Monday, December 23, 2013

The Credo of Uncertainty

Let's do a little compare and contrast, shall we? (HT and thanks for hints, tips and links to Elliot)

“In me there was no harbor for doubt. Jesus came, and my trust in God has grown by the doubts of men.”
St. Ignatius Loyola.

“[In the] quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions — that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation"
Jorge Mario Bergoglio SJ, Bishop of Rome.


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The Catechism of the Catholic Church places willful or "voluntary doubt" under the category of human actions that are opposed to the First Commandment and opposed to the virtue of Faith.

2087 Our moral life has its source in faith in God who reveals his love to us. St. Paul speaks of the "obedience of faith" as our first obligation. He shows that "ignorance of God" is the principle and explanation of all moral deviations. Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him.

2088 The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith:

Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity.

If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.

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The Catechism of the Council of Trent, (called the Roman Catechism), Article 1:

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth..."

– The meaning of the above words is this: I believe with certainty, and without a shadow of doubt profess my belief in God the Father… with the greatest ardour and piety I tend towards Him, as the supreme and most perfect good. …

The word believe does not here mean to think, to suppose, lo be of opinion; but… it expresses the deepest conviction, by which the mind gives a firm and unhesitating assent to God revealing His mysterious truths. …

The knowledge derived through faith must not be considered less certain because its objects are not seen; for the divine light by which we know them, although it does not render them evident, yet suffers us not to doubt them. …

[W]hen God commands us to believe He does not propose to us to search into His divine judgments, or inquire into their reason and cause, but demands an unchangeable faith, by which the mind rests content in the knowledge of eternal truth. And … since it would argue arrogance and presumption to disbelieve the word of a grave and sensible man affirming anything as true, … how rash and foolish are those, who, hearing the words of God Himself, demand reasons for His heavenly and saving doctrines? Faith, therefore, must exclude not only all doubt, but all desire for demonstration. …

We should be satisfied with the assurance and certitude which faith gives us that we have been taught these truths by God Himself, to doubt whose word is the extreme of folly and misery.

"Spiritual blindness"... Could it not be said that a succinct description of the entire Post Conciliar Church would be that its leadership, with rare exceptions, has willfully cultivated this voluntary doubt? And the new regime, Novusordoism (for short) is the religion of doubt?

If we are to take the warning in the last sentence from the CCC above literally, how can we come to any other conclusion than that a man has come to the throne of Peter, formed from the start of his priesthood in this new religion of doubt, who is now evangelising it from the bulliest pulpit in the world?

And I think it is significant beyond all measure that the catechism (and the Fathers and Doctors given as support of the assertion) have identified this cultivation of willful doubt as an offence against the first, the real "greatest commandment". Novusordoism is a religion in which the only certainty allowed about God and divine Will is doubt.

About the supremacy and rights of Man it allows not the slightest doubt... leaving the situation we have now; the Church as a social service agency at the disposal of and for the promotion of humanistic and naturalistic goals.

I do see why this kind of nonsense from the pope and others who preach it is appealing to modern people. They have all been thoroughly trained by the certainty that there can be no certainty that they don't even see the contradiction any more, and more importantly, don't see how such internally contradictory nonsense harms them.

The other day, in response to something I'd posted, I got the following comment from a man whom I know to be intelligent and sincere in his Catholicism, into which he has recently been received: "Some things cannot be made clear in the binary way you suggest, Hilary. The Truth is infinitely more than a set of black and white propositions on a piece of paper." ... and he thought that this was perfectly acceptable and sensible. He is a product of our times and as such has been cultivated in this nonsense all his life by schools, the media and other muddled people.

More importantly, he went through his entire RCIA programme with it all intact and unchallenged. It simply never occurs to anyone that an assertion like, "we can't know what's true" is not only complete bosh, but self-refuting, logically contradictory bosh. As well as bosh that will damage your ability to think clearly about anything and ultimately to hold to the Faith that will save your soul.

It is, in short, demonic, Satanic bosh.



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7 comments:

Hermit Crab said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Hilary Jane Margaret White said...

Please see the commbox rules posted to the sidebar on the left re: real names and pointless posts.

BillyHW said...

He's an intellectual lightweight.

Anonymous said...

I suspect he constructs his homilies using one of those fridge magnet poetry kits. His would be the 'limited edition' Liberation Theology version.

Lydia

SPC said...

Re: Anonymous,

Fridge magnet poetry kits?

What? They don't have an app for that on iPad or Android?

Anonymous said...

That is a very useful exercise in 'compare and contrast.'

It has been a difficult year for serious Catholics.

Whoever thought there would be a day when the enemies of the Church would praise our Pope as their own hero?

-Aloysius Gonzaga.

BillyHW said...

He wants to be loved by them.