Notes from the past

[CelticWarlord]

I was browsing old posts in the archive of a forum elsewhere which used to be very busy and is now barely hanging on with only a handful of people logging in each day. I found this post, one I made exactly seven years ago today;

While watching Theological Roundtable on EWTN this morning I heard a very interesting statement from one of the panel, something I had never before considered though it is quite true. He said- “many protestant denominations rely solely for inspiration on the Bible and in so doing severely restrict their understanding of God.” I know of many people who do this very thing. Every idea on morals or religious practice put forth must have a scripture to back it up or there is no validity for them. I knew of two fellows on another forum who were critical of those who read anything but the bible. The panel member on today’s program went on to say that this limits our knowledge to little more than grammar and diction, leaving no room for any other inspiration and completely ignores the historical context of pretty much the whole text. “We’re not mathematicians working out set formulas on a blackboard” he said. I found this very enlightening. <<<

What interested me about this is that, later in the post, I mentioned having not yet attended Mass myself, which dates for me precisely when my interest in Catholicism began (earlier than I would have guessed. How time flies!). The other thing is that it also helps provide another point of view on an oft-repeated question here about answering our Protestant friends who criticize Catholicism for not adhering exclusively to the bible.

I know this topic has been done many times, and most thoroughly I might add. I’m just taking a quick trip down memory lane.

 

[adamhovey1988]

I was always confused about the people who said that Catholics take the Bible too literally, and will be critical of the Galileo Affair, and some of those same people ironically, say that we don’t read the Bible at all, so I’m very confused. Well, which is it, do we take the Bible too literally, or do we not read it all? I live in the Southern United States, so I’ve heard both arguments more than I care to.

 

[Dan_Defender]

It is not only the attitude of Protestants to make the Bible more or less their idol, it is that it is not even the real Bible: incomplete, misinterpreted, devoid of its true purpose.

 

[po18guy]

Very nice. Spiritual progress indeed! Some echoes of cognitive rambling:

1. The “Word of God” is not merely printed. How can an eternal, infinite God transmit His will via grossly imperfect human language? Language which He purposefully confused and limited so that we would not make idols of ourselves?
2. In that same vein, the Word of God, whether Christ in the Flesh, written on paper, spoken orally or transmitted via a hug or tears, is meant to free us.
3. Demanding only written words takes much of the God out of God. It confines us to the vagaries of human communication and interaction, thus inserting the ego into the process.
4. It requires linguistics, dictionaries, committees and all manner of human constructs which are not needed by God in the slightest.
5. What is written is only a fraction - a tiny one at that - of God’s communication with mankind. Do we desire only enough to just squeak by?
6. The Sacraments are God’s chosen via of grace, although He is not limited to or by them. However, once one rejects the Sacraments, it becomes like closing the shutters on a window. Oh, some light peeks through no matter what, but how much less and consequently how much more difficult to revel in that light! It is eating morsels when God offers a banquet.
7. For many of these reasons, and more, theology any deeper than the elementary level appears as man-made, fabricated or even worse. But, when those eyes are opened, the vast array which lies before one is almost incomprehensible.