It seems to me like this depends a lot on what sort of knotty theological questions.
Suppose there is a dispute among Christians about whether doing some particular thing is necessary for salvation. Then the question can’t be safely shelved until “the hereafter” because if one side is right then the other is in grave danger.
Or suppose there is a dispute about whether doing some particular thing is morally wrong (and therefore / because it is) hateful to the gods. Then even if for whatever reason you are confident of not being punished for doing it, if you care about doing the right thing or about pleasing the gods then you will want to resolve that dispute.
The context in this instance—thanks, Google Books! -- appears to be a question about transubstantiation, arising in 12th-century England. I think a Christian believer might reasonably be concerned that disbelieving in transubstantiation if it’s right might be dangerous, and that the reverse might be idolatrous—which they’d presumably want to avoid even if they weren’t worried they’d be damned for it.
The doctrine of transubstantiation was off-and-on in Christianity from the third or fourth century but wasn’t actually adopted by the Catholic Church until the 4th Lateran Council in 1215 AD. It wasn’t formalized until the Council of Trent (1545-63 AD). So, to a 12th Century monk, transubstantiation may have been a “knotty theological question” but of no concern where salvation was concerned. I was kind of impressed how well Follet did his homework for that book.
In my experience, most U.S. Evangelical Christians boil the basis of salvation down to one’s response to Jesus’ death and resurrection. You have to believe in it or at least say you believe in it. That’s about it. It’s relatively easy redemption.
Almost everything else seems increasingly negotiable and thought to be not worth arguing about.
This seems to me to be a response to the proliferation of “knotty theological problems” to the masses via the internet. It would bog down the movement to worry about whether Job was a real person or whether or not Obama is the really the Antichrist based on Revelation X:XX. It has the potential to fracture the sect and it’s just plain a buzzkill to dwell on such minutiae.
Better to just Believe in Jesus™ and sort out the details posthumously when you’re hanging out in your BRAND NEW MANSION!
I was taught that, ultimately, it was about recognizing that you are not worthy of salvation, but that God can choose to save you anyway. If you insist on being judged on your merits, you will be. This won’t work out for you, because of all the sinning. Salvation is for those who are willing to let God intercede on their behalf.
I think this is a similar thing in different words. You can allow Jesus to intercede for you by acknowledging 1) you are sinful and in need of an intercessor and 2) Jesus has the power to do the interceding. Jesus death and resurrection is the lynch pin of his divinity and associated magical intercessory powers.
It get’s a bit tricky when “consistently sinful” people claim to believe in Jesus and admit their own sinfulness. They are sort of gaming the system, though many believe God can just pick out the insincere followers.
Yup. Most evangelical Christians elsewhere, too, at least in principle (I suspect the reward-and-punishment view of salvation and damnation is hard to eradicate altogether). But evangelical Christians are not the only Christians, and in 12th-century England—the setting for the quotation above—there were no evangelicals as such.
This seems to me to be a response [...]
If you mean the original quotation: no, it’s set in the 12th century. If you mean the belief among evangelicals that salvation is dependent on faith and affiliation rather than on good versus bad actions: no, that’s been central to evangelicalism since evangelicalism existed, and widely believed by Protestants since Protestantism existed. (I’m not sure about the history of the idea pre-Reformation, but I bet it cropped up from time to time.)
“Knotty theological questions are the least worrying of problems to me.”
“Why?”
“Because they will be resolved in the hereafter, and meanwhile they can be safely shelved.”
-- Ken Follet. Pillars of the Earth, pg 696 (Kindle edition)
It seems to me like this depends a lot on what sort of knotty theological questions.
Suppose there is a dispute among Christians about whether doing some particular thing is necessary for salvation. Then the question can’t be safely shelved until “the hereafter” because if one side is right then the other is in grave danger.
Or suppose there is a dispute about whether doing some particular thing is morally wrong (and therefore / because it is) hateful to the gods. Then even if for whatever reason you are confident of not being punished for doing it, if you care about doing the right thing or about pleasing the gods then you will want to resolve that dispute.
The context in this instance—thanks, Google Books! -- appears to be a question about transubstantiation, arising in 12th-century England. I think a Christian believer might reasonably be concerned that disbelieving in transubstantiation if it’s right might be dangerous, and that the reverse might be idolatrous—which they’d presumably want to avoid even if they weren’t worried they’d be damned for it.
The doctrine of transubstantiation was off-and-on in Christianity from the third or fourth century but wasn’t actually adopted by the Catholic Church until the 4th Lateran Council in 1215 AD. It wasn’t formalized until the Council of Trent (1545-63 AD). So, to a 12th Century monk, transubstantiation may have been a “knotty theological question” but of no concern where salvation was concerned. I was kind of impressed how well Follet did his homework for that book.
In my experience, most U.S. Evangelical Christians boil the basis of salvation down to one’s response to Jesus’ death and resurrection. You have to believe in it or at least say you believe in it. That’s about it. It’s relatively easy redemption.
Almost everything else seems increasingly negotiable and thought to be not worth arguing about.
This seems to me to be a response to the proliferation of “knotty theological problems” to the masses via the internet. It would bog down the movement to worry about whether Job was a real person or whether or not Obama is the really the Antichrist based on Revelation X:XX. It has the potential to fracture the sect and it’s just plain a buzzkill to dwell on such minutiae.
Better to just Believe in Jesus™ and sort out the details posthumously when you’re hanging out in your BRAND NEW MANSION!
I was taught that, ultimately, it was about recognizing that you are not worthy of salvation, but that God can choose to save you anyway. If you insist on being judged on your merits, you will be. This won’t work out for you, because of all the sinning. Salvation is for those who are willing to let God intercede on their behalf.
I think this is a similar thing in different words. You can allow Jesus to intercede for you by acknowledging 1) you are sinful and in need of an intercessor and 2) Jesus has the power to do the interceding. Jesus death and resurrection is the lynch pin of his divinity and associated magical intercessory powers.
It get’s a bit tricky when “consistently sinful” people claim to believe in Jesus and admit their own sinfulness. They are sort of gaming the system, though many believe God can just pick out the insincere followers.
Yup. Most evangelical Christians elsewhere, too, at least in principle (I suspect the reward-and-punishment view of salvation and damnation is hard to eradicate altogether). But evangelical Christians are not the only Christians, and in 12th-century England—the setting for the quotation above—there were no evangelicals as such.
If you mean the original quotation: no, it’s set in the 12th century. If you mean the belief among evangelicals that salvation is dependent on faith and affiliation rather than on good versus bad actions: no, that’s been central to evangelicalism since evangelicalism existed, and widely believed by Protestants since Protestantism existed. (I’m not sure about the history of the idea pre-Reformation, but I bet it cropped up from time to time.)