Faith/Spirituality Forum: theological indifferentism
theological indifferentism QUESTION from SS January 22, 2001 How might one respond to the comment;
Oh well sure X's theological beliefs are wrong [e.g. disbelief in the Trinity], but they are good people who behave in a decent manner, so what their theological beliefs don't really matter.
My gut reaction is to say that we are commanded to love God and loving God means a reverance for the details. A man would be silly to say he loved his wife but was apathetic about getting to know any details about her.
A second response I might have is to say this objection smacks of materialistic reductionism, that is to say all good and evil can be measure by its practical worldly effects (i.e. worshipping Baal would be ok as long as they were nice people).
Can you give my any help on this?
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius, OLSM on March 19, 2001 Mr. SS:
Even atheist can be good people. The question is why are we good people? Because, acting as our own god we have decided to be? Or is it because we have a God who teaches us and inspires us to be?
Besides, there are some aspects of goodness that are not possible without the Spirit of God.
As far as the details are concerned, Jesus said that if he can't trust us on the small things how can we be trusted on the large things. (Luke 19:17)
Details matter. I went on a backpacking trip accross the deserts of the Southwest United States back in 1980. I stopped every hour to take my boots off and powder my feet. I never got a single blister. If one does not pay attention to the small redness develolping on one's foot, or the small pebble in the shoe, a blister can form, get infected, become gangrene and kill you when you are out in the wilderness. Small things matter.
It is the rhetoric of the devil to suggest that small things don't matter. If we don't pay attention to the small things, we can lose our soul as small things eventually become large things.
Take a small trickle of water in your basement. It is a small trickle, who cares? Well if left unattended that small trickle can erode the basement walls and your foundation goes crumbling.
To say that small things do not matter is not only the rhetoric of the devil, it is the words of a fool.
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