. . . I have oftentimes heard
people who belong to various Protestant denominations essentially admit that
their church teacher error. Oh, they don’t say it directly, but what they do
say is something along these lines: “I don’t necessarily believe my church gets
everything right, but I know they get the essentials right.”
That’s just another way of saying,
“My church teaches error, but it only teaches error in matters that are
nonessential.” In other words, what these folks have done is found an excuse—a justification—that
allows them to be comfortable in a church that they know is not infallible and
is not authoritative and which they recognize could well be, and probably is,
wrong in one or more of its doctrines and teachings.
You see, they divide the body of
Christian doctrine into essential doctrines and nonessential doctrines. The essential
doctrines are those that have to do directly with how one is saved. The nonessential
doctrines are those that do not bear directly on one’s salvation.
There are, however, a few problems
with this division of doctrine into essential and nonessential. The first
question I ask someone who makes this kind of doctrinal distinction is this:
Where in the Bible does it say anything about essential versus nonessential
doctrines? I have yet to get an answer. Does the Bible anywhere say anything
that might give us a clue as to whether there are essential versus nonessential
doctrines? I think it does. Matthew 5:18, Jesus says, “For truly, I say to you,
till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law
until all is accomplished.” And from verse 19, “Whoever then relaxes one of the
least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven.” Here we see Jesus concerned with every iota, every dot of
the law, and He says that no one should relax even the least of the
commandments. That seems to cast a bit of doubt on this whole essential and
nonessential thing. . . . The second question I ask is: Who is it exactly that
gets to decide what is an essential or a nonessential doctrine? Again, there is
nothing in the Bible that talks about essential and nonessential doctrines.
There is no table anywhere in the Bible that lists out the essential doctrines
on one side of the page and the nonessential doctrines on the other side of the
page. So, who is it exactly that is deciding what qualifies as essential and
what doesn’t?
This is a very important question,
because what if a doctrine is incorrectly classified? For example, is infant
baptism an essential doctrine or a nonessential doctrine? Most Protestants I
have come across would classify it as nonessential, because most Protestants I
have encountered—whether they be Baptist, Evangelical, non-denominational, or
otherwise—believe Baptism is merely a symbolic gesture. They do not believe one
is born again or regenerated through Baptism. Most of them do not believe that
Baptism is essential for salvation. Most of them do not, therefore, baptize
their babies. No need to.
But there are Protestant faith
traditions that believe, as do Catholics, that one is indeed born again through
Baptism and that Baptism is necessary for salvation. Therefore, they baptize
their babies so that those babies will be cleansed of Original sin and be born
again into Christ.
O, is infant Baptism an essential
or nonessential doctrine? Well, if the “Baptism is symbolic” folks are right, I
guess it would be nonessential. But if the “Baptism is necessary for salvation”
folks are right, then it is indeed essential. You wouldn’t want your baby to
die without being baptized if Baptism is necessary for one to enter the Kingdom
of God (John 3:3-5), would you? Essential or nonessential? Which is right? How
do you know? . . . Another question I ask in this regard has to do with Matthew
4:4. After Jesus is baptized, He goes into the desert for forty days. There He
is tempted by Satan. In one of His responses to Satan’s temptations, Christ says,
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the
mouth of God.” Man shall live by every one of God’s words. Now
Protestants believe, as do Catholics, that every word of Scripture is one of
God’s words. And it is from Scripture, and Scripture alone, that Protestant
doctrines come, according to Protestants. So, my question is this: Given what
Jesus says in Matthew 4:4, which of God’s words are essential and which are
nonessential? Which part of the Bible is essential and which part is nonessential?
. . . all of this essential doctrine versus nonessential doctrine nonsense is simply
a way for folks to get around the fact that they are in a church or a denomination
that has a body of beliefs that contain . . . man-made teachings that are
contrary to the Word of God. (John Martignoni, Blue Collar Apologetics: How
to Explain and Defend Catholic Teaching Using Common Sense, Simple Logic, and
the Bible [Irondale, Ala.: EWTN Publishing, Inc., 2021], 62-65)
Look at the Parable of the talents
in Matthew 25:14-30. In this parable, we see the master entrusting his servants
with differing amounts of talents before going away on a journey. When the
master returns, two of his servants have done very well with the little they
were entrusted with. And what does their master say to them? “Well done, good
and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set
you over much; enter into the joy of your master.”
But what happens to the servant
who was entrusted with the smallest of these little matters? Well, he blew it.
He did nothing with what he had been entrusted with. So, since his master couldn’t
trust him with a little thing, it only makes sense that his master could indeed
trust him with much larger things, right? I don’t think so. The servant who
could not be trusted with a little was not then trusted with more but was
instead cast out into the outer darkness.
So according to all those Protestants
who divide doctrine up into essential versus nonessential, even though a church
may not be able to be trusted in its nonessential doctrinal teachings, you can rest
assured it can be trusted when it comes to its essential doctrinal teachings.
Unfortunately for them, the third servant in the Parable of the Talents would
beg to differ. (Ibid., 65)