Some False Belief Systems within Christianity

[b]Pelagianism[/b]

The teaching of a monk named Pelagius in the fifth Century. He taught that man's will was—and still is—free to choose good or evil and there is no inherited sin (through Adam). Every infant born into the world is in the same condition as Adam before the fall and becomes a sinner because he sins. This is opposed to the Biblical teaching that we are by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3) and that we sin because we are sinners. Pelagius said we are able to keep the commandments of God because God has given us the ability. Therefore, there is no need of redemption and the crucifixion of Jesus is merely a supreme example of love, humility, obedience, and sacrifice. This heresy has its relatives in the form of the cults that deny the total dependence upon God and maintain that salvation is obtainable through our own efforts.

[b]Antinomianism a.k.a. "Carnal Christianity" / "Easy Believism"[/b]

The word comes from the Greek anti, against, and nomos, law. It is the unbiblical practice of living without regard to the righteousness of God, using God's grace as a license to sin, and trusting grace to cleanse of sin. In other words, since grace is infinite and we are saved by grace, then we can sin all we want and still be saved. It is wrong because even though as Christians we are not under the Law (Rom. 6:14), we still fulfill the Law in the Law of love (Rom. 13:8,10; Gal. 5:14; 6:2). We are to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27) and, thereby, avoid the offense of sin which cost God His only begotten Son. Paul speaks against the concept of antinomianism in Rom. 6:1-2: "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?". We are not to use the grace of God as a means of sin. Instead, we are to be controlled by the love of God and in that way bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22-25).4

[b]Baptismal Regeneration[/b]

The belief that baptism is essential to salvation, that it is the means where forgiveness of sins is made real to the believer. This is incorrect. Paul said that he came to preach the gospel, not to baptize (1 Cor. 1:14-17). If baptism were essential to salvation, then Paul would have included it in his standard practice and preaching of the salvation message of Jesus, but he did not.5 (See also Col. 2:10-11.)5

For more information:
http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0573.htm
http://vintage.aomin.org/bapreg.html
http://vintage.aomin.org/NotByWorks.html
http://www.tmch.net/baptregenerate.htm

[b]Sabbatarianism[/b]

Col. 2:16-17, "Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ."

Notice here that time sequence mentioned. A festival is yearly. A new moon is monthly. A Sabbath is weekly. No one is to judge in regard to this. The Sabbath is defined as a shadow, the reality is Jesus. Jesus is our Sabbath.6

For more information regarding the Sabbath:
http://www.gty.org/Resources/Transcripts/90-224
http://www.gty.org/Resources/Transcripts/90-222
http://www.gty.org/Resources/issues/598

[b]Universalism[/b]

The teaching that all people will eventually be saved through the universal redemption of Jesus. Some Universalists teach that even the devil, after a time of punishment, will be redeemed.7

For more information:
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/
http://www.carm.org/universalism.htm

[b]Annihilationism[/b]

The teaching that when a person dies, he is annihilated, most often this doctrine is applied to the wicked, thereby negating eternal hell fire. This is contradicted by the Bible in Matt. 25:46 which says "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Also, degrees of punishment will be given on the Day of Judgment (Rev. 20:11-15). If all, or only the wicked are annihilated, then degrees of punishment would be pointless.7

For more information:
http://www.carm.org/doctrine/hell.htm
http://www.carm.org/uni/eternal_hell.htm

[b]Prosperity Gospel / Name-it-and-Claim-it Theology[/b]

Word-Faith teachers owe their ancestry to groups like Christian Science, Swedenborgianism, Theosophy, Science of Mind, and New Thought--not to classical Pentecostalism. It reveals that at their very core, Word-Faith teachings are corrupt. Their undeniable derivation is cultish, not Christian. The sad truth is that the gospel proclaimed by the Word-Faith movement is not the gospel of the New Testament. Word-Faith doctrine is a mongrel system, a blend of mysticism, dualism, and gnosticism that borrows generously from the teachings of the metaphysical cults. The Word-Faith movement may be the most dangerous false system that has grown out of the charismatic movement so far, because so many charismatics are unsure of the finality of Scripture

–John MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos, p. 290

For more information:
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/w00.html#wordf

[b]Theistic Evolution[/b]

Teaches that God used evolution ("macro" -molecules to man) in creation. This is in direct opposition to Genesis 1 which teaches that God created the various types of living creatures separately and without any evolutionary process. Living creatures bring forth after their own "kind." Furthermore, the Scriptures teach us that man brought death into the world through sin. There was no death before sin, which of course must take place in the Theistic Evolution position.

For more information:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/couldnt-god-have-used-evolution

[b]Open-Theism[/b]

Open theism, also called openness and the open view, is a theological position dealing with human free will and its relationship to God and the nature of the future. It is the teaching that God has granted to humanity free will and that in order for the free will to be truly free, the future free will choices of individuals cannot be known ahead of time by God. They hold that if God knows what we are going to choose, then how can we be truly free when it is time to make those choices since a counter choice cannot then be made by us because it is already "known" what we are going to do.1 In other words, we would not actually be able to make a contrary choice to what God "knows" we will choose thus implying that we would not then be free.

In open theism, the future is either knowable or not knowable. For the open theists who hold that the future is knowable by God, they maintain that God voluntarily limits His knowledge of free will choices so that they can remain truly free.2 Other open theists maintain that the future, being non existent, is not knowable, even by God.

Historic Orthodox Christianity states that God knows all things, even the entirety of the future, exhaustively. 1 John 3:20 it says, "...for God is greater than our heart, and knows all things." Likewise, Peter said to Jesus in John 21:17, "...You know all things; You know that I love You..." God's sovereignty is clearly taught in scripture and His sovereignty is tied to His omniscience. Orthodox Christianity teaches that God is very loving, very involved, and even condescends to our level and interacts with us in a manner that we can understand. This means that we will see what appears to be instances of God changing His mind, testing, and adapting. But, this is all due to God's working with creatures who have limited vision, short life spans, and are sinners. God must work on our level since we cannot work on His.9

Furthermore,

Open Theism is a theological construct which claims that God's highest goal is to enter into a reciprocal relationship with man. In this scheme, the Bible is interpreted without any anthropomorphisms - that is, all references to God's feelings, surprise and lack of knowledge are literal and the result of His choice to create a world where He can be affected/changed by man's choices. God's exhaustive knowledge does not include knowledge of future free will choices by mankind because they have not yet occurred.

One of the leading spokesman of open theism, Clark Pinnock, in describing how libertarian freedom trumps God's omniscience says, "Decisions not yet made do not exist anywhere to be known even by God. They are potential--yet to be realized but not yet actual. God can predict a great deal of what we will choose to do, but not all of it, because some of it remains hidden in the mystery of human freedom ... The God of the Bible displays an openness to the future (i.e. ignorance of the future) that the traditional view of omniscience simply cannot accommodate." (Pinnock, "Augustine to Arminius, " 25-26) Evangelicals cannot remain neutral in response to this unbiblical view.

The overriding presuppositions which open theists bring to the text are (1) libertarian freewill theism ["causeless choice"] (But can a natural man believe the gospel independent of the Holy Spirit? -- If not, I challenge Open Theists to tell me why not?) ... and (2) the Socinian belief that God does not have exhaustive foreknowledge of the future (i.e. that God is subject to part of his creation -"time"). Open Theists will also frequently point to biblical passages in which it is said that God changed his mind about something to prove his ignorance of future events. But usually it is the case that God is said to change His mind in sending judgment on people only after they repent of their sin. In Jeremiah 18:7-10 God simply shows that this type of relenting is a component of how He generally has decided to act:

"If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it."

In other words, many prophesies of blessings and cursing are conditional. God has the authority to reverse his judgment at any time. depending on the response of those prophesied against. Such warnings have tacit conditions such as when Jonah declared that Ninevah would be destroyed, but judgment does not take place because they repented. Jonah knew that God would have mercy on them and this is one of the reasons he runs away from the task at first. The prophet is supposed to hold out God's covenant terms, blessing for obedience and cursing for disobedience.

Dr. Richard L. Pratt, Jr. from Historical Contingencies and Biblical Predictions

For more information:
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Bad-Theology/Open-Theism
http://www.carm.org/open.htm
Listen to James White debate John Sanders: www.aomin.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=237

Works Cited
3 Matt Slick www.carm.org/heresy/pelagianism.htm
4 Matt Slick www.carm.org/dictionary/dic_a-b.htm#_1_7
5 Matt Slick www.carm.org/dictionary/dic_a-b.htm#_1_1#_1_19
6 Matt Slick www.carm.org/questions/sabbath.htm
7 Matt Slick www.carm.org/dictionary/dic_u-z.htm#Universalism
8 Matt Slick www.carm.org/dictionary/dic_a-b.htm#Annihilationism

A child born is of the same condition that Adam was when he was made?????PPPLLLEEEAAASSSEEE!!!!! He must have never cared for an infant...can't believe any one would make and believe anything so ill conceived. Methinks that anyone who would believe something so stupid is not to be trusted. hmmm. I wonder - are these the folks that run the US Department of Social Services and tell folks how to raise their children? The longer I think about it the more sense it makes...which leads to more questions.

Yep.... I didnt have to teach my kids to sin. They came with batteries included.

Krispy

PELAGIANISM: Below is an exert from Phillip R. Johnsons study of Finney. I immediately considered him when I read the definition.

Finney believed in the doctrine of inherited sin, and believed that it was possible to live in environmental purity; IE; If a baby lived right, and was taught right, he or she could possibly NEVER sin!

quoting Johnson.

"But Finney was too much of a novice to distinguish between biblical, orthodox Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism. He lumped them together and ended up rejecting much sound doctrine along with what he thought was "hyper-Calvinism." Far from being a "moderate," Finney answered hyper-Calvinism by shifting to the opposite extreme—Pelagianism.
Notice that under the guise of condemning "hyper-Calvinism," Finney expressly attacked the idea that people are fallen and depraved because of a sinful nature inherited from Adam. That is the doctrine of original sin, not a hyper-Calvinist dogma, but a standard tenet of Christian doctrine—and recognized as such by all mainstream Christians since the Pelagian heresy of the Fifth Century. Note, too, that Finney rejected the idea that sinners are totally unable to please God (contra Rom. 8:7-8). Again, total inability is no hyper-Calvinist notion, but a biblical truth defended by Augustine and the Protestant Reformers alike."

PHILLIP R. JOHNSON

What a mess we get into when our supposed leaders either don't know the Bible, or don't WANT to know it. I think that "there is nothing new under the Sun", meaning, that Satan has a thought process too. These heresies are not new that we face today, but have a common thread with many ancient belief systems that all hate God and his Beloved.

Thoughtful and useful post. Thanks.