Friday, June 09, 2006

What I (and every other Catholic) believe in.

So you've seen the article. I'm sorry if it offends anyone but I happen to believe every word and article that is contained in the three Catholic Creeds. That isn't to say that I understand them, but I don't really have to. God is incomprehensible in His Trinity and I am delighted to be able to say that I haven't the foggiest how hypostatic union works. Thus I have no regrets in declaring my faith in "the Father Incomprehensible, the Son Incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible" which is a reasonable and utterly sound doctrine.

It is also clear that outside of the Church there is no Salvation, i.e. "Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled: without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." The point here is that it is not my job to judge who has indeed kept the Catholic faith "whole and undefiled". It is my job as a Reader to teach the Catholic Faith as appears in the three Creeds according to the oath that I made as a Reader to adhere to the 39 articles especially article viii which speaks of how the Church of England accepts that authority of these creeds. The ultimate judgement as to who is keeping the Catholic Faith is God's.

Peter Watkins says "We are no longer so concerned about heresy." This sums up the Church of England's decline into heterodoxy because it is a true statement about the state of the church. It is because the Anglican Communion (primarily the liberals, relativists and revisionists who proliferate) is no longer so concerned about heresy that it now fails to coherently teach the Faith according to the Tradition that we have received from the Faithful who have gone before us. That the church encourages "people to think for themselves" is commendable, but, like children in a school, they need to be guided to the truth. Children cannot be allowed to think entirely for themselves, and we are the children of God. God has set us boundaries. He has given us teaching through Scripture and Tradition which can in no way be separated. These Creeds are an expression of the Tradition to which we adhere. To jettison them as being out of date is folly because we see in the church exactly the same heresies being preached. Gnosticism, Arianism (indeed Ebionism) are rife in the Church and not just in the C of E. If Peter Watkins believes that "we should start where the first Christians did" then we will only end up thrashing these creeds out again in 300-500 years time.

Denying the creeds is denying history and denying history is denying the truth. If we replace our creeds with Comic Washup's (sorry) Common Worship's Affirmations of Faith, then we are dumbing down our Faith which cannot be simply expressed. The Creeds contain all that we need to begin a lively faith, to begin to explore difficult and ultimately incomprehensible statements of faith. This is what gives meaning to our lives. To reduce our faith to a simple "Jesus is Lord" (which is perfectly true and wholly Orthodox, but nonetheless as a detached statement requires much clarification) is an insult to the depth of humanity which each Christian possesses. After all, what does "Lord" mean? Is this the same "Lord" as Dominus Deus Sabaoth? ... and straight into the Nicene Creed we go!

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