Christianity Fractured
Why Heresies Will Never Triumph over the Whole Truth
Most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about heresy, but perhaps if we did, we would realize that learning how to separate heresy from truth is the only way to know what truth is—and for all who seek to know God, especially all who call themselves “Christians,” this task is paramount.
What is a “heresy” anyway? According to Hilaire Belloc, in The Great Heresies, the word comes from the Greek haireo, which originally meant “I grasp” and later meant “I take away.” Heresies occur when people chip away parts of a coherent, existing system, such as the beliefs of the Catholic faith.
In the earliest days of the Church, all sorts of assaults were launched by groups who denied the divinity of Jesus or by others who denied his humanity. One second century Catholic writer named Irenaeus wrote “Against Heresies” and “his firm insistence upon the fullness of Christ’s humanity helped save Christianity from being absorbed into a culturally larger Gnostic system…which taught and promised escape rather than redemption” (C. FitzSimons Allison, The Cruelty of Heresy, p. 53).
Heretics then and now pick and choose which parts of the Catholic faith they want to accept, and they jettison the rest. It is indeed a cruel process by which many subsequent followers are deceived.
For 1500 years, the Catholic Church was the one and only Christian church established by Jesus Christ. “Catholic” means simply “universal.” The Church was given authority by Jesus Christ to maintain, preserve and safeguard the fullness of the Gospel to advance the salvation of all mankind.
In addition to an overview of the more well known heresies in the distant past, Belloc traces the threads of the Protestant Reformation. It ultimately resulted in countless groups of believers who rejected the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. They rejected the Real Presence of Jesus’ Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist as well as other traditional, vital beliefs. Various Protestant groups continue to split apart, and no two denominations agree even on the basics of salvation, grace, morality, and/or the correct interpretation of Scripture.
I was born into a Protestant denomination and know many, many devout Protestant Christians who dearly love Jesus and do their best to live amazing Christian lives. Those people often remain in the church their families attended, and sometimes it does not occur to them to investigate the origin of their denomination. That reality is sad since although they have a path to salvation, they are missing out on the fullness of the Faith and the unity the Church could have enjoyed.
Imagine how confusing these disjointed, fractured versions of Christianity appear to an outsider. If a non-believer is interested in learning more about and possibly following Jesus Christ, the seeker must then choose from thousands of “Christian” churches. Often, that person chooses a pretty building or friendly congregation or dynamic preacher. What about the role of ultimate truth? Truth seems to take a backseat to what is appealing or popular.
One of the most fascinating points in Belloc’s book is the chapter entitled “The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed.” This heresy is unique in that it did not begin with someone leaving the Catholic Church. It began suddenly in the desert and was called “Islam,” which means “The Acceptation” “of the morals and simple doctrines which Mohammed had preached” (p. 42).
Belloc claims Islam, as opposed to the predominant pagan beliefs common to the locale in which Islam originated, oddly lined up with many Catholic beliefs, such as belief in an omnipotent, loving God who created and sustains the universe, the immortality of the soul, and a system of rewards and punishments after death.
Mohammed even revered Jesus Christ as a great prophet and honored the mother of Jesus. However, at this point the major differences are evident. Mohammed did not accept the divinity of Christ or the Trinity. Boom! It was a religion that retained a little truth but not the whole truth.
Belloc wrote, “Catholic doctrine was true (he [Mohammed] seemed to say), but it had become encumbered with false accretions; it had become complicated by needless man-made additions, including the idea that its founder was Divine, and the growth of a parasitical caste of priests who battened on a late, imagined system of Sacraments which they alone could administer. All these corrupt accretions must be swept away” (p. 44).
Then Belloc makes an almost shocking comparison between the heresy of Islam and features of the Protestant Reformation: “There is thus a very great deal in common between the enthusiasm with which Mohammed’s teaching attacked the priesthood, the Mass and the sacraments, and the enthusiasm with which Calvinism, the central motive force of the Reformation, did the same” (p. 45).
The last chapter in Belloc’s book is entitled “The Modern Phase,“ and considering this book was written in 1938, I was astonished by how accurately Belloc’s description still applies today to our secularized society.
Belloc explains this final heresy is between the Church and what he calls the “anti-church,” the latter of which is characterized by something worse than paganism. It is embraced by those who believe only in material substances and acknowledge only the truth of direct experience. No revelation is accepted.
“Being Atheist, it is characteristic of the advancing wave that it repudiates the human reason. Such an attitude would seem again to be a contradiction in terms; for if you deny the value of human reason, if you say that we cannot through our reason arrive at any truth, then not even that affirmation so made can be true. Nothing can be true, and nothing is worth saying. But that great Modern Attack (which is more than a heresy) is indifferent to self-contradiction” (p. 132).
That self-contradiction implicit in relativism reminds me of what Peter Kreeft, a philosophy professor and Catholic apologist, said to me once. I was lamenting that so many people who have turned away from God believe there are no absolutes. He smiled and quipped, “Absolutely none!”
Heresies breed more heresies as the stripping away of truth continues until eventually nothing is left—absolutely nothing, the anti-church. However, the Good News is that Jesus Christ gave us His Word: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
