Reply to Julio Carrancho's Unreason
©Lucio Mascarenhas
References: 1. Julio Carrancho's Letters 1 & 2
2. Carrancho's Tract "Recovering Reason"
Also:
3. Messianic Proofs &
4. C.S. Lewis' Classical Argument
Julio Carrancho, from what can be ascertained from the net, was, till quite recently, a rabid and virulent Protestant and anti-Christian (I use the name Christian and Catholic as being factually interchangeable), under the leadership of the Van Nattan family: a group that suffers from a weird KJV-itis — elevating the King James Version of the Protestant Redacted Bible as being divinely insured against errors at the time of its translation, and therefore, as being assuredly infallibly the Word of God.
It is not know - or stated by him - when he abandoned this disease. However, it is evident that he has abandoned it, and has gone off to become something of a virulent agnostic. I say "something of", because Carrancho seems to be more in a withdrawal, detoxifying phase than acting like a true, believing agnostic.
In withdrawing from Protestantism, Carrancho has not ceased or abandoned his hostility to Christianity - to the Holy Catholic Church. That, however, is nothing to be wondered about.
Carrancho, in playing the "agnostic" is very bitter and insulting towards Jehovah and Christ Jesus. However, I believe that God does not mind that too much, or require us Christians to, for we must bear in mind Carrancho�s limitations and the fact that his vitriol is informed by his disillusionment with the ideology to which he till recently paid his allegiance.
From the external viewpoint, it seems that Christians and Protestants worship the same God, as it also seems that the infidels and "Jews" do. However, the truth is something else. Protestants and other heretics, schismatics, the Muslims, Jews, Mormons, etc., fabricate themselves a false, counterfeit of the true God, who is not strictly the same as the true God, and who is not acknowledged by God Himself. On the contrary, each of these acts of disobediences results in new accessions to the Kingdom of Satan, participating in his supreme act of rebellion, and it is Satan who presides over and who receives the formal, corporate worship of these sects.
As Christians, then, we must understand that Carrancho�s bitterness is not directed against God but against the false notion of God that he worshipped as a Protestant.
It is a sad reflection of the quality of the ideology he formerly professed that it did not inoculate him against the ideas that he presently spouts, as being some new intellectual discovery, a great illumination, a great discovery.
But it is a fact that Christianity has already substantially addressed these objections, a long time before, and which tradition continues today.
The Radio Replies, which were replies given on radio by Fr. Leslie Rumble in the US, and by Fr. Joseph Carty in Australia, during the period 1925-1940, and which have been committed as a three volume work, more than adequately addresses these objections and explodes them.
And yet, here we have Carrancho reviving them as if these ideas had never ever occurred to man before, or that if they had been, they have not been debunked.
I repeat: This, that Carrancho repeats these false, exploded, debunked ideas, as if they are new and have not been addressed, is a reflection on the "religion" that he formerly professed, a Protestantism that feigned to be Christianity, and its intellectual abilities!
However, when one considers Carrancho's former writings, his present turn does not look surprising. The roots of his rebellion is already visible in his previous writings.
My understanding is that Carrancho was troubled for long with these ideas, which he suppressed with great difficulty, and soldiered on, until the time when he could not put down his doubts any longer.
Again, there is the violence with which he used to write, when a Protestant, and which has not changed, despite the change in religion, from Protestant to Agnostic...
I do not have the same ability to present the truth in opposition to error as the authors of the Radio Replies had. However, I will do my duty by setting out the facts as far as I am able to.
Carrancho's entire cosmogeny is wrong, and this is the source of his difficulties.
There is, in fact, merely one God, not several. God is almighty or omnipotent. But God is also the only omnipotent being — no other being possesses the same powers, abilities and characteristics in total as he does.
God created the Angels first of all. Angels are purely spiritual beings, without any admixture of physical nature. The Angels were created with great intelligence, higher even than that of man. But God did not want the Angels to blindly accept him, to love and to serve him, and to enjoy his presence, but he wanted their free accession. Therefore, the Angels also had Free Will. But a large number of the Angels, under the leadership of the highest Angel, Satan, rebelled against God, wished to be exalted above God, and were punished and expelled. We call these fallen angels the devils.
Man was created subsequently, in order to make up the number of the fallen angels. Like with the Angels previously, God created man with Free Will so that man can choose to freely accede to him, or to not to. It is the providence of God that mankind shall persist in this state of being, which is a trial period, for a certain period of time, until the number of the fallen angels are made up by the number of men who have acceded to him.
When God created man, we were not perfect. However, we were in a natural state of happiness, and we would have continued in that state until the pre-ordained end of time. However, our first parents disobeyed God and sinned, as a result of which they — and we as their descendants — suffer in a world that is deprived of its natural happiness.
This deprived state, a state of privation, is the result of Adam & Eve's sins.
God did not create out of any need but he created man and the angels freely, with the intention that they should merit his presence, to share in the happiness of the Trinity.
Jesus Christ is the second person of the Triune Godhead. It is true that the word "Trinity" is not written in the Bible. But there is no reason for it to be.
Despite the fact that Protestantism is actually several distinct and separate heresies, they do share certain common beliefs. One of these is that the Bible is supposedly the compendium of all knowledge, or at least, contains in itself, the fullness of divine revelation, etc.
However, as a matter of fact, this idea is wrong, false.
The Bible is not one book, but several. It is not its own authority as to which books are to be included and which, not. That authority has to be, therefore, an external authority, and one which must persist in order to safeguard the canon of the Bible from corruption.
Christ Jesus did not command his disciples to go forth and to distribute Bible copies and to quote from the Bible. He commanded them to go forth and to preach his message.
The instructions of Christ, besides the prior and latter writings, inspired by the Holy Ghost, are substantially included in the Bible.
Substantially, but not entirely.
Christ Jesus, first of all, gave his authority to Simon Bar-Jonah, whom he renamed, on that occasion, as the Rock (Kepha or Peter), and secondly to the Apostles. He instructed them: He who hears you, hears me; he who disregards you, disregards me. Thereby he established a chain of authority, with the Apostles and their successors conveying this authority. Those who rejected the authority of these men separated themselves from Christ, even when they pretended that they continued to constitute the Church, or a part of it.
It is these men, successors of the Apostles, who constitute the Teaching Authority of the Church. It is this Teaching Authority, that, in exercise of its authority, and under the Guidance of the Holy Ghost, finalized the Canon of the Bible and that protects it from mutilation, additions, etc.
But Divine Revelation is more than merely the written word. It is first of all the unwritten Apostolic Tradition, of which the written part is a subset.
And it is the Church — in its Teaching Authority — which is the guardian and decipherer of this Divine Revelation.
The Successors of Peter, the Highest Authority in the Church, as Christ made him, succeed to the position of supreme authority on earth. Since there was no name designating this office, Christians have reserved for him the name Pope. While the name "Pope" is not in the Bible, there is no suggestion in the Bible that it should be�
I reiterate that, in opposition to the false claims of the Protestants, the Bible nowhere claims to be its own interpreter, or to contain all that is necessary for salvation. A plain examination of the Bible shows clearly enough that it is not its own authority, nor does it pretend to be.
Jesus taught us to pray for the coming of the Kingdom. By this, he meant the early coming of the Kingdom. God has not chosen to reveal to us his timings, but we understand so much, that he is willing to change his timings according as he finds mankind corresponding to his will. If men correspond, God expedites things; if mankind does not correspond, or is slow and hesitant, then things are delayed.
Thus, for example, the incarnation had to await a suitable woman, who corresponded to the high requirements that would be necessary for one who is to be the mother of incarnate God. Many Jewish maids prayed for that election, but only Mary was found suitable.
God does not wait for men to approach him but he approaches man himself. He seeks out man, and freely provides him with the opportunity of his grace, so that the man who accepts and corresponds can attain to him friendship and ultimately to salvation.
Jesus Christ was not merely an "immature" and ignorant revolutionary, as Carrancho pretends. He more than amply proved himself by his miracles - such as raising the dead. His greatest miracle was to rise from the dead himself.
Agnostics may scoff and pretend that none of this happened. It is, however, they who are being petulant and childish.
God worked a great miracle as recently as less than a century ago, when our Lady worked the miracle of the Sun at Fatima, to prove her authenticity. Skeptics and agnostics scoffed at her challenge and promise, but when it did happen, even the honest skeptic and agnostic present at the site admitted it.
The Kingdom of Heaven will come, and our Lord Christ Jesus will come again. Christ did not tell any man when, and it was never pretended that it was to come shortly.
Christ Jesus taught man to pray by avoiding VAIN repetitions. Protestants misrepresent that to mean repetitions at all. But that is not what Christ meant, for he did not merely say "repetitions", but he said "vain repetitions". He defined "vain repetitions" as being in the manner of the heathens.
Now, I live among the Hindus, and I can see clearly enough what Christ Jesus meant when he condemned "vain repetitions." The Hindus have become so perverted that they believe that God is absolutely obliged to respond to repetitive prayer and to give the "boon" demanded, even when such a power could and would be misused to harm others!
Christ Jesus and his associates were not members of the Essene sect. Christ came in accordance to the long-standing promises made of his coming, of the Messias to come. He did not, unlike the pretended "incarnations" of Hinduism, spring from nowhere and with no pedigree of predictions, and claim to be the incarnation.
Carrancho repeats blindly the received dogmas of agnostics and of heretics, whereby they must religious assert and allege that Christ belonged to this or that sect, that he was inspired by the Essenes, the Hindus, the Buddhists, etc. There is no reasoning in this, is there?
These people are very prompt with reproaching us as being "unreasoning" but we are to accept their irrational and baseless allegations as being infallible, divine oracles. This from the same people who reproach us Christians for accepting Divine Revelations! What is this if not hypocrisy?
As a matter of fact, Christ did predict the Sack of Jerusalem — and the destruction of the Temple.
©Lucio Mascarenhas