If God Exists, Why Are There So Many Denominations?

Wise Disciple

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Christian denominations agree on the major aspects of Christianity, but there are many differences in a host of other issues.

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Let me go ahead and stop right there. I completely agree with that observation. I think that is an astute observation that not only people in the church can make, but also people outside the church can make as well.

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Well, let me finish the question. Shouldn't people who are truly being guided by the

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Holy Spirit be brought to similar conclusions? Already, I see an assumption buried within this question.

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And if you're familiar with our ministry, if you've heard me talk about this in the past, I advocate for identifying assumptions that are buried within either statements or questions that people make to you.

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And so there is an assumption buried underneath this question. Do you see it? Shouldn't Christians who are guided by the

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Holy Spirit be brought to similar conclusions? In other words, God should never let people disagree about theology and doctrine.

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That's the assumption. Christians should remain in lockstep all the way down the line.

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That's the assumption. Now, my response to that assumption is, why is that necessary to assume?

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Now, someone might say to me, well, you see, Nate, in order to be a Christian, someone must understand.

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And then I'm going to stop them right there and say, hold on a second. What does a person really need to understand in order to be a

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Christian? I mean, the Bible says that in order to be a Christian, a person needs to repent of their sin and place trust in Jesus Christ in order to be right with God, okay, in order to have right relationship with God.

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That's the gospel message in a nutshell. So to be technically precise, that is all a person needs to understand in order to be saved, to be a

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Christian, to share the gospel with others. Now, a Christian should grow and mature over time.

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But again, to be technically precise, growth and maturity in the spirit is not necessary for salvation.

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It is a good thing to grow. Hear what I'm not saying. It is expected of the Christian to grow and to mature through various means.

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And in order to do that, they should learn some more things about God, okay? But then again, this raises an important issue that speaks directly to the heart of this question.

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That is, no matter how long it takes, the Christian is not going to know every single thing there is to know, are they?

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Think about that. The goal of the Christian is, I think, best characterized by the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

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You know, the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. But will that person ever know all there is to know about God before they die?

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Which technically is theology, okay? Theology is the study of God.

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So what I'm asking is, will everyone know everything there is to know about theology?

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And the answer is no, they won't. Why? Well, because God is an infinite being, and so therefore it's impossible to know all there is to know about an infinite being this side of death.

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So already we can surmise that people will not know everything there is to know about God, but also because they cannot know, they will not agree.

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I think that logically follows, okay? Because in the area of uncertainty, they don't know, at least not for sure, and so people will disagree about the things that they are uncertain about.

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I think that should be a given, and because it's a given, I think God is okay with that level of uncertainty in the

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Church and in the Christian life. I mentioned this on the last Ask Nate Anything, but God, when you look at the

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Bible, God doesn't seem to want to give us full access to His thought processes, to all of His actions, or His inactions.

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When I read the Scripture, we're discouraged to try and figure those things out, and the reason

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I think we are is because we would end up trying to manipulate that knowledge, that information, to our advantage as creatures who live in a fallen world and who are marked by original sin.

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So, because we cannot know everything, because it's impossible to, it follows that we will disagree in areas of theology and, by extension, doctrine, and I think

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God is okay with that. Now, at this point, I think that pretty much answers the question, okay? But someone might say, well, wait a sec, maybe we won't know every single thing about theology, about God, but what about doctrine?

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I mean, shouldn't we know those particular things and agree in lockstep as the church body?

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I would argue that if we should know those things, then God would have made it a priority for us to know those things.

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God should have given us all the requisite information that we need in order for us to all agree, but the thing is,

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He didn't. As a matter of fact, it appears that the only things all Christians do agree on are all the, even across denominations, are all the essential things that Christians need to know, like who

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God is, who Jesus is, what Jesus accomplished in history for all time, the gospel message proper, you know?

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And then in those other areas, we are left with levels of uncertainty.

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Now, I see a couple of benefits in this uncertainty. The first benefit is to not know with certainty about an aspect of theology or doctrine means what?

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It means that we have to make it our goal to lean in and understand those things, and I believe in so doing, it brings us closer to God, doesn't it?

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I mean, think about that. So in other words, God reveals some of His attributes and some of His expectations, and we should know it right away as Christians, and we do.

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We get it from the scripture. And then God leaves a lot of some other aspects,

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He leaves it for us to not know, and then we can lean into Him and seek

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Him in order to know, to seek to understand. So there is a beautiful pursuit that arises out of not knowing everything about theology and doctrine, and it probably will take the rest of our lives to discover it.

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This is just an opportunity. That's the first benefit. The second benefit is there's also a doggedness that we must possess in order to protect what it is that we do discover about God, about theology, about doctrine.

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And this doggedness actually reveals how precious our pursuit of God really is, how precious

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God is. You know, Paul said in 2 Timothy 1 .14 that we must guard the treasure that has been entrusted to us.

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The treasure that he's talking about relates to the things that we know about God.

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So to recap, on the one hand, there is no problem with not knowing everything there is to know because it's just physically impossible to know.

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And so disagreement logically stems from uncertainty, and I think God is perfectly fine with that.

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Also, on the other hand, there are some benefits to not knowing everything, which is we are then invited to lean in and pursue

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God in a way that takes our entire lives and shapes our entire being and makes the pursuit of Him that much more valuable.

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You know, which guy values the brick of gold? The one that was given the gold when he didn't even look for it, or the guy who spent his whole life seeking to find it?

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This question really is an invitation to Christians. You know, what are you willing to do?

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How far are you willing to go? How much are you willing to give up in order to know