The Heresy Timeline

Uncertainty or agnosticism about the doctrine of the Trinity.

Jesus was created by God — divine, but not truly God.

The Son is divine but subordinate to the Father in nature, power, or authority.

God is one person who wears three masks.

The Son eternally submits to the Father's authority within the Trinity.

The Father alone is the one true God; Jesus is the uniquely anointed human Messiah.

Jesus only appeared to be human — his body was an illusion.

Jesus was a normal human whom God "adopted" as his Son.

Jesus had a human body but a divine mind — no human soul or intellect.

Jesus was two persons — one divine, one human — loosely joined.

Jesus's divine and human natures merged into one hybrid nature.

Christ is one person in two natures, truly God and truly human — the formula that split the church at Chalcedon (451).

Jesus had only one will (divine), not a human will.

The miraculous gifts of the Spirit (prophecy, tongues, healing) ceased after the apostolic age.

The Holy Spirit gives new prophecy and revelation beyond Scripture.

The Holy Spirit is not fully God — God's power, or a created and subordinate being, rather than a co-equal third person.

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father "and the Son" — the clause the West added and the East rejected, helping trigger the 1054 schism.

Christ bore the legal penalty for human sin, satisfying divine justice.

Christ's death and resurrection defeated the powers of evil, liberating humanity.

The cross primarily demonstrates God's love, inspiring transformed lives.

Christ relived and redeemed the human story from within, healing what Adam broke.

God unconditionally elects individuals for salvation; grace is irresistible.

Salvation requires both divine grace and human cooperation.

Conscious faith in Jesus Christ is required for salvation — no exceptions.

God can save people through Christ even if they never heard his name.

Salvation involves grace-empowered faith AND cooperation — the Catholic and Orthodox view Protestants charge with works-righteousness.

Humans can achieve salvation through their own effort without divine grace.

All major religions are valid paths to God — no single faith has exclusive truth.

Humans make the first move toward God; then grace kicks in.

Sinners are justified by faith alone, apart from works — the Reformation principle anathematized at Trent.

The bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ.

Infants of believing parents should be baptized.

Christ is spiritually (but not physically) present in the Eucharist.

Uncertainty about what exactly happens during communion — but something sacred.

Baptism itself conveys saving grace and the new birth — not merely a symbol.

Baptism is an outward symbol at most — not necessary for salvation, and for some not necessary at all.

Communion is a memorial — bread and wine are symbols only.

Only conscious believers should be baptized — by full immersion.

The unsaved suffer conscious punishment forever in hell.

Hell is a metaphor for the consequences of rejecting God, not a literal place of fire.

The "thousand years" of Revelation 20 is symbolic of the present church age, not a future earthly reign.

The gospel will gradually triumph and Christianise the world before Christ returns at the end of a "golden age."

All souls will eventually be saved — God's love wins in the end.

The unsaved are destroyed rather than tormented forever.

Christ returns before a literal 1,000-year earthly kingdom.

Mary is honoured as Theotokos, ever-virgin, and (in Catholic dogma) immaculately conceived and assumed into heaven.

Mary was a blessed but ordinary believer; veneration and prayers to her are unbiblical, bordering on idolatry.

The Pope, speaking ex cathedra, is preserved from error by the Holy Spirit.

Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience together guide Christian belief.

The Bible alone is the ultimate authority for Christian belief and practice.

The OT and NT reveal the same God — wrath and love appear in both.

Every word of the Bible is directly dictated by God — inerrant, literal, and equally authoritative.

The Bible is inspired but culturally conditioned — wisdom is needed to know which parts apply today.

The Bible is a human document — inspired in places, but not fundamentally different from other great spiritual literature.

The Old Testament God is a different, inferior deity from the loving God of the New Testament.

Religious images are legitimate aids to worship, affirmed at Nicaea II (787).

Some matters of worship and practice are indifferent — neither commanded nor forbidden.

Religious images are idolatry and must be destroyed.