Faith and certainty

"A new virtue is promulgated; to be uncertain of the truth and of the will of God; to hold our faith on probabilities. And yet, what is the very idea of Revelation but a Divine assurance of Truth? Where faith begins uncertainty ends. Because faith terminates upon the veracity of God; and what God has spoken and authenticated to us by Divine authority cannot be uncertain."

Henry Edward Cardinal Manning

And...

"[We must] guard the proper way of expressing [the Faith], lest our careless use of words give rise, God forbid, to false opinions regarding faith in the most sublime things. St. Augustine gives a stern warning about this when he takes up the matter of the different ways of speaking that are employed by the philosophers on the one hand and that ought to be used by Christians on the other. 'The philosophers,' he says, 'use words freely, and they have no fear of offending religious listeners in dealing with subjects that are difficult to understand. But we have to speak in accordance with a fixed rule, so that a lack of restraint in speech on our part may not give rise to some irreverent opinion about the things represented by the words.'' (cf. City of God, X, 23; PL 41. 300.)"

Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei #23

Ah the good old days. Back when the grownups were in charge...

But I guess these guys were just "bad Christians" or didn't really believe in God... or something...



~