On the Guilt of Heresy

Definition of heretic: Therefore heresy is a species of unbelief, belonging to those who profess the Christian faith, but corrupt its (central) dogmas.

The involvement of the will is a necessary condition for culpability. This applies to the guilt of heresy.

So if heresy is to be wrong it must be wrong with some respect to the will.  I can think of two ways that the will could be involved in heresy: (a)  Heresy, in the sense of heretical propositions, can be chosen or retained in a sinful way. This would be a sinful will ‘leading up’ to heresy - perhaps one pridefully rejects listening to Orthodox teachers and departs from their teachings due to the motive of pride. (b) Or heresy as a proposition can lead downstream to sinful willfulness; such that one substitutes a false image of God in his stead, and does not give God his proper due because of this substitution - for instance, if a person thinks pantheism is true, then their conception of God could be far too low and compromised. So heresy can be guilty for the way in which one holds the doctrines or for the results the doctrines have in how one conceives of themselves and God.

We need a distinction between heretical propositions, which we’ll call objective heresy, and heretical persons, which we’ll call subjective heresy.  Traditionally, in Catholic theology, a further distinction has been drawn between a formal and material heretic. This distinction concerns subjective and not objective heresy.  A formal heretic is a person who stubbornly and knowingly departs from Orthodox teaching.  A material heretic is one that holds to an unorthodox proposition but without a culpable involvement of the will. It may be that material heretics are not possible - perhaps all cases of subjective heresy are ones that result from culpable distortions of the will.  Or perhaps it’s possible for a person to hold an heretical proposition (material heretic) without thereby being a formal heretic.  The extent to which a person is a subjective heretic in a guilty manner or to which its depth and centrality corrupts the ability of the person to have genuine faith is to be determined on a case by case basis.  In difficult cases perhaps only God knows the true judgment. Clearer cases can be obvious.

Objective heresy concerns propositions. It is to be rooted out by creedal statements.  Not only are clearly heretical propositions to be ruled out by creedal statements, but such creedal statements can also target those propositions which lead or can lead to heretical distortions by logical or inferential consequence.  For instance, an error in the doctrine of the Trinity may seem innocuous at some level, but by logical consequence can wreak havoc on other central doctrines of or moral practices of the faith.  The purpose of creeds is to clarify and set forth the definition of Christian belief.  They are objective statements and condemn propositions, and not necessarily individuals.  Whether an individual holds to a proposition in a condemnatory way is up to further analysis.  Recall Charles Hodge's comments on Schleiermacher, who Hodge thought committed to objectively heretical views, but who, according to Hodge, still seems to have been a committed and saved Christian.  Schleiermacher's objectively heretical views do, however, imply on their own and by consequence propositions and behaviors that will sinfully distort the will.  

Subjective heresy’s involvement of the will:

1. A belief can be culpable if it results from willful and malicious dispositions, attitudes, or values.  
2. A belief can be culpable if it leads to consciously known violations of morality.
3. A belief can be culpable if it is held in a sinful manner; pridefully, arrogantly, boastfully.  

Objective heresy’s culpability:

1. If a proposition misrepresents God’s central teachings, actions, or nature.
2. If the proposition leads, by logical consequence, to other propositions that distort God’s central teachings, actions, or nature.

As we saw in a post a few months ago about Elizabeth Jackson’s work, we can easily see how beliefs can be morally intertwined with the will and thereby subject to moral evaluation.  Here’s a few options to see this:  (a) God has already provided us with the innate beliefs (or dispositions?) and they can only be denied sinfully (b) We can indirectly control our beliefs by focusing on certain types of evidence (c) We can directly control our beliefs in permissivist situation (d) and, it seems plausible to think that some beliefs may lead to a conflict with other known violations of conscience, such as a belief that Jews are non-persons leading to known violations of conscience in treating them as non-persons.