I expected this type of response by you, you seem to enjoy labeling folks and writing them off as heretics or evil, bet you wish you could burn 'em at the stake, eh?!

Or, could be more like this;

"Lord, my heart is not haughty,
Nor my eyes lofty.
Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
Nor with things too profound for me.
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me."

Did you entertain the possibility that his words might actually be right and that his point is actually worth considering?

You mean like folks who choose to leave the doctrine of election as a mystery are lazy and evil, or that those who do not hold to an Augustinian/Thomist view are some part Palagian heretics? No, I have neither entertained that point nor thought it worth considering.

I don't know what I did to annoy you. Or why you are so quick to retort to rash judgment and strawmen.

I called the attitude that dismisses theological thought as evil, I did not call our interlocutor evil. A little knowledge, even with great uncertainty, of the highest things is worth more than much knowledge of lesser matters.

The modern mind dismisses greater questions, because it mistakes the good of truth, placing it less in the object known and more in "clear and distinct" in doing so it values most what is lesser than our minds, and denigrates pursuing what is higher.

from this speculative error arises error in the practical order. For example, the heresy of Americanism, which denigrates contemplation and exalts secular activity. It leads to first bastardizing theology, placing secular questions and ridiculing what are actually more essential questions. Ultimately this leads to atheism, and modernism turns on itself.

Tell me, one asks about a difficult subject. They latch onto a superficial grasp. When it appears that their grasp is superficial, and the question demands a lot of hard work and prerequisite knowledge they dismiss the work and thought of those that did hard work and study, and dismiss the question, accusing those that have studied hard on the question of low esteem and arrogance. So yes, I push back. Apply this pattern to any field, and you will see the offensiveness of such anti intellectualism.

It is an evil, because it frustrates one from actually growing.


But you keep with the strawmen. You weren't the addressee, but you make it about you. Really, I would ask you to stop offending against the virtue of truth. Maybe pause and see what others are actually saying.

I did not make it about me, just pointing out how you judge others, like you did w/me in the past concerning relics.

PED is correct on this point.

Of course, he always is...

Let me be clear that I am referring to his initial post. What's between him and you, I don't know.

I admit it doesn't feel good to be at the receiving end of PED's admonitions. In this exchange, his posts are ironclad arguments and responses* mixed with snark/anger. Your posts, on the other hand, seem to have only the latter.

*See, for example, " It is not love that rejects more knowledge of the beloved", "I called the attitude that dismisses theological thought as evil, I did not call our interlocutor evil", "Apply this pattern to any field, and you will see the offensiveness of such anti intellectualism", "It is an evil, because it frustrates one from actually growing".

That isn't even remotely close to what PED said, but he is quite correct about your tendency to resort to caricature and strawman arguments. What I don't know is why you do that, whether it is due to a failure to understand what others are saying or some other reason.

What he said is that if you use 'holding it as a mystery' as an excuse for a refusal to think, then that is bad. You have a duty to attempt to understand things as well as you can, using the handwaving excuse 'it's a mystery' as an excuse for a refusal to think or learn is abusing the notion of a 'mystery, a 'mystery' is something you cannot understand completely, not something which it is completely pointless to even think about at all, which seems to be how you use the term.




It is even worse if you do like FlyingAway did and imply that a lack of interest in theology makes him morally superior to everyone else.

I admit to being harsher than I ought to have been. I have a tendency to react to both what is said and to its logical conclusions, forgetting that often others have not thought it out to those conclusions.

And to clarify one point: bear in mind I professionally studied theology, and when I speak of theologians I don't mean armchair apologists, or theologically inclined posters, but those that publish in the field. When I said most adopting the moniker of Molinism do it as a cover for error, the point was that they aren't actually holding Molinism. Molinism is not known as well in its actual tenets, and so it is easy to use it as cover. Which adds to confusion over what was actually claimed by Molina or those following him. It is also true that most who rush to "pick a team" when first encountering the doctrine of predestination adopt Molinism based on a misunderstanding of what it actually claims, but they rarely understand what the Thomistic doctrine is either, and that error is more about feeling compelled to have an opinion than what I was trying to address

Really, how about the Eucharist? While the West uses Greek philosophy to go into great detail to define the dogma of "Transubstantiation", the East, while not denying a real and substantial change takes place, makes no such effort to define how that takes place, but is a divine mystery. Could say the same about the Dogma of the "Immaculate Conception", something the East rejects, but certainly would not call Mary a sinner. Just a few examples here, and calling Eastern theologians "Semi-Pelagian", is semi-baked. Now, are any of you seriously going to call Eastern thinkers "lazy minded?!"

Easterners do tend to semipelagianism. So do too many Western Catholics.

In fact, this topic will be one that will require intense discussion when the Spirit moves to heal the schism.

So this makes them heretics?

See my second post.

Saw it

Semipelagianism is a heresy. Whether Eastern theology must be understood in the erroneous sense is beyond my pay grade.

Well, you and "Performance Enhancing Doctrine" have already suggested that they are...