I guess I have to challenge you to souvlaki at 15 paces.
I think I asked you before, but please suggest a title of +Palamas. The next book on my list is Cassian, who was much loved of Dominic.
I think the holy man is mistaken about us. But, it's true, I could be the one who is mistaken.
It seems to me that every theology is, so to speak, a step down from the basic idea. So I always read the guys your writer disparages as not ultimate. Even Anselm, who makes it hard, is only one (or more) step below the real truth, which is apophatic — or very nearly.
For me where the rubber met the road was in the encounter with patients, especially children and their families, in the hospital. Certainly theology INFORMED my work with them. But not so that I could parse their sins or mete out graces with a teaspoon. It was more about committing my body and my mind, and of course my words and gestures, to be a vehicle and conduit of THE Love.
I am well aware that my Order produced Aquinas. And I do not apologize. He was very great.
I am also all too aware of the great number of Catholics who are all about the guilt and the penalties, who treat the whole thing as an accounting transaction or a trial. Maybe it's my naivete, but I do not think bthe writers your Reverend gentleman calls slanderers are to blame for those who think God is something one approaches as if one were baking a cake or solving a puzzle.
And, again, almost ALL Catholic theology is driven by an evangelical and apologetic mission. I guess I always think, when I'm teaching: Look, it's KIND of like this. But not really. What it's REALLY like, no words can say.
Last year I realized the difference between a good Catholic teacher and a GREAT Catholic teacher. The good one teaches the right answer. The GREAT one lights a fire for the Truth. I have seen both.
The Triads