Arbor Foundations

1 – Introduction, Doctrinal Triage

Sep 9, 2018

Suggested Reading

https://albertmohler.com/2004/05/20/a-call-for-theological-triage-and-christianmaturity-2/

Key Ideas

- Medical triage: recognizes that not every injury/illness is equally critical

- Doctrinal triage: recognizes that not every doctrine is equally clear or equally

critical

- Example of why this is needed

o Deity of Christ: Was Jesus fully God (yes or no)?

§ Clearly taught in many places in scripture

§ Which side we fall on the issue has HUGE implications

o Melchizedek: Was he a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, or just a

type of Christ?

§ Not completely clear from scripture (case could be made either

way)

§ Which side we fall on the issue has almost no implications

- Mohler’s way of describing levels of doctrinal triage

• First order: Doctrines most central and essential to the Christian faith

– Examples: Trinity, full deity/humanity of Jesus, justification by

faith

• Second order: Believing Christians may disagree, but this disagreement

will create significant boundaries between believers

– Example: Believers’ baptism vs. paedobaptism

• Third order: Believing Christians may disagree but still remain in close

fellowship

– Examples: Eschatology, details of creation

- Caveats:

o Not saying that two people with contradictory ideas can both be right

o Not saying that third tier issues are not important, or that we

shouldn’t firmly hold to them

o There are sometimes not crisp distinctions between various levels

o Note: The concept of “doctrinal triage” is not explicitly Biblical (just

like the idea of interpreting a Scriptural passage according to its

context is also not explicitly Biblical).

Arbor Foundations 1 – Introduction, Doctrinal Triage

2

So What?

We will run into various problems and imbalances if we treat every doctrine as

completely equal in terms of clarity and importance.

Examples:

- If we say that all doctrines are second- or third-order issues: theological

liberalism

- If we say that all doctrines are first-order issues: tendency of

fundamentalism

What’s wrong with considering everything that is found in the Bible a “first-order”

issue?

- Will be imbalance in where we invest our time/mental energy, as we overly

focus on relatively minor issues. (Note: not saying unimportant, just less

important than other issues)

- Sometimes, focusing on lots of small things actually prevents us from dealing

with the more weighty issues. (Example: Matthew 23:23)

- It will cause unnecessary division among believers

- We fail to recognize, with humility, that while the Bible is infallible, our own

interpretations of the Bible are not infallible. Strongly asserting a more

minor point in a way that demands that everyone else must agree is

presuming that you are better able to discern scripture than others, who also

have the Holy Spirit guiding them.