private judgment,” which is not unlike heresy—from haeresis, meaning choice. As I say, these are questions that have been with the Church from the beginning, and metastasized into numerous institutional divisions in the sixteenth century. They will not be resolved by Thomas Oden’s The Rebirth of Orthodoxy, but his argument points toward what may, please God, be a resolution one day. It deserves a better response than the charge that it implicitly indicts the departures from historic Christianity that many people cherish.