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Originally Posted by troutman
The difference between science and religion:
In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.
-- Carl Sagan
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It may not be the same kind of change to which Sagan was referring, but the history of the Jewish and Christian religions demonstrate a number of changes in theology.
• In the sixth century B.C.E., the book of Deuteronomy was written as a theological explanation for Israel's history, and it formed the foundation for the future of Jewish religious expression. It could be argued that the appearance of the book of Deuteronomy marked the single biggest religious "policy shift" in history.
• The emergence of the doctrine of the trinity and of the incarnation were almost certainly developments which were not officially part of the original teachings of the apostles and the early church.
• The endorsement of Scriptural authority by Martin Luther,
"sola scriptura" was a significant change, which made possible the Protestant Reformation (and by extension, the Enlightenment and the birth of Science!).
• The develoment in the mid nineteenth century of the documentary hypothesis changed modern christian perceptions of the Bible, and led to the emergence of neo-orthodoxy, biblical theology, and even fundamentalism and creationism.
Changes do occur (scholarly opinion about the location and function of divine authority and scripture are currently undergoing signigicant alteration); but such changes are never universally accepted, nor tangibly applied.