Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Ground Rules: Divine Revelation, Assurance, and Truth

Any good logical argument or discussion generally begins by laying out the assumptions (implicit or not), and in this I will not differ.
  • Divine Revelation 
    • There is a God, and he chooses to reveal himself through various means. Primarily, this has been done through Sacred Scripture and the incarnation of Christ.
  • Assurance
    • I believe that the truth can be known with sufficient assurance to live believing ones beliefs with confidence. I do not believe God would reveal himself but leave sufficient doubt to know the fundamentals of the faith. This does however not imply perfect knowledge of every aspect of theology.
  • Truth
    • There is a God; He has actual views of various topic; He has opinions on various Church practices. This implicitly rejects the modern view of each person finding their own "truth". 
    • For example, either God divinely revealed himself in 66, 73, or 76 books. He couldn't have revealed himself exactly in more than one number. 
    • Either communion must be symbolic or in some way more than symbolic (Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation).