Those of us who think about such things have had to trudge a long, hard intellectual road to reach our understanding of the Faith Once Delivered to the Saints. Because we worked so hard and were so careful, we became absolutely convinced that our understanding is definitive. A similar process takes place on an institutional level, also. Therefore, anyone who thinks differently must be (at best) misguided, or (at worst) a damned heretic. Often there is no gray area. However, some groups have sort of a lazy, daisy, practice of enforcement, so some deviance is allowed.
There are two major problems with this approach to doctrine.
- First, nowhere in Scripture is there a requirement for intellectual orthodoxy in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Heresy is man made!
- Second, Look at your own relationship with God and your own understanding of God. Has it changed in the past 20 years? Past 10 years? Past 5 years? The past year? Don't you now have a deeper and fuller understanding of God than you used to have?
All of our carefully and painfully worked theologies are merely the very best we could do at that time and in that place. That is not bad. It may, in fact, be outstandingly good, but it is still only the best we could do today.
If it is true of us, can it not also be true of others?
