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Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Different ways of interpreting many aspects of doctrine and Christian life



We continue with Chapter Two of Gaudete et Exsultatae:

43. "It is not easy to grasp the truth that we have received from the Lord. And it is even more difficult to express it. So we cannot claim that our way of understanding this truth aurthorizes us to exercise a strict supervision over others' lives. Here I would note that in the Church there legitimately coexist different ways of interpreting many aspects of doctrine and Christian life; in their variety, they 'help to express more clearly the immense riches of God's word.....' Indeed, some currents of gnosticism scorned the concrete simplicity of the Gospel and attempted to replace the trinitarian and incarnate God with a superior Unity, wherein the rich diversity of our history disappeared.

44. In effect, doctrine, or better, our understanding and expression of it, 'is not a closed system, devoird of the dynamic capacity to pose questions, doubts, inquiries...The questions of our people, their suffering, their struggles, their dreams, their trials and their worries, all possess an interpretational value that we cannot ignore if we want to take the principle of the incarnation seriously. Their wondering helps us to wonder, their questions question us."

The underlining is always mine!

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