Supporting Theological Reflection and Conversation that Strengthen the Ministry of the Church

Public Lecture:

“Inspired Heterodoxy”?: The Freedom of Theological
 Inquiry and the Well-Being of the Church

Lecturer: Dr. Dawn A. DeVries
John Newton Thomas Professor of Systematic Theology, Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, Richmond, VA
"Inspired Heterodoxy"?: The Freedom of Theological Inquiry
and the Well-Being of the Church

Dawn DeVries
John Newton Thomas Professor of Systematic Theology
Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education

"I am firmly convinced, however, that [my teaching about God] . . .
is the kind of inspired heterodoxy that soon enough will
become orthodox, even if not by virtue of my book, and even
if only long after my death."
Friedrich Schleiermacher, Über seine Glaubenslehre (1829)

The topic I wish to put before you is a perennial theological problem: Where shall we draw the boundaries of an ecclesial tradition? Or perhaps more precisely: Which voices ought we to hear and which ought we to ignore—or even silence—in our theological debates? These questions are neither new nor unique to the Reformed tradition. The Protestant Reformers inherited a long and complex tradition of heresiology, and they in turn, although themselves considered heretics in Rome, handed on no small volume of writing against heresies. Our Reformed confessions are peppered with deprecations hurled at deviant opinions old and new. In a single chapter of the Second Helvetic Confession, for example, Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575) can "abhor the impious doctrine of Arius ...and Servetus," "detest the dogma of the Nestorians," "execrate the madness of Eutyches," "by no means accept the strained, confused and obscure subtleties of Schwenkfeldt," and "condemn Jewish dreams," to name but a few of the heresies he steers around.

While theologians today may be as contentious as they ever were, Bullinger's brand of rhetoric is definitely out of style. And yet, in recent years, in the face of the growing chaos of cultural and religious pluralism, there has been a call to "reclaim the center" of our churches, to "draw a line in the sand" with reference to particular opinions deemed to be very dangerous, indeed a call for a return to orthodoxy—if perhaps a more generous orthodoxy than that of the age of religious wars, when true blue Presbyterians, as Samuel Butler (1612-1680) put it, sought to "prove their doctrine orthodox/ by apostolic blows and knocks."

A call for a return to orthodoxy invites our reflection on fundamental questions in the prolegomena to any dogmatics: questions about authoritative sources and norms, and about the definition of heresy and orthodoxy itself. But before getting into the substance of these matters, I want to draw out some other questions implicit in my title. One set has to do with the meaning of the terms "orthodoxy" and "heresy." Is it best to think of these two as in simple opposition to each other? Is everything that is not orthodox of necessity heretical? Or is there something in between these two terms? Following from these is another set of questions having to do with the ecclesial response to ideas that are not orthodox. If there is, in addition to full-blown heresy, something called "heterodoxy," what are we to think of it? Are heterodoxies simply permissible differences of opinion on unimportant matters, or are they the gateway to more serious deviation, the beginning of the long slow slide into heresy? Can heterodoxy be tolerated or perhaps even encouraged in the church, or should it be restrained and silenced? These are the sorts of questions I had in mind when lifting Friedrich Schleiermacher's (1768-1834) evocative description of his own doctrine of God as an "inspired heterodoxy"—a phrase I believe he means in a properly theological sense, as I shall explain later.

Because I identify myself as a theologian within the Reformed tradition, I want to look at these questions in close conversation with two great Reformed theologians, John Calvin (1509-1564) and Friedrich Schleiermacher. I do not claim that their thoughts on orthodoxy and heresy are an exhaustive representation of Reformed thinking on these themes; rather, they are important benchmarks. But before mining our own tradition, I must turn to at least a cursory discussion of the concepts of orthodoxy and heresy that Calvin inherited.

Part One
The meaning of the terms "heresy" and "heterodoxy" was forever changed by the rise of Christianity. In Hellenistic times, among both the Greeks and the Jews, a heresy was simply a school or a sect with its own distinctive body of doctrine. To be a "heretic" was to be one who chose to join some such particular sect. "Heterodoxy," by contrast, was understood to be the holding of a different opinion than the one commonly deemed correct. In either case, there was no particular blame assigned to such alternative views. But already in the New Testament, the usage of the term "heresy" was changing. Paul, it is true, does use the word "heresies" to denote factions in much the same sense as earlier authors, but he clearly implies that such divisions are an evil which disturbs the unity of faith. He grants that perhaps some heresies must be tolerated for the time being, but they are never to be encouraged or relished or seen as anything other than a trial that will come to an end in the eschaton (I Cor. 11:18-19). Paul uses two different words for factions in I Corinthians 11, and this led Augustine and others to draw a distinction between schisms, sects that break the fellowship of the church, and heresies, parties within the church who disagree about doctrine. By the time of the writing of II Peter, heresies are spoken of explicitly as the destructive work of false prophets (II Peter 2:1).

A similar transformation in the meaning of heresy occurs in the first Christian centuries. In the New Testament, heresy is pernicious doctrine, that is to say, evil or incorrect teaching that should not be received by the faithful. As the letter to Titus puts it: "...avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels over the law, for they are unprofitable and futile. As for a man who is factious [that is, the heretic], after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is perverted and sinful; he is self condemned." (Titus 3:9-11, RSV). Heresies are an evil to be avoided by the community, but this can be achieved simply by shunning the heretic, whose own ideas condemn him. Gradually, however, during the first three centuries, the idea developed that heresy was really more like a disease than a mistake, and a contagious disease at that. To protect the community of the faithful, the good bishop should do whatever is necessary to root out the disease, even if that means radical surgery. Jerome (c. 349- c. 420), commenting on Galatians 5:9, aptly expresses this view:

Cut off the decayed flesh, expel the mangy sheep from the fold,
lest the whole house, the whole paste, the whole body, the whole
flock, burn, perish, rot, die. Arius was but one spark in Alexandria,
but as that spark was not at once put out, the whole earth was laid
waste by its flame.

By the high middle ages, not only theological tradition but also canon law delineated in the most careful terms both the definition of heresy and its proper treatment. For Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274), both heresy and apostasy are species of unbelief, but while the apostate Jew or infidel refuses to give assent to the doctrines of faith, the heretic is willing, but does so improperly by following his own opinions rather than the articles of faith as defined by the creed, duly convened church councils, or the Pope. There is a possibility for differences of opinion among church theologians in "matters the holding of which in this or that way is of no consequence, so far as faith is concerned, or even in matters of faith, which were not as yet defined by the Church." But if a theologian were "obstinately to deny them after they had been defined by the authority of the universal Church, he would be deemed a heretic." Thomas closes his discussion of the matter by considering whether heretics should be tolerated, or repentant heretics received, in the church. His answer, in short, is "no." The heretic has committed a sin far more grievous than any other, a sin deserving not only excommunication but also death. The Church, it is true, desires the conversion of sinners, and so properly postpones the excommunication of the heretic until after two warnings. But a heretic who persists in his errors after these warnings ought to be delivered to the secular tribunal "to be exterminated thereby from the world by death." Even a heretic who has seen the error of her ways and repented should not be permitted to return to the bosom of the Church more than one time. If a relapse into heresy occurs, whether or not repentance follows, the heretic should not escape the flames.

By the middle of the thirteenth century, and continuing right through the outbreak of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Roman church devoted an entire institution—the Inquisition—to the extermination of heresy. Ironically, the later middle ages were really the golden age of heresy in the Western church. It seems that for every brush fire the Inquisition managed to stamp out, two others ignited. Nonetheless, the Roman church's policy on heresy was clear: it was a dangerous threat to the corpus Christianum that could not be tolerated under any circumstances. As the body of official church dogma increased in volume, however, so the range of permissible heterodoxy narrowed in scope, and heresy was taken as the simple opposite of orthodoxy—as any form of dissent to the Church.

On the eve of the Reformation, some Catholic voices were lifted against the extreme control the Roman Church sought to maintain over religious and theological imagination. Erasmus (1466-1536), for example, argued that not every doctrine of the church is of equal importance, and that if an accused heretic believed the fundamental articles of the faith (in this case, as expressed in the Apostles' Creed) this should be sufficient proof of his orthodoxy. But the official understanding of heresy did not change: any persistent deviation from established church doctrine was heresy punishable by excommunication and death. In 1520, Martin Luther (1483-1546) was condemned as a heretic in the papal bull Exsurge, Domine.

The important elements in the concept of heresy remained constant during the patristic and medieval periods, even if the actual treatment of heretics shows development. Such elements would include: the notion that orthodoxy is a fixed body of teaching embodied in the creed or established by duly convened councils or by the Pope; that heresy is a refusal to submit to the church's correction and be silent when one's opinions conflict with orthodoxy; that heresy is both an ecclesiastical and a civil offense; and that heresy left unchecked will destroy the corpus Christianum. Further, there was an increasing tendency to see any heterodoxy as heresy. As we shall see, John Calvin, like most of the magisterial Reformers, shared all but one of these convictions—the one that made him, from Rome's point of view, a heretic.

Part Two
Calvin's teaching on heresy is marked by an inner tension that betrays the insecurity of the evangelicals even in the second generation of the Reformation. On the one hand, he is sharply critical of the very definition of orthodoxy that fueled the Inquisition. But on the other hand, for many reasons—not least, the literal survival of the Reformed churches in Switzerland and France—he did not wish to present himself as anything other than a defender of the orthodox catholic faith. This ambivalence can perhaps best be illustrated by two incidents in his career, one undoubtedly more well-known than the other: his conflict with Pierre Caroli (d. 1550?) over the Nicene Creed, and his complicity in the execution of the Anti-trinitarian theologian Michael Servetus (1511?-1553).

The conflict with Caroli began at a meeting before the commissioners of Bern in February 1537. Calvin attended this meeting in order to question Caroli, then an evangelical pastor in Lausanne, about his practice of advocating prayers for the dead. But in a surprise move, Caroli turned the tables and accused Calvin and his Lausanne associate Pierre Viret (1511-1571) of Arianism. When Calvin tried to counter with a passage from his Genevan Catechism, Caroli requested that all in attendance give assent to the three ancient creeds: the Nicene, the Athanasian, and the Apostles'. Calvin refused with the remark: "We swear in the faith of the one God, not of Athanasius, whose creed no true Church has ever have approved." Calvin did not hesitate to discuss the difficulties he had with the creed: it was too repetitious; it had the quality more of a song than of a theological confession; it perhaps was not really the work of the Nicene fathers. The details of the ensuing debate between these two men need not detain us. For now it is enough to ask why Calvin reacted in this way.

Many theories have been advanced for explaining his refusal to subscribe, and undoubtedly his motives were complex. Chief among them, however, if we are to take Calvin's own explanation seriously, are Caroli's grounding of the authority of the creeds not in their material agreement with Scripture, but in their having been received by the Catholic church and handed down unchanged through the centuries, and Caroli's scholastic insistence upon the actual words of the creeds as touchstones of orthodoxy. As W. Nijenhuis has argued, "For Calvin and his followers ...this authority was not automatically conferred by the antiquity of the confessions nor by their formal ecclesiastical validity but was founded upon the truth which they professed.... The decisive question was whether a confession was in agreement with Scripture." Moreover, Calvin had no patience for those who insisted upon a literal subscription to any creed, as if human doctrines could be equal to the Word of God. But this represents only one side of Calvin's thinking, and for the other we must consider the fate of Servetus.

Michael Servetus was an educated Spanish physician and lay-theologian who wrote an infamous treatise On the Errors of the Trinity (1531). Taken into custody by Roman Catholic authorities, he managed to escape from prison in Vienne in 1553, just before his official condemnation as a heretic, and made the mistake of stopping in Geneva on his way to Italy. Calvin, who had carried on a short correspondence with Servetus, was well acquainted with his unorthodox views, and ordered Servetus's arrest. In a trial that lasted for months, Calvin provided the evidence against Servetus's theology, and in October of the same year, he was burned at the stake for heresy in Geneva. The grounds for his execution were denial of the eternity of the Son of God and rejection of catholic (i.e. infant) baptism. In this case, Calvin showed himself just as capable of being a literalist as Caroli. William Farel is said to have quipped, after hearing Servetus's dying words—"Jesus Christ, Son of the eternal God, have mercy on me"—that he could have been spared had he gotten his adjective in the right place.

And Calvin's language for describing the threat that heresy presents to the Church is reminiscent of Jerome. Servetus's views are a "contagion" that must not be allowed to spread. That Calvin rejected the Roman definition of orthodoxy is beyond doubt. In his discussion of councils and their authority in the Institutes, Calvin asserts that the only sure principle for determining the orthodoxy of doctrine promulgated by a council is Scripture. Nor does the Pope rightly establish orthodox doctrine. On the contrary, the Pope burdens consciences by promulgating doctrines that go beyond the express teaching of Scripture. Insofar as the pronouncements of councils conform to the teaching of Scripture, they should be respected, and the burden of proof is on the theologian who wishes to take issue with them. Throughout this discussion, Calvin shows himself a keen church historian. He is aware that the findings of many duly convened councils are contradictory; moreover, he knows that even at the most revered councils, decisions were sometimes made with worldly weapons rather than with the sword of the Spirit. He is realistic in assessing the likelihood that church politics is sometimes driven by Satan and not the Spirit. Scripture alone, then, is the sufficient standard of orthodoxy.

Lest he be accused of evangelical subjectivism, however, Calvin turns immediately to the anticipated criticism: is not the interpretation of Scripture an equally contentious matter? How will you know which interpretation is orthodox? And in an argument that is breathtaking for its circularity, Calvin asserts that the real power of councils is to give an authoritative interpretation of Scripture:

We indeed willingly concede, if any discussion arises over doctrine,
that the best and surest remedy is for a synod of true bishops to be
convened, where the doctrine at issue may be examined. Such a
definition, upon which the pastors of the church in common, invoking
Christ's Spirit, agree, will have much more weight than if each one,
having conceived it separately at home, should teach it to the people,
or if a few private individuals should compose it.

But the last word in this paragraph returns to his earlier theme of the subordination of councils to Scripture: " ...I deny it to be always the case that an interpretation of Scripture adopted by vote of a council is true and certain." In that denial, Calvin left the Roman conception of orthodoxy behind.

What, then, constitutes heresy for Calvin, and what does he think should be done about it? Calvin is clear that heresy is instigated by the devil, and that it is the work of reprobate sinners. It is a grave danger to the Church, and therefore ought not to be tolerated; appropriate sanctions, both civil and ecclesiastical, should be imposed against heretics. While Calvin faults the Roman Catholics and some extremist Lutheran theologians for sanctioning severe punishment of heretics without a fair hearing, he is not opposed in principle either to torture or to the capital punishment of heretics. Calvin perhaps comes closest to a formal definition of heresy when defending himself against the charge. He argues that the bond of unity in the church cannot be maintained without agreement in doctrine and submission to the sole headship of Christ. Thus, he and the Genevans are not schismatics, since they have cut off fellowship because of serious doctrinal differences, and they are not heretics because, throwing off the tyranny of Rome, they have pledged their obedience to Christ alone. Not every doctrinal error merits extreme action: only corruption of the most fundamental articles of Christian faith can justify withdrawal from fellowship.

The problem with Calvin's understanding of orthodoxy and heresy is that it makes them matters of interpretation. If it is the clear teaching of Scripture as interpreted by the Church that constitutes the standard of orthodoxy, which church possesses that teaching? And if even a majority vote of a council does not guarantee the soundness of one's interpretation of Scripture, how can one ever be certain of one's orthodoxy or heresy? It was just this epistemological weakness in Calvin's position that attracted the attention of Sabastien Castellio (1515-1564 ), an early advocate of religious tolerance. In the dedication to his book Concerning Heretics: Whether They are to be Persecuted and How They are to be Treated (1554) he remarks:

After a careful investigation of the meaning of the term heretic, I can discover
no more than this, that we regard those as heretics with whom we disagree.
This is evident from the fact that today there is scarcely one of our innumerable
sects which does not look upon the rest as heretics, so that if you are orthodox
in one city or region, you are held for a heretic in the next. If you would live
today, you must have as many faiths and religions as there are cities and sects.

Even though he drew a distinction between fundamental articles of faith, other important doctrines, and things indifferent, Calvin was is no way tolerant of heterodoxy or, what is the same thing, deviation from his own theology. One could cite a variety of evidences for this, but perhaps one will suffice. In a letter of 1555, Calvin seeks to warn the evangelicals in Poitiers against the vicious rumors being spread about him and his work in Geneva. Calvin states that the man who has brought these reports to Poitiers, a certain M. de la Vau, had already shown himself a rascal in Geneva, when he had the impudence to disagree with Calvin about a doctrinal matter with the comment, "These then are your reasons; I think differently." Calvin asserts that doctrine is not a matter of one's private opinions, but of "standing by what God points out to us" and "acquiescing in the truth." To de la Vau's charge that in Geneva everyone must kiss Calvin's slipper, Calvin replies:

What he calls kissing my slipper is that people do not rise up against me
and the doctrine which I teach, to grieve God in my person, and trample him
so to speak under foot. Those who shew themselves so hostile to peace and
concord, prove that they are actuated by the spirit of Satan. He reproaches me
with procuring for my books such authority, that not even the most venturesome,
nor the most courageous dare to speak ill of them. To that I reply, that indeed
the least we can expect is that the Seigneurs, to whom have been entrusted the
sword and authority, should not permit the faith in which they are instructed
to be lightly spoken of in their own city. But luckily the dogs that bark so
lustily after us, are unable to bite.

One cannot help but note the lack of modesty in Calvin's understanding of his own theology. He sees himself as delivering the truth from God; thus, any heterodoxy is not merely just that—another opinion—but rather a Satan-inspired plot against the Church. For all his disagreement with the Roman church on the foundation of orthodoxy, Calvin actually treats dissent in a very similar way: the scope of acceptable heterodoxy is narrowed to virtually nil, and any doctrinal opinion that differs from his own is seen at best as a pernicious error, at worst as heresy. Castellio's cynical observations about the mutual anathematizing of Christian sects proved prophetic: what followed the Reformation of the 16th century was not the recovery of the apostolic purity of the church its leaders had hoped for, but instead more than a century of bitter religious wars.

Part Three
The two hundred years that separate Calvin and Schleiermacher, while certainly plagued by religious controversies, were also years in which significant steps were taken towards the establishment of religious liberty. John Locke (1632-1704) argued in his Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) that civil authority should be directed toward the temporal good and prosperity of society and that individuals (with certain exceptions) should be able to practice religion according to the dictates of conscience. The magistrate should not be in the business of enforcing belief, which is not, in any case, something that can be simply willed. "The business of laws," he writes, "is not to provide for the truth of opinions, but for the safety and security of the commonwealth and of every particular man's goods and person. And so it ought to be.... [I]f Truth makes not her way into the understanding by her own light, she will be but the weaker for any borrowed force violence can add to her."

Locke concludes the Letter with a brief discussion of the concepts of heresy and schism. He defines heresy as "a separation made in ecclesiastical communion between men of the same religion for some opinions in no way contained in the rule itself.” Thus for Protestants, who acknowledge no other rule of faith than Holy Scripture, heresy is “a separation made in their Christian communion for opinions not contained in the express words of Scripture.” One can be a heretic in this sense by forcing out a minority who refuse to subscribe to doctrines of the majority that are not the express words of Scripture; equally, one can be a heretic by withdrawing from a communion because that church refuses to profess one’s extra-biblical opinions. Locke is quick to add that there is a difference between the express words of Scripture and doctrines believed to be deduced from them. The latter ought never to be imposed on another,

...unless we would be content also that other doctrines should be imposed
upon us in the same manner, and that we should be compelled to receive
and profess all the different and contradictory opinions of Lutherans,
Calvinists, Remonstrants, Anabaptists, and other sects which the contrivers of
symbols, systems, and confessions are accustomed to deliver to their
followers as genuine and necessary deductions from the Holy Scripture.
I cannot but wonder at the extravagant arrogance of those men who think
that they themselves can explain things necessary to salvation more clearly
than the Holy Ghost, the eternal and infinite wisdom of God.

Locke’s was certainly not the only voice lifted against dogmatic Christianity. The Latitudiarians and Deists in England, and the Pietists in Germany, each for their own particular reasons, argued against the hegemony of Protestant orthodoxy. By the time Schleiermacher published his On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers in 1799, pleas for tolerance and a religion of reason had given way to the supercilious dismissal of religion as the domain of uneducated bigots. Clearly, Schleiermacher developed his thoughts about heresy in a different context than Calvin’s. Yet even in Schleiermacher’s Prussia accusations of heresy carried civil consequences: such charges could land one’s books on the censor’s list, or prevent one’s appointment to a teaching post in a university theological faculty.

Schleiermacher’s conceptions of orthodoxy and heresy cannot be grasped apart from his understanding of religion in general. In the Speeches, he argues that religion is not a particular body of knowledge, nor a specific variety of action, but rather a form of consciousness—specifically the feeling and intuition of the infinite. To be religious is not to believe certain doctrines or to act in particular ways but to sense the underlying unity in the multiplicity of finite things. Unlike the Protestant scholastics and the Deists alike, Schleiermacher refuses to reduce religious faith either to fundamental articles of belief or to morality. Doctrines, creeds, and other statements of belief are, for him, second-order reflection on the immediate experience of faith. Mere subscription to articles of belief, then, could provide no sure measure of a person’s faith. And a person’s inability fully to articulate his doctrinal beliefs could not provide sufficient evidence for doubting his piety.

If doctrines do not function to establish or define faith, what is their purpose? Schleiermacher argues that systematic theology serves the church by providing critical norms for its proclamation, both in word and in deeds. The language of worship and proclamation is intended to edify and persuade; it is poetic or rhetorical language that can lead to misconceptions without the limits set by critical theological reflection. The theologian strives to give an account of the Christian way of believing in the most precise terms possible in order to provide norms for regulating the imprecise language of preaching, worship, and devotion. The question then arises: What norms, if any, limit the theologian’s description of the Christian way of believing? It is in the context of answering this question that Schleiermacher discusses the concepts of orthodoxy, heresy, and heterodoxy, but he gives each of the concepts definitions and evaluations quite different from those of Aquinas or Calvin.

Doctrines are thoroughly historical products for Schleiermacher, and therefore no doctrinal statement is a perfect, once-for-all symbolization of Christian faith. The dogmatic theologian seeks to give an account of the Christian faith commonly held in a given church at a particular time. What is orthodox, then, is simply the prevailing doctrinal consensus in that church, while heterodoxy is any view that departs from this consensus. Schleiermacher was aware that for some this would seem an insufficient definition since it is not related to a fixed norm of orthodoxy. But he notes that the distinction between “orthodoxy” and “heterodoxy” in his sense of the terms can be observed even where there is no fixed doctrinal norm, and thus the definition of the terms cannot depend upon such a norm.

The orthodox and heterodox impulses are equally important for theology. Without the orthodox impulse, one could discover no true unity of Christian faith; but without the heterodox impulse, there would be no development of doctrine. Theologians who tend one-sidedly to one impulse or the other do damage to the Church: the one-sidedly orthodox theologian by retaining dogmas that are antiquated relics unable to be understood in connection with other parts of the faith, the one-sidedly heterodox theologian by rejecting well-grounded pronouncements of the Church that can and must be understood in relation to other aspects of belief. Thus, Schleiermacher says, “every dogmatic theologian who either innovates or exalts what is old, in a one-sided manner, is only a very imperfect organ of the Church. From a falsely heterodox standpoint, he will declare even the most appropriate orthodoxy to be false; and from a falsely orthodox standpoint, he will combat even the most mild and unavoidable heterodoxy as a destructive innovation.”

Thus far it sounds as if there is no absolute standard against which a theologian’s account of Christian faith must be measured. But we must now introduce the concept of heresy, for it is heresy that provides an absolute boundary : the Church theologian is obligated to exclude any truly heretical elements from his system. Given Schleiermacher’s understanding of orthodoxy, heresy clearly cannot be understood as deviation from the orthodox norm. For one thing, the orthodox norm is not fixed and unchangeable. Moreover, some deviation, as in the case of heterodoxy, can be a good and healthy thing for the development of doctrine. So what is heresy? For Schleiermacher, heresy is any doctrine that cannot be explained from the distinctive essence of Christianity and cannot be conceived as compatible with it, even though it claims to be Christian and wants to be regarded as such by others. Heresy is anything that contradicts the essence of Christianity, even while the appearance of Christianity remains.

Once again, Schleiermacher was well aware that this is a formal definition of heresy, and one that is likely to vary depending upon how the essence of Christianity is construed. This problem, he states, cannot be avoided. However, once the theologian has determined what for her constitutes the essence of Christianity, any idea that would destroy it cannot be contained in the system of doctrine. In Schleiermacher’s own definition of the essence of Christianity everything is connected with the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth. Consequently, he discerned four “natural types” of heresy that could interfere with the essence so defined. On the one hand, one could deny that humanity needs redemption (Pelagianism) or that humanity can be redeemed (Manicheanism), while on the other hand one could understand the Redeemer as so different from us that he cannot truly bring us redemption (Doceticism), or so like us that he cannot provide it (Ebionitism). At every point in the development of the system of theology, these four types of heresy must be eliminated.

Schleiermacher deals at length with the question of the ecclesial response to heresy in his Practical Theology, in a section on the influence of church government on the establishment of doctrine. The governing bodies of evangelical churches, he argues, have two main responsibilities: the first is to exercise the binding authority that maintains the church’s continuity with its originating ideals; the second is to remain open to the free spiritual influence that individual members can exercise on the whole body. In fact, the evangelical churches were born from Luther’s exercise of just this kind of individual free spiritual influence; therefore, Protestants ought to be especially careful to preserve the possibility of free expression.

Schleiermacher points out that from the beginning, evangelicals were opposed to the catholic way of thinking about doctrine. For the evangelicals it was a fundamental principle that the Word of God alone could establish doctrine, and that no human being had the right to lay down or enforce articles of belief that went beyond Scripture. Therefore, from the age of the Reformation, Protestants have put enormous importance on biblical scholarship, and on the theology that grows out of it. But biblical interpretation, too, is a developing thing, and so it is not in the evangelical spirit to adopt a fixed authoritative interpretation of Scripture. It is always possible that, under the guidance of the Spirit, the church’s biblical scholars and theologians will come to new insights.

During the years that Schleiermacher labored as a professor and pastor in Berlin, the Lutheran and Reformed churches in Prussia united. Although this was an occasion of great celebration, for many it was also a cause for suspicion and mistrust, and not surprisingly, there was soon a strong movement calling for confessional subscription as a means for preserving the purity of the church. From the beginning, Schleiermacher was a strong opponent of this view. He regarded the demand for literal subscription as slavish and mechanical—thoroughly opposed to the original spirit of the Reformation. The confessions, or “symbolic books” as he called them, do have an important role to play in the church, but it is not the role of establishing “reine Lehre.” In their origin they were directed outward, not inward: they intended to show how the evangelical congregations distinguished themselves from Roman Catholics and from revolutionary groups. They were never intended to regulate the faith of those inside their own churches: in fact, their tendency was precisely in the opposite direction. Schleiermacher concludes that, “the evangelical church remains evangelical only when it accepts the mobility of dogma through biblical interpretation....If one adopts a static literalism, then it is no longer a living presentation of the faith [Vorstellung], but simply repeated words.”

What, then, is the role of churchly authority in regulating doctrine? Schleiermacher does not mince words: the only task of churchly authority in this regard is to ensure academic freedom and the free exchange of theological research. It is true that if one permits such freedom, it is impossible to prevent all corrupt teaching in advance. But the health of the Church will be preserved if congregations are connected in a larger fellowship, so that the corrupting influences of the individual are outweighed by the common spirit of the community. Schleiermacher also argues that well-executed pastoral care can forfend the evil effects of corrupt teaching. People are less liable to be misled by heresy if they have been well-formed in Christian faith. The risk of corrupt teaching has to be taken for the sake of the development of doctrine, the heart of evangelical identity.

Those who contribute the most to the process of doctrinal development, according to Schleiermacher, are academic theologians and theological authors. He does not use the term “academic theologians” in the sense in which it is commonly used now, for a group distinct from “church theologians.” He simply means theologians who work in an educational institution, while theological authors are those who write on contested questions in the Church. In order best to serve the Church through their free spiritual influence, theologians must strive to be “princes of church”: i.e., people who combine religious interest and a scientific spirit with the ability to balance both theoretical and practical activity. The academic theologian must strive in teaching to draw ministry students into critical engagement with Scripture and tradition without thereby destroying their faith. The theological author must avoid publishing his work in media that would reach beyond their intended audience, but rather should present his ideas to those who can make correct use of them. Moreover, theological writing ought not to be purely polemical, but should seek to discover the good that is contained even in the ideas it seeks to refute. All of these warnings to theologians give evidence of Schleiermacher’s keen awareness of the possible dangers of free theological inquiry. It can be disturbing to immature Christians; it can produce scandalous public controversies. For the most part he leaves the containment of possible dangers entailed by free theological inquiry to the discretion of the theologian himself. However, he does note that church authorities exercise control over ecclesiastical appointments, and thus can prevent those whom they deem truly dangerous from occupying the pulpit.

The balance between binding authority and free-theological inquiry, like the balance between heterodoxy and orthodoxy in an individual theologian’s work, is intended to ensure the continuity of the evangelical tradition through change. The theologian must strive to demonstrate the connection between the old and the new. Sometimes truly insightful theological work will lead the theologian to hold an opinion contrary to the majority in his Church, a heterodox opinion. But since majority votes are never a guarantee of the correctness of doctrine, it is altogether possible that what is heterodox will one day become orthodox. Schleiermacher warns that the Church should not quench the Spirit in its drive to define dogma in a permanent way. The Spirit, who is bringing about the consummation of the Church, always has something new to communicate through the engagement with Scripture. The evangelical Church and its theologians, therefore, ought to stand ready to receive these new insights.

What, then, can be done about heresy? Schleiermacher argued that charges of heresy ought to be infrequently urged. It is not easy, in the midst of the fray, to be altogether clear about where one’s own theological viewpoint is located in the spectrum, and one always judges another in relation to one’s own position. The theologian certainly has an obligation to seek to exclude heresy from his own work, but for the most part a judgment of charity should prevail towards others. The truth shines in its own light, and false or “diseased” views of Christian faith will simply die on their own when contrasted with the power of the truth.

Schleiermacher’s vision of the theological task takes its beginning point in the formal principle of the Reformation, sola scriptura. But while Calvin came to a sense of certainty about the scriptural account of many doctrines, Schleiermacher maintained that even the best theological statements remain provisional, subject to correction in light of fresh readings of Holy Scripture. “The reformation goes on,” he argued, and so the Church itself must be ready to be reformed again and again according to the Word of God. Openness to genuinely new insights requires an ability to tolerate or even to encourage a measure of heterodoxy. And lest churchly authority censor even the useful heterodoxy that leads to doctrinal development, it should not be too eager to condemn and exclude those whom it perhaps wrongly brands as heretics. The Spirit guides the Church forward and can be trusted to preserve it in spite of human error.

Part Four
If I may return now to the questions with which I began, there are several observations that can be made in light of our consideration of Calvin and Schleiermacher on orthodoxy and heresy. Let me begin with the definition of orthodoxy. It is clear that both Calvin and Schleiermacher affirm the principle that the Word of God alone, as attested in Scripture and preaching, is the foundation of true orthodoxy. Neither the witness of the “ancient and undivided church,” nor the antiquity of particular doctrinal formulas suffice to establish them as essential and unchangeable norms for Reformed theologians. I can find no support in Calvin or Schleiermacher—nor in the Reformed confessions, for that matter—for the argument, put forward by some, that the decisions of the first four ecumenical councils ought not to be revisited or rethought. To place any human word, even the word of a revered council, on a par with the Word of God is not in keeping with the Reformed habit of mind. Both Calvin and Schleiermacher recognized, as good church historians, that history is written by the winners, and that the winners in church history constitute the “orthodox” majority. Nonetheless, they both also affirmed that majority vote alone is no guarantee that one has the pure Word of God.

Next we come to the question of heresy. It is clear that neither Calvin nor Schleiermacher recommends heresy as a useful body of thought to the Church. Each one in his own way views heresy as destructive and dangerous. But the problem of rightly identifying real heretics is handled differently by these two theologians. Calvin, more in keeping with the spirit of the late Middle Ages, believed that tests of orthodoxy, based on doctrinal formulas approved by him, were adequate evidence to try and convict heretics; further, he insisted that if heretical opinions were not completely silenced, the Church would be ineluctably drawn to them and so destroyed. For Schleiermacher there was a difference between doctrine and faith, so that doctrinal formulas would never be sufficient tools for condemning another man’s piety. Moreover, he was skeptical about human ability to pronounce another’s doctrine heretical. Since our judgment is relative to our own theological perspective, it is never entirely possible to assess another’s doctrinal opinions objectively. The category of heresy, therefore, is most useful as an internal norm applied by the dogmatic theologian to her own work, where it provides an absolute boundary for the way in which she speaks about Christian faith. Schleiermacher spoke of heresy as a “diseased condition” of Christianity, but he did not share Calvin’s fear that its seductive power is irresistible. On the contrary, he was confident that as the Church moves ahead toward its divinely appointed consummation, heresies would condemn themselves and diminish in power, while the truth would shine forth ever more brightly.

For Calvin, as for many theologians in the late-medieval Church, heterodoxy tended to collapse into heresy. Dissent from official dogma was frowned upon in Geneva no less than in Rome. Although Calvin certainly respected several fellow Reformers with whom he disagreed, he nevertheless believed that those within his own jurisdiction ought either to agree with him or to be silent. Castellio was driven from the Genevan Academy for his heterodox interpretation of the Song of Solomon; Jerome Bolsec (c.1524-1584) was banished for objecting to Calvin’s doctrine of predestination; countless citizens of Geneva were called before the Consistory to justify themselves when objecting to one or another of Calvin’s views. In fact, after the banishment of Bolsec, the Little Council passed an ordinance forbidding anyone to speak against Calvin or his Institutes.

Schleiermacher sees heterodoxy as something fundamentally different than heresy and not as the first step into it. To be heterodox is to have a different opinion than the majority in the Church, while to be heretical is to believe things contradictory to the heart of Christian faith. The Reformers themselves were not orthodox but heterodox theologians. Calvin’s view of what constitutes orthodoxy disagrees not only with the majority vote of his contemporaries in the Christian church, but also with the overwhelming majority throughout the ages. But this is not the skeleton in the closet of the Reformed churches, but their distinctive gift: the gift of openness to being Reformed according to the Word of God. Heterodoxy, then, is not only an unavoidable fact but a necessary ingredient in any truly Reformed theological discussion, for it is the heterodox impulse that remains open to new hearings of God’s Word. For this reason, so far from banishing those who disagree, the Church ought to cultivate their vigorous and thorough theological debate, and protect the right of individuals to dissent even from the confessions of the Church.

Of course, Schleiermacher’s views on heterodoxy will not be popular with those who today are urging confessional subscription as the antidote to pluralism. To take their side for the moment, one has to admit that the right of every individual to think for herself has been taken to extremes that even Schleiermacher the Romantic could not have imagined. Many churchgoers, without so much as a course in the history of Christian thought, feel competent to demur at the theological views of Augustine, Calvin, and many other heroes in the Reformed pantheon, and to create for themselves personal confessions of faith. Admittedly, that is a sorry state of affairs. But in this context, I am not so much concerned with issues of catechesis or Christian formation, as with the vocation of the Church’s theologians. Should we henceforth demand, for the sake of preserving our historic Reformed identity, that our theologians subscribe to the Reformed confessions (or perhaps only to one of them) and cease and desist thinking anew about matters the confessions have defined? Or should our church’s governing bodies define once and for all the “essential tenets” of Reformed faith and censure any theologian who speaks against them? It seems that to move in this direction would be contrary to the spirit of Calvin and Schleiermacher, and to the witness of the Reformed Confession. Our historic commitment to be Reformed according to the Word of God demands our openness to the possibility—no, more, the probability—that even our best confessions got some things wrong. The Reformation goes on.

If theology is to be something more than a mindless repetition of formulas from the past, heterodoxy is inevitable. The potential risks involved in really creative theological reflection need to be squarely admitted. It is possible that such theology will be more disturbing than reassuring to some congregations. It is possible that theologians will make mistakes that in fact corrupt the faith. It is also possible that a theologian, loosed from servile compliance to “orthodox norms,” will give a brilliant account of the faith of the Church that speaks to a new generation with power and persuasion. Schleiermacher was right to speak of the values that should form the church theologian: religious interest or faith, scientific spirit or reason, and the ability to balance theoretical and practical considerations, which is wisdom. Theologians steeped in these values, however heterodox their views on the current shibboleths of orthodoxy, need not be feared for their corrupting influence. And theologians who do not have these values are unlikely to make any mark on the community of faith.

Can heterodoxy actually be “inspired”? We may not be prepared to argue that Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God constitutes an inspired heterodoxy destined to become orthodox. But surely we can think of other theological opinions for which people were disciplined or punished in the past that have now become seemingly self-evident orthodoxy. Were those heterodox theologians actually instruments of the Holy Spirit? Can we say for sure that they were not?

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