Catholico - Presbyterianism

Now-a-days, it seems to me, people pick and choose their religious ideals from among much of the information that floats out there on the internet. I have to say that I have not been immune from this trend myself. I tend not to be dogmatically committed to one or another particular religion.

I would have to say that I am broadly Christian, if you can call an agnostic a Christian. I have heard disparaging things about agnostics as fence-sitters; however, I think we are all doubters of one form or another. Within this framework I take my personal philosophy largely from a Catholic idea that was borrowed from stoicism, that is the idea of freewill. (I wrote a book on this which I published on line called: Stoicism and Christianity. It is actually a translation of a book by Epictetus with commentary on the passages involved.)

What I find interesting is that, as far as the actual governing of church affairs goes, the Presbyterian model would seem to me to be more in line with the freewill philosophy. The Presbyterian Church is set up so that the members of the church elect a body of Elders who oversee the running of each individual congregation. Strangely enough, the Presbyterian Church has deep theological roots in predestination.

I am sure there are those who would say that this democratization (dare I say republicanization) of church affairs is a kind of compensating cathartic for a restrictive theology. I think this is unlikely and the development of Presbyterian form of governance was more likely due to the familiarity with the people of Scotland with more democratic ideas which had been fostered by the strong clans who had maintained power in the face of the attempted encroachments of a monarchic state. The idea was to keep power at the lowest level possible. Which is always a good thing to do when attempting to make good and efficient decisions.

Thus, we have the strange apparition of a heirarchic church governed by an infallible pope espousing freewill juxtaposed with a freely elected church governed by its membership proclaiming that God has such rigid control over the soul that every act of that person is already predetermined.