Comment by geye1234
8 months ago
That's fair. Let's replace 'Christianity' with 'the Catholic Church', since what you say undoubtedly applies to Protestantism, and in a less obvious way to Eastern Orthodoxy. And remember, I'm saying 'timeless if true'; the 'true' part is assumed for the purpose of this argument.
As someone who has been Catholic most of my life, it certainly applies just as much to the Catholic Church (even to there being diverse beliefs within the Church at any given time, and certainly to change over time.)
Catholicism teaches that Divine Revelation is God's Self-Revelation and therefore can't change because God can't change. Again, if it changes, then it isn't true. I'm not (here) arguing that it's true; only that in order to adhere to it, one must hold that it doesn't change. That, obviously, doesn't imply that every member of the Catholic Church believes the same thing. Nor does it imply that practice will look different in various times and places, although practice will always have the same goal (Union with the Divine Essence) and therefore be in essence the same thing.
EDIT: "will look different" should obviously be "will not look different"
> Catholicism teaches that Divine Revelation is God's Self-Revelation and therefore can't change
Revelation may not change, but the actual concrete beliefs of the Catholic Church manifestly do.
> Again, if it changes, then it isn't true.
If it changes, and it was claimed to be a universal constant, than either the before- or after-change version isn't true, sure, that's trivially true.
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> Catholicism teaches that Divine Revelation is God's Self-Revelation and therefore can't change because God can't change.
The "God can't change" part seems a bit above our paygrade, no?
Not to mention: Who are we to say that God wouldn't reveal things to us gradually — and maybe in a changing way?
EXAMPLE: We still teach our kids that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Later, we refine the teachings.
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