Posted by jboy on September 22, 19100 at 21:19:54:
In Reply to: Re: Levels of consciousness posted by Diana on September 22, 19100 at 19:19:12:
: I love you both but I have to respect my own
: intuitions, too.
True dialogue does not require capitulation to another's perspectives. At the same time, it is my intuition that there is a true impasse here that my recapitulations can not help resolve.
As these views have been further explicated, the very crux of the misunderstanding is now evident to me and appears to be as old as that between Martin Luther and the Catholic Church, notwithstanding recent rapprochements. The crux of the issue at hand obviously is precisely a recapitulation, on one hand, of Protestant formulations of justification (once saved, always saved; the "old" wo/man and the new; etc), and, on the other hand, of classical Catholic formulations regarding the economy of salvation.
Even the apologetic approaches reinforce this impasse. For instance, proof-texting either Sacred Scripture or Juan de la Cruz, outside of Sacred Tradition or Carmelite Tradition/Exegesis will not resolve the clear differences. There are many good resources at the Institute for Carmelite Studies (ICS) which can assist one in the proper interpretation of the writings of these Doctors of the Church (Teresa, Therese and Juan). I can assure you, they do not present Juan de la Cruz as a Protestant apologist regarding the purgative, illuminative and unitive ways. The human spiritual life is dynamic not static. Accordingly, the proper understanding of Church teaching is that we are not "once purged, forever purged", "once illuminated, always illuminated" or "once unified, always unified". To claim that we reach or attain a mystical state, however aided by grace, and there forever abide, seems to me to be nothing more than taking the application of the classical Protestant approach, in the same manner that it has been applied to the purgative way/justification doctrine, and applying it to the unitive way.
This Protestant versus Catholic approach to justification/sanctification processes has always been VERY highly nuanced and misunderstandings are built in to the discussion from the get-go. That it has taken centuries to get to our recent understanding with the Lutherans confirms this. Even within Catholic theology, the discussions of fundamental option theory are similarly VERY highly nuanced. I can and do look through all the lenses and see what folks are driving at and the differences can be VERY subtle even as the consequences of taking one position versus another and living it out can be VERY real.
NONE of this is to suggest that such impasses prevent our coexistence in Christian charity. I HONOR all of the intuitions that have been shared here and it is precisely because I have wrestled with these very same issues with the very same intuitions (almost, at times) that I ever come here presuming to share what i "think" I have learned, following the notion that we teach best what we need to learn the most.
In closing, yes, Phil and I are old and "super" friends, but what has been most stimulating and enriching about our relationship, in latter years, is how convergent our paths and conclusions have been even as our formations, for the past 20 years, have resulted from widely divergent life circumstances and spiritual pursuits. Suffice it to say, my positions are offered with integrity, separate and apart from his responses. That we converge here, gives me pause. And pause I will, for I have discerned to leave this thread alone going forward.
In Christian solidarity,
johnboy