www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Belief (Propositional Assent and/vs Lived Faith)

Hi everyone, I'm requesting some perspectives as a RC who attends an EO church, and has recently been exploring a nearby Eastern Catholic parish.

I believe both the RC and EO churches are true churches that have valid sacraments, and that both are very much the 'City of God on Pilgrimage' and not the 'City of God'. In other words, I'm willing to submit to the temporal authority of either, but don't ultimately believe in an infallible authority within the church (papal, magisterial, or even councils.... a view perhaps similar to Bulgokov's). Can I faithfully be an Eastern Catholic if I can't consent to all of the propositions of the Catholic church? Can I exist basically with the theology of St. Maximus? I desire to assent to Catholicism's propositions, but my conscience doesn't allow it. I appreciate the greater ecumenical orientation of Catholicism, I want to share communion with my Catholic family, I know that grace abounds in Catholicism, etc. I desire to remain Catholic, but I also can't currently, in good conscience, teach my children the hamartiology and soteriology of Catholicism (but also don't feel the need to be openly dissenting).

Christ is in our midst!!

Tadhg,

One of the two words you have a problem with deals with our broken nature; the other with the remedy. What you have, if this is true, it seems to me is a problem with Christianity. The whole of our Faith is the nature of who we are and why we are broken--the Fall--and how we were remedied from the Fall. Christ disappears from the abandonment of both these concepts--at least the need for Him.

So why are you concerned with either Catholicism or Orthodoxy? And what is it you are afraid that your children will learn from either Church if they abandon the subjects of sin and salvation?

Absent these two areas, our liturgies become little more than theatre with no real point. The spiritual life is not necessary. What's the point and what's your point?

Thank you for your reply, Theophan,

I don’t have a problem with Christian hamartiology and soteriology at all, however I do struggle with the current Catholic understanding. My view would be very similar to St Maximus, both on the nature of free will (classical vs modern libertarian), the fall (atemporal fall and ancestral sin vs original sin), and sin (the emphasis on the need for healing/theosis vs the, especially post-Trent, emphasis of legal/forensic justification), and also on the nature of our salvation in Christ (his understanding of the restoration of creation).

I know that each of these points have been very hotly debated for centuries, my point isn’t to solve a theological debate. I’m interested in exploring the intersection of belief (the pre-enlightenment ‘give one’s heart to’ definition, not the ‘propositional assent’ definition), the “primacy of conscience”, and doctrinal development. Basically what I’m asking: could St Maximus be an Eastern Catholic today without altering his theology?