perpetual virginity of Mary
I typically don't engage too seriously with people OnLine much these days. I find that the effort is often a waste and that people are generally not super interested in good faith debates. The lack of reciprocity in effort is also pretty discouraging.
Recently however, I was browsing twitter because I couldn't go back to sleep and came across a post about the PVM doctrine of the catholic church. Twitter isn't quite there yet with their recommendations and assumes that all people who profess Christ are Christian and that somehow they all want to see each other's content. While I typically don't mind the occasional Catholic cosypoast, this one really stood out to me as something worth responding to.
At some point I kicked the beehive of stay-at-home catholics and a bunch of people dogpiled with the same, in-unison mantra of "this is how it's always been". Therein lies the rub.
In case anyone needed proof, the average catholic response to inquiries about their hermeneutic illustrates this anti-intellectual dogma. Bring up Greek and they'll bring up Jerome, dive into Hebrew, and they point to Athanasius. The whole lot of them are terribly eager to point to other people perform the defense of their faith.
This intellectual outstretching of hands harkens back to their views on salvation. It isn't enough that Christ himself dwells within them; they reach out for the church fathers and papacy for guidance. It isn't enough that Christ paid the cost of their sins, they make sincere efforts to show that they too, contributed something. It shouldn't be surprising to anyone that the people who believe that Christ's work on the cross for their salvation was not enough also believe that the bible itself, cannot be not enough. A grand tragedy.
Catholic friends, and future readers, trust not in your own works, but in Christ's salvific grace for you. It's enough. The Bible itself, is enough.
My takeaway is this: The Catholic church greatly professes obedience, yet in nearly all of all my observations, these folk are sorely in need of humble obedience to 1 Peter 3:15 (ready defense). They struggle and writhe with questions because they have been conditioned to blindly accept arguments and logic handed down through the church on the basis of presumed authority. Truly, Wycliffe and Tyndale fought against this by providing the Bible to the people. How can you love someone you do not know? Matthew 22:37 exhorts people like this to love God by seeking him out with your mind. Let the children of God read the text of God and know him.
For 500 years we have been fighting this fight. Eagerly hoping for the brothers and sisters of the Catholic tradition to come to full knowledge of Christ.