What we believe

Last updated 2026-09-04

1. What we confess together

This school stands on the faith of the whole church as summarised in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds - not a Reformed possession but the common inheritance of Christians east and west, before and after the Reformation. Every course here assumes it.

• One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit - the Trinity
• Jesus Christ, true God and true man: his incarnation, his cross, his bodily resurrection, his ascension, and his return
• The Holy Spirit, a person, and his work
• The one holy catholic church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting

2. Where we teach from

This school teaches in the Reformed (Presbyterian) tradition. Its systematic theology is set out within the framework of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, and its biblical and historical courses were written from the same place.

Taking those documents as a framework for teaching does not mean requiring every chapter of them - the chapters on church government in particular. This school is not a denomination and prescribes no polity. In particular:

• Scripture - the sixty-six books are God-breathed and are the only infallible rule of faith and life. Creeds and traditions are honoured beneath Scripture, never beside it.
• Grace - salvation is God's sovereign work from first to last, with nothing of human merit added: justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
• Covenant - Scripture is read as the history of God's covenant with his people, and baptism is understood as the sign of that covenant.
• The Lord's Supper - Christ is truly and spiritually present, and to those who receive in faith he is himself the food.
• The church - the true church is marked by the right preaching of the Word and the right administration of the sacraments. How its government is structured is not something this school settles; it belongs to the open questions in section 3.
• Life - the saved are not saved by good works, and do not live without them.

3. What we hold open

By an open question this school means one on which people who read Scripture seriously reach different conclusions — the definition written in LM302, Money and Stewardship, 5-2. What follows is that test applied, and a question absent from the list is not thereby closed.

• The millennium - amillennial, historic premillennial, dispensational premillennial, postmillennial
• The gifts of the Spirit - continuation and cessation
• Baptism - infants or believers, pouring or immersion
• Church government and the structure of office - presbyterian, episcopal, congregational, or otherwise. This school requires neither a plurality of elders nor a single pastor.
• The age and manner of creation
• Women in office - we respect each denomination's decision and require neither
• How election and human responsibility are explained
• Judgements about culture and Christian liberty
• Divorce and remarriage - denominations differ and this school requires no particular conclusion (LM204, 3-3).
• The salvation of those who never hear the gospel, and of adherents of other religions - long debated within evangelicalism (LM303, 6-3). This is a different question from the exclusivist claim named in section 4.

The list does not mean these questions are trivial here. It means the opposite: that the boundary of the faith does not run through them, and we want that said plainly.

How that line is drawn - continuity, coherence, direction - is taught in chapter 11 of BT201, Biblical Theology in Depth. This list is what that test returns.

4. Where we cannot stand together

These, by contrast, are not differences of view but a different faith. This school does not present them as equivalent positions, and does not publish them as community contributions.

• Denying the Trinity
• Denying the deity or the true humanity of Jesus Christ
• Denying the bodily resurrection of Christ
• Placing any writing or revelation beside or above Scripture
• Teaching that salvation is earned by merit or works
• Claiming that salvation is found only through a particular person, group or church

5. This confession and your writing

Readers may write beside the lectures. What this confession means for that:

• Agreement is not a condition. You may read, ask and contribute without agreeing with any of this.
• Other traditions' readings are welcome. On the questions in section 3, "my tradition reads this passage this way" is the contribution this school most wants - it teaches a student more than one lecturer can.
• There is a form. Such a contribution is taken as tradition, quoted claim, your tradition's reading, and the texts it rests on - not as free prose. "This lecture is wrong" becomes a fight; "my tradition reads it this way" teaches.
• Section 4 is not published. A person decides, and the decision is recorded against their name.

6. About this document

This states where the school stands; it does not create a new creed. This is a free, non-degree course belonging to no denomination, and it does not stand in for the authority of your own church. Scripture is the final authority, and the believer's place is a local congregation.

Comments on this document are welcome through the message form.