Among the starker distinctions between Catholicism and most Protestant traditions are their respective theologies of the role of material, temporal objects in the economy of salvation. Many non-Catholic traditions either summarily reject the sacraments or reduce them to spiritual practices, disconnected from physical things. Keeping some of the terms (such as baptism and Eucharist), they deny that they are more than symbols of interior events. These signs may point us toward grace, but they do not communicate it. From this, it naturally follows that experiences of grace are disconnected from duration and physical sensation. This is expressed in the rejection of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, as well as the denial of any connection between nature and grace. Grace and nature are severed.
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Space, time, and incarnation
among the starker distinctions between catholicism and most protestant traditions are their respective theologies of the role of material, t...
Ken Craycraft

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