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parabarbarian comments on Rationality Quotes April 2016 - Less Wrong
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It seems to me like this depends a lot on what sort of knotty theological questions.
Suppose there is a dispute among Christians about whether doing some particular thing is necessary for salvation. Then the question can't be safely shelved until "the hereafter" because if one side is right then the other is in grave danger.
Or suppose there is a dispute about whether doing some particular thing is morally wrong (and therefore / because it is) hateful to the gods. Then even if for whatever reason you are confident of not being punished for doing it, if you care about doing the right thing or about pleasing the gods then you will want to resolve that dispute.
The context in this instance -- thanks, Google Books! -- appears to be a question about transubstantiation, arising in 12th-century England. I think a Christian believer might reasonably be concerned that disbelieving in transubstantiation if it's right might be dangerous, and that the reverse might be idolatrous -- which they'd presumably want to avoid even if they weren't worried they'd be damned for it.
The doctrine of transubstantiation was off-and-on in Christianity from the third or fourth century but wasn't actually adopted by the Catholic Church until the 4th Lateran Council in 1215 AD. It wasn't formalized until the Council of Trent (1545-63 AD). So, to a 12th Century monk, transubstantiation may have been a "knotty theological question" but of no concern where salvation was concerned. I was kind of impressed how well Follet did his homework for that book.