Besieged

For some strange reason the past several days have been fraught by religious discussions in which I have grown increasingly disillusioned by the errors that are out there. In one case I could sense the presence of the deceiver launching his attacks upon the Church. I have been deeply distressed to say the least.

It began this weekend when I found myself in a two and a half hour long conversation with a Protestant friend talking primarily about Calvinism, which she adheres to in the guise of "reformed theology". Whatever you call it, I was profoundly disturbed by the claims that were put out and made it clear. What a hopeless and concocted theology! It denies the entire loving nature of God and mires otherwise self-evident teachings in a "tulip"-laced morass of erroneous babble! I very effortfully defended our cherished belief in the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Faith, on the mystery of the Incarnation and of the Sacred Tradition which compliments the Scriptures among other things. And yet against the folly of Calvinism what can one do?

In addition to another chat about Calvinism two days ago, today at lunch I was sitting on the front porch of my workplace and overheard two guys "discussing" Catholicism, or their misperception of it, rather. In reality, one person was throwing out facetious, conjectural, and ultimately baseless claims about Catholic teaching and the other simpleton simply replied, "No way! I never knew that!" My blood was boiling and I regret not speaking up as I felt I should have.

Among the insanities uttered was the "Catholic belief" that by walking through the doors of St. Peter's Basilica, we're entering into a heaven-like place and thus are saved. There was the fascinating comment about how Catholics for 2000 years have completely missed the line in Matthew 23:9 saying that we must call no man on earth our father, and yet we call our priests "father", therefore the entire faith is a hoax. There was the profoundly disturbing statement that the Eucharist is just a symbol, that we're insane to derive from the Bible the belief that we can eat Christ himself, that it is ludicrous (at least he acknowledges that it is indeed a difficult teaching). His most erroneous claim was that there is absolutely no biblical basis for the doctrine of the Eucharist, which is absolutely unfounded. The list goes on. I felt like I was being fired at with spiritual cannon fire that was withering.

Now, I was actually taking detailed notes of the conversation because it was perfectly audible from where I was seated, as such I also noted their statements of erroneous Protestant doctrine. The most irksome and oft-repeated statements revolved around that most cherished of errors: the belief in sola scriptura. Here are the choice statements which I overheard:

"The Bible was written by God"
No. It was written by divinely-inspired men from the earliest Hebrews to the early Christians who devoted their lives, however perfectly or imperfectly to seeking God. They and their writing, however much inspired, was clearly affected to some extent by the context in which they lived along with the inspiration received.

"Everything that I believe is in the Bible"
The very belief of sola scriptura is nowhere to be found in Scripture. Thus this statement is false right off the bat. Belief finds its sources not just in written word but primarily from our life experience and that which we learn orally. Most importantly, our belief is also an effort in conformity to the true teachings passed down not just scripturally, but by the Holy Mother Church. That is, much of our belief is in fact extra-scriptural, which in its more refined form is referred to by Catholics as Sacred Tradition. It is exceedingly presumptuous to assert that one believes everything that is in the Bible, because our human flaws prevent us from grasping even so simple a command as "love thy neighbor".

"Keep reading, God will reveal things to you."
Using the logic of the above two quotes, I will contend that God has revealed everything that He has intended in the Bible. This is in accordance with sola scriptura. As such, any further revelation can not be possible, even that which may be stirred in us as we read Scripture. For God to continue revealing things in a extra-scriptural way must prove the existence of a sacred tradition rooted in and emanating from written and unwritten revelation.

What a vexatious past few days these have been. Lord have mercy. Pray for the conversion of those gone astray and for the unity of Christ's Church on earth.