On Heresy

What does it mean when a person is called a heretic? Or a particular philosophy called a heresy?

It's never spoken as a term of respect or endearment. Instead, it expresses condemnation for those with beliefs or thoughts opposing orthodoxy, which means “the correct opinion.” Heresy as a term only has meaning when contrasted against a particular orthodoxy. For example, the many Christian heresies are all deviations from the official opinion sanctioned by the Church.

The term heresy itself, means “school” in Greek, as in a school of thought or a philosophical school. It's revealing that the church has been so hostile to these “heresies” that are nothing more than different perspectives on theological and spiritual topics. Even dominant strains of Christianity, like Protestantism, are heresies in the eyes of the Catholic Church. It shows a profound fear of ideas and an inability to defend the orthodox belief through rational argument. After all, if the orthodox ideas are correct, shouldn’t we be able to make a logical case for why they are so? If we cannot, perhaps what some think of as orthodoxy is based on rather flimsy rational arguments. In these cases, to preserve power over ideas, it may be easier to denounce the opposing party as a heretic, blasphemer, denier, or other such pejorative. In truth, to call someone a heretic is an admission of the bankruptcy of one’s ideas.

So it's strange that today, I have heard several pagan groups using the term heresy or heretic to describe other pagans with views that differ from their own. The term is used to declare that someone has drifted from the orthodox pagan view of God and the Gods. There is one major problem with this perspective, however: There has never been a singular orthodox view of paganism.

The ancient world had a variety of schools of thought (you could say heresies) on God and the Gods. There were Platonists, Stoics, Epicureans, Cynics, Parapetetics, Gnostics, Hermeticists, and many more. Even the barbarian tribes in Germany and Gaul would have likely had a variety of opinions on the nature of the Gods.

What we see in the classical world is not one single orthodoxy but rather a variety of heterodoxies or opposing opinions. While piety toward the Gods was expected of all people, it generally referred to participation in public rituals and not slandering the Gods by attributing evil actions to them; what a person philosophically or theologically believed about the Gods was largely open to exploration. This is why we still have many writings on the Gods that show opposing viewpoints. This openness to exploration on the nature of the Gods is even more the case now as there is no single power structure in paganism that could even approve a single orthodoxy.

We see this same attitude in our sister religion, Hinduism. The Hindu philosophies have produced a variety of schools of thought over the centuries, and even today, there is not a single philosophy that dominates them all. The Vedanta tradition of Hindu philosophy includes several different schools with various opinions on the Gods. Over time, these schools share some general beliefs and scriptures, but there has never been an officially sanctioned orthodoxy that all Hindus must follow to be considered Hindu. In fact, there isn’t even a single authority that could sanction such an orthodoxy.

So, what does it mean when a pagan calls another pagan a heretic?

It means, “I disagree with you.”

While this may not be harmful on its face, the arrogance and mean-spiritedness of how the term is used are not helpful to the broader rebirth of paganism as a whole. It damages the revival of our traditions when we act like Christians, condemning one another’s beliefs rather than engaging in respectful debate that can benefit our broader philosophical and theological development. Healthy debate and discussion about critical theological issues should be encouraged and has always been a part of the classical tradition.

While some may get a false sense of superiority by condemning others as heretics, it shows a profound lack of understanding of traditional natural religion. It suggests that their ideas are so weak that they cannot defend them in respectful, rational debate. They have, in essence, resorted to meaningless name-calling rather than making a solid logical case for why their perspective is the correct one. This may have worked for Christians when the weight of the Roman state could enforce their orthodoxy, but today, it’s a childish appeal to a power that doesn’t exist. Today, our ideas have to stand or fall on the merit of their rational arguments.

The Western classical tradition is a beautiful tapestry of ideas, but what unites them is a ceaseless desire for the truth. By accepting that there are different schools of thought, we are not saying that the truth is relative. Instead, we are upholding the tradition that allows freedom of thought and encourages new ideas to be subjected to rational criticism and debate so we can further our knowledge of the Gods and seek the truth wherever we find it. Truth is not revealed in an ancient text or represented by one magical person. It’s something we can discover through experience, contemplation, discussion, and debate. To stifle that search for truth by condemning arguments before we hear them is like blindfolding ourselves to improve our vision. Condemnations of heresies are a shameful carryover from our Christian past that we should be happy to leave behind.

For the Glory of Jove