Infallible Me…

The weird thing about discussing the matter with Kevin is that there was an absurdity to it all. Kevin would say, “Dwight if you just open the Scriptures and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance he will enlighten your heart.” This was code for: “The Holy Spirit will lead you to believe like I do.” My reply was, “But Kevin, this is exactly what I have been doing for the last twenty years and the Holy Spirit has led me to become a Catholic.”

“Yes, but Dwight, if you will just open the Scriptures and ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten your heart…”

“But Kevin, that is just what I have been doing for the last twenty years and the Holy Spirit has led me to become a Catholic. What I don’t understand Kevin, is that if the Scriptures are the only source of truth, why should your interpretation necessarily be the right one? If we don’t rely on tradition, and it is just you and the Bible and the Holy Spirit and me and the Bible and the Holy Spirit, why should you be right and me be wrong?”

“But Dwight if you will but open the Scriptures and ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten your heart…”

There was a weird kind of absurd tail chasing going on.

Logic could not permeate such an absurd position, and I realized that within Kevin’s world view was also a kind of dis-trust of reasoning and logic. I’d forgotten about the fundamentalist’s absolutism. Since then I’ve enountered it amongst several other fundamentalists with whom I’ve been involved in discussion.

Perhaps the word ‘discussion’ is an overstatement. There wasn’t really much discussion going on I’m afraid.

That’s because Kevin–who would deny papal infallibility considered himself infallible.

It wasn’t even sola Scriptura.

It was sola Kevin.