I thought I’d kick-start this discussion by appealing to the last comment I made to Charles on the previous post about orthodoxy and heresy:
Charles,
You’re language prejudices the case because you’ve equated any view
that God cares what one believes with a petty bureaucrat.
The issues are these: Does one have to believe in Jesus Christ? Let’s
say yes. Once one admits that, one has to ask what one has to believe
about Jesus Christ for it to be the real, apostolically-understood
Jesus Christ.
One more issue to others in this series:
It is true that not all believed in these orthodox tenets. That the church had to discuss these things shows variations. The issue here is not that there were variations but which variations fit within the apostolic faith in Jesus Christ (and the nature of God). The central issues arose early and the Church had to work its way through what was consistent with the faith already believed and what was not. Once those issues were worked through, orthodoxy became what we have always believed.

Plus, to respond specifically to Charles’ comment, nobody’s talking about the afterlife. That may be an appropriate subject to think through, but nothing so far in this series (so far as I’ve noticed) has contended that any and all heretics are summarily doomed to hell. If you heard your brother talking about your parents in a way that you thought fundamentally misunderstood who they are, you’d want to correct him. You wouldn’t assume that he’s automatically out of the family, forever.

How does an adoptionist understand Colossians 1 and all things being created through Christ, who was present during the creation?

Years ago I heard John MacArthur say he believed Jesus was always the Second Person of the Trinity but only became the “Son” at his human birth. I went to his commentary on Hebrews, published by Moody Press, and found he had actually published this view. I was shocked at him and Moody Press because it seems to me that this would fall under or close to this heresy. Someone told me recently that MacArthur had changed his view on this. Does anyone know if that’s the case? Either way, am I correct in equating these views?

Scot said: “Does one have to believe in Jesus Christ? Let’s say yes.”
Yes to what? I think I’m starting to get a handle on this. My reading of Chalcedon is that the church replaced “faith in Jesus” (which is a difficult concept, especially since it requires not only mental but also physical effort) with “believe that Jesus is God” (which is easy to believe) to define what a Christian is. This is true genius, too. Define who Jesus is (and those are really impressive arguments), make that ‘belief’ the means test for church entry, then make everyone a heretic who doesn’t buy the party line.
I confirmed that, too, from the Eastern Orthodox website.