“This is what we would say on the subject: every intellectual worker worthy of the name has something which for convenience we will call “a mysticism.” He may even have two: a religious mysticism, a profound devotion to the person of Christ, for example; and a cultural mysticism, such as adherence to the positivist principle in science, to subjectivist and evolutionary humanism, to the doctrine of universal mechanistic determinism; in brief, to scientific conformism. Sentimentally, intellectually and in every other respect, criticism has gained as a result of the humanist ideology of the 18th and 19th centuries, so that “modern” man — “modern” let it be understood in the already historical and traditional sense of the term — if he wishes to remain or become religious, can no longer give his religion the hyperphysical and transcendent foundation of the affirmations of the Apostles’ Creed: prophecy and miracle, in the sense of a special divine intervention in the causal series of events, appear to him as radical impossibilities. He is compelled to distinguish carefully between the faith of confidence and the faith of belief in “sacred history,” which reflects a manner of thinking that his ideology forces him to consider out-of-date. Thus it is in the believer’s subjectivity that he must seek the foundations of his religious life. Neo-Protestant theology thus betrays its connection with the philosophical psychologism dominant in the mid-19th century in France.”

[p.305]

From a dude by the name of Lecerf- a french hairy one (i.e. a calvinist)

Rather than just make you do the work i thought i would summaris my problems with the links i had posted.

I tried to argue with them but i got whooped. I actually argued with them not at the above links but here http://mliccione.blogspot.com/2007/11/plain-sense-muddle.html
The debate started off with a the bloggers take on Protestantism’s idea of the “plain sense” of scripture.

basically they are saying that Protestants rely on the internal witness of the Spirit in guiding them to what the bible teaches but that this is not enough as they say Protestants need an outside agent to verify that what they are saying is the truth of the bible is actually true, otherwise you end up with as many denominations as you do “plain meaning”s . They also say that even though the magesterium likewise relies on the internal witness of the Spirit, its (the magesterium’s) interpretation is proven to be true because the catholic church has stayed consistent whilst Protestantism has splintered on a regular basis.

Whatever about the consistency of catholicism ( or though i believe they have good thinking there too i.e. i dont think simply throwing limbo at them is enough) My main problem is how DO we know for sure that what we claim to be the plain meaning is the truth when there is so much disagreement over it?

Considering the thread of this post i thought you might be interested.

http://crimsoncatholic.blogspot.com/2007/05/thoughts-on-barth-and-word-of-god.html

Heres three links by big-time catholics who are talking about authority from their point of view which scares me to be honest. The first two are from a guy whose blog has a stamp of approval from the pope himself. The last is a proffesor in Harvard. Zoom if you can mess with these boys you deserve to be dean of maynooth.

So, the bible isn’t an authority. God is authority.
All gods, or only the god discussed in the bible?
But you only know god through the bible! God is what the bible says god is. The bible defines god for you-- other texts define god for different religions. If you shy away from the ‘magicness’ of the bible its ever more flaky.

>>> Only God can speak authoratively about God
So is the bible NOT god breathed then? Or does god speak through humans and over rule the bible? (God told me you’re wrong, and he told GWB we’re both wrong… and told Osama that we’re alllll wrong)
>>> For Barth, true authority however lies in the Word, that is Jesus
The only reported words you claim to of Jesus-- are in the bible. If the bible is any way confusing or inaccurate, in any shape or form-- then you don’t got nuffin! You have roomer, myth, hearsay and distilled political doctrine. It’s at the very very least reasonable not to conclude Jesus is god… in which case if he IS god -- he doesn’t want reasonable people to know it-- he wants, largely, the children of Christian parents.

I realize you’re into this theology lark pretty deep now, and there must be a large part of your esteem and career wrapped up in it for better or worse-- but there must be some part of you wonders sometimes about the circular logic of it all.