by Rhyne Putman

* Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from The Method of Christian Theology: A Basic Introduction.

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Theology is the critical study of doctrine because the teaching of the church needs checks and balances. It must be tested for fidelity to the Bible. It must be tested for logical consistency. It must be assessed for its practical value. And it must offer a relevant word for the culture or context into which it is given. The message of Scripture must be properly understood and applied to every age. What should we know about doctrine?

Doctrine Can Be Corrected

As interpretations of the biblical message, doctrines can be in error just as any interpreter of the Bible can misunderstand a biblical text. Just as a misinterpretation of the biblical text can be corrected, so too can doctrinal statements. Christian theologians should pursue the truth, not simply the confirmation of what they already believe. In this pursuit of truth, theologians will sometimes change their minds.[1]

Theologians seek to understand the objective, unchanging truth of Scripture but only know its truth through our interpretations of the Bible that are tentative and open to revision.[2] In theology, we are dealing with the reality of God as he has revealed himself, but we also acknowledge we are fallible interpreters of the Bible who can misinterpret the text. The more clearly Scripture teaches a doctrine, the less likely that a theologian under the authority of Scripture is going to change his or her view. Disputed doctrines in Scripture that are open to different interpretive possibilities may change more frequently. We hold closely to some doctrines (e.g., the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus) and more tentatively to others (e.g., the nature of the spiritual gifts, our understanding of election).

At this point I must interject that a doctrine construed in error is not the same thing as a “false doctrine” as defined by Scripture, even if the propositional statement is, strictly speaking, false. Biblically speaking, false doctrine comes from sinful motives, unbelief, and spiritual immaturity.[3] False doctrines are typically rejections of primary doctrines (e.g., the deity of Jesus, the Trinity), not minor disagreements about those doctrines. Two Christians may disagree about when the Lord will return and how, but they both agree that Jesus will return. One may be correct about the nature of Jesus’s return while the other is wrong, or they may both be wrong, but neither are, biblically speaking, “false teachers” holding to “false doctrine.”

Doctrine Can Be Developed

Peter Toon (1939–2009) defined doctrine as “a historically conditioned response by the Church to questions put to her at a particular time and place by . . . her members.”[4] Doctrine can (and should) grow over time as the church’s understanding of biblical truth grows or matures.[5] Think about many of the key theological ideas of Christian orthodoxy, such as the doctrine of the Trinity, biblical inerrancy, and the notion that God created everything from nothing. These ideas are not explicitly taught in Scripture, but they are developments of doctrine faithful to the message of Scripture that were needed in the moments in history in which they emerged.

Sometimes doctrinal development is simply a matter of making more explicit what Scripture already communicates. This kind of development was the case with the Christological and Trinitarian creeds of the early church. When confronted with false teachings like Arianism (which denied the true divinity of Jesus) and Apollinarianism (which denied the full humanity of Jesus), the church had to articulate clearly what they believed about the deity and humanity of Jesus. In the early creeds, the church explained their beliefs about Christ succinctly with the philosophical tools at their disposal.

Other times, doctrinal development entails offering a new application of a permanent biblical truth to a contemporary issue. The truth of Scripture does not change, but the contexts in which it is applied are always changing. Theologians today are forced to define marriage and gender in ways previous generations took for granted. The ubiquity of artificial intelligence technology has prompted questions about what it means to be truly human. Now that artificial intelligence plays a big role in our homes with Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, we need to think critically about how this ever-evolving technology relates to human beings, their vocations, their sexual practices, and their knowledge of the world.[6]

Doctrine can find new expressions when taught in new settings or situations. Biblical truth can be expressed in many ways. The Old Testament prophets used many different names and word pictures to describe the same characteristics of God.[7] The New Testament writers described Jesus’s sacrificial work on the cross with distinct imagery appropriate for their ministry settings. The specific way we teach a Christian truth is largely dependent on the setting or audience we have in mind.

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[1] See Rhyne R. Putman, When Doctrine Divides the People of God: An Evangelical Approach to Theological Diversity (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 175–200.

[2] N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 35.

[3] See Putman, When Doctrine Divides the People of God, 205–12.

[4] Peter Toon, The Development of Doctrine in the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 81.

[5] See Rhyne R. Putman, In Defense of Doctrine: Evangelicalism, Theology, and Scripture (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015).

[6] Jason Thacker, The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020).

[7] For example, the prophets used imagery like the “right hand” (Exod 15:12) and “outstretched arm” (Jer 32:17) to talk about God’s power.