In the easy cases, the difference between indisputable matters and disputable matters is straightforward. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is an indisputable matter: that is, this is something to be confessed as bedrock truth if the gospel makes any sense and if people are to be saved (1 Cor 15:1–19). If Christ did not rise from the dead, our faith is futile, the witnesses who claimed they saw him are not telling the truth, we remain in our sins, and we are of all people most to be pitied because we are building our lives on a lie. By contrast, Paul allows people to differ on the matter of honoring certain days, with each side fully persuaded in its own mind.

Every generation of Christians faces the need to decide just what beliefs and behavior are morally mandated of all believers, and what beliefs and behavior may be left to the individual believer’s conscience. The distinction is rooted in Scripture: for example, the practice of certain kinds of behavior guarantees that a person will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9–10), but other kinds of behavior are left up to the individual Christian: “One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God” (Rom 14:5–6).

The matters where Christians may safely agree to disagree have traditionally been labeled adiaphora, “indifferent things.” They are not “indifferent things” in the sense that all sides view them as unimportant, for some believers, according to Paul, view them as very important, or view their freedom from such behavior as very important: “Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.” They are indifferent matters in the sense that believing certain things or not believing certain things, adopting certain practices or not adopting them, does not keep a person from inheriting the kingdom of God. Today there is a tendency to refer to such adiaphora as “disputable matters” rather than as “indifferent matters”—that is, theologically disputable matters. On the whole, that terminology is probably better: in contemporary linguistic usage “disputable matters” is less likely to be misunderstood than “indifferent matters.”

In the easy cases, the difference between indisputable matters and disputable matters is straightforward. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is an indisputable matter: that is, this is something to be confessed as bedrock truth if the gospel makes any sense and if people are to be saved (1 Cor 15:1–19). If Christ did not rise from the dead, our faith is futile, the witnesses who claimed they saw him are not telling the truth, we remain in our sins, and we are of all people most to be pitied because we are building our lives on a lie. By contrast, Paul allows people to differ on the matter of honoring certain days, with each side fully persuaded in its own mind.

Immediately, however, we recognize that some things that were thought theologically indisputable in the past have become disputable. Paedobaptism was at one time judged in some circles to be so indisputably right that Anabaptists could be drowned with a clear conscience: if they wanted to be immersed, let us grant them their wish. Until the last three or four decades, going to movies and drinking alcohol was prohibited in the majority of American evangelical circles: the prohibition, in such circles, was indisputable. Nowadays most evangelicals view such prohibitions as archaic at best, displaced by a neat transfer to the theologically disputable column. Indeed, such conduct may serve as a possible sign of gospel freedom. Mind you, the fact that I qualified the assertions with expressions like “most evangelicals” and “majority of American evangelical circles” shows that the line between what is theologically indisputable and what is theologically disputable may be driven by cultural and historical factors of which we are scarcely aware at the time. Moreover, some things can cross the indisputable/disputable divide the other way. For example, in the past many Christians judged smoking to fall among the adiaphora, but their number has considerably shrunk. Scientifically demonstrable health issues tied to smoking, reinforced by a well-embroidered theology of the body, has ensured that for most Christians smoking is indisputably a no-no.

Since, then, certain matters have glided from one column to the other, it cannot come as a surprise that some people today are trying to facilitate the same process again, so as to effect a similar transfer. Doubtless the showcase item at the moment is homosexual marriage. Yes, such marriage was viewed as indisputably wrong in the past, but surely, it is argued, today we should move this topic to the disputable column: let each Christian be fully persuaded in their own mind, and refrain from making this matter a test of fellowship, let alone the kind of matter on which salvation depends.

What follows are ten reflections on what does and does not constitute a theologically disputable matter.

(1) That something is disputed does not make it theologically disputable, i.e., part of the adiaphora. After all, there is no cardinal doctrine that has not been disputed, and not many practices, either. When the troublemakers who followed in Paul’s train argued that in addition to Christ and his death, it was necessary to be circumcised and take on the burden of the law if one was to be a Christian under the Jewish Messiah, Paul did not suggest that everyone was entitled to their own opinion. Rather, he pronounced an anathema, because outside the apostolic gospel, which is tied to the exclusive sufficiency of Jesus, there is no salvation (Gal 1:8–9). When some in Corinth gave the impression that certain forms of fornication could be tolerated in the church, and might even be an expression of Christian freedom, Paul insisted on the exercise of church discipline all the way to excommunication, and emphatically taught that certain behavior, including fornication, inevitably means a person is excluded from the kingdom (1 Cor 5–6). Across the centuries, people have disputed the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, his resurrection from the dead, and much more, but that does not mean that such matters belong in the disputable column. In short: just because something is in fact disputed does not mean that it is theologically disputable. If this point were not valid, any doctrine or moral stance could be relativized and placed in the adiaphora column by the simple expedience of finding a few people to dispute its validity.

(2) What places something in the indisputable column, then, is not whether or not it is disputed by some people, or has ever been disputed, but what the Scriptures consistently say about the topic, and how the Scriptures tie it to other matters. At the end of the day, that turns on sober, even-handed, reverent exegesis—as Athanasius understood in his day on a different topic. Athanasius won the Christological debate by the quality and credibility of his careful exegesis and theological integration. Similarly today: even if one disagrees with this or that detail in their arguments, the kind of careful exegetical work displayed at a popular level by Kevin DeYoung and at a more technical level by Robert A. J. Gagnon represents a level of detail and care simply not found by those who wish to skate around the more obvious readings of the relevant texts.1 To put these first two points together: That some still argue that the New Testament texts sanction or even mandate an Arian Christology, disputing the point endlessly, does not mean that we should admit Jehovah’s Witnesses into the Christian community today—they are exegetically and theologically mistaken, and their error is so grievous, however enthusiastically disputed, that the deity of the Word-made-flesh, of the eternal Son, cannot ever legitimately be transferred out of the indisputable column. Exactly the same thing must be asserted regarding the Bible’s prohibition of homosexuality, however complex the pastoral issues. In short: the most fundamental tool for establishing what is or is not an indisputable, is careful, faithful exegesis.

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