I väntan på Jesus

 

 

 

 

But what we want to point out is the logical consequence of the self-denial. One has condemned the original firm foundation, and built the church on the dangerous ground of contradiction. Catholicism, although standing on a lower step of human development, however, is in itself more coherent. Even educated Catholics know this. They consider Lutheranism and Calvinism to be rigid transitional forms and look towards a future more thorough reformation, able to form a church, equally coherent, firm and consistent to its doctrine as the Catholic, but at the same time higher, freer, more spiritual than she, a church, which with the bond of religion unites into a harmonious whole all human differences and in the free development of individuals sees its own development and power increase: a church, which encourages reason to do research, as well as the heart to love, because she wants to realize both truth and love, and through both freedom. What a pitiful position compared to this future church does not the churches occupy which are advised to erase supposititious Bible verses, defend their dogmas with variant readings, which cannot stand scrutiny, and tremble for every scientific discovery, because in such they see natural enemies! The pitiful in such a position is not reduced, but increased, to the same extent as such a church in other respects is, like the Lutheran, a revelation of purified religious concepts and able to work for the ennobling of the human race.

As for the logical consequence of the elevation of the Symbolic Books to infallible authority in
the Church, we experience the same all too deeply, when the Catholics address such questions to us, such as e.g. the following:

- Is it not a contradiction, when you on the one hand deny the infallibility of the Synods, but on the other hand declare as divine, alone saving truths, numerous doctrines, e.g. the Trinity, which neither the Bible directly preaches or the oldest Christian Church knew, but which precisely through these Synods (and often through a slight majority of votes) have been formulated and mandated?

- In your Symbolic Books you have held these doctrines, and when you have elevated the mentioned books to an infallible and eternal norm for your Bible interpretation, haven't you then
thereby rendered the above-mentioned contradiction irremediable, made her the very foundation of your church? Because if the introduction of such a norm shall mean something, it must mean that every unbiased review of the accepted Synod doctrines is unjustified, and that all
examination on the whole, which comes to other results, is incorrect and reprehensible.

-You make your Symbolic Books a guideline for the study of the Bible instead of, like the Reformers,
making the Bible a guideline for the examination of Church doctrines. What blindness, when you none the less claim, that the Holy Scripture is your highest authority in matters concerning the teachings of Christ!

- Is this your immutable and thus, in case of being wrong, incorrigible paper pope to be preferred to our highest ecclesiastical authority, which is a chain of living persons and therefore does not completely exclude the possibility of a progress?