Leave Your Mind
at the Door

What is this page about?

Here is a short talk. This page made it up. It is not about a real person.

Nobody here is unkind. But look at what happened in four lines.

• A question about history got an answer about the future of the person who asked.
• A Bible verse about unbelievers was used for a believer who asked a question.
• The real question was “Is it true?” It got no answer.
• The question became a sign that something was wrong with the man.

This page is about that change. It does not ask if God is greater than our understanding. He is, and every church has said so. It asks one thing. Did the old Christian faith see careful thinking as a danger to faith, or as part of a Christian’s work?

The short answer

1. The Bible tells ordinary Christians to test what they hear. It is a command.

• “Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Paul wrote this to a whole church.
• “don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits” (1 John 4:1).
• “Let the prophets speak, two or three, and let the others discern.” (1 Corinthians 14:29) The church members judge what a man says he received from God.

None of these was written only to leaders.

2. The Bible praises one group for checking a preacher. The preacher was an apostle.

Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

Acts 17:11 · World English Bible

In simple words: The people of Berea were more noble than the people of Thessalonica. They were very ready to hear the message. And every day they studied the Scriptures to see if these things were true.

They went home every night and checked Paul’s words. The Bible calls this noble.

3. Paul put himself under the same test. “But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you any ‘good news’ other than that which we preached to you, let him be cursed.” (Galatians 1:8) He names himself first and an angel second. No high position frees anyone from being checked.

4. A famous sentence for the other side is not real. People say that an early teacher, Tertullian, wrote: “I believe because it is absurd.” He never wrote that. He gave an argument: nobody who invented a religion would invent a story so shameful as the death of God’s Son. That is a reason, good or bad.

5. For nine hundred years, Christians in the West had this rule: “faith seeking understanding”. A teacher named Anselm wrote in 1077:

I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.

Anselm, 1077

In simple words: I do not try to understand first so that I can believe. I believe first, so that I can understand.

Faith comes first. Then you go and look for understanding. The search is part of the faith.

6. The great church meetings used very careful thinking to protect the mysteries. In the year 325, the whole argument was about one letter in one Greek word. In the year 451, the church described how Christ is both God and man with four careful phrases: “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation”. These phrases stop four mistakes. They do not explain the mystery. This is careful thinking that guards a mystery.

7. Luther is quoted on both sides. In 1521 he would not take back his words unless someone showed him he was wrong “by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason”. In 1546 he called reason a very bad name. But that sermon was against people who said that water cannot baptize. Luther attacked reason that rules over God’s word. He did not attack reason that serves God’s word.

8. Calvin told Christians to use what unbelievers have discovered. He said that God helps us through their work in science and mathematics, and that we should use it.

9. A strict Protestant statement of faith says it clearly. The Westminster Confession of 1646 says that to ask for “an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also”. In simple words: to demand blind obedience destroys a person’s freedom and his reason.

10. The Catholic Church said that faith and reason do not really fight. A council in 1870 taught: “there can never be any real disagreement between faith and reason”.

11. So what does a church get when it tells people to stop asking? It does not get deeper faith. It takes away the only tool that could show people inside that something is wrong.

Who was told to check?

Here are Bible commands about testing what we are taught. Were they written to the leaders or to everybody?

To everybody:

• “Test all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
• “Test the spirits” (1 John 4:1).
• “Let the others discern” (1 Corinthians 14:29).
• The people of Berea studied the Scriptures every day (Acts 17:11).
• Paul’s rule about anyone who brings another gospel (Galatians 1:8).
• “Let each man be fully assured in his own mind.” (Romans 14:5)

To leaders:

• “Don’t receive an accusation against an elder, except at the word of two or three witnesses.” (1 Timothy 5:19) This gives a fair rule for evidence. The next verse says that leaders who sin must be corrected in front of all.
• Paul’s warning to the leaders at Ephesus to watch over the flock, because false teachers will come from among the leaders themselves (Acts 20:28-30).

So six are for everybody. And the two for leaders protect the church members. They do not protect the leader.

A mystery, or something you are not allowed to check?

The Christian faith has real mysteries. Sometimes a church also has claims that are not mysteries. They are only kept in a place where nobody may look. The two sound alike. Five questions help to tell them apart.

1. Is it said aloud to everybody? The Trinity is preached openly and taught to children. A thing that must stay inside a small circle is not a mystery.
2. Could you write it down? Would they still say it next year? The statement of the year 451 has not changed in 1,500 years. A claim that changes when you push it is being protected, not explained.
3. Is it above reason, or does it fight with itself? “Three persons, one God” is deep, and we cannot see the bottom of it. “One thing that is three things in exactly the same way” is not deep. It is only broken.
4. Is it older than this one person? Every true teaching is argued openly from the Bible and from history. If the only evidence is one man’s report of what God showed him, nobody else can test it.
5. Who gains if you stop asking? Nobody gets money or power because you believe the Nicene Creed. But sometimes the thing you may not look at is the thing that protects someone’s money or position. Notice that.

Try the questions on these sentences.

• “One and the same Christ, in two natures, without confusion, without change.” A real mystery. It is from a public creed.
• “The great church meeting at Nicaea was in the year 325.” A plain fact. You can look it up.

These three are not mysteries. Nobody is allowed to check them, and nothing can ever prove them wrong.

What a “no questions” rule does

Suppose a group decides that questions are not allowed. Nobody has to be dishonest. But five things follow from the rule alone.

1. Nobody can check the claim. The evidence is in a place where only one person can go.
2. The person who asks must pay. He must defend himself before anyone hears his question.
3. Correction becomes disloyalty. To disagree with the man is treated as disagreeing with God.
4. Nothing can count against the claim. If it does not work, the reason was your faith or your sin.
5. Leaving proves nothing. The price of leaving has nothing to do with whether the teaching is true.

No bad person is needed for this. The rule does it alone.

Two very old examples show it. Both are more than five hundred years old.

In 1415 a Christian teacher named Jan Hus stood before a great church meeting. He asked them to show him from the Bible where he was wrong. He promised to take it back if they did. They did not show him. They gave him a paper to sign. He refused, and he was burned to death.

About a hundred years later, in a German city, a man said that he spoke for God. He brought in one new rule after another, and at last he made himself king. Each time, a new message from God came just when he needed it. Nobody else could check it. His enemies wrote the reports of this that we have, so some details are not sure.

In 1961 a doctor named Robert Lifton studied how some governments forced people to change their thinking. He listed the marks of such systems. One of them is that the teaching may not be questioned and the leader may not be criticised. Other experts argue about his work. It is not a test for any group. But it is interesting. He was not thinking about church teaching, and he found the same point.

Seven questions for one claim

Take one thing: a teaching you received, or an answer you got. Ask these seven questions about it. They test a claim. They never test a person. A claim can fail the test when the person who makes it is fully honest and only mistaken. That is the most common case.

1. Is it said aloud to everybody, or only inside a small circle?
2. Can it be written in one sentence that they will still say next year?
3. Is it older than this person? Did someone show you where it comes from? Being told “there is a verse” is not the same as seeing the verse.
4. What would show that it is wrong? Would they accept that?
5. When you asked about it, what happened? Did you get an answer? Or did the talk turn to your character?
6. Who gains if you accept it without checking?
7. Are you free to read other books and to talk to people who have left?

The only good use of your answers is to decide what to ask next.

What a good answer sounds like

Here is the same talk as at the start, with a good answer. This page made it up.

Four good things happen here.

1. The question is treated as a question.
2. The man says plainly what he does not know.
3. He makes a guess that can prove wrong.
4. He promises to say so in public if it is wrong.

This does not need great courage or great learning. It needs a teacher who believes that he stands under the same rule as the person who asks. For most of two thousand years, Christian teachers believed exactly that.

Check it yourself

1. Read Acts 17:1-15, and then Galatians chapters 1 and 2. Who is checked, and by whom?
2. Read the statement of the church meeting at Chalcedon from the year 451. It is one paragraph.
3. Read the Westminster Confession, chapter 20, part 2. It is one paragraph.
4. Read the other side: the early teacher Tertullian, in his book against false teachers, chapters 7 to 14. He is the best voice for the other side. Decide for yourself what he is attacking.