I have had a thought derived from the concept of agnosis which I am calling the least rejectable doctrine. In this post, I would like to set out a concept for doctrine selection which approaches being both intellectually honest and theologically rigorous.

Background

For every doctrine, you will find people seeking to show it should be rejected and those who work tirelessly to defend it. This leaves us trapped in a spiritual deadlock with neither side willing to concede anything to the other. As a result, we are often fractured more than we are united, left unable or unwilling to embrace change.

How often have we, the church, resisted a fresh move of the Holy Spirit because we cling to the old rather than embrace the now?

It is with that in mind that I began to consider what Romans 12:16 says about unity. Just as Ephesians 4 looks forward to when “we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God” this approach hopes to bring us towards some semblance of unity.

How is a believer meant to know what is true rather than merely popular?

Humility and courage are required

It requires humility to consider that one may be wrong. Great humility to readily investigate if this may be the case. Yet that is what we need if we are to take our most dearly held doctrines and hold them up to the light.

We need to stop placing doctrine as beyond question. As 1 John 4:1 says, we must question. However, without humility, all we have is a witch hunt or, worse, the demonisation of the doctrines of others. That would ignore the advice of 1 Peter 3:8 and we do that only ever to our own discredit.

Even with humility it is unlikely to be an entirely comfortable experience to consider that you might be wrong. Finding out you are wrong is usually unpleasant. Which is why courage is required in conjunction with humility.

Doctrinal rejectableness

A doctrine’s rejectableness is the sum of all evidence against it. These exist in a multitude of forms. Some of those forms are these:

• Scriptures that appear to contradict the doctrine.
• Word studies that in some way undermine or weaken the argument for the doctrine.
• Conflict with historical and traditional precedents.
• A contradiction of known axioms.
• Production of the fruits of the Spirit (or lack thereof) in adherents.
• Conflicts with central tenets of the faith.
• Logic and reason.
• Any extended implications of the doctrine.

I am sure there are others.

The weight that one places on these reasons to reject depend on one’s approach to doctrine and theology. The sum of all of these “arguments against” is the rejectableness of the doctrine.

Were you so inclined, it would be possible to list all arguments against two or more competing doctrines, weight them according to your own discretion, and produce a quantifiable value as a measure of rejectableness. We might still come up with different numbers according to our approaches. That is why it is important to walk in brotherly love despite our differences.

Least rejectable doctrine

This principle is perhaps the easiest to understand. A doctrine stands until it can be rejected. In other words if there is a doctrine without reasonable cause to reject, it may well be true or as close as we get to truth in this life.

In the absence of one or more wholly unrejectable doctrines, the doctrine that is the least rejectable is likely to be the closest approximation of the truth. This is because this is the doctrine that requires the fewest special explanations. It is a doctrine that does not require a battery of special pleading, complex reasoning, and extended apologetics.

This is a principle not unlike the philosophical tool that is occam’s razor. Where the explanation that requires the least speculation or the fewest assumptions is usually better. In logic, this is often explained as the least complicated theory that covers all known facts is likely the truth.

No guarantees with least rejectable doctrine

At the core, agnosis says, “I am probably wrong about something”. Least rejectable doctrine embraces the idea that we are probably incorrect or at least flawed in our reasoning. By seeking those doctrines with the least arguments against it, we make it more likely that we are at least in the same neighbourhood as the truth.

The least rejectable doctrine sits most easily with a layman’s reading of scripture. It may be easier to teach, most certainly requires fewer defences, but it might not last forever. Perhaps there is a cleaner, less rejectable approach to the subject of the doctrinal topic yet to be discovered.

Discovery of God’s truth is a journey. Doctrine is not the destination but a marker of our progress. We may never fully know the truth in this life. What we can do is seek to uncover as much of it as we are able to. For the difference, we must trust in His grace.