The Appeal to Sound Learning-II

Against the general background, which we attempted to outline in a previous article, it is now possible to fill in with greater detail the main elements of the Catholic approach to truth in contrast with the Anglican appeal to sound learning; and this with no controversial intention, but with the eirenic aim, not indeed of resolving the contrast, but at least of showing it less in caricature, and in truer proportions and balance. The true following of Christ, in whatever Christian allegiance it is found, is the result of a union, intimate and ineffable, between two persons; a human person and the Person of Jesus Christ, God made man.This union begins in the supernatural life of grace received in Baptism. It cannot spring from any power innate in human nature; it is wholly given. There comes a time to all who receive this gift when its purpose, the love of God in Christ, is consciously apprehended. The inmost self-hood is confronted by Christ, who is either rejected, or accepted in the obedience and love of divinely given faith. Where explicit knowledge of his person is absent the encounter would seem to be implicit in what conscience presents as good. The union so completed varies in intensity in each person. In some for a whole lifetime obedience is fitful and love lukewarm; the gift does not grow beyond an inchoate stage. In others it fructifies in a union of deep and perfect friendship. Once embraced it is never wholly lost except by an act of deliberate rebellion which theologians call mortal sin

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