Sure it works. Just because a camper can go to the full service camping store that has everything he needs, doesn’t mean he has the experience to get all the right stuff on his first or second shopping trip. That’s what instruction is for. Under any system, yours, mine, or someone else’s, there will be a lot of diversity at the fringes, but people of good will tend to grow into and converge on a shared body of truth as they gain knowledge.
That’s why I keep bringing up Aquinas. Its part of natural law theory. Reason is good. God made reason so we could discover truth, so we could know more about Him. Sin takes reason off course, but then there’s the Holy Spirit to put it back on course. Not out of emotional whimsy, but out of a sincere struggle to know what is true.
Look at everything we DO agree on. Blessed Trinity. Christ as Messiah, God-man, Savior. The Resurrection. That people with faith will also have works. The sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. The sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. The profitability of Scripture. And much much more. It is only in certain select areas we run into trouble. And a lot of that has to do with history, not the Biblical text.
This is why I actually agree, in a reverse sort of way, with something stpio has been saying. I think there will be a convergence among believers as we get closer to the gate. But it won’t support any one particular human institution so much as it will drive us all to the glorified Jesus, who will so transcend our petty quarrels here we will forget them entirely. I look forward to that.
Peace,
SR
No it doesn’t work.
It results in radically different doctrines and teachings of salvation, who God is, who Man is, what our relationship is. These are not ‘fringes.’
>>> But it won’t support any one particular human institution
It will support every human being his own arbiter of scripture and doctrine. It supports the heretic proclaiming scripture supports him.
What it won’t support is One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
We share an admiration for Acquinas, however there are realities that cannot be known by reason alone. What makes religion religion is the parts that transcend Reason's ability to know.
With the Enlightenment and the split of the spheres of knowledge into science, reason and revelation, revelation was "known" by the authority of the Church. Thus one could follow reason without becoming a rationalist or positivist - and continue to be an orthodox Christian.
With the split of the Reformation,the "authority" became each individual- via sola scriptura. And orthodoxy became just one opinion on scripture; heresy another. The "truth" of the Christian faith is up to the individual; the objective, absolute, orthodox, transcendent, catholic truths of Christianity became subjective, varied and heterodox.
“That’s what instruction is for. Under any system, yours, mine, or someone else’s, there will be a lot of diversity at the fringes, but people of good will tend to grow into and converge on a shared body of truth as they gain knowledge.
That’s why I keep bringing up Aquinas...
This is why I actually agree, in a reverse sort of way, with something stpio has been saying. I think there will be a convergence among believers as we get closer to the gate. But it won’t support any one particular human institution so much as it will drive us all to the glorified Jesus, who will so transcend our petty quarrels here we will forget them entirely. I look forward to that.
~ ~ ~
Hi SR,
God does not want “diversity” in belief. “Good will” hasn’t brought Protestantism together, you all are known by your inconsistent beliefs.
You bring up Aquinas but will not discuss his devotion the most Holy Eucharist. Everyone should talk about the Eucharist. Ask Catholics a question.
How can Our Lord return soon as many Protestants believe, do you not wonder which non-Catholic group will Our Lord confirm, tell the world is His Church? “Petty quarrels” cause Protestantism to divide and divide and divide? What is going to bring you all together and how about most of Christianity, Catholicism? Will Catholics accept the one chosen group Jesus reveals? Protestants stop there and only say Jesus is coming soon.
There’s an “institution” Jesus established that He is going
to soon “awaken” every person on the earth to, Roman Catholicism. It is the faith. God doesn’t do anything without revealing it first. Prophecy is saying this, confirming, making Rev 6:15-17 more explicit. God is gently preparing non-Catholic Christians in their messages. God doesn’t give specific dates, what if 2013 is the year?
1 Cor 1:10
Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that you be perfect in the same mind, and in the same judgment.