Actually,
IN TERMS OF THE ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS OF MILLIONS OF RC’S
the Dogma
is already deeply entrenched.
The magisterical is merely slow to catch up.
Quix, that isn’t an answer. How did the doctrine of the Trinity develop?
Do you think the Apostles had a full understanding of the Holy Spirit, or that they fully understood the nature of Christ?
Were heresies like Nestorianism just another understanding?
We see through the mirror darkly. It takes much God guided thought under the auspices of the Holy Spirit to know.
“IN TERMS OF THE ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS OF MILLIONS OF RC’S
the Dogma
is already deeply entrenched.
The magisterical is merely slow to catch up.”
It didn’t spring fully developed, Quix.
“Here we shall consider, although not exclusively, Augustine’s De Trinitate, which he began in 399 and handed over to the public in 419.(1) He was not the first Christian in the West to write about the Trinity and the Holy Spirit. He knew the writings of Tertullian and had read the treatise on the Trinity by Hilary of Poitiers (+366), which he quotes. There can also be no doubt that he knew Marius Victorinus, who was greater influenced by Plotinus (see Volume 1, p. 77). He had heard Ambrose of Milan and had probably read his De Spiritu Sancto (c. 381), which was in many places inspired by Basil the Great and literally by Didymus the Blind and which transfers into Latin thought an exegesis of several passages in the Bible originally made by the Greek Fathers.
As far as the latter are concerned, Augustine knew or may have known, in translation, Origen’s De principiis and Didymus’ De Spiritu Sancto and the references that he makes to their vocabulary show that he must have had access to the writings of Basil the Great and, at a relatively late period, to those of Gregory Nazianzen, although it is impossible to say exactly to what extent. SNIP>
These are all doctors of the early church. They are not some primitive enclave but great thinkers in the West and East.
It took time for people to understand God. It took men with God given abilities to unravel deep truths.
They comprise the Catholic Church. Dogma takes centuries to understand. We don’t understand everything after 2000 years.