Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Sola Scriptura Message-ID: Date: 5 Jun 90 03:56:46 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London, UK. Lines: 30 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu writes: >the middle. I have always had the feeling that basically the >Catholics and conservative Protestants are looking for the same thing: >a source of Truth that can be used immediately and unambiguously. This doesn't fit in at all with my own Catholicism. I think when you say "Catholicism" you mean Conservative Catholicism. To me the important thing about Catholicism is the emphasis on the role of the community - all Christians both living and dead - who together form the Church, and in whom the Holy Spirit is working. To take a "scripture alone" position is to cut oneself off from this community - to say "I know better than all of them". But most people are not strong enough to really take this position. In the place of the Universal Church as guide and teacher, they put their individual sect, pastor, or secular beliefs. Without the constraint of communion with the Universal Church, some pretty peculiar abberations can and have developed. To be a Catholic is to safeguard oneself against the power of self-delusion - believing one has found God when one has only found a reflection of oneself. The Catholic accepts that their is a body - the Church - which can tell him when he has strayed too far from the path of Christianity. That doesn't necessarily mean he sees the Church as giving immediate and unambiguous Truth. Matthew Huntbach