Call it faith seeking understanding.
I would like to develop my thoughts on this a bit further. Perhaps this post might end up in the hands of my friend. I want to begin with the grounding in the early Church, in the first centuries after Christ – in those who knew Greek, who lived in the same culture as did the apostles, who learned from the apostles and those who learned from these (as my text above makes clear)....
Why “faith seeking understanding”? God gave us this Church; it is the Church passed down to Christians. Whether or not the various denominations recite the Creed, they all fundamentally believe about Christ what has been handed down in the Creed.
I am accepting the God that the Church handed down to me; my friend is not. Either my friend is or I am worshipping a false God. I don’t know how to say this in kind terms.
One of us will have to answer the question: why were you worshipping a god other than Me, the true God? If it is asked of me, my answer is simple: I am worshipping the God handed down through the Church. This is the Church that God preserved. He did not preserve an Arian Church.
My friend will have a more difficult time if he is asked this question. What will he say? “I disagree with what the Church has always believed”? “I could not understand the idea of one God in three Persons, so I didn’t believe it”?
My faith is seeking understanding – as those of you who have been with me on this journey recognize. My friend seems to have a desire for his understanding to seek faith. He is searching for a God that makes sense to him, one that he can comprehend.
I think God is much bigger than what my mind (or my friend’s mind) can hold.
Epilogue
Now, because I write the above, does this mean I am beholden to all Church councils, called everywhere at any time? Regular readers know the answer to this is “no.” I am not going to get into why or when, as I have done this all in the blog. But I offer it for completeness, in case it is read by my friend.
But this first one especially, given the character of the men and the persecutions they were willing to suffer when Christianity was illegal, seems pretty close to unimpeachable to me.
