Posted on 05/14/2010 11:03:45 AM PDT by NYer
Holy Scripture, despite all appearances, will not always be easy to interpret. We can be lulled into thinking our “common sense” and “by the letter” interpretation of a text is what God intends us to get out of it. However, if this is the case, there would be little to no debates about its meaning; there would be little confusion as to its purpose and how it applies to us today. St. Peter would not have needed to tell us that no prophecy of Scripture is to be interpreted privately, because all interpretations of Scripture would end up the same. We need to understand and heed the warning of St. Mark the Ascetic: “Do not let your heart become conceited about your interpretations of Scripture, lest your intellect fall afoul for the spirit of blasphemy.” [1] Why would he be warning us of this? Because Scripture, in its most external, simplistic level, could easily lead people to a perverted understanding of God and the Christian faith.
For an interpretation of Scripture to be acceptable (which does not mean it is necessarily correct), it must at least conform to the basic dogmatic teachings of the Church. If God is love, this must be manifest from one’s understanding of Scripture. If one’s interpretation of a text would lead to God doing or commanding something which runs against the law of love, the law by which God himself acts, then one has indeed committed blasphemy. If one really believes God commands some intrinsic evil, such as genocide, one has abandoned the God who is love, and has at least committed unintentional blasphemy by something evil about him. One cannot get out of this by saying, “whatever God wills, is now good,” or that “the very nature of right and wrong has changed through time,” because both would contradict not only the fundamental character of love, but also the fact God has provided us a positive means by which we can understand something of him via analogy; we know what love is, we know what the good is, and therefore we know something about God when we see he is love or that he is good. While we must understand our concepts are limited in relation to God, it is not because God is less than our concepts, but more and their foundation. Thus, Pope Benedict wisely says:
In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God’s voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God’s freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazm and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which – as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated – unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, “transcends” knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul – “λογικη λατρεία”, worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).[2]
Christianity affirms both the transcendence and immanence of God. The second allows us to say something positive and true about God, while the first reminds us that positive assertions are limited, that they are at best analogous pointers to something beyond the statements themselves. Our teachings truly say something about God. They must be used as the guideline by which we read Scripture. Moreover, as the Church makes abundantly clear, Scripture is itself an ecclesial document, to be interpreted in and by the Church. It must be interpreted in such a way that dogmatic teachings about God (such as his unchanging goodness) are in accord with our understanding of Scriptural text. If reason suggests a disconnect between an interpretation and dogma, we must follow dogma and dismiss the interpretation. Richard Gaillardetz explains this well:
The apostolic witness would be preserved both in the canonical Scriptures and in the ongoing paradosis or handing on of the apostolic faith in the Christian community. The unity of Scripture and tradition is grounded then in the one word whose presence in human history comes to its unsurpassable actualization in Jesus Christ. Scripture and tradition must be viewed as interrelated witnesses to that word. Furthermore, neither Scripture nor tradition can be separated from the Church. The unity of Scripture, tradition and the living communion of the Church itself is fundamental.[3]
Revelation, therefore, is centered upon Jesus Christ – and through Christ, the whole of the Holy Trinity:
The principal purpose to which the plan of the old covenant was directed was to prepare for the coming of Christ, the redeemer of all and of the messianic kingdom, to announce this coming by prophecy (see Luke 24:44; John 5:39; 1 Peter 1:10), and to indicate its meaning through various types (see 1 Cor. 10:12). Now the books of the Old Testament, in accordance with the state of mankind before the time of salvation established by Christ, reveal to all men the knowledge of God and of man and the ways in which God, just and merciful, deals with men. These books, though they also contain some things which are incomplete and temporary, nevertheless show us true divine pedagogy.[4]
If the vision of God that one gets out of Scripture is not one which reveals his justice and mercy, the reader of the text has missed something about the text itself. Perhaps the mistake lies in their interpretive scheme, where they assume the text follows the contours of modern historical writings. This is not the case; indeed Christians since the beginning of Church history have understood a very different scheme for the Biblical text: one which presents a kind of history but uses that history to present a deeper, more fundamental understanding of the world. Texts which are seen as impossible, if interpreted as history, nonetheless must be accepted, not because they are historical, but because they reveal something theological. St. Neilos the Ascetic, for example, takes 2 Samuel 4:5-8[5] as being historically absurd. This, he thinks, should be obvious. But if this is the case, does it make the text meaningless? By no means:
It is clear that this story in Scripture should not be taken literally. For how could a king have a woman as door-keeper, when he ought properly to be guarded by a troop of soldiers, and to have round him a large body of attendants? Or how could he be so poor as to use her to winnow the wheat? But improbable details are often included in a story because of the deeper truths they signify. Thus the intellect in each of us resides within like a king, while the reason acts as door-keeper of the senses. When the reason occupies itself with bodily things – and to winnow wheat is something bodily – he enemy without difficulty slips past unnoticed and slays the intellect.[6]
This scheme was in accord with what Origen taught. Indeed, he believed that the writers were inspired to put in statements which were absurd so as to remind us not to take the text so simply, but to look for the deeper, spiritual nourishment we can get from them, even for those texts which also have a real historical basis:
But since, if the usefulness of the legislation, and the sequence and beauty of the history, were universally evident of itself, we should not believe that any other thing could be understood in the Scriptures save what was obvious, the word of God has arranged that certain stumbling-blocks, as it were, and offenses, and impossibilities, should be introduced into the midst of the law and the history, in order that we may not, through being drawn away in all directions by the merely attractive nature of the language, either altogether fall away from the (true) doctrines, as learning nothing worthy of God, or, by not departing from the letter, come to the knowledge of nothing more divine. And this also we must know, that the principal aim being to announce the spiritual connection in those things that are done, and that ought to be done, where the Word found that things done according to the history could be adapted to these mystical senses, He made use of them, concealing from the multitude the deeper meaning; but where, in the narrative of the development of super-sensual things, there did not follow the performance of those certain events, which was already indicated by the mystical meaning, the Scripture interwove in the history (the account of) some event that did not take place, sometimes what could not have happened; sometimes what could, but did not. And sometimes a few words are interpolated which are not true in their literal acceptation, and sometimes a larger number.[7]
Scripture, of course, was written by various people. While they were inspired by God to write what they wrote, and God inspired the Church to collect the texts it did, in the form it did, we must also understand that the people behind the texts are not mere puppets being forced by God to write as they did. Thus, when patristic authors, or the Church, asserts God as the author of the text, we must not take this as fundamentalists do, but rather recognize that God works with authors based upon their ability and through their cooperation with his intended purposes: “The fathers look upon the Bible above all as the Book of God, the single work of a single author. This does not mean, however, that they reduce the human authors to nothing more than passive instruments; they are quite capable, also, of according to a particular book its own specific purpose.”[8] Indeed, God can inspires people to reveal something about him without their knowing of it, or knowing the meaning behind their words, as St Edith Stein masterfully explains:
Must the inspired person who is the instrument of a divine revelation be aware of the fact? Must he know that he has been illuminated, must he himself have received a revelation? We may well imagine cases where none of this is true. It is not impossible that someone utter a revelation without realizing it, without having received a revelation from God, without even being aware that he is speaking in God’s name or feeling supported by God’s Spirit in what he says and how he says it. He may think he is only voicing his own insight and in the words of his choosing.
Thus Caiphas says in the Sanhedrin : ‘You know nothing and do not consider that it is better for you that one man die for the people and not the whole people parish.’ And John adds: ‘but his he said not of himself but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the people…’ Hence Caiphas spoke in God’s name and followed divine instructions without either knowing it or wishing to do so. John, however, knows that Caiphas was speaking God’s word and perhaps that he was himself enlightened by God as he wrote this. Does John know the prophetic meaning of Caiphas’ words through a revelation accorded him? Quite possibly. But it may also be that the fulfillment of those words in the death of Jesus and John’s view of the overall work of salvation made him realize their prophetic nature.[9]
Now this is not to say it is the norm, nor common, but, as we see, a person inspired by God does not have to understand the meaning of their words, nor that they are actually saying something that will be collected together as being inspired by God. The intention of God as the inspired author of Scripture does not have to be one with the intended meaning of the human author, and indeed, could be one which runs contrary to what such a human might have thought (as, for example, we find in the case of Jonah).
Thus, it is important to discuss inspiration, but as the Pontifical Biblical Commission warns us, we must not follow the simplistic interpretation found within fundamentalism:
Fundamentalism is right to insist on the divine inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy of the word of God and other biblical truths included in its five fundamental points. But its way of presenting these truths is rooted in an ideology which is not biblical, whatever the proponents of this approach might say. For it demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.[10]
And, it is especially when people take the Bible as history where this becomes the problem. “Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth.”[11] It creates a false, blasphemous view of God through its simplistic understanding of the text, and demand adherence to that simplistic view, with the explanation that if one denies this scheme, one must reject Scripture itself. There is no basis by which one can understand the deeper, spiritual value of revelation. And it is for this reason it ends up creating an evil-looking God, and promotes the acceptance of intrinsic evils such as racism or genocide as being good if and when God commanded them. “Fundamentalism likewise tends to adopt very narrow points of view. It accepts the literal reality of an ancient, out-of-date cosmology simply because it is found expressed in the Bible; this blocks any dialogue with a broader way of seeing the relationship between culture and faith. Its relying upon a non-critical reading of certain texts of the Bible serves to reinforce political ideas and social attitudes that are marked by prejudices—racism, for example—quite contrary to the Christian Gospel.”[12] While simple, it is this simplicity which leads to a letter that kills, because it requires a denial of reason when engaging the faith, and leading to “intellectual suicide”:
The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem. Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations.[13]
No wonder St Mark the Ascetic warned us to be careful when we interpreted Scripture. He understood how people would confuse the human side of Scripture with its divine meaning, and how that would end up creating a false, humanly constructed, image of God. A God presented in the image of fallen humanity can only be a monster, the monster which we see proclaimed by fundamentalists the world over.
Footnotes
[1] Mark the Monk, “On the Spiritual Law” in Counsels on the Spiritual Life. Trans. Tim Vivian and Augustine Casiday (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 93.
[2] Pope Benedict, Regensburg Lecture, Sept 12, 2006.
[3] Richard R. Gaillardetz, Teaching with Authority: A Theology of the Magisterium of the Church (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1997), 84.
[4] Dei Verbum 15 (Vatican Translation).
[5]“ Now the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, set out, and about the heat of the day they came to the house of Ishbosheth, as he was taking his noonday rest. And behold, the doorkeeper of the house had been cleaning wheat, but she grew drowsy and slept; so Rechab and Baanah his brother slipped in. When they came into the house, as he lay on his bed in his bedchamber, they smote him, and slew him, and beheaded him. They took his head, and went by the way of the Arabah all night, and brought the head of Ishbosheth to David at Hebron. And they said to the king, ‘Here is the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life; the LORD has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring’” (2 Sam 4:5-8 RSV).
[6] St Neilos the Ascetic, “Ascetic Discourse” in The Philokalia. Volume I. Trans. And ed. By G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1983), 210.
[7] Origen, “On First Principles” in ANF(4), 364.
[8] Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (March 18, 1994), III-B.2
[9] St Edith Stein, “Ways to know God” in Knowledge and Faith. Trans. Walter Redmond (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2000), 103.
[10] Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, I-F.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
Not to mention how great they look with red patent leather shoes!
That is your opinion, of course. Not fact.
Actually, the Catholic Church is the only one that IS historical, Biblical, accurate, full of common sense, and spiritually full. We have the fullness of the faith; the other thousands of Protestant religions only have the fragmented bits and pieces they chose. It’s like they took a book off the shelves at the library and said, “This is IT and this is all I need to know and believe” leaving all the other books unopened!
Today at Mass, as we celebrated the Ascension, we read, in the Bible, that after He rose Christ continued to teach the Apostles. This is crucial because it means He gave them teachings that are not all spelled out in Scripture. “I have many things to say to you: but you cannot bear them now.But when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth.” (John 16:10-16) He also says in that passage that the Spirit will show them things, meaning there is more teaching and learning to be done!
We also know from Scripture that if everything Christ did, said and taught was in the Bible it would be too big for the world to contain! (John 21:25) The things that are written down are there to help us believe Jesus is the Messiah. Not to teach us everything we need to know, but to help us believe. That’s a huge difference. See John 20:30-31.
You are so right, MarkBsnr. And thank you for all your beautiful posts.
We are going to be a leaner, healthier, more vital, and more convicted Church in the time to come.
My theory is that we lived the era of the Father during the Old Testament days. We’ve just completed the era of the Son and have now begun the era of the Spirit. It will be a time when the laity must step up and take a more active role in the Church. We will be tested by fire (hence, the tongues of fire and the fire in the last days) and the faithful remnant will triumph.
My reaction exactly.
No, this whole thread began because the article opined that interpreting the Bible like a Fundamentalist is simplistic. I read the article and, if you go way back, you’ll see that my first comment on the thread is on that article. I wrote about one line in the article that I agreed with.
Oh, wait, that’s the comment that started you writing to me on this thread, so I would think you actually do remember that.
I’m posting this comment to you again since you didn’t respond to any point I made in it:
The Jews are the Chosen People and are beloved by God. I assume they will not die out either. But Catholicism, the new Covenant begun and sanctified by Christ, will not die out either. Christ promised He would be with us to the end, guiding us and teaching us. He instituted this Church to reach out to all men.
It doesn’t matter which theologians outside the one, holy, and apostolic Church you want to consider. They have no bearing on the Truth followed by the Catholic Church.
I thought I had read in one of your posts that you were reared as a Christian. Yet you wrote: “Why, was he a higher critic too? I guess that’s why he died from suffocation (heneq)” and that surprised me. If I am recalling correctly, then I don’t think I need to explain to you why Christ had to die.
Christ lived out the fulfillment of the Passover, foreshadowed to the Jews. God instituted the Passover to help the Jews recognize the truth when Christ appeared as the Messiah. The spotless Lamb was sacrificed to save. Indeed, the Bread of Life was hidden away in a piece of linen, in the tomb, just as the bread is broken and hidden away during the Passover meal. Christ’s blood was used to mark his followers and protect them for all eternity.
I’ve read some very interesting books about the Jewish festivals and how each one foreshadows Christ and the course mankind will take. Let me know if you would like the titles.
And since "reading the Bible like a Fundamentalist" means accepting the facticity of the events it relates and rejecting the idea that it mixes mythological elements with truth, then obviously you reject the historicity of the Biblical events and believe it contains some mythical elements (and even some errors in matters not touching "faith and morals").
Thanks for clearing that up.
There is nothing “obvious” about that. I said in my first comment what I believed.
I don’t think you’re allowed to tell me what I think.
Glad to clear THAT up.
It doesn’t matter which theologians outside the one, holy, and apostolic Church you want to consider. They have no bearing on the Truth followed by the Catholic Church.
I thought I had read in one of your posts that you were reared as a Christian. Yet you wrote: “Why, was he a higher critic too? I guess that’s why he died from suffocation (heneq)” and that surprised me. If I am recalling correctly, then I don’t think I need to explain to you why Christ had to die.
Christ lived out the fulfillment of the Passover, foreshadowed to the Jews. God instituted the Passover to help the Jews recognize the truth when Christ appeared as the Messiah. The spotless Lamb was sacrificed to save. Indeed, the Bread of Life was hidden away in a piece of linen, in the tomb, just as the bread is broken and hidden away during the Passover meal. Christ’s blood was used to mark his followers and protect them for all eternity.
I’ve read some very interesting books about the Jewish festivals and how each one foreshadows Christ and the course mankind will take. Let me know if you would like the titles.
Since you have just condemned "simplistic" readings of the bible, and all this that you have stated is, in fact, simplistic, I must confess that it is quite impossible to communicate with you.
Catholic exegesis does not claim any particular scientific method as its own. It recognizes that one of the aspects of biblical texts is that they are the work of human authors, who employed both their own capacities for expression and the means which their age and social context put at their disposal. Consequently Catholic exegesis freely makes use of the scientific methods and approaches which allow a better grasp of the meaning of texts in their linguistic, literary, socio-cultural, religious and historical contexts, while explaining them as well through studying their sources and attending to the personality of each author (cf. "Divino Afflante Spiritu: Ench. Bibl." 557). Catholic exegesis actively contributes to the development of new methods and to the progress of research.
What characterizes Catholic exegesis is that it deliberately places itself within the living tradition of the church, whose first concern is fidelity to the revelation attested by the Bible. Modern hermeneutics has made clear, as we have noted, the impossibility of interpreting a text without starting from a "pre-understanding" of one type or another.
Catholic exegetes approach the biblical text with a pre-understanding which holds closely together modern scientific culture and the religious tradition emanating from Israel and from the early Christian community. Their interpretation stands thereby in continuity with a dynamic pattern of interpretation that is found within the Bible itself and continues in the life of the church. This dynamic pattern corresponds to the requirement that there be a lived affinity between the interpreter and the object, an affinity which constitutes, in fact, one of the conditions that makes the entire exegetical enterprise possible.
All pre-understanding, however, brings dangers with it. As regards Catholic exegesis, the risk is that of attributing to biblical texts a meaning which they do not contain but which is the product of a later development within the tradition. The exegete must beware of such a danger.
There's more, but I won't belabor the point. You really ought to read the entire document.
A lot of the big-time historical-critical hermeneutic crowd are into the theory of a proto-gospel ("Q"). I don't buy off on that one so much.
On the other hand, it helps my understanding to know that Mark was a companion of Peter and that Luke was a companion to Paul. The fact that it is likely that Matthew was originally written in Aramaic is also of interest and the fact that the author of John was the only apostle who wasn't martyred was of interest, as well. All of these help provide some interesting historical insight that helps me, personally, understand them. In other words, you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. The liberal Protestants, whom you bemoan, as well as the Fundamentalists, whom I bemoan, are both at opposite ends of the spectrum. In doing so they both miss the mark.
I actually have heard people say that Peter settled in Mesopotamia. Why? Because of this verse in 1 Peter 5: She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark. Never mind that the term Babylon was used as code for Rome (he never had a problem identifying the RCC as "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH" though...go figure)
I probably am a heretic, though. Because I actually pay attention to what the Church has written about social justice rather than what liberal SJ types (including not a few bishops) claim the Church says.
Jesus said as quoted in Matthew 28:19
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Course, the ORDER he used meant nothing?
Which disallows the "dictation" you claimed just a few replies to go to believe in. I'd ask you which is which, but apparently, like J, E, P, and D, you are a composite being.
WOW! That's sure a LOT MORE UNMITIGATED NONSENSE & DISTORTIONS OF OBJECTIVE REALITY ON A LIST OF COUNTS.
A LOT has changed under the Vatican umbrella. Y'all did not get it right in a list of ways from your founding 300-400 AD on. And y'all have a long list of aberations that are tolerated if not rewarded [e.g. wayward politicos courted and even celebrated by the system]. The whole charade about it being a homogeneous seamless system for 1600 years is an utter farce.
TIME AND THE LORD WILL TELL
where the facts are and are not.
I understand exactly what he said.
BTW the church did to even before Nicea.
They did not need the Romans who persecuted and killed them to tell them what the “Word” said.
And it's very painful.
But it persists.
Now,it seems to me we can just sit around and throw rocks at each other, or we could try patiently not only to understand what the other guy is saying, but why what we say bounces right off.
I mean, the Vatican Edifice. It's kind of an embarrassment to me but it has just never been a theological problem. Borgia popes? Popes appointing their bastards to be bishop of Kalamazoo? Embarrassing, funny, irrelevant.
And the rubber dictionary: As I said the other day, the simplicity of God is too much for our language. And precisely BECAUSE the matter under consideration is objective, and not a fignewton of our imagination,we struggle, and we misstate stuff we've all (all us edifice-lovers) agreed on, and we differ among ourselves.
Melian said something about "new doctrines", I think. For ME, that is a FATAL misstatement. There are new developments, new unfoldings, but whatever somebody doesn't like the Catholic Church may say, to us, in our view, the Marian dogmata of the 19th and 20th centuries developed from the controversies of Ephesus and Chalcedon, and they developed and were resolved, under the guidance of the Spirit, from the archaic witness.
So I mention that as one example of how a careless expression (as I see it -- no offense, Melian) can lead to the appearance of a rubber dictionary.
There are also the problems of "sampling". One reasons Zen Buddhism enjoyed such a vogue in the US was that the literature was exotic and featured all the heroes over the centuries of Buddhism. The alcoholic Roshi who sleeps with his students generally does not make it into the annals of the great ones.
And the general impression one gets of Catholicism from the outside is hordes of people showing excited devotion or engaging in strange cultic acts. And the media are full of stories of "recovering Catholics", while the genial learned piety and rich good works of many Catholics is unnoticed.
MOST of the non-Catholics here are no more representative of their denominations than most of the Catholics are of ours. So I think there's a little comparing the more learned and committed non-Catholics to the hordes as presented by TV or as encountered among peasants who haven't had the best of educations and are not really concerned about articulating their faith correctly.
And finally, on the Mary thing,I think there is a real confusion between affection and love. Kids may shower more enthusiastic affection on grandma when she visits. But it would be wrong to think they prefer her to their mother. Mutatis mutandis with Mary and Jesus.
Don’t know that I have a brilliant response.
I’m more than a little weary of it, too.
If y’all don’t like edifice, then suggest a mutually acceptable alternative.
Clearly we think that there is a good reason for the secretariat in charge of the Pope's left earlobe and all the rest of it. We don't think it's a priori a bad thing. We'd like to have a chance to discuss it.
Heck, we think some of it is very good. Although Chief Taney of the reprehensible Dred Scott decision was Catholic, the Church had, around two centuries earlier come out strongly against enslaving indigenous Americans. That ain't bad! Why don't we hear about it?
IS it a good thing to have a loose chaotic organization which, as I said here years ago, is more like an avalanche than an organization? Or is the loose and ever shifting, dividing, and recombining minestrone of Protestant and other non-Catholic bodies preferable?
The whole array of questions just simply cannot be addressed to ANYBODY's benefit if it's all going to be done with name calling and mocking laughter.
The question of reason, faith, revelation, and inspiration-- that's a heck of a good question! A serious patient effort to understand what we think we're doing when we anathematize a doctrine or excommunicate a person would be nice.
It's not just you, or you all -- or here. I worked for a guy who bragged that his non-Catholic father, when told by a priest that the Catholic Church does not ordinarily give communion to non-Catholics, took a candle stick from the altar and swung it hard into the priest's abdomen!
So a Catholic priest in the US is considered meritorious game and deserving of felonious assault for doing his job. Think about that. I'm not really complaining, or not ONLY complaining. When I hear a story like that or when I come here and find that the vast majority of non-Catholics bring an amazing hostility and anger toward us I really consider my decision to become Catholic to be confirmed. Just as the persistent unreasoning anger and seemingly willful insistence on misunderstanding helped me to decide to be consecrated to Mary, so this conversation which goes nowhere and resolves nothing strengthens my commitment to be a Catholic Christian while it grieves me.
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