Secondary

Tertiary Doctrines

What would I put on a statement of faith?

Primary Doctrines

[[Theology|Doctrine of God]]

[[Bibliology]]

[[Christology]]

[[Pneumatology|Doctrine of the Holy Spirit]]

[[Doctrine of Salvation]]

Mankind

Leaving a denomination to create a new one should be seriously considered before proceeding.

What would be binding?

Because the Bible is interpreted we can’t all agree. So denomination exists to say that we disagree with the minor things. But as long as you believe the major things then you’re still part of the universal church.

Angels

End Time

  • Jesus will come back to restore all things
  • Believers

Doctrines that would affect how a church is ran

Church Discipline

Church membership

What are the sacraments

[[Ecclesiology|Doctrine of the Church]]

How are they to be practiced

How the church is to be goverened

As long as the primaries are held, there is room for other things where there are difference in interpretation

Major doctrines that affects too much other doctrines, that conflict appears more often than unity.

Unable to delve deeper into things because of doctrine differences

Because doctrines informs other doctrines. Doctrines that affect a lot of other doctrines would some what be binding as well because it will be difficult to lead a sermon, or bible study, if these differences keeps coming up. It will prevent the congregants from going deeper into certain things because they're always stuck on the more surface level of things.

Issue: The bible teaches that the Universal Church should be united. This unity is based on truth and not geographical location, race, or gender, or lineage but on a common belief. This naturally means that for a church to be part of the Universal Church their statement of faith must be faithful to what is taught in the Scripture. Some doctrines are clear and important to the central message of the Bible. While other doctrines due to the culture and language gap of the Scriptures are unclear. This causes differences in interpretation amongst Christians. The doctrines that are important are doctrines that are crucial for the message of the Gospel. Things that are crucial for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. We will consider these doctrines to be primary. Meaning that any deviation from these clear and important teachings will put any church outside of the Universal Church. Doctrines that are unclear but are connected to the primary doctrines are usually ones that are enough to create denominations. There are also doctrines that defines how a church is practically ran. These will also warrant a denominal. Finally, unclear doctrines that do not affect the primary doctrines are considered binding and shouldn't warrant a new denomination

Primary Doctrines are doctrines that are explicitly clear in Scripture and foundational to the faith. A church or denomination have to at the bare minimum hold to these beliefs to be considered part of the Universal Church. Trinity consists of God the Father, God Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They are one of nature but distinct in personhood. The humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ. Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a perfectly righteous life, died and resurrected after three days. And that those who have faith in His death and resurrection would have their sins forgiven, and obtain salvation through grace. Not because of their own works done in righteousness but through Christ's righteousness. And that the Scripture is the word of God and thus have authority. These doctrines I determine to be binding for a denomination to be considered part of the Universal Church.

There are other doctrines that relates to the primary doctrines, but Scripture is unclear on certain details. For example, in the doctrine of salvation Calvinist and Arminians disagree on the mechanism of how one come to faith. Calvinists emphasizes God's sovereignty in the person's salvation, but Arminians emphasizes the person's free will in a person's salvation. Both are taught in Scripture, and both party believes that their side is more correct. But both affirm that salvation is through Christ alone, through faith alone, and through grace alone. In this case because both sides affirms the Primary doctrines which are clearly taught in Scripture, so they are both part of the Universal Church. So some may impose that to maintain the unity of the Church these two camp of people should learn how to keep unity within the same denomination. Though I think that Christian should have charity and strive for peace with each other and that it is possible, this may cause the Church to be unable to delve deeper into studying of the Scriptures. Since whenever Scripture is taught in the church, it would have to pick a side of interpretation to teach from. And sermons and bible studies might end up with the discussion of these differences. At that point the church might decide that it would have to create a new denomination. Not because they believe that the original denomination are heretics, but because of interpretation differences.

when people disagree on un-clear doctrine, and difference in interpretation of that doctrines affect a lot of other doctrines to the point where you interpret other passages differently and those differences keeps coming up in the teaching of the Scripture. I guess one could argue that people gets deeper when these topics are discussed

But they disagree on doctrines that are less clear in Scripture due of difference in interpretation or biases.

  • What are the unclear doctrines that pertains to the primary doctrines

  • What doctrines affect how the church is ran

    • Governance
      • Church discipline
      • Office
      • Membership
    • Scripture does not tell us whether what the early church did was normative. Not prescription of many details on how a church should be ran.
    • Sacraments
      • Baptism
      • Lord's Supper

  • Doctrines that do not affect the primary doctrines

  • Because doctrines usually inform other doctrines, no doctrine is completely