Question for my fellow Catholic Apologists

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I have discovered, the more I study and interact with people, that I can find great answers to questions about political ideas, opinions, etc in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I was accused recently of being ‘unable to see anything unless (I) am looking through glasses tainted with dogmatic ideas’.

Ok, maybe what I would like to have is some bolstering from my fellow Catholics but I think my response - that Truth is not subjective and that I arrive at my opinions on everything by applying Truth and my personal experiences to the question asked of me - was a good one.

I would like to hear from more experienced Apologists - what would have been a better answer?

Thank you and God Bless you ALL…
 
Isn’t objective, verifiable truth somewhat dogmatic by its very nature? 🙂
Pax tecum,
 
well, that’s what I thought…so do you think the answer I gave was ok?
I remembered what Father Corapi says - that the fact that someone doesn’t accept or believe the Truth doesn’t change its nature.
 
The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a man of his age.

–Chesterton

I may have paraphrased that somewhat, but it sounds about right.
 
LSK said:
I have discovered, the more I study and interact with people, that I can find great answers to questions about political ideas, opinions, etc in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I was accused recently of being ‘unable to see anything unless (I) am looking through glasses tainted with dogmatic ideas’.

Ok, maybe what I would like to have is some bolstering from my fellow Catholics but I think my response - that Truth is not subjective and that I arrive at my opinions on everything by applying Truth and my personal experiences to the question asked of me - was a good one.
I think your answer was great. Dogma is divinely revealed truth. If you are accused of seeing things through the lens of dogma - or in light of dogma - it means you are seeing things in light of the truth.
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LSK said:
I have discovered, the more I study and interact with people, that I can find great answers to questions about political ideas, opinions, etc in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I was accused recently of being ‘unable to see anything unless (I) am looking through glasses tainted with dogmatic ideas’.

Ok, maybe what I would like to have is some bolstering from my fellow Catholics but I think my response - that Truth is not subjective and that I arrive at my opinions on everything by applying Truth and my personal experiences to the question asked of me - was a good one.

I would like to hear from more experienced Apologists - what would have been a better answer?

Thank you and God Bless you ALL…
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If you told us what the question is, the appropriateness (or not) of the answer would be clearer 🙂​

After all, the CCC is no good as a textbook on the properties of plastics - so questions about what pressure per square inch can be supported by a plastic sheet four inches thick won’t be answered there 🙂

Doctrinal sources can answer some questions, and only some - they can’t be used as encyclopaedias, or as histories of the Religious orders, or as guides to DIY.

And truth is not static - it is expressed in words, & words have histories, & represent ideas; which also have histories. This is why it is mistaken to assume that because (say) the Church today is fairly centralised, it must have been the same in the year 50. Doctrinexs ha histories - that transubstantiation is true, does not mean that St. Peter ever heard of it, or that King David wrote a treatise on it which is now lost.

Christianity is a religion which is based on certain historical events in a specific part of a now defunct empire - it is not a group of timeless ideas unaffected by events in history. And like other historical things, it has gone through periods of growth, flowering, decay, death, rebirth. To think of it as static, free of history, changeless, is to fall into the same mistake as many Protestants seem to - the mistake of thinking that because it is divine, it must have been let down from Heaven. That is not how the Word became flesh, & it is not how faith in Him arose. God works to save man, not by ignoring human history, but by entering into it. And the Church exists in the same way - within history, not floating in a world of Platonic Ideas unconnected with human life. Divine faith, the gift of God, comes to us where we are - not in isolation or independence from our lives. That would deny the reality of the Incarnation. ##
 
LSK said:
I was accused recently of being ‘unable to see anything unless (I) am looking through glasses tainted with dogmatic ideas’.
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To which I would respond, “Was I wearing these glasses when I was a Protestant? Was I wearing them when I first realized that Catholicism is True? Was I wearing them when I decided to become Catholic?”

If I wasn’t wearing them as a Protestant, when did I get them? If I was, then how is that any different than the glasses all other Protestants wear?

Jeremy
 
The fact that someone would call the way you look at things tainted clearly show us how subjective they are. There is no such thing as protestantism and objectivity, and they are more subjective in there methodology then we are. I would say thank you for noticing my faith and zeal for scripture and God, for if it wasnt for us Catholics you would know the word of God. Many of your thoughts and traditions are based off the Catholic church and i am really excited talking with you because if you are christian, your conversion to Catholicism is almost complete.
 
LSK said:
I was accused recently of being ‘unable to see anything unless (I) am looking through glasses tainted with dogmatic ideas’.
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I get accused of similar by some other Catholics when discussing the war in Iraq and income taxes to name a couple of topics. Truth seems to still be subjective. I have also had it said to me that the parables of Jesus in the Gospels are not applicable to Catholics today. Truth seems to be time limited.
 
Actually, “tainted” implies a deviation from the desired product. Assuming the desired product is Truth, and assuming that the Catholic Church is what she claims, then “tainted with dogmatic ideas” is an oxymoron. It’s like saying that air is tainted with air, or water tainted with water.

So the person making the charge is either not interested in Truth, or denies the claims of the Catholic Church. Find out which and proceed from there.
 
LSK said:
I have discovered, the more I study and interact with people, that I can find great answers to questions about political ideas, opinions, etc in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I was accused recently of being ‘unable to see anything unless (I) am looking through glasses tainted with dogmatic ideas’.

Ok, maybe what I would like to have is some bolstering from my fellow Catholics but I think my response - that Truth is not subjective and that I arrive at my opinions on everything by applying Truth and my personal experiences to the question asked of me - was a good one.

I would like to hear from more experienced Apologists - what would have been a better answer?

Thank you and God Bless you ALL…
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The very charge of ‘[being] unable to see anything unless (I) am looking through glasses tainted with dogmatic ideas’ is itself specious. Clearly this person has two preconceived notions. The fist is that she thinks she has a superior objective lens by which to judge you by. This is clearly a marker for pride and hubris and a marker for grave error. The second is the preconceived notion that all dogma is tainted; and thereby demonstrates her own subscription to the jingoistic secular dogma that dogma is wrong and “self righteousness” is superior.

Make no mistake about it Protestantism is a secular movement. It can not exist except through a parasitic relationship that is in opposition to a thing greater than itself. If this were not true it would not need to protest but rather just replace the system it disagreed with. So, “protest” is by nature subjective and reactive to something else. It is not spontaneous nor self initiated except through the actions of another system. Thus Protest(ism) can only define itself through a reactionary mechanism of negotiation on how another thing (e.g. Catholics) defines itself - but never proactively. Opposition to dogma and the Catholic Church are the only things that unite the legions of Protestant beliefs - without Catholics as a target of protest, Protestants would turn violently on each other in a social-Darwinism sort of dog-eat-dog contest. So any Protestant who accuses Catholics as being tainted by dogma is asserting that it has no dogma - which is absurd.

Therefor the louder protestants make ridiculous and hypocritical judgement like this the more one should turn a def ear to their double standard and double speak. Dogma is everything and without it protestants would have no reason to exist and nothing to protest about save each other.

James
 
CentralFLJames said:
The very charge of ‘[being] unable to see anything unless (I) am looking through glasses tainted with dogmatic ideas’ is itself specious. Clearly this person has two preconceived notions. The fist is that she thinks she has a superior objective lens by which to judge you by. This is clearly a marker for pride and hubris and a marker for grave error. The second is the preconceived notion that all dogma is tainted; and thereby demonstrates her own subscription to the jingoistic secular dogma that dogma is wrong and “self righteousness” is superior.
Make no mistake about it Protestantism is a secular movement. It can not exist except through a parasitic relationship that is in opposition to a thing greater than itself. If this were not true it would not need to protest but rather just replace the system it disagreed with. So, “protest” is by nature subjective and reactive to something else. It is not spontaneous nor self initiated except through the actions of another system. Thus Protest(ism) can only define itself through a reactionary mechanism of negotiation on how another thing (e.g. Catholics) defines itself - but never proactively. Opposition to dogma and the Catholic Church are the only things that unite the legions of Protestant beliefs - without Catholics as a target of protest, Protestants would turn violently on each other in a social-Darwinism sort of dog-eat-dog contest. So any Protestant who accuses Catholics as being tainted by dogma is asserting that it has no dogma - which is absurd.
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Let me add another preconceived notion:

From my experience, people have particular paradisms that they protect. Therefore, when you come up with information that contradicts their beliefs, they just dismiss it because they falsely believe it can’t be true because it doesn’t fit their take on things. This is a failure in reason to add to the deposit of knowledge and test new data for truth.

It seems they have had things explained to them before using the same sources they cannot accept. If those can’t be right, then they require new sources or approaches.

But what was stated before, truth is truth and we must plant seeds.

mdcpensive1
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