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I do not believe that any human individual or ecclesiastical institution can exhaust the meaning of God and I am more bored than angry at religious claims like the infallibility of the Pope and the inerrancy of the Bible. Such claims are always an attempt to buttress religious idolatry. No one who has studied history can believe in the infallibility of the papacy and no one who has ever read the Bible can believe in its inerrancy.
Bishop John Shelby Spong
3 comments:
I've thought for many years that anyone who claims to know the mind or will of God is, de facto, a blasphemer. If God is infinite, then God is incomprehensible to the human mind. If God is finite, then God is not God.
I'd say that pretty well discredits folks on the religious right, most TV and radio evangelists, and a whole lot of members of the clergy.
Likewise, insistence on a single interpretation of a sacred text is also blasphemy.
I'm a lot more likely to trust Bishop Spong's theology than I am that of, say, Pat Robertson or Jimmy Swaggart.
Sez I, anyway...
I wonder if the author really knows what papal infallibility means; it does not mean the Pope is always right !
Hmmm...
In response to Ur-spo's comment, I suspect Bishop Spong, as one of the leading liberal Episcopalian bishops in the world, is well aware of the meaning of papal infallibility.
I understand something of those things too...
I DO find in interesting that infallibility was not defined dogmatically within the Roman church until the late 19th century (though practical belief in the dogma probably dates from the first century).
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