An Occasional Rant 12: Is God Too Big for One Church?

In the early Middle Ages, Christians and Muslims came into direct contact with one another in Spain.  The Muslims had invaded Spain and held territory primarily in the South.  Over time, a kind of peace developed where Christians and Muslims could have civil, intellectual debate.  The Muslims were completely scandalized by the idea that God could become so small that He would become incarnate in a human person.  The Muslims believed that God is too big to be contained in a single person. The Dominicans, trained by St. Thomas Aquinas responded with this argument:

God is SO powerful, that He CAN become Incarnate and become fully human while He remains fully divine!

This fact is the essence of our Christmas celebration!  If we do not believe this, we should just wish our friends a happy non-specific holiday season. 

Today, this argument is no longer asserted.  Today we live in an era of syncretism.  A helpful article on the topic defines syncretism as the attempt to appropriate the ideas and traditions from a variety of spiritual traditions without any attempt to discriminate their truth or value on the basis of Catholic faith.  In other words, a syncretist view is that Catholicism is a "religion" that is simply a cultural and traditional manifestation of "Religion" with a capital R.  The so called super religion is the place to which all the "many roads to God" are claimed to lead.  The syncretist view is that we can not know anything about this Religion because it needs to be discovered within ourselves.  Thus, we are all free to "experience" God according to "our own way."

The claim to freedom appears to be enlightened and "spiritual" and seems to require a greater awareness than traditional, doctrinal religions like Judaism and Christianity!  To use the language of the street: the syncretist view is just more "cool" today than religions that are many thousands of years old.  The claim is that God is so big that he can not be contained in a single religion. 

Why is syncretism so popular?  We capitalist, democratic, free thinking men and women of the 21st Century do not want to be directed or led.  We want a choice that "fits us."  Jesus Christ said that He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  We prefer a religion that tells us that We are the way, the truth, and the life.  We want a Christ of our own design.  We want a morality and a "spirituality" that maximizes our own choices even if they are immoral by traditional standards.  This is very dangerous if there is a god who has revealed himself and we have invented a religion of our own liking!

Here is the claim again:

False Statement: God is too big to be contained in a single religion.

To which the response of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, all the Prophets God sent to Israel, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, all the Apostles, the Fathers of the Church, thousands of consecrated Bishops in succession to the Apostles, and 264 Successors to St. Peter is:

God is SO powerful, and He loves us SO much, that He CAN reveal Himself in and through His One True Church whose teachings the worldly cannot comprehend but which the lowly can know, while He remains fully divine!

Yes, Saint Paul is correct when He says that if Jesus did not rise from the dead then we are the most pitiable of people.  We are betting everything on the belief that Mary received a message of Glad Tidings from an Angel sent by God.  We are wagering our lives on the witness of the Apostles that they saw the Resurrected Jesus!  They saw something that changed their lives and ours.  They saw Something.  Praise God Almighty, THEY saw Something!

I think that is enough.

Mary, Theotokos, pray for us!

VVV

Comments

[Andrea]

Great post! I have a old high school friend who would do well to read this, as many of the arguments you mention from the other side are the kind of confusion she is accepting these days!

Merry Christmas!

[Viator]

Thanks for the comment, Andrea! I was moved to write this because another "friend" sent a book about the many church buildings in Texas. In that book was this statement: God is too big for one religion. Anytime we humans think we can define God, we are kidding ourselves. We would be much better off to just take Him at His word and accept what He does as good and fitting! In this case, He has chosen to continue His work through the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church! It is astounding that anyone can say that He can't do this if it pleases Him to do so!