# Ancient Errors and Modern Heresies



## KMK (Mar 25, 2009)

I am not an expert at modern day heretical teachings. What are some modern versions of these old errors:

Docetism: The denial that Christ was truly man
Arianism: The denial that Christ was truly God
Apollinarianism: The denial that Christ had a human soul
Nestorianism: The denial that Christ was only one person
Eutychianism: the denial that Christ had two _distinct_ natures


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## LawrenceU (Mar 25, 2009)

The most obvious are the Jehovah's Witnesses. They are modern Arians.


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## Prufrock (Mar 25, 2009)

Honestly, it's hard to really say. In much modern Christological scholarship, scholars are looking to identify the development of an historical Christology _within_ the New Testament writings themselves, and thus care little for subsequent dogma. 

Also, much post-Existential era and 20th century understanding of Christology was based on entirely different concepts and philosophies than was the historic dogma; thus, questions often involve the relation of the divine and human, but based upon an entirely different foundation.

I think that, within mainstream modern evangelicalism, you find two different thrusts:
1.) A sort of Docetic gut reaction: "Well, yeah, Jesus could do that: but _he_ was God." 

2.) Among more "cutting-edge," close to emergent types, it seems that the humanity is emphasized too much, and that his divinity is considered more as a _concept_ than as the particular, second person of the Trinity.

But, I have little exposure to the actual teachers and teachings behind "main-stream evangelicalism." So those two are just trends I've noticed amongst peers. I'm more familiar with the "scholarly historical" assessments (Cullman, Dunn, etc.), which, unfortunately, don't often seem to be very scholarly if scholarship has any correlation with truth...


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## toddpedlar (Mar 25, 2009)

Paul - 

Most people I talk to about Christ's divinity have NO clue where to put His divinity in the sphere of the Godhead. That is, just as you say, there is no concept of His being the 2nd person of the Trinity - rather, they are pleased to leave it at "He is God" and go no further than that. There's no economic understanding of roles and relationships in the Godhead - Christ is just "God" just like the Father is "God" and the Holy Spirit is "God". There is an underlying modalism, I think, in many, many people's thinking about Christ's divinity - they just don't want to, or see the point of making any personal distinctions in the Godhead. I haven't thought much about the implications of this tendency, but it seems quite prevalent.


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## KMK (Mar 25, 2009)

toddpedlar said:


> Paul -
> 
> Most people I talk to about Christ's divinity have NO clue where to put His divinity in the sphere of the Godhead. That is, just as you say, there is no concept of His being the 2nd person of the Trinity - rather, they are pleased to leave it at "He is God" and go no further than that. There's no economic understanding of roles and relationships in the Godhead - Christ is just "God" just like the Father is "God" and the Holy Spirit is "God". *There is an underlying modalism, I think, in many, many people's thinking about Christ's divinity *- they just don't want to, or see the point of making any personal distinctions in the Godhead. I haven't thought much about the implications of this tendency, but it seems quite prevalent.



Interesting. Do you mean 'modalism' in His relationship to the trinity, or in relationship to His two natures?


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## Prufrock (Mar 25, 2009)

Todd,

Perhaps one of the implications is the ready reception within the broad church culture of much emergent-style teaching. Once the Son has been departicularized (is that a word?) as a specific person, it becomes much easier to speak of Christ's divinity conceptually, considering God as a-personal universal love and redemption.

If this recognition which you noted were firmly planted within our minds, I think the inroads of teachings like those above could not have been so prevalent. Though, of course, this is speculation.


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## toddpedlar (Mar 25, 2009)

KMK said:


> toddpedlar said:
> 
> 
> > Paul -
> ...



I mean modalism with respect to the Trinity... that is, the admission that Christ is God - but no further than that, with no distinction from or distinct relationship between Himself as the second person of the Trinity and the Father and Spirit as first and third. It often seems to me that Christ is primarily human in their eyes, but takes on this God-ness as part of his being - rather than seeing Christ in His ETERNAL divinity. I'm being a bit loose with my terminology here, but it seems to me that when the Trinity is not particularly in the sights when thinking about Christ as God, then a modalist view of Christ's divinity results. He's just sort of "God" without any particular admission of Trinitarian economic distinctives being in view.


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## PuritanCovenanter (Mar 25, 2009)

Modalistic monarchism is more of a pentecostal heresy today. I have had to deal with this error quite frequently. E. Calvin Biesner has done an excellent little study book to help out with this heresy. 

http://www.theopedia.com/Modalism

Amazon.com: Jesus Only Churches: E. Calvin Beisner, Alan W. Gomes: Books


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## KMK (Mar 25, 2009)

PuritanCovenanter said:


> Modalistic monarchism is more of a pentecostal heresy today. I have had to deal with this error quite frequently. E. Calvin Biesner has done an excellent little study book to help out with this heresy.
> 
> Modalism - Theopedia
> 
> Amazon.com: Jesus Only Churches: E. Calvin Beisner, Alan W. Gomes: Books



Do these Oneness Pentecostals deny that Jesus was truly man?


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## PuritanCovenanter (Mar 25, 2009)

KMK said:


> PuritanCovenanter said:
> 
> 
> > Modalistic monarchism is more of a pentecostal heresy today. I have had to deal with this error quite frequently. E. Calvin Biesner has done an excellent little study book to help out with this heresy.
> ...



No, they just think that the Godhead changes from mode to mode.


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## toddpedlar (Mar 25, 2009)

The argument from the Oneness Pentecostal standpoint is that 1) God is one and 2) therefore he is only Father, or Son, or Holy Spirit at any one time. 

So they deny the Trinity entirely, by making God out to play only one role at a time. Sometimes he is acting in the role of the Son, sometimes in the role of the Father, sometimes in the role of the Spirit. They are roles, or modes, rather than persons who share the divine essence, yet are distinct. 

Of course this makes a mishmash of any of the myriad instances in Scripture when you see the Father, Son and/or Holy Spirit active in the same situation... but that is lost on them. They are so fixated on the presupposition that God must be fully comprehensible that they deny the plain truth of Scripture.


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## Marrow Man (Mar 25, 2009)

This guy is Reformed and deals with cults, including Oneness folks. He has also written an extremely helpful book on the matter, but I don't think you'll find it anywhere but his website. James White recommends him, btw.






Here


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## KMK (Mar 25, 2009)

toddpedlar said:


> The argument from the Oneness Pentecostal standpoint is that 1) God is one and 2) therefore he is only Father, or Son, or Holy Spirit at any one time.
> 
> So they deny the Trinity entirely, by making God out to play only one role at a time. Sometimes he is acting in the role of the Son, sometimes in the role of the Father, sometimes in the role of the Spirit. They are roles, or modes, rather than persons who share the divine essence, yet are distinct.
> 
> Of course this makes a mishmash of any of the myriad instances in Scripture when you see the Father, Son and/or Holy Spirit active in the same situation... but that is lost on them. They are so fixated on the presupposition that God must be fully comprehensible that they deny the plain truth of Scripture.



It sounds like they deny that Christ has two distinct natures coexisting in one person.


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## toddpedlar (Mar 25, 2009)

KMK said:


> toddpedlar said:
> 
> 
> > The argument from the Oneness Pentecostal standpoint is that 1) God is one and 2) therefore he is only Father, or Son, or Holy Spirit at any one time.
> ...



Most certainly - by default they'd have to, since he could only "play the role of the Son" some of the time! His nature as God, then, for the oneness folks is no "full-time occupation". 

Their doctrine of the Godhead (and the implicaitions for Christology) is why I and others are not shy about calling them full-blown heretics.


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## KMK (Mar 25, 2009)

I found this quote on the internet attributed to EG White.



> "There is no one who can explain the mystery of the incarnation of Christ. Yet we know that He came to this earth and lived as a man among men. *The man Christ Jesus was not the Lord God Almighty,* yet Christ and the Father are one. The Deity did not sink under the agonizing torture of Calvary, yet it is nonetheless true that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 1129-1130



Are SDAs modern day Arians?


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## LadyFlynt (Mar 25, 2009)

KMK said:


> I am not an expert at modern day heretical teachings. What are some modern versions of these old errors:
> 
> Docetism: The denial that Christ was truly man Anabaptists
> Arianism: The denial that Christ was truly God Jehovah Witness and Seventh Day Aventism
> ...



My comments in Red


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## LawrenceU (Mar 25, 2009)

Yes, SDA is a type of modern Arianism. Saying that in most evangelical circles will get you a fight started.


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## KMK (Mar 25, 2009)

LawrenceU said:


> Yes, SDA is a type of modern Arianism. Saying that in most evangelical circles will get you a fight started.



Agreed. Especially in the area where I live near the city of Loma Linda, CA.


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## CharlieJ (Mar 25, 2009)

I would add that Peter Enns' _Inspiration & Incarnation_ presents a view of Scripture that, if applied by analogy to Christology, resembles Eutychianism (merger of divine and human) more than Chalcedonian Christianity.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Mar 25, 2009)

toddpedlar said:


> Paul -
> 
> Most people I talk to about Christ's divinity have NO clue where to put His divinity in the sphere of the Godhead. That is, just as you say, there is no concept of His being the 2nd person of the Trinity - rather, they are pleased to leave it at "He is God" and go no further than that. There's no economic understanding of roles and relationships in the Godhead - Christ is just "God" just like the Father is "God" and the Holy Spirit is "God". There is an underlying modalism, I think, in many, many people's thinking about Christ's divinity - they just don't want to, or see the point of making any personal distinctions in the Godhead. I haven't thought much about the implications of this tendency, but it seems quite prevalent.




This also comes out in Christomonism.


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