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fpb_de_fide
Faith and communication
Unless you take it AS A FACT, and act upon it, that the Christian doctrine is factually true, you are not a Christian. However, when addressing a member of another faith, it is not only legitimate but proper to use, as the basis of your approach, this proposition: "This is the theory upon which I act, and which I take to explain life and the universe. I appreciate that yours is different." Even though you are in the right, there is nothing wrong in understanding, first, that the others think they are right, and, second, that their views will contradict yours. The worst threat to peace and understanding is the assumption that deep down we all tend to agree; because it is the same as to say that deep down everyone tends to agree with ME. Such an assumption obviously favours mental sluggards and bullies. Worst of all, it is plainly not true. It is pleasant to find out, from time to time, that we have something in common with people of different religions and background; but to jump from that to the assumption that the basic ideas are common, or that only ideas that are common are important, is both illogical and cowardly. It is cowardly because it is an escape from the reality of contradiction, of radical distance, of contrary desires and goals, and of mutually unacceptable assumptions. If we accept that these things exist, we shall have taken a step towards peace and understanding, or at least towards one of the two; if we insist that everything fundamental is common, or that only what is common is fundamental, then we are moving inevitably towards the mental world of the coward and the bully.
Another point: you can be "in the right" if your basic assumptions are in line with reality, or, as we would say, with what God knows of Himself; but you cannot be "right", for you could only know about God what God knows about God if you had lived as God as long as God has lived as God. And that is plainly impossible. Even the saints and angels enjoying the Beatific Vision are not right in that sense.
Another point: you can be "in the right" if your basic assumptions are in line with reality, or, as we would say, with what God knows of Himself; but you cannot be "right", for you could only know about God what God knows about God if you had lived as God as long as God has lived as God. And that is plainly impossible. Even the saints and angels enjoying the Beatific Vision are not right in that sense.