What Are the Essential Doctrines for Christianity and How Do We Decide?

Boundaries are an essential part of life. We have walls, windows, doors, and locks to define and protect our home. We have borders and immigration policies to define and protect countries. We have rules about proper and improper behavior in school or the workplace. And we have doctrinal statements or creeds to define and protect our religion and distinguish it from other religions, whether our religion is Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, Hindu, or Muslim.

The Bible distinguishes between the true gospel and false gospels (Galatians 1:6–9), between the true prophets and false prophets of God (Deuteronomy 18:20–22; Jeremiah 23:9–40), and among the true Christ (Jesus), false Christs (Matthew 24:24), and antichrists (1 John 2:18–22).

Jude 3 commands Christians: “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you exhorting that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (LSB).

To contend for the faith is difficult because there are many attacks on the Christian faith by unbelievers outside the church and by professing Christians inside the church. These attacks are related to or rooted in evolutionism, LGBTQ+ agenda, feminism, neo-Marxism, critical race theory, theological liberalism, secular psychology, and the like.

Which issues are most important to guard in order to defend the truth of biblical Christianity? Which truths in the Bible are essential for a person to believe in order to be saved from hell? Which biblical doctrines are not essential for personal salvation but are important enough to affect our decision about which local church to join or which interdenominational organization to work for or partner with as we seek to serve the Lord? Which biblical convictions involve personal choices that should not hinder our fellowship with other Christians or friendships with nonbelievers?

Every Christian should endeavor to believe and defend all biblical truth. But which are the most important truths, and how do we decide? Which truths are the ones that we must be willing to die for?

Those who write on this topic often use the “triage” analogy to describe how and why we need to think about this. The word “triage” comes from the French, trier, which means to sort. As far as we know, Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was the first to use this term in relation to this topic.1 Consider, he says, the emergency room (ER) of a local hospital, where the medical staff are trained in triage. This helps them decide which of the patients that come into the ER need immediate, rapid attention to save their lives (e.g., someone coming in with a serious gunshot wound) and which patients can be treated in the next few hours because their condition is not life-threatening (e.g., a child with a bad earache). The same decision-making process happens with the EMT personnel on a fire truck arriving at the scene of a multi-vehicle accident.

Theological Triage: What Is It?

In a similar fashion, Dr. Mohler suggests, Christians need to be able to distinguish between doctrines that are critical to a person being saved or to the spiritual health of a Christian or church and biblical teachings over which Christians can charitably agree to disagree. In his discussion of “theological triage,” Dr. Mohler suggests three levels of doctrine.

Level 1

“First-level theological issues would include those doctrines most central and essential to the Christian faith.”2 Mohler contends that these would include the “doctrines such as the Trinity, the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, justification by faith, and the authority of Scripture.”3 A denial of these doctrines would be a denial of Christianity and should be judged as heresy.

Level 2

“The set of second-order doctrines is distinguished from the first-order set by the fact that believing Christians may disagree on the second-order issues, though this disagreement will create significant boundaries between believers.”4 So these doctrines would affect, for example, which church a person joins. The mode of baptism, the method of the Lord’s supper (communion), and the question of whether women can serve as pastors in the church might be examples. The question of biological evolution and human evolution might be in this category (or in level 3), depending on a person’s level of tolerance. These kinds of topics have generated strong disagreement among serious Christians, resulting in various degrees of separation or division. But these disagreements would not be grounds for you to call a professing Christian a heretic and might not be grounds to deny his membership in your church or to exclude him from the faculty of the school you preside over.

Level 3

Mohler says, “Third-order issues are doctrines over which Christians may disagree and remain in close fellowship, even within local congregations.”5 Many details about the end-time events before the bodily return of Christ (what theologians call “eschatology”) would likely fit in this category, Mohler believes. Christians stay in fellowship within a local church or as fellow faculty at a school though they disagree on some of these teachings of Scripture.

Dr. Mohler contends that “there are no insignificant doctrines revealed in the Bible, but there is an essential foundation of truth that undergirds the entire system of biblical truth.”6 He goes on to say that in its rejection of biblical authority, theological liberalism refuses to admit the existence of first-order theological issues. But he charges that some forms of Protestant fundamentalism make every issue a first-order doctrine. He insists that “we must sort the issues with a trained mind and a humble heart” to safeguard the treasure of the gospel.

Gavin Ortlund, an author and former pastor, has a similar view of theological triage but adds a fourth level.7 He describes it this way:

Fourth-rank doctrines are those things that don’t matter at all as it relates to our gospel witness and ministry collaboration. Certainly, all truth is God’s truth and no doctrine is superfluous. But these doctrines—while they may be interesting to think about—have very little bearing on life and ministry.8

Examples he cites include questions like how many angels exist, how many kinds of angels there are, what the difference is between cherubim and seraphim, and what musical instruments should be used in worship.9

Theodore Cabal, professor of philosophy of religion at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has also written on this subject and follows Mohler’s view on theological triage.10

Is the Theological Triage Model Adequate?

There are many helpful thoughts in these discussions about how to prioritize teachings in Scripture and how that affects our relationships with others (both Christians and non-Christians). While all truths revealed in the Bible are inerrant, not all Scriptures are equally clear (as Peter says in 2 Peter 3:16 and as indicated in 1 Peter 1:10–12 and Daniel 12:8–10). Hence, genuine believers can arrive at different interpretations on some doctrinal points. And the Bible itself tells us directly or through emphasis and repetition that some truths are more vital for Christians to agree upon than others. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:3 that he delivered gospel truths “as of first importance.”

We would agree with Mohler, Ortlund, Cabal, and others about the doctrines in the first tier. The doctrines of the Trinity, the full humanity and deity of Jesus Christ, justification by faith, and the inspiration and authority of Scripture are indeed essential to the Christian faith. And people who deny these are either newborn babes in the faith (not knowing all the doctrines yet) or are not true Christians. We would agree also that there are other doctrines (such as some of the ones they mention in the second tier) about which genuine Christians can and do disagree without jeopardizing anyone’s salvation but which may affect how closely they join together in worship or mission.

While this model of theological triage is a way of categorizing doctrines for salvation or church membership, it is not adequate to distinguish between a truly biblical worldview and a partial biblical worldview.

While this model of theological triage is a way of categorizing doctrines for salvation or church membership, it is not adequate to distinguish between a truly biblical worldview and a partial biblical worldview. Living in a time of widespread doctrinal denial and confusion with an increasingly hostile culture that rejects all kinds of biblical teaching requires more careful thinking. There are biblical teachings that are vital to a biblical worldview that would not normally be labeled a first-tier issue. These especially relate to the universal teaching of evolution. A person doesn’t have to believe in a literal historical Adam to be saved from the judgment of hell and given eternal life. But that real Adam and a real historical fall in sin are foundational to the gospel because the last Adam (Jesus Christ) came to solve the problem initiated by the first Adam. Whether or not Adam was made from a preexisting creature by natural processes or made supernaturally is not a salvation issue but has great bearing on the nature of man and his relationship to the rest of creation.11 (Some articles that address these issues are linked in this article’s last footnote.)

For example, if one believes that God created Adam from another preexisting creature, then man is not separate from the animals; he would be in essence a “divinely evolved” animal. That line of thought would also be rejecting the clear words of Scripture, which categorically state that Adam was created from the dust of the earth and Eve was made from one of his ribs.12 It also detracts from the relationship between man and wife, since she was created out of Adam, not from another separate animal. But in several places, the flood account differentiates man from the animals (Genesis 6:7, 7:23, 8:16–18). Other passages also teach a vast difference between man and animals, like Numbers 18:15, Jeremiah 27:5, Romans 1:23, and 1 Corinthians 15:39. Plus, mankind was created in the image of God, but animals were not. And the biggest problem with man being a “divinely evolved” animal is that Christ took on the form of man (Philippians 2:5–8). He had to be human so that he could be our high priest and make propitiation for the sins of the people (Hebrews 2:16–18).

Dr. Mohler has publicly identified as a young-earth creationist. But he assigns the question of the age of the creation to the third-tier category.13 As a result, he has young-earth proponents and old-earth proponents on his seminary faculty. But he adds that the age of the earth is not an unimportant question because there are consequences from our answer. He says what comes behind and with the question may affect its importance with respect to the gospel.14

Ortlund is an old-earth proponent and a theological advisor to Hugh Ross’ organization, Reasons to Believe, which is strongly opposed to young-earth creation. He labels the age of the creation as a third-tier doctrine, primarily because many respected church leaders in America and England over the past 200 years have accepted the millions of years. He asks his readers if they are prepared to say these great men were wrong for not believing in young-earth creation.15

Dr. Cabal also considers the age of the earth a third-tier issue like Mohler and Ortlund, and due to a less-than-careful reading of things that I (Terry) and Ken Ham have written, Cabal comes close to accusing Answers in Genesis of preaching a false gospel because of our insistence that accepting millions of years undermines the foundational truths of the gospel.16

There are many other theologians who state that belief in a literal six-day creation is a third-tier issue. But some have noted (and we here at AiG firmly believe) that a literal, six-day creation is intricately interwoven into many first-tier doctrines. Where do we read that mankind fell from perfection, that God brought judgment on the whole creation because of sin, that man is an inherent and habitual sinner, and that personal (individual) sin is judged by God? In Genesis 1–11, of course.

Now, Answers in Genesis has repeatedly said and emphasized that to be saved a person does not have to believe that the days of Genesis 1 were normal, 24-hour days about 6,000 years ago, that Adam and Eve literally ate forbidden fruit after Eve had a conversation with a literal serpent, and that the flood of Noah was a global, yearlong cataclysm that destroyed the surface of the whole planet earth. Rather, to be saved from the wrath of God to come and become a child of God, a person only needs to acknowledge his guilt before God, repent of his sins, and trust in the substitutionary, atoning death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ alone as his Savior and Lord. AiG has been crystal clear about this.17 So AiG would not reclassify creation alone as a first-tier (salvation) issue, but we do say that it is vital to a biblical worldview, and several components of YEC are interwoven into the gospel message.

For example, the gospel in the Bible (as revealed in the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament writers) is rooted in the foundational truth of Genesis 1–11. And the Bible’s teaching about abortion, racism, gender, and marriage is built on those foundation chapters, which have been under attack through the teaching of evolution and millions of years (implying that Genesis 1–11 is mythology).

So we agree with Mohler, Ortlund, and Cabal about what is essential to believe to be a true Christian. And we agree that some other doctrines are important to consider before joining a church or Christian organization but are not tests of orthodoxy. And we agree that there are other doctrines that don’t preclude close fellowship between believers who have a different view of them. But are Mohler, Ortlund, and Cabal right that the age of the creation is a third-tier doctrine over which Christians can agree to disagree? Is it a side issue that unnecessarily divides the church and hinders the mission of the church? Can we accept that the gap theory, day-age view, framework hypothesis, cosmic temple view, etc., or at least some of those views are consistent with a fully biblical worldview? What is a truly biblical worldview and is the age of the creation a necessary part of it? We will consider these questions carefully in part two of this three-part series.