Heresies and How to Avoid Them

Citation preview

HERESIES AND HOW TO AVOID THEM Why it matters what Christians believe I

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Edited by

Ben Quash and Michael Ward Foreword by Stanley Hauerwas

(SPCK) ~, HENDRICKSON

~~PUBLISHERS

First published jointly in 2007 in Great Britain by SPCK and in the United States by Hendrickson Publishers. Inc.

Contents

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 36 Causton Street London SWIP 4ST Hendrickson Publishers. Inc. P. O. Box 3473 Peabody. Massachusetts 01961-3473 Copyright © Ben Quash and Michael Ward 2007 Individual chapters copyright © the contributors 2007

Notes on contributors Foreword by Professor Stanley HaueIWas

v ix

Prologue Ben Quash

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical. including photocopying. recording. or by any information storage and retrieval system. without permission in writing from the publisher. SPCK does n~t necessarily endorse the individual views contained in its publications.

Part 1

HERESIES OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

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Third printing April 2009

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue'record for this book is available from the British Library SPCK ISBN 978-0-281-05843-3 Hendrickson Publishers ISBN 978-1-59856-013-8

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357910864 Typeset by Graphicraft Ltd. Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press

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Produced on paper from sU,stainable forests

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Arianism: Is Jesus Christ divine and eternal or was he created? Michael B. Thompson

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Docetism: Is Jesus Christ really human or did he just appear to be, so? John Sweet

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Nestorianism: Is Jesus Christ one person or does he have a split identity, with his divine nature separate and divided from his human nature? A. N. Williams

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Eutychianism: Is Jesus Christ divine and human or a hybrid, a third thing that is neither fully one nor the other? Marcus Plested

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Adoptionism: Is Jesus Christ the Son of God by. nature or by adoption? . Rachel Muers

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Theopaschitism: Is Jesus Christ able or unable to suffer in his divine nature? Michael Ward

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Contents

Part 2 HERESIES OF THE CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN LIVING

Notes on contributors

AND HOW TO AVOID THEM I

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Marcionism: Can Christians dispense with the God of the Old Testament?

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Angela Tilby 8

Donatism: Do Christian ministers need to be faultless for their ministrations to be effective?

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Ben Quash 9

Pelagianism: Can people be saved by their own efforts?

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Nicholas Adams 10

Gnosticism: Can people be saved by acquiring secret knowledge?

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Anders Bergquist 11

The heresy of the Free Spirit: Are there two kinds of Christian, those with divine wills and those with human wills?

113

Denys Turner 12

Biblical Trinitarianism: The purpose of being orthodox

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Janet Martin Soskice Epilogue

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Michael Ward Glossary For further reading Biblical references index General index

142 144 145 146

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Dr Nicholas Adams, an Anglican, is Lecturer in Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics at the University of Edinburgh. He has a doctorate in theology from the University of Cambridge, where he also pursue'" post-doctoral study on Jiirgen Habermas's account of religion while a Research Fellow at Trinity Hall. His publications include Habermas and Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and a number of articles which consider the relationship between German philosophy in the nineteenth century and Christian theology iri the twentieth. The Revd Dr Anders Bergquist, an Anglican priest, is Vicar of St John's Wood in central London. He has a doctorate in archaeology from the University of Cambridge and taught Early Christian Life and Thought in the Cambridge Theological Federation (1989-97), where he was Vice-Principal of Westcott House (1995-97). He was responsible for continuing ministerial education in the Diocese of St Albans (1997-2002) and is the co-editor of Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis (T&T Clark, 1994). Dr Janet Martin Soskice, a Roman Catholic, is a Fellow of Jesus College and Reader in Modern Theology and Philosophical Theology in the University of Cambridge. She has a doctorate in the philosophy of religion from the University of Oxford and is the author of Metaphor and Religious Language (Clarendon Press, 1985); the editor of After Eve (Marshall Pickering, 1990), and the co-editor of Medicine and Moral Reasoning (Cambridge University Press, 1994) and Feminism and Theology (Oxford University Press, 2003). v

Notes (iffcofltributors

Notes on contributors

Dr Rachel Muers, a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), is a Lecturer in Theology at the University of Exeter. She has a doctorate in theology from the University of Cambridge, where she held a Research Fellowship at Girton College. Her publications include Keeping God's Silence: Towards a Theological Ethics of Communication (Blackwell, 2004).

New Testament in the Cambridge Theological Federation. He has a doctorate in theology from the University of Cambridge, which was published as Clathed with Christ (JSOT Press, 1992). He co-edited A Vision for the Church: Studies in Early Christian Ecclesiology (T&T Clark, 1997), and his other books include Transforming Grace (Bible Reading Fellowship, 1998) and When Should We Divide? (Grove Books, 2004).

Dr Marcus Plested, a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, is Vice-Principal of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in the Cambridge Theological Federation and Research Associate in the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Cambridge. He has a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford, and his most recent book is The Macarian Legacy: The Place of Macarius-Symeon in the Eastern Christian Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2004).

The Revd Canon Professor Ben Quasb, an Anglican priest, is Professor of Christianity and the Arts at King's College, London, and Canon Theologian of Coventry Cathedral. He has a doctorate in theology from the University of Cambridge, and his publications include Theology and the Drama of History (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and Fields of Faith: Theology and Religious Studies for the 21st Century (Cambridge University Press, 2005), edited with David F. Ford and Janet Martin Soskice. The Revd Canon John Sweet, an Anglican priest, is a Fellow of Selwyn College in the University of Cambridge, where he was Chaplain, then Dean of Chapel (1958-94). He was a Lecturer in New Testament in the Cambridge Divinity Faculty (1960-94) and holds a Lambeth Doctorate in Divinity. His publications include Revelation (SCM Press, 1979) and Early Christian Thought in its Jewish Context, edited with John Barclay (Cambridge University Press, 1996).

The Revd Angela Tilby" an Anglican priest, is Vicar of St Benet's, Cambridge, and Lecturer in Early Church History and Spirituality in the Cambridge Theological Federation. She read theology at Girton College in the University of Cambridge and then worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation as a radio and television producer (1973-97). She was VicePrincipal of Westcott House (2001-06), and her publications include Let There Be Light: Praying with Genesis (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2006), God Before Breakfast (SPCK, 2005), and Son of God (Hodder & Stoughton, 2001). Professor Denys Turner, a Roman Catholic, is Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Yale. Formerly Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge and H. G. Wood Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham, he is the author of several monographs on medieval mystical theology, including Faith, Reason and the Existence ofGod (Cambridge University Press, 2004), The Darkness of God (Cambridge University Press, 1995), and Eros and Allegory (Cistercian Publications, 1995). He has also publishe