Desperately seeking Logos

  • Thread starter Thread starter logoscentric
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
L

logoscentric

Guest
Hi!

I’m brand new, and excited to be here.

I took first communion in ~'90 and took a detour from the church soon after. Never confirmed. A lot has transpired since then, and the church has always seemed like an enemy, but I have been looking at my biases lately and, after years of staunch agnosticism, I am ready to reconsider. Jordan Peterson has been helpful in this re-evaluation with regards to Christianity broadly and Catholicism in particular.

I don’t really know where to begin.

I have read “Mere Christianity” and Brandon Vogt’s “Why I Am Catholic” recently and my girlfriend and I have been attending a local church over the past few months.

Catholicism appeals to me. I would say I believe and live by many of the core doctrines, but there are many things that are discouraging me from taking further steps.

I BELIEVE
  • There is a conscious (even human-like) creator of the universe—or at least I can work with that.
  • It is possible that there was a human Christ who exemplified the highest good possible and was, in a manner of speaking, a representative of that highest good/truth.
  • It is possible for the church to be a moral authority and to have an understanding of the will of that Godly creator/mind behind the universe and beyond all reality
  • The Logos is the ordering principle—it is what humans and God have in common. I tend to understand it as creativity OR, the ability to make something out of nothing. I understand that the Word/Logos is said to have been embodied in Christ, but again, I see that as saying “Here was a historical man who was the highest example of the highest principle we can imagine”.
I STRUGGLE WITH
  • The church’s stance on homosexuality. I believe that people are more than their sexuality, and I think that the union between man and woman is sacred, but I have trouble accepting that there aren’t cases where a man can love another man or a woman can’t love another woman and have that serve an even higher good than “babies” or even “union”.
  • I don’t like the view of sin as simply “bad”. I DO believe that most things that are considered a sin can lead to bad and even evil things.
  • I have trouble with the idea of the resurrection. A lot of trouble. It seems strange that it’s “okay” to interpret the Old Testament as mostly symbolic, but that the New Testament should be interpreted as literal. Or at least that’s how I understand it.
  • It seems like many interpret the idea of “Christ dying for our sins” too shallowly. I don’t like the implication that this absolves us from the responsibility to be Christ-like in our own lives. It seems like it would be more functional to say that Christ died to set an example of what it means to embrace reality fully and that example has been sufficient to change the course of humanity and provide a blueprint for the personal journey through suffering, transformation and symbolic resurrection.
I’m looking forward to engaging with some of these questions and more and hopefully meeting some fellow travelers here. I’m of course open to hearing from anyone on these (very open-ended) statements, or I’ll just plan on seeing you around when I post more specifically.

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
I am going to recommend a really good book. It’s Frank Sheed’s Theology and Sanity. It is so good and goes over why Christianity makes sense. It is a somewhat heady book but it makes you think about things as much as C.S. Lewis does. That’s what helped my brilliant (he could have been a rocket scientist) Grandpa become Catholic after being an anti-Catholic.

But good luck in your journey and don’t be a stranger around here.
 
Entwhistler said:
’s Frank Sheed’s Theology and Sanity. It is so good and goes over why Christianity makes sense. It is a somewhat heady book but it makes you think about things as much as C.S. Lewis does. That’s what helped my brilliant (he could have been a rocket scientist) Grandpa become Catholic after being an anti-Catholic.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll check it out.
 
Usually I step on at least one of them in the middle of the night. Darn kids.
 
Protestants are usually the ones that say that Christ died for our sins and that you don’t have to anything except believe, but this differs from denomination. The Catholic Church has a focus on obtaining sanctity through the Sacraments and devotions and things like that. In fact the Pope has made an apostolic extortion about holiness.
 
Welcome Logoscentric!

I think you will enjoy your time here.

Brittany had great advice. All of your pros and cons could be discussed for a long time. Presenting them separately is a good idea.

Don’t be afraid to be an occasional contrarian. It makes life more interesting.

HS
 
Thanks that’s helpful. I was a little discouraged when my post about my first question on the list was blocked. So it’s helpful to have the encouragement. Cheers!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top