I admit it, I find this really funny. Well, no. It's not a mocking laughter. It's pure astonishment. How can you be surprised that your doctrinal standards are ignored? You're committed to the notion that Christ's Church is fundamentally invisible; of course people will be provisional and selective in their submission to the product of the visible ecclesiastical expression! That's what this ecclesiology does. That's what it teaches men to do. The very same rationale that marched Luther and the Reformers out of the Catholic Church shatters Protestant communites now: "Well, yes indeed, this is an impressive edifice. But the true gospel is X, and we're preserving it over here." Ecclesial Nestorianism. Could be a good reason, could be a bad reason, but the individual decides the extent of the authority over him. The only legitimate points y'all can score against "me and my Bible" amount to a charge of historical ignorance. The monuments themselves, the means by which that authority functions as an authority, have been divested of their true significance.
I can know with full confidence that the dogmas of the Catholic Church are true, because the means by which they come to me are the organs through which the gift of infallibility is exercised. It's not a surrender of reason to do this; it is a recognition that I cannot and was never meant to be my own interpretive authority. (Tim nods.) But if the visible church is a true mediating authority, then it and only it has the trump card. The Church cannot be an immaterial concept whose true size and shape are determined by me, even if I don't realize I'm doing it! How many times, on social media, have you seen a link to a news story about suffering, or some outlandish statement by a fundie, followed by someone saying, "The Church should say/do something!" Are you asking me? Am I asking myself? A LOT. And it's annoying, precisely because no one I've ever known defines precisely what they are talking about, whether they mean "Nebulous immaterial mental concept defined by me" Church or "my ecclesial community" church. The worst part of trying to be a Protestant was the realization that these two realities had no necessary connection to each other. But they were both very real and present to me. Something had to give.
There are literally millions of ordinary evangelical Protestants in the US alone who wouldn't dare question the doctrinal pronouncements of those in authority over them. They believe those people sent by God, and gifted to declare truth when challenged. But it is at this point that the history-based critique from the Catholic Church has its greatest power. "Were they in fact sent by God?" says Holy Mother Church.
Others see no problem with a concept that has no referent in the physical world. They're just reading the Bible maybe, loving Jesus, and loving people. Most often, to be honest, I've found these people to be ones who don't like to think too hard. When the God of grace moves them out of this warm complacency, it's because they don't recognize the Jesus someone is offering. They end up in the previous paragraph. And then, God willing, they come Home.
Perhaps some element of the historical data fails to make the point for you that the Catholic Church is the Church founded by Jesus Christ. I understand that, and respect that. The data only serves to make the claim very plausible, not absolutely certain. But one cannot escape the realities I have laid out above. It is at bottom unreasonable to believe any particular set of doctrine X under these conditions over against another set Y under the same conditions. I was more open to the Catholic claims when I saw this.
I can know with full confidence that the dogmas of the Catholic Church are true, because the means by which they come to me are the organs through which the gift of infallibility is exercised. It's not a surrender of reason to do this; it is a recognition that I cannot and was never meant to be my own interpretive authority. (Tim nods.) But if the visible church is a true mediating authority, then it and only it has the trump card. The Church cannot be an immaterial concept whose true size and shape are determined by me, even if I don't realize I'm doing it! How many times, on social media, have you seen a link to a news story about suffering, or some outlandish statement by a fundie, followed by someone saying, "The Church should say/do something!" Are you asking me? Am I asking myself? A LOT. And it's annoying, precisely because no one I've ever known defines precisely what they are talking about, whether they mean "Nebulous immaterial mental concept defined by me" Church or "my ecclesial community" church. The worst part of trying to be a Protestant was the realization that these two realities had no necessary connection to each other. But they were both very real and present to me. Something had to give.
There are literally millions of ordinary evangelical Protestants in the US alone who wouldn't dare question the doctrinal pronouncements of those in authority over them. They believe those people sent by God, and gifted to declare truth when challenged. But it is at this point that the history-based critique from the Catholic Church has its greatest power. "Were they in fact sent by God?" says Holy Mother Church.
Others see no problem with a concept that has no referent in the physical world. They're just reading the Bible maybe, loving Jesus, and loving people. Most often, to be honest, I've found these people to be ones who don't like to think too hard. When the God of grace moves them out of this warm complacency, it's because they don't recognize the Jesus someone is offering. They end up in the previous paragraph. And then, God willing, they come Home.
Perhaps some element of the historical data fails to make the point for you that the Catholic Church is the Church founded by Jesus Christ. I understand that, and respect that. The data only serves to make the claim very plausible, not absolutely certain. But one cannot escape the realities I have laid out above. It is at bottom unreasonable to believe any particular set of doctrine X under these conditions over against another set Y under the same conditions. I was more open to the Catholic claims when I saw this.
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