Do you now think that this faith is very similar, not in content but perhaps epistemologically (?) to those who say, “Jesus loves me, this I know, because the Bible tells me so.” I would certainly never belittle the immense and varied intellectual and cultural sophistication of the Catholic tradition or compare it to American Fundamentalism, but are both types of faith similarly based on a simple assent to an authoritative source?
I feel the need to distinguish between faith considered as a “habit”–roughly a disposition to submit to divine revelation when it is recognized as such–from faith as a subsequent, specific act of belief in or assent to a particular (revealed) proposition. I was principally thinking of the habit, when I wrote the comment you replied to, and I think in your reply you were thinking of a particular act of assent to one or more specific dogmas.
. . . both [are] types of faith similarly based on a simple assent to an authoritative source?
So far as it goes, yes, I think that describes a common nature. Dei filius (c3) describes faith as a submission of intellect to divine authority.
As I’ve commented elsewhere, Catholics are generally sensible enough to leave the philosophizing to a cadre of experts; presumably one can benefit from the Mass without understanding it technically. In contrast, every Protestant claims a direct pipeline to the Almighty with an automatically bestowed competence to enounce. That this latter impulse is frequently bound intimately with anti-intellectualism should come as little surprise. These two forms of ignorance may appear superficially similar but they are qualitatively different I think.
It is curious.
On first glance, Catholicism seems like the more primitive religion (in comparison with Protestantism). I mean, Protestantism was very much bound up in humanism, and it was in some ways proto-rationalist; it took its birth from rejection of Catholic superstitions.
Yet, I tend to think the Catholic intellectual tradition is more robust and subtle overall.
Catholicism–as an intellectual tradition–is a very peculiar beast. I’m still coming to grips with it.
…Catholicism seems like the more primitive religion…
I have had occasion over the years to bump into folks who are involved to varying degrees with so-called “pagan revival” movements. Attempts to recreate older pre-Christian forms of belief. It’s not what they want to hear but my advice has always been that if they want to contact paganism the only way to do that is to become a Roman Catholic. Catholicism did not wipe out paganism. It absorbed it the way Einstein absorbed Newton. This is the source of its strength. “Superstitions” simply betray Catholicism’s ancient origins.
Protestantism portrayed itself as a “revival” movement. Getting back to the way Jesus and the apostles originally did it before corruption and worldliness seeped in. But the history of Christianity is full of innovations presented this way. See Nicaea.
I am fascinated by the desire people have to get back to the original and pure form of something. In the case of Christianity, was there ever even such a thing? It seems to have been from the start many different things.
In general, I wonder whether the original of anything is necessarily better than the innovations on it.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
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Robert
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