Opinions Matter

 

B. B. Warfield

Have you ever heard someone say, “Don’t give me doctrines, just give me Jesus”? Perhaps they said they were tired of hearing the opinions of preachers. Perhaps they just wanted the preacher to “motivate” them to feel good about Jesus. There are lots of ways of saying we don’t want to get too deep in this thing called Christianity. Some are simply interested in getting the generalities that work in their favor. Benjamin B. Warfield (1851-1921) explains why this approach to Christianity does not work:

It is easy to say: “We refuse to believe that a man’s opinions on the minute details of history or metaphysics are sufficient either to admit or to exclude him from the Kingdom of grace and glory.” But when we have said that, we have already expressed a portentous opinion. . . . It is a matter of historical opinion whether such a person as Jesus Christ ever existed, and surely whether any given man ever existed or not is a very small historical detail. And if we are of the opinion that he existed, it is still a matter of historical opinion whether he was the Son of God who came into the world on a mission of mercy to lost men, and died for our sins and rose again for our justification; or was merely a man who suggested to us as his opinion, which it was his opinion it would be well that we also should adopt, that God is a good fellow, and it is all right with the world. We cannot get along without metaphysical delimitations and historical judgments. We cannot go one step without them. And what we call Christianity is bound up with a very definite set of both.

He who adopts this definite set of metaphysical and historical opinions is so far on his way to being a Christian. He who rejects them, or treats them as indifferent, is not even on his way to being a Christian. This is not to say that Christianity is just a body of metaphysical and historical opinions. But it is to say that Christianity is, among other things, a body of metaphysical and historical opinions. It is absurd to say that a man can be a Christian who is of the opinion that there is no God; or that no such person as Jesus ever lived: or who does not believe very many very definite things about the really existing God and the actually living Jesus. . . .

No less a man than John Wesley is appealed to, however, to support this minimizing of the value of truth. And certainly John Wesley did say—he surely was speaking unadvisedly with his lips-something which lends itself too readily to this bad use. “I am sick of opinions,” he writes; “I am weary to bear them; my soul loathes the frothy food. Give me solid substantial religion; give me a humble gentle lover of God and man, a man full of mercy and good fruits, a man laying himself out in the work of faith, the patience of hope, the labor of love. Let my soul be with those Christians wheresoever they be and whatsoever opinions they are of.” John Wesley’s righteous soul had evidently been vexed by men who had nothing but “opinions” to show for their Christianity. But did he ever see such a man as he here paints for us: “a humble gentle lover of God and man, a man full of mercy and good fruits, a man laying himself out in the work of faith, the patience of hope, the labor of love,” who was without the opinion that there is a God to love. . . ? ” Did “solid substantial religion” ever exist apart from the “opinions” which lie at its basis? A man who is of the opinion that there is no God will not manifest “solid substantial religion” in his life. . . . No man can live a Christian life who is not first of “the Christian persuasion.”

That is the reason why Christianity is propagated by preaching. There may be other ways in which other religions are spread. The propagation of Christianity has been very definitely committed to “the foolishness of preaching”-not to foolish preaching, however, which is something very different. It is fundamentally “faith”; and faith implies something to be believed and therefore comes of hearing; while hearing implies something presented to the apprehension of the intelligence- the “Word of God.” Whatever we may say of a so-called Christianity which is nothing but “opinions,” there is no Christianity which does not begin with opinions, which is not formed by opinions, and which is not the outworking of these opinions in life. Only we would better call them “convictions.” Convictions are the root on which the tree of vital Christianity grows. No convictions, no Christianity. Scanty convictions, hunger-bitten Christianity. Profound convictions, solid and substantial religion. Let no man fancy it can be otherwise. Ignorance is not the mother of religion, but of irreligion. The knowledge of God is eternal life, and to know God means that we know him aright..