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To: magisterium

I do believe there is one divine truth. There is one right answer to every question, big and small. But, I do not believe any particular denomination of Christianity has all the right answers. I do not believe any one man has all the right answers. I do not believe any group of men can have all the right answers.

However, I am a Baptist for a reason. I believe that Baptist opinions regarding Christian doctrine are the closest to true. My wife is a Methodist — the distinctions between a Baptist and a Methodist are minimal. My children are being raised in a Baptist mega-church in Houston.

However, I do not claim doctrinal perfection among Baptists or Methodists or any other denomination. I believe doctrinal perfection to be an absolute impossibility save for Christ Himself. My pastor would not claim to know all the answers. I do not believe in doctrinal infallibility of the vatican, the Catholic church, or the Baptist church. I am quite sure that every person on this planet is doctrinally wrong about something.

It is the nature of a fallen mankind that our interpretation of the Word of God will be imperfect — but we do the best we can, and thank God for Grace to gloss over the rest.

SnakeDoc


153 posted on 12/08/2009 1:17:49 PM PST by SnakeDoctor ("Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much." -- John Wayne)
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To: SnakeDoctor
But, with respect, you certainly seem to believe in a sort of Reference Standard, upon which Truth can be judged. I certainly acknowledge that to be the Deposit of Faith found in the Catholic Church. But, for those who deny that, yet claim to be authentically following the tenets of Christianity, one supposes that they are privy to some information to substantiate their claim to the Truth.

You are doing that now. You say: "I believe that Baptist opinions regarding Christian doctrine are the closest to true." I have no doubt you believe that. But upon what do you measure Truth here?

It is true that no Church has all of the Truth, in the sense that not everything that is true was imparted by Christ. God not only has not revealed all of His Mind to us, we, as finite creatures, couldn't possibly understand it if He did. But it is also true that everything that Christ taught is Truth, and the totality of that teaching is the Deposit of Faith. That discrete, concrete body of teaching from Him, and what was conveyed to the Apostles under inspiration of the Holy Spirit in both Scripture and Sacred Tradition, cannot be in error. It was also entrusted to us with the understanding that it should not be lost to us, and that Jesus would send the Holy Spirit to the Church to preserve that Deposit of Faith, even within the confines of a Church entirely populated by otherwise quite fallible (and forgetful!) human beings. Jesus makes no sense in Matthew 28:20 and John 16:13-15 otherwise.

To the extent, then, that Jesus intended to establish a Church based on teachings of His Truth (and this is confirmed in 1Timothy 3:15), and to preserve that Truth within His Church through all generations to the end of time, one could reasonably infer that it is still possible to find that Deposit of Faith somewhere on earth, intact and entire, in continuous existence from the first Pentecost, when the Church was born, to this day. All one really needs to do, at that point, is find the one Church that has been able to organically trace its lineage of custodianship of the Deposit of Faith back to the beginning.

Obviously, I would say that Church is the Catholic Church. I believe, if nothing else, that that Church alone has much of a claim, based just on historical continuity and sheer existence alone - though, of course, I also believe that its teachings are, in fact, the Deposit of Faith! You, clearly, do not. But you might want to reflect on how the some of the tenets of Baptists do not appear until the 16th Century, and how they do not dovetail with the teachings of "that other Church" in the 2nd, or 7th, or 12th Centuries. No other group besides the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church has even a demonstrable historical claim to the continuity required. Therefore, since Jesus said He would be with and guide His Church, and send the Holy Spirit to preserve it in the details of the Faith, it would be logical to begin by supposing the only Church with the long-term historical existence necessary to span the entire timeframe involved just might be the Church He founded. If that is true, then it just might be also the case that that Church's teachings are, in fact, preserving the fullness of Revelation - the Deposit of Faith - down to this very day.

That you presently disagree with much of the Catholic Church's teaching is quite understandable, if you simply inherited what you know from another group's perspective. Some folks have a 500 year lineage in that regard! But the true Reference Standard, I would suggest, is not what can only be traced back to the 1500's, or what might have been believed for a few centuries fairly early on, only to have been entirely abandoned until dusted off in our own day. The true Reference Standard belongs to only one Church, continuous in existence and preserved from error, as Christ Himself promised. Disagreement with it, regardless of how sincerely held the beliefs to the contrary, is still, in the end, disagreement with Christ. That the Catholic Church teaches some things contrary to the Baptists' (or any other denomination's) beliefs is not in dispute. What is at issue is whether those other denominations are "correct" to be in such disagreement. And upon what authority of historical continuity can they make a case for their disagreement?

175 posted on 12/08/2009 2:05:45 PM PST by magisterium
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