bralick@fimbrethil.entmoot.cs.psu.edu (Will Bralick) (03/19/90)
I was once told that there were three things which _had to_ be believed by a Christian. I may not remember them correctly, but here they are: 1) That Christ was both God and man. (the incarnation,) 2) That Christ died for our sins. (fulfillment of the covenant,) 3) That Christ rose from the dead. (and the resurrection) I was told that the conjunction of these three beliefs is the sine qua non of Christianity. If this is so, then we can answer the question of whether a given denomination is a Christian denomination by asking the question, "Does the ___ faith believe 1), 2), and 3)?" Opinions, please. Is this a complete and/or correct list? If not, what is the correct and complete list. Regards, -- Will | If no set of moral ideas were truer or bralick@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu | better than any other, there would be no bralick@gondor.cs.psu.edu | sense in preferring civilised morality to with disclaimer; use disclaimer; | savage morality... -- C.S. Lewis [Again, we need to be clear whether Christian is being used prescriptively or descriptively. That list is probably too short for a prescriptive definition and in one case a bit too specific for a descriptive one. Historically, the term Christians has generally included Arians and monophysites, who formulate the relationship between the Father and Son such that they might not agree with (1) precisely as stated. You'd certainly want to add something about God as sole creator and ruler of the world. (Someone who believed in God as one among many gods would normally not be considered Christian.) You would probably also want to say something about our relationship to God through Christ. I've heard suggestions in the past that the Apostles' Creed is a good definition of Christianity. As far as I know, every group that one would normally apply the term Christian to has beliefs consistent with it, though you'd probably need to allow some reservations about specific items, such as the Virgin Birth. Christianity is quite a broad tradition. In addition to the classical heresies such as the Arians, there are offshoots such as Christian Science and the Quakers (many of whom are certain Christian, but I've heard Quakers themselves who thought that their concepts had broken out of the specific Christian tradition), and people who have come to deny doctrines that most of us throught were essential. Rather than arguing over whether they are Christian, I think it's probably more useful to have a term that refers to the doctrines held by the Catholics, Orthodox and the main body of Protestants. I've heard the term "Nicene Christian" used for that. That's probably about the best we can do, though in fact I think we want to include the formula of Chalcedon as well as the Nicene Creed. I've used the term "orthodox Christian", and generally people know what I mean, but of course this is biased, since "orthodox" really means "right". --clh]