Replies

Yes.

They are enough "all over the place" that if one wants to one can draw a false conclusion. This is not simply done.

Your side tends to bring to the discussion the prejudicial principle that the Church has been in decline since early on and until you all came along. Alternatively there is the small remnant, too small for any conclusive data to exist to prove its existence, which kept the flickering flame alive in the storm of papist oppression .... and so on.

In a parallel way, hour side tends to think of English Common law as the ONLY paradigm for law.

But our view is one of continuing unfolding and refinement, of increased detail and nuance. So the broad principle is articulate by, say Augustine, while the refining element, well attested in Scripture, lives in tension with the broad principle.

Just as (in our view) stress and dialog led to the divinely assisted conclusion about what to do with the uncircumcized, so also with the Trinity, and the relationship between Christ and God, and with the union of two natures in one Christ, and with the relationship between grace and will.

After all, we can choose to go with a disastrously oversimplified explanation such as that of Calvin's. OR we can acknowledge that these are mysteries beyond (but not contradicting) reason, and therefore expression, and that over time, the firm points, the landmarks will be determines and their location ascertained and we will achieve formulae but not exhaustive depictions which will put an end to all questions.

I think the latter is the correct, or MORE correct, view and I think it is the view of the Church.

For example, Aquinas did not END the conversation on the Eucharist. But he discovered the fixed points within which all subsequent discussion must take place.