. These are just a few things.....
Yes, just a few. An interesting selection. Consubstantiation in the Eucharist, not transsubstantiation. Purgatory. Faith, charity, grace.
If one is interested in the soundness of one's position, one welcomes challenges to it.
You obviously have an enormous grasp of this subject. How long did it take you to achieve that?
I once had a very engaging colleague who left to go to a seminary along with his wife. They had decided to become missionaries somewhere in the third world. We talked a lot about his plans, one of which was to study Hebrew so he could read the Bible in the original. They believed that was "critical." I asked how long it would take them to become sufficiently fluent in Hebrew to achieve the added value of being able to make their own translations. I asked how much additional time it would take them to learn the language of the people they would be serving. I asked how long it would be before they were out there helping suffering people.
I may have 30 years left. Maybe less. I'm always eager to test the soundness of my positions but how many of those years do I want to spend testing, once again, this particular one, which I tested to my satisfaction many years ago? Not many.
As for my curiosity about Catholics and Lutherans, your response reinforced for me how much work it would be to develop sufficient expertise to answer that question to my satisfaction. So now I know about how each sect treats Purgatory. I still don't know why one might choose to be a Lutheran rather than a Catholic or the converse. I still don't know which set of beliefs is more likely to produce a sound and just system of government or an easier passage into death. I still don't know which one I would prefer to have as a neighbor. In other words, I still don't know anything useful. Interesting, perhaps, but not useful.
If one is interested in the intellectual history of world civilization, religion is inextricably bound up in it.
The level of effort required to develop sufficient, real understanding of religion as a part of the intellectual history of world civilization by studying all those who contributed to it is beyond daunting. And the marginal value of having done so is...maybe nothing.
I'll stick to reading other people's syntheses of their conclusions. I don't think that significantly undercuts my "curiosity."
Karen |
