Welcome to The Theology Whisperer, a series of short blog posts on theology and theological education. A fascinating sentence appears at the end of Genesis chapter four in the Hebrew Bible. After recording the birth of Enosh, Adam’s grandson by Seth, we read that “At that time people began to call on the name of …
Origin of the phrase, ‘In necessariis unitas’
Like me, you've probably heard some variation of the phrase, "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity." It's a translation of the Latin phrase, "In necessariis unitas, in dubitas libertas, in omnibus caritas." Nineteenth-century church historian Philip Schaff calls it "the watchword of Christian peacemakers."(1) The phrase is often attributed to the theologian …
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