But you'll come on the thread and castigate the non-Catholic for something that he really was right about?
Putting aside the thread topic about some "prophet" prognosticating about the demise of half of the Roman Catholic Church "faithful" in the maybe near future, do you at least agree with Daniel's point that the thread originator does NOT have the official sanctions to buttress his interpretation of the identity of the "woman" in Revelation 12? That really WAS Daniel's main point, you know.
The denominational status of Daniel had nothing to do with my comments. I only took exception to framing the discussion or argument as a debate.
"do you at least agree with Daniel's point that the thread originator does NOT have the official sanctions to buttress his interpretation of the identity of the "woman" in Revelation 12?
This underscores my point about this being a classical argument and not a debate. I am not going to get into scoring a debate or even acknowledging that there are winners or losers. Far better theologians than anyone in this forum have argued this point ad naseum and yet there is no consensus.
I will say that appeals to authority are dangerous argument tactics for all sides, especially when the question regards a higher authority. Nor can reason be completely relied on in these arguments.
Faith requires we trust in the authority of God as the cause of our belief even when it presents us with difficulties. As Blessed John Henry Newman said; “Faith is not a conclusion from premises, but an act of the will following on the conviction that to believe is a duty”. Intellect, education, and reason can assist, but they cannot substitute for faith. We ultimately must choose to believe.
This is where we all as Christians need to look to the cross. Saint Paul tells us in his epistles that the Cross was seen as a scandal to the Jews and as folly to the Greeks. It was an insult and repulsive to the Romans. To Archbishop Fulton Sheen the cross was an absurdity. “It is the vertical symbol of life contradicted by the horizontal symbol of death.” The Archbishop then completed his thought with the essence of Catholicism and Christianity when he went on to say; “It is absurd until Jesus is superimposed upon it.”
Christianity requires that, in faith, we hold a number of opposing ideas at the same time; God and Man, Mother and Virgin, Sacrament and Sacrifice, Sinner and Saint, death and eternal life, mystery and reason, the secular and the spiritual, faith and understanding, rationalism and fideism, free will and submission. Without Faith these contradictions form an absurdity. For too many these absurdities form an obstacle to conversion and remain absurdities until we superimpose Jesus upon them.
It is how we attempt to reconcile these absurdities that causes us to splinter and scatter. All of the Christian heresies and the denominational differences have arisen from this challenge. The challenge to us is not to "win" any debate but to find and share God's truth without acting contrary to His truth.
“Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” – John 20:30