Guest Op-Ed - Maturity in the Faith: Avoiding the anonymous Christian theory in evangelization

                                                                                                                                By Veronica A. Arntz

In his Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul writes that we must grow into the maturity of our faith. We read that members of the Church are given different gifts for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12).

These gifts are meant to be used until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; so that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles (Ephesians 4:13-14).

There are a few things to note here. First, attaining the full measure of the faith in Christ is not an autonomous process; rather, the Church as a whole is meant to strive for maturity in the faith. Second, as members of the Church, we are designed to attain a fullness of the faith not found in childish understanding. We cannot merely rely on simplistic doctrines or teachings; rather, we must fully embrace Christ’s call to pick up the cross and follow Him, which is a manifest teaching in all the Church’s doctrines. If we embrace the cross of Christ in His teachings and in our lives by attaining the “mature manhood” in Christ, we will be able to avoid those false doctrines, which can easily confuse those who are immature in the faith.

For the record: In a Week of Papal Firsts, "All of us will be up there together, all of us!"

Note: before some "apologists of the untenable" claim this must be a translation error, it is not, as you will see - we carefully checked it and retranslated it word by word from the Italian. What does it mean? We will not venture to say. We report it, for the record, you decide:

Dare we Hope?

AS WAS REPORTED HERE this past spring, the champions of Balthasar’s theology of hope for universal salvation censored a book review by Dr. David Paul Deavel of Dr. Ralph Martin’s recent publication, Will Many Be Saved? In doing so, they promised to undertake a sort of symposium in order to get a spectrum of different understandings of the interpretation of various passages from Vatican II on the subject.

Last week, the results of this symposium were published on the blog at Catholic World Report. Deavel’s original review is posted, as well as a number of other essays on the subject of Vatican II and salvation. However, the president of Ignatius Press, Mark Brumley, in his own essay cleverly sidesteps one of the central accusations that Martin makes against Balthasar, namely that Balthasar makes specious use of his sources, often quoting them out of context or even to make the opposite point of what the author intended.

Instead, Brumley concludes the selection of essays by offering an alternative interpretation of Balthasar that would more easily harmonize with Tradition and Scripture regarding the “hope” of universal salvation.

But what does Scripture and Tradition tell us about hope and salvation? If God created everyone out of love, then surely he would will them all to reach their end - eternal happiness in heaven. And if he wills the end, then surely he wills the means, right? Therefore, all will be saved?