Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Faith Hope and faithless optimism

Hiya This is the Unamalgamated Inquisitor, Good evening.
Many have wondered why the Inquisitor stopped posting. This is due to a misconception on the writer’s part that “Since no one reads, why bother posting?”
But lately the Inquisitor has received a few requests for new posts!
So..without further ado, and back by popular demand…I present to you ladies and gentlemen, the new article !! (Which like the rest of my blog, isn’t much anyway)

Today’s Issue of Inquiry:
Faith, Hope or Mindless Optimism?

Saint Paul said “Faith Hope and Charity, but the greatest of these is Charity”

A Heretic of the protestant Christian variety will say “Faith Hope and Charity, but the greatest of these is Success.” Doesn’t make sense? Well, welcome to the protestant world.
Success has been the driving force for non-denominational denominations. Faith seemed to be secondary. Love of God seemed to be only there for the success of the individuals.

Well I’m not saying that they possess little of the Theological virtue of Faith but I’m saying they possess none of it at all. Yes, I’m saying Protestants have no faith. “How Judgmental”, the average Prot will say. “Matthew 7:1”, they will scream. I’ll reply, “Matthew 7:15”.

We do not judge, we know that there are false prophets. We know what is right and what is wrong. Error will always be error. Truth cannot be compromised. I will not say ‘Oh everything you do is right” to earn your praises and avoid accusations of being judgmental. How do we know that we are right? Why it that the protestant practices and beliefs is wrong while the traditional catholic ways right? For one thing. Faith is “the virtue by which we firmly believe all the truths God has revealed, on the word of God revealing them, who can neither deceive nor be deceive.”(Baltimore Catechism)

We have faith that the teachings of the church comes from the apostles. Can the protestants have faith that their divine revelations are true in the same manner?
Nothing is easier to answer then this. How can many different versions of truth be the same truth? How can 1 + 2 = 4? How can we believe in the collective words of men when everything they say contradicts? Is this lack of logic a MYSTERY? Or is God so great that He can bypass all laws of logic so that He contradicts and yet be logical?
Contradiction is wrong. It is not a mystery since our Lord has already revealed to us and the knowledge is already present in the traditions that He passed down. Our Lord doesn’t contradict. He is a lawful God.

What we have is simply what is passed down, nothing is added or taken away. Even the great theologian St Thomas Aquinas merely did a ‘Summary’ of Theology. Theology as it was passed down from the apostles. We do not learn new knowledge; we merely improved on what we already know. Which are more then enough on this lifetime.

To have faith, we need to accept faith in its wholeness, not ‘mix and match’. You follow all the Ten Commandments, you don’t choose whichever one you like and discard the ones that do not suit you. The same goes with the faith. We accept everything that is from the apostles as sacred tradition that is part of the faith in its wholeness since the teachings from the apostles are passed down by our Lord himself. To choose otherwise is to have no faith at all!
Therefore, Protestants have no faith!! No judging here, just plain logic.

Hope is ‘the virtue by which we firmly trust that God, who is all-powerful and faithful to His promises, will in His mercy give us eternal happiness and the means to obtain it’ (Baltimore Catechism)

Well, here we are. The Protestants have confused their ‘faith’ with hope. There isn’t a unified or orthodox belief in which they adhere to. Anything that they like comes their way they will pick and choose whichever suitable. That is not faith. At least not to a proper description of faith that is passed down by the church father.They say ‘Christianity is not a religion’, they are right after all! How can one without faith have a religion!

So the next time some prottie kid comes over and says ‘Christianity is not a religion’, smile and say ‘You got that right! Would you like to know about the faith?”

To end, we must always remember that the greatest of the virtues is Charity, and bearing that in mind we must always remember to hate the heresy, but do not hate the heretic, for in loving the heretic, we are doing it for the love of God.


That is all my friends!

The next article will be about ‘the crisis in church’. Thank you and have a good night!