Tag: cardinal

Piper & Carson on Essential Doctrines

~ fundyreformed ~ 14 Comments

Recently we’ve been debating the idea of whether certain doctrines should be considered fundamental or essential, and others merely secondary. Most Christians and even fundamentalists do admit that there are essential doctrines that are more important than others. However, as my last installment of my church’s elder confession of faith shows, this doesn’t mean other doctrines are not important.

With these thoughts on my mind, I was surprised to find a recent discussion of this very topic from my church’s most recent conference. At the 2008 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors, they had a panel discussion on a variety of topics. One of the questions was “What makes a doctrine essential?” John Piper and D.A. Carson did a good job discussing that question. I took the conference video (available for download), and tried to cut it down to just this question: unfortunately, during the last 2 minutes, the audio and video are a little out of sync, but not too much.

 

Update: I should also note that I thought Carson’s warning about “being prophetic from the margins” was similar to my contention that majoring on the minors belittles the Gospel. Also, if anyone can’t view the video online, or download the original video, they can read the transcript.

Essential Doctrines

~ fundyreformed ~ 11 Comments

Recently we’ve been discussing whether doctrines can be secondary, or if they should all be essential. In my post “Minimizing the Gospel through Excessive Separation“, I argue that only fundamental doctrines are essential, and when we separate over secondary doctrines, we are belittling the Gospel.

John MacArthur agrees with me it seems. On Pulpit Live there is a 3-part series entitled “What Doctrines are Essential?” [click to read part 1, part 2, and part 3]. He helps me make my case. Stronger words and harsher warnings surround denial of cardinal doctrines. Doctrines expressly stated to be essential to one’s salvation, are thus expressly identified as fundamental.

Check out MacArthur’s posts, and then scan through the debate on my blog. Let me know if you think I’m wrong about this, or if you have further Scriptural arguments for the ranking of doctrines.