Doctrine as the Road or the Map? Not really.

C.S. Lewis says that Doctrine and Theology is like a map that will be discarded in Heaven. "Now, Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really are in touch with God - experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion - all about feeling God in nature, and so on - is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work: like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Pg. 154 - 155 (HarperSanFrancisco Zondervan Publishing House)

Even newer theologians are saying the same thing. Read what this little devil said in his book.

"A final word about the use of slogans and doctrines. Anthony Lane rightly says that doctrines are maps and models, not mathematical formulas. We must avoid, then, relying on simplistic appeals to sola fide, or condemning without conversation or understanding those who reject the term. Instead, we must ask what those who reject sola fide intend when they question its adequacy. Perhaps those who reject it and those who affirm it are speaking past each other." - Thomas Schreiner, Faith Alone, Page 17

Is it true that those who hold to the simple belief of the gospel alone to save are just talking past each other with those who teach one is saved by Christ and something else?

Several questions come to mind when reading what Lewis wrote: How is theology less real, How do you know God? What exactly is a feeling? But, Gordon Clark, who was probably not thinking of Lewis at the time or perhaps he was, wrote on this subject about making theology only the map.


Gordon Clark says, "Passing on from Barth and Brunner we now come to Dr. George S. Hendry, Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary. It is not so much his rejection of predestination and the atonement to which attention is here directed, as it is the non-Christian view of the nature of religion that underlies these rejections. In his book The Westminster Confession for Today Dr. Hendry writes,

Doctrines are not faith; they are statements of faith in propositional form. Faith has often been compared to a journey or a pilgrimage. Doctrine may then be compared to a map. No one would suppose he had reached his destination merely because he had located it on the map, or traced the route that leads to it. Yet the map is an indispensable aid to any traveler in unfamiliar country. And just as the map is right when it enables the traveler to reach the end of his journey, so doctrine is right when it enables the pilgrim to reach the end of his faith.

One should note that this analogy applies to the Bible itself as well as to the creeds, for the Bible also is written in sentences - propositions. When, therefore, Dr. Hendry in the next sentence says that doctrines are never 'infallible and irreformable,' his words apply as much to the Word of God as to the Confession. On these premises the Bible must itself be amended, and not simply the creeds where and if they inadequately reflect the Bible.
The analogy is attractive, but like all analogies it is misleading. Obviously a doctrine or a set of doctrines is not our ultimate destination, Heaven. But it does not follow that doctrine is merely a map. If an illustration is needed, let us say that doctrine is the road itself. If we change the doctrine, we change the road and head off in a wrong direction. Here we recall Luke's words to the effect that doctrine (that is, the propositions Luke wrote) is 'a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us.'
In fact, this illustration of doctrine as map is so inept that even when corrected so as to make doctrine the road, it remains misleading. After we arrive at a destination, we not only throw away the map; we also cease using the road. But in Heaven we shall continue to believe these infallible and irreformable doctrines and learn many others, too. They will remain our precious possessions forever." - The Philosophy of Gordon H. Clark, Pg. 98

Luther tells us to be aware of the Turks

"The great need of our time should have moved us to this prayer against the Turk, for the Turk, as has been said, is the servant of the devil, who not only devastates land and people with the sword, as we shall hear later, but also lays waste the the Christ faith and our dear Lord Jesus Christ. For although some praise the Turk's government because he allows everyone to believe what he will so as he remains the temporal lord, yet this reputation is not true, for he does not allow Christians to come together in public, and no one can openly confess Christ or preach or teach against Mohammed. What kind of freedom of belief is it when no one is allowed to preach or confess Christ, and yet our salvation depends on that confession, as Paul says in Romans 10 [:9], 'To confess with the lips saves,' and Christ has strictly commanded us to confess and teach his gospel.
Since, therefore, faith must be stilled and held in secret among this wild and barbarous people and under this severe rule, how can it exist or remain alive in the long run, when it requires so much effort and labor in places where it is preached most faithfully and diligently? Therefore it happens, and must happen, that those Christians who are captured or otherwise get into Turkey fall away and become altogether Turkish, and it is very seldom that one remains true to his faith, for they lack the living bread of the soul and see the abandoned and carnal life of the Turks and are obliged to adapt themselves to it.
How can one injure Christ more than with these two things, namely, force and wiles? With force they prevent preaching, and suppress the word. With wiles they put wicked and dangerous examples before men's eyes every day and draw men to them. So in order not to lose our Lord Jesus Christ, his word and faith, we must pray against the Turks as against other enemies of our salvation and of all good, indeed, as we pray against the devil himself.
In this connection the people should be told about the Turk's dissolute life and ways so that they may the better feel the need of prayer. To be sure, it has often disgusted me, and still does, that neither our great lords nor our scholars have taken any pains to give us any certain knowledge about the life of the Turks in the two estates, spiritual and temporal; and yet the Turk has come so near to us. It is said that the Turks, too, have chapters and monasteries. Some, indeed, have invented outrageous lies about the Turks to incite us Germans against them, but there is no need for lies; there is enough truth, I will tell my dear Christians a few things, so far as I know the real truth, so that they may the better be moved and stirred to pray earnestly against the enemy of Christ our Lord." - Martin Luther, On War Against The Turks, SW Volume 4, Edited by Theodore G. Tappert, Pg. 22-24

I could not but help to notice how today the media and the governments of our time do not want to call out the Islamic faith. Today, if a man is a Muslim and is a terrorist killing countless lives and civilians he is labeled not a Islamic Terrorist but rather is labeled a Terrorist despite of his faith.

Molinism has problems

If God did not know and decree all things and his knowledge and decree was not simple, but rather his decree is based on God's foreseen knowledge of contingent beings; so that what God knows about the creature is not certainly based on His decrees but rather on the free choices of the creatures; and if even his knowledge of the creatures action was not certain; but rather God's knowledge only meant he knew what creatures could do given a set of choices, then on what basis can we say God knows anything at all?

Arminianism is the doctrine of demons

". . . The doctrines of the apostles were revived, and supernatural Theology once more lift up its head; the reformed churches published their confessions of faith, and many eminent men wrote common places, and systems of divinity; in which they all agreed in the main, to support the doctrines of revelation; as of the Trinity, and the Deity of the divine Persons in it; those of predestination and eternal election in Christ, of redemption by him, pardon of sin by his blood, and justification by his righteousness.
But Satan who envied the increasing light of the Gospel, soon began to bestir him-self, and to play his old game which he had done with so much success in the first ages of Christianity; having been for a long time otherwise engaged, to nurse up the man of sin, and to bring him to the height of his impiety and tyranny, and to support him in it: and now as his kingdom was like to be shook, if not subverted, by the doctrines of the Reformation; he, I say, goes to his old work again; and revives the Sabellian and Photinian errors, by the Socinians in Poland; and the Pelagian errors, by the Arminians and Remonstrants in Holland; the pernicious influence of which has been spread in other countries; and, indeed, has drawn a veil over the glory of the Reformation, and the doctrines of it." - John Gill, Introduction to the Body of Divinity, Pg. XXXiX

The hearers are to judge what is taught

"Christ says in Matthew 7[:15], 'beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.' Observing that he here assigns the judgment not to the prophets and teachers but to the pupils or to the sheep. For how could one beware of false prophets unless one examined judged, and gave a decision on their teaching? There can be no false prophets among the hearers but only among the teachers. Consequently all teachers and their teaching should and must be subject to the judgment of the hearers." - Martin Luther, Right and Power of a Christian Church, Pg. 327

Martin Luther on Judging doctrine adn teaching of the pastor or teacher

Martin Luther on Judging doctrine and teaching of the pastor or teacher:

"Second, in this matter of judging doctrine and of appointing dismissing teachers or pastors, not the least attention is to be paid to any human decree, law, precedent, usage, or custom, whether it be decreed by pope or emperor, by prince or bishop, whether it has been observed by half the world or by all the world, whether it be in existence for one year or for a thousand years.

. . . .

The word and teaching of man have decreed and prescribed that the judging of doctrine be left altogether to bishops, theologians, and councils; all the world is bound to regard as law and as articles of faith whatever these have decided. This is abundantly proved by their daily harping on the pope's canon law. One hears scarcely anything else from them but the boast that they have the power and the right to judge what is Christian and what is heretical; the plain Christian must await their decision and abide by it.

. . . .

Christ decrees the very opposite. He takes from the bishops, theologians, and councils both the right and power to judge doctrine and confers this right and power on all men, in particular on all Christians. . . ." - Martin Luther, Right and Power of a Christian Church, Pg. 326


(John 10:3, 5, 8; 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4; Matthew 7:15; 1 Thessalonians 5:21; Matthew 20:26; 24:4-5)