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Bart Goddard wrote:

> wrf3@stablecross.com wrote:
>
> >> Note that the Nicene Creed says that if a person doesn't "hold this
> >> doctrine", he will be condemned.
> >
> > Assuming that this part of the Nicene Creed is correct. I have my
> > doubts.
>
> Not "assuming....". The Nicene Creed says this, whether or not
> it is correct.

I wasn't doubting the contents of the creed.

>
>
> >> Some folk take this to mean that we need to apprehend doctrine to be
> >> saved, but the idea here is that denial of doctrines is what damns a
> >> person.
> >
> > Sort of an anti-gnosis? If gnosticism is heresy (and it is), isn't
> > anti-gnosticism also heresy?
>
> Not necessily. Just because sin damns us doesn't mean good works
> save us.

Is denial of the Trinity an unforgiveable sin? Can one be saved and yet
deny the DoT?

>
> After all, isn't the unforgivable sin the act of rejecting what the Holy
> Spirit testifies to?

Sure. But all of us hold incorrect doctrine at one point or another.
You do, Matthew does, Steve does, and I do. That this is true is
plainly shown because there are areas of disagreement between all of us.

Are we therefore damned? Because, after all, the Holy Spirit testifies
to the truth of God, and all of us aren't listening on some points.

> >> If one denies the deity of Jesus, he is denying that God saves
> >> and that God is love.
> >
> > But that assumes that the person who holds this understands the
> > consequences of his belief.
>
> Any heresy, when it grows up, leads to damnation.

Then we have no hope, do we?

>
> But here, we aren't speaking of mere heresy, but rather of _who_ God is.
> One thing that BB has correct is that at least one of the set {JWs,
> Christians} is worshipping a false god. This is much worse than heresy
> (misrepresenting the true God.)

I would claim that all of us, to some degree or another, worship a false
God. IMHO, we finite creates must, by the limitations of our
creatureliness, make a subset of the infinte God when we think about
Him. So we are no better than BB.

>
>
> > Furthermore, I don't see how denying the diety of Jesus is a denial
> > that God saves.
>
> If Jesus saves and Jesus is not God, then God didn't save.

That doesn't follow. The Arian would say that God saved through Jesus.

> Salvation cost Him nothing more than to create yet another being.

So our apprenhension of doctrine has to be at a certain level, a level
which includes the DoT, to be saved. This is gnosticism, is it not?