Unless we deplore what's actually deplorable, we're missing the point. Or the boat, if you like. We must distinguish between revelation and human opinion. We must be able to say, "No matter who fails and how, this is the doctrine of God." The very heart of the Protestant revolt makes this impossible, because Sola Scriptura makes the individual the arbiter of divine revelation. It not only rent the Western Church, but it dooms all those rival communities to eventual irrelevance, first, by dilution of cultural influence by pluralism, but more insidiously, because the individual submits to himself. Ecclesial fallibility is the only true gift of the Protestant revolt, and it eventually destroys all orthodoxy.
I see little point in celebrating historical developments in Protestant theology, as though 500 years stacks up against 2000. Unless "we were wrong the whole time" is a live option, you're not going to bridge the gap. To borrow Devin Rose, if Protestantism is true, the Church was wrong in every age, not just that one. We've got to come to terms with the difference in paradigms, and realize,--contra Leithart--that the unfortunate anti-ecclesial and anti-historical trends in evangelical theology are not the result of ill-tempered bomb-throwers, but the logical outcome of Reformation principles consistently applied. A Christian severed from the living memory of the Church is exactly as bad off as he sounds, no matter how desperately he longs to maintain that Tradition while refusing to return. Perhaps like many of us before, he does this in ignorance. But the earnest heart demands he pull the threads of truth together until he finds himself at the foot of Peter's chair. There is no orthodoxy without the Catholic Church.
I see little point in celebrating historical developments in Protestant theology, as though 500 years stacks up against 2000. Unless "we were wrong the whole time" is a live option, you're not going to bridge the gap. To borrow Devin Rose, if Protestantism is true, the Church was wrong in every age, not just that one. We've got to come to terms with the difference in paradigms, and realize,--contra Leithart--that the unfortunate anti-ecclesial and anti-historical trends in evangelical theology are not the result of ill-tempered bomb-throwers, but the logical outcome of Reformation principles consistently applied. A Christian severed from the living memory of the Church is exactly as bad off as he sounds, no matter how desperately he longs to maintain that Tradition while refusing to return. Perhaps like many of us before, he does this in ignorance. But the earnest heart demands he pull the threads of truth together until he finds himself at the foot of Peter's chair. There is no orthodoxy without the Catholic Church.
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