Is Christian Doctrine Always Biblical?

Often those who apply the doctrinal exclusion confuse the terms Christian doctrine and biblical doctrine. Many Christian denominations believe and teach things for doctrine that are not found in the Bible. For example, some Protestants believe that dancing is a sin. Catholics believe in the immaculate conception of Mary. Both Protestants and Catholics believe the doctrinal pronouncements of at least some of the ecumenical councils, yet all such pronouncements are extrabiblical. The Nicene Creed insists that the Father and the Son are consubstantial (Greek homoousios), but neither the word nor the concept is biblical. Yet the Nicene Creed must certainly be considered Christian in the sense that it was written by Christians to help define their beliefs about Christ. Its doctrine is Christian in the generic sense, even though it is not actually biblical in its content.


President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the Church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly 49 (3 November 1894): 610; Deseret Weekly 57 (8 October 1898): 513; Deseret News 52 (15 June 1901): 177; and Journal History of the Church, 20 July 1901, p. 4.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, pref.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38. Cp. 4.11 (2): "But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God."

Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.

Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See also Clement, Stro-mateis, 23.

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.

Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39, 3.34.

Athanasius, De Inc., 54.

Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.

Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156; emphasis in original.

Symeon Lash, "Deification," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 147-48.

For a longer treatment of this subject, see Jules Gross, La divinisa-tion du chrétien d'aprè les pères grecs (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938).

Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," Trinity Broadcasting Network, 7 July 1986.

Robert Tilton, God's Laws of Success (Dallas: Word of Faith, 1983), pp. 170-71.

Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), tape BCC-56.

Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), p. 6. I am not arguing that these evangelists are mainline evangelicals (though they would insist that they are), only that they are Protestants with large Christian followings.

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), p. 18.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952; Collier Books, 1960), p. 153. Cp. p. 164, where Lewis describes Christ as "finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity." See also C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 38, where the tempter Screwtape complains that God intends to fill heaven with "little replicas of Himself."

Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 154.

Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) pp. 269-70: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it even- tually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood."

Most critics are surprised to know how highly the thinking of C. S. Lewis is respected by Latter-day Saint readers.

See, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran -4 Q Serek Sirot 'Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), pp. 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, "Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neuge-fundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI," Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 ( 1965): 354-73.

James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of Ps. 82 and the Gospel of John," Harvard Theological Review 59 (April 1966): 186.

J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Ps. 82 in John 10," Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: "It is evident, then, that he has called men 'gods,' who are deified by his grace" (cf. also 97.12).

Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10.

(Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991], 58 - 59.)