Photo credits

The Embalse de Riano in northern Spain. The picture was taken by .... me!

Showing posts with label Reason. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reason. Show all posts

Saturday, November 25

Heaven was never like this!

I had a dream last night. In it, I had died and gone to heaven, and was walking with the apostles. In fact, we were walking on water. The trouble is, in my dream, heaven was a sewage works - not the best place for walking on water! [I work as a civil engineer designing sewage works]

More seriously, I'm still perplexed by the contents of my previous post. Mrs was very dismissive, just laughing at me for taking it seriously at all. But if it was truly God and this was my Samuel in the temple moment, I can't dismiss it. Nor should I take any rash action, in case it was just a bizarre brain storm. Thinking theologically, I really couldn't make such an action now, there is just too much distance between me and Rome. I have read "Rome sweet Home" by Scott Hahn, and found it very challenging, but he still had fundamental flaws in his exegesis. (generally in the form of taking isolated scriptures and interpreting them without depth in a way suited to Rome rather than the rest of the Scriptures). I am a Sola Scriptura person: Tradition and Reason can help us (and hinder us) in the interpretation of Scripture and prevent "Judas went and hanged himself"..."Go and do thou likewise" episodes, but at the end of the day if there is any genuine conflict between the Scripture and the Tradition and the Reason, the Scripture has to win. Most of my formerly catholic friends cite discrepancies between scripture and RC tradition as being reasons why they reluctantly left.

And yet, theological perfection is unachievable. My church has errors. So if God told me to move from my original 'perfect' church to this flawed one, can he not also tell me to move to one that is even more flawed? Can I not be his messenger in that context? Can I remain true to my neo-anabaptist heart and say "I am a Roman Catholic?" Can I with integrity join a Roman Catholic church and subvert it with Sola Fides teaching?

Can I say to God "No, Lord, my theology prevents me from obeying you"?

I am in a mess on this one - the road is one I really don't want to travel, but if I am convinced it is comanded by God, what choice do I have?

I shall have to lay many fleeces, and take one step at a time.