Briefly, Fr. Chad Ripperger, whose book highlighted this past week on this blog readers should get, notes several principles ignored by those who pursue emotional religion.
A sketchy list:
1) Fr. reminds us that one definition of faith from Aquinas in the Summa is this: a habit of mind, by which eternal life is begun in us, making the intellect assent to things unseen. Faith is not a feeling or some sort of gift outside the mind, memory and will.
2) Faith is in the intellect-Summa, II-II, q 4, a 2, and in faith, we give assent to virtue and hope for those truths which are unseen.
3) An act of belief is in the second act of the intellect of judgment, from Aquinas' Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate
4) Fr. notes that as God is the Rule of Faith, knowledge about Him, which is revelation, is found in Scripture and Tradition. One does not come to know God outside of these.
5) God did not reveal all these truths to each one of us personally, but through the prophet, Apostles and disciples of the Apostles, thereby making God the remote rule of Faith and Scripture and Tradition the immediate rule.
6) "Orthodoxy is the only means to salvation." And, the footnote from which this phrase is taken refers to the Epistle of James and the Summa.
I have stressed over and over and over in the perfection series that one must be orthodox in order to even begin the way of holiness. The reason is that one must follow the rule of Faith, involving Scripture and Tradition.
This book contains arguments against those movements and even, new orders, in the Church which only stress the emotions or the gifts and not the role of the intellect in following Christ.
Sadly, too many of the newer, non-traditional (as in Latin Mass) orders are stuck in emotional and sensational ways of prayer, liturgy and belief.
Sadly, false ecumenism has kept Catholics from preaching the truth to our Protestant brothers and sisters.
One cannot presume on the mercy of God with regard to those Protestants who reject the sacraments, especially Holy Eucharist, the nature of the Church, the role of the Church in establishing the Canon of Scripture, the role of the Church in passing down the Deposit of Faith, and the form of the Liturgy. What God has revealed cannot be denied.
To be continued...