Is there a term for a theological principle that if a New Testament text is unclear about something, that point is not important for salvation?

Question

One view is that a significant number of theological issues re Christianity are debated because they are debatable. So, this view says, a relevant text might admit of multiple plausible interpretations, or weighing different texts against each other can lead to different plausible conclusions, and so on.

Is there a term for a theological principle that if the New Testament texts appear to be unclear about something, therefore that point is not important for salvation?

Note: this isn't a question about whether the relevant texts in fact are unclear, whether multiple interpretations are equally valid, and so on. It's a question about whether there's a term for this sort of theological principle.

Answer 1

It's a corollary of the Protestant doctrine of the clarity or perspicuity of scripture, that the essentials of faith are explained in the scriptures so clearly that anyone can understand them. As the Westminster Confession says

WCF 1.7: All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in someplace of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

Now something in the scriptures may not be necessary for salvation, but that's not the same as saying that it's unimportant. The previous paragraph of the WCF helps us honour the whole of the Bible through its phrase "the whole counsel of God":

WCF 1.6: The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. ...

So many things which are important for God's glory and for mankind's faith and life are taught in the scriptures but not necessarily with the same clarity as the core principles of salvation.