To: Greg or e who wrote (17679 ) 6/9/2004 11:28:34 AM From: Solon Respond to Your typical "argument" LOLThe first law of life, be it the life of plant or animal, of man or of a society of men, is self-preservation. Neglect of self-preservation leads to ruin and destruction. But the life of a religious society, the tissue that binds its members into one body and animates them with one soul, is the symbol of faith, the creed or confession adhered to as a condition sine qua non of membership. To undo the creed is to undo the Church. The integrity of the rule of faith is more essential to the cohesion of a religious society than the strict practice of its moral precepts. For faith supplies the means of mending moral delinquencies as one of its ordinary functions, whereas the loss of faith, cutting at the root of spiritual life, is usually fatal to the soul. In fact the long list of heresiarchs contains the name of only one who came to resipiscence: Berengarius. The jealousy with which the Church guards and defends her deposit of faith is therefore identical with the instinctive duty of self-preservation and the desire to live. This instinct is by no means peculiar to the Catholic Church; being natural it is universal. All sects, denominations, confessions, schools of thought, and associations of any kind have a more or less comprehensive set of tenets on the acceptance of which membership depends. In the Catholic Church this natural law has received the sanction of Divine promulgation, as appears from the teaching of Christ and the Apostles quoted above. Freedom of thought extending to the essential beliefs of a Church is in itself a contradiction; for, by accepting membership, the members accept the essential beliefs and renounce their freedom of thought so far as these are concerned.
