Having to believe doctrine before being able to unite with God is a misconception that I think has been drilled into many Catholics.
If you really think about it, the Creed contains teachings about Jesus, but not actually the teachings “of” Jesus, except for those structural items that Church has outlined in the creed.
Jesus said “whoever believes in me” note He did not say, “whoever believes what is taught about me.”
John 5:24 we have: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life.”
So here it’s “believe in the one who sent me…” again, not in the doctrine thereabout. In other references, it is about the one who “believes in me” in
other examples.
One of the reasons I make this point, is that Paul was frustrated with people who were arguing about the quality of their baptism based on who did the baptism. Plus remember back then very few people were even literate, and they were not educated. So it would be kind of unfair for God to expect them to be scholars… and yet we seem to have taken combative roles to “protect” our own teachings, against other who are also perhaps lovers of Christ but think slightly differently about this or that dotted I or crossed T.
Here’s what Paul was saying about those who were arguing:
1 Cor 1:17
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.
Paul continues:
1 Cor 1:18-25
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the learning of the learned I will set aside.”
Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith. For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
In general, we have become as a whole, giving utmost importance to “head knowledge” and intellectualizing about God, when these are not the key teachings of Jesus.
It kind of surprises me how frequently 1 Cor 13 is read at weddings – and not just Catholic – and yet we place our hope in everlasting life on becoming better and better at all these things in an effort to please God. This is what they had before Jesus – believe and say the right things and do the right things to please God, but oops sorry that is impossible for man with original sin. So they were kind of stuck until Jesus came to show that the law itself is not capable of defining or requiring “love” per se, by allowing an innocent man to be condemned by the law – thus He ended the power of the “law of sin and death” that Paul refers to in Romans.
How can anybody possibly read the following, and continue to conclude that a fervent study of the academic teachings about God are what “saves” us?
1 Cor 13
1 If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. 2 **And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. **3 If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, 5 it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, 6 it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails.** If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.** 9 For we know partially and we prophesy partially, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. 12 At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. 13 So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Here Paul specifically orders “love” as greater than “faith” as well. Putting all this together, I conclude that although the teachings are helpful and useful toward formation of conscience, that it is a different dimension than the “love” dimension that Jesus came to teach about. They had theology before Jesus, but never a clear example of what “love” is.
