What is a heresy?

The term "heresy" is actually frustratingly difficult to define. A standard definition might be along the lines of "dissent or deviation from a dominant theory, opinion, or practice", or "adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma." Yet, it shouldn't be too hard to see the problems with these definitions.

The problem with the first definition is that, first off, it commits the ad populum fallacy. Either that, or truth itself could also become a heresy just by falling out of failure. If, for example, 90% of self-proclaimed Christians suddenly decided to become Unitarians, the Trinity would become heresy. Thus, this definition is useless, because it depends on the flimsy beliefs of sinful men who lack authority.

The second definition faces a similar problem. Which church takes precedent? What one church considers heretical, another may consider absolute truth. If we make it a numbers game, what happens when one church overtakes it in popularity? And again, what happens when even the dominant church changes its view? Heresy suddenly becomes tolerable with a single confession of faith?

We see, then, that the standard, worldly definitions of heresy are unsatisfactory, being entirely useless for intelligent discussion. Thus, Bible Brain adopts the relatively simple definition that a heresy is "a doctrine that cannot be reasonably understood from the standard canon of Scripture".

For this reason, Bible Brain rejects the idea that, for example, Calvinism is a heresy, because although we disagree with it, we at least see how one might come to believe it based on an honest Bible study. By contrast, Theistic Evolution is definitely a heresy, because it cannot be reasonably understood from Scripture, and Theistic Evolutionists often readily acknowledge this. Every time a Theistic Evolutionist says "Genesis isn't meant to be taken literally", for example, they admit that Creationism is what Genesis LITERALLY says.

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Bible Brain also distinguishes between "fatal" and "non-fatal" heresies. A fatal heresy is indistinguishable from outright apostasy. Those who believe such heresies are not Christians by any reasonable definition, and will, barring repentance, be condemned. By contrast, it is entirely possible to be wrong on some doctrines and remain a friend of Christ, retaining salvation. Non-fatal heresies may be symptomatic of apostasy, but are not, in and of themselves, fatal.

Although many heresies do have their own pages on this site, this page is dedicated to those I, for whatever reason, cannot justify creating a whole page for.