Knowing the Faith.

Over at CatholicCulture at the beginning of the month, Dr. Jeff Mirus posted a piece entitled How Do We Know Our Faith?


Below are some quotes to get you thinking, but go and read the whole piece, especially if you were  raptured earlier today - you have enternity.

Now this response brings us to a critical point. The primary issue here is not differing assertions about Mary. The primary issue is this: How do we know? My correspondent makes two enormous epistemological assumptions: First, that everything we can know about these matters is in Scripture (“Nowhere in the Bible does it say she was not a sinner”). Second, whatever Scripture says it says plainly and obviously (“Show me where it says that…. Read Luke 1:46-47… Read Hebrews 4:15”). Yet when we follow her references, we see that they are insufficient to prove her case. And we might well ask, how can mere flesh and blood assert a definitive meaning for a passage of Scripture anyway?

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As human persons, of course, we have a terrible propensity to take things for granted. Once we take them for granted, we find it difficult to see how anyone else could question our convictions, for they appear to us to be obvious and certain. What I said at the outset is true: This is very, very hard for us. But in matters which concern God, do we not owe a little more effort? We ought to begin that effort by asking how we know the things we claim to believe, whether they arise from traditional sources or modern nihilism. The question can be frightening; it can disrupt our relationships and destroy our sense of security. Even among Catholics it can challenge our commitments and incur the wrath of the lukewarm. But to fail to ask is to accept mediocrity. To fail to ask is to deny what it means to be fully human. And to fail to ask is to turn our backs on God.

Go on. Go read the whole thing.