Orthodoxy

Sound teaching

The word joins two Greek words, orthos, straight or right, and doxa, opinion: right belief. Doxa also means glory, and the Orthodox churches like to read the word as right praise as well.

The New Testament speaks of ‘sound doctrine’. Sound translates hugiainō (ὑγιαίνω), to be healthy: sound teaching is teaching that keeps souls in health. Paul tells Titus to "speak the things that are consistent with sound doctrine" (Titus 2:1), and warns that a time will come "when men will not tolerate sound doctrine" (2 Timothy 4:3) but will gather teachers to suit their own desires. To Timothy he writes:

Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching you have heard from me, with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 1:13

Orthodoxy is not invented; it is "the faith entrusted once for all to the saints" (Jude 1:3), received and handed on. Matthew Henry comments on Paul's charge: "It is not enough to assent to the sound words, but we must love them" Matthew Henry.

What counts as orthodox

Around 434 Vincent of Lérins urged, as the test of the catholic faith, that we hold "that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all" Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory, and allowed that doctrine may grow clearer over time as a child grows into a man while remaining the same person. Through its councils the church confessed this faith in creeds such as the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Definition of Chalcedon, and these remain the measure of orthodoxy that almost all churches share. Teaching that departs from them at the centre the church has called heresy.

How orthodoxy is judged differs among the traditions. The Catholic Church holds that Scripture and tradition are rightly interpreted by the church's teaching office. The Orthodox churches, which bear the word as their name, see orthodoxy as the faith of the seven councils and the Fathers kept alive in worship, and every year they celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the restoration of icons in 843. Protestants take Scripture alone as the final rule, with creeds and confessions as standards beneath it. In this sense the careful systematizing of Reformation teaching in the seventeenth century is called Protestant orthodoxy (see Protestant orthodoxy and the Puritans).

Right belief and love

The Pietists warned against a faith that stays in the head, which they called dead orthodoxy. James had already said it: "You believe that God is one. Good for you! Even the demons believe that — and shudder" (James 2:19). Knowing sound doctrine is not enough; "speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ Himself, who is the head" (Ephesians 4:15). The spirit in which orthodoxy is defended matters too. Matthew Henry warns those who contend for the truth: "Lying for the truth is bad; scolding for it is not better" Matthew Henry. Right belief bears its fruit in right worship and a holy life that give glory to God.