In debt to the heretics

Ignatius. Clement. Tertullian. Irenaeus. Athanasius. Augustine. Jerome. Constantine. Calvin. Luther. Barth. Lewis.

I've written about the importance of church history here and wrote a few weeks ago that the theological ideas described and defended by the likes of the list above leave the modern church heavily indebted.

But, the giants of church thought didn't write in a vacuum.

The church should also tip its hat to the following three men...
Marcion.
Aruis.
Nestorius.

These three blokes, to be blunt, were heretics.

But, without them and their drifts from orthodoxy, the Christian church wouldn't have needed to clarify its beliefs about the bible, the trinity or the nature of Jesus and the incarnation.

It is, in part, due to these men that Christianity has the shape it currently does.