Syncretistic Catholicism

Another Minority Report

another minority report

Syncretistic Catholicism where any Anglican, Episcopal, Roman & Orthodox

consensus informs core beliefs & divergences are received as valid theological
opinions

Another Minority Soteriology

Below is in conversation with my friend, Brayden Dantin, and Godchild, Caleb

Sylvest. It is a memorialization of a 4 hour conversation regarding the
putative theo-contours of a valid Roman Catholic universalism.

The majority soteriology seems to imply that divine images can freely &
rationally choose to become mere shadows & vestiges of God, that human
persons can refuse – even though never the omnipresencing – the divine
indwelling.

My minority soteriology maintains that the lack of a mutual indwelling is not a

free will counterfactual because it’s not a possible world counterfactual, in
the first place, for divine images.

To wit:
In a grocery store, when a self-checkout kiosk goes down, we simply step
aside to the next one. If we’re checking out with an attendant cashier, should
she drop to the floor, we’d never just step over her body on our way to the next
register. That’s because our presences to one another are never merely
functional versus personal, never wholly impersonal versus interpersonal.
This is true no matter how we often act toward one another and
notwithstanding that our interpersonal relationships admit of degrees.

Free & rational human persons are never merely divinely omnipresenced,
functionally, ontologically & participatorily, as might be Bonaventure’s
creaturely shadows & vestiges. We are also ever mutually indwelled & divinely
co-constituted in the Totus Christus, relationally, interpersonally &
perichoretically as divine images in potency to becoming likenesses.

We assuredly grow in our self-appropriation of this indwelling, even if at first

we experience it inchoately & unawares, for the Spirit’s abiding presence
variously & always affects our intellects as form to matter.

While our refusals to cooperate with this ubiquitous grace to grow in divine
likeness will assuredly parasitize this goodness & certainly obscure the divine
image, they can never alienate the Spirit’s presence or obliterate the divine
image, the fullness of which purgative graces can efficaciously restore. The
Trinity eternally invites us to ever new illuminative heights, unitive depths &
epectatic breadths.

Adopt this minority soteriology and everything else will fall coherently into
place – anthropologically & eschatologically.

Human persons are created to grow in degrees of divine initimacy. What we

are has been divinely determined, that is, divine images. What it is that we co-
determine & self-appropriate is – not what, but rather – how & how much we
reflect what we are & ever shall be.
This only speaks to the issue of Who satisfies the human heart. How it may
be variously satisfied in eternity is a different question regarding both degrees
of glory & types of beatitude, both secondary & primary.

While the above is only an argument for a hard apokatastenai & soft
apokatastasis, it still entails that it would be prima facie divinely unjust to ever
deny anyone the possibility of eventually enjoying an everlasting beatific
vision.

These are the questions before us:

Who are You, Lord?

the character of the Father – love, mercy & justice

the primacy of Christ – Scotus & Maximus

the ubiquitous gift of the Spirit

And, Lord, Who Are We?

creation as Incarnation

constitutive, relational cosmotheandrism

multiple incarnations

the gratuity of creation

the gratuity of grace

nature of authentic freedom

how autonomy enriches freedom

If God is for us, who can be against? You, Lord, have the words of eternal
life. To whom shall we go?

definitions of eternity

varieties of purgative grace – their nature, severity & duration

post-mortem anthropology

original, secondary & primary beatitudes

different degrees of glory

questions regarding immutability, impeccability, epektasis, predestination,

efficacious graces

psychology of remorse & satisfaction

Sources of Revelation that speak to these questions

What does Special Revelation say about our journeys from image to likeness,
from friends to lovers, from eros to agape?

Church History
Liturgies & Prayers
Scriptures
Fathers & Mothers
Ecumenical Councils
Magisterial teachings
Theological speculations
Historical practices & devotions
Mystical & Hagiographic witnesses
Ecumenical & Interreligious witnesses
What might General Revelation suggest regarding our journeys from image to
likeness, from friends to lovers, from eros to agape?

Aesthetic Sensibilities
Moral Intuitions
Parental Instincts
Common Sensical Practices

Protology, History & Eschatology

Salient Distinctions exist between

1) how we would or wouldn’t respond in divinely determined circumstances,

per both our free natural inclinations & self-appropriated habits, as infallibly
known

2) how & how much like Christ we would or wouldn’t become as, generally,
divinely open

3) what we could or couldn’t become as divinely determined

4) counterfactuals of free will versus those of possible worlds

5) which aspects of our historical journeys might be attributed to the divine

antecedent will as intended for our sub-eschatological Edenic growth from
image to likeness?

6) which aspects of our historical journeys might be attributed to the divine

consequent will as permitted to help remedy our collective refusals to
cooperate in our growth from image to likeness?
John Sobert Sylvest March 2, 2024 Uncategorized

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