Does my universalism avoid the anathematizing that applies to one who claims to possess subjective eschatological certainties?
Not for the lack of an earnest trying, I still can’t see the rationality of a hopeful universalism.
Still, my preferred path forward has been to accept as my default stance – not only that pertinent traditional doctrines are true, but – that many relevant elements of majority theologoumenal theoanthropologies are true. e.g. Thomism, itself, has a universalism problem.
To go through rather than around traditional stances seems methodologically necessary, especially if we aspire to properly characterize the true nature of any apparent disagreements, for example, as misunderstandings & misinterpretations vs heresies & disloyal dissents.
Beyond being the most charitable path of inquiry toward our interlocutors, this promotes the steel-manning & discourages the caricaturing of their stances, thereby bolstering the legitimacy of our inquiries & pertinence of our challenges.
When we by default presuppose that our differences are interpretive, we can, at least, first properly exhaust, for example, whether our differences might be reconcilable at the level of doctrinal hermeneutics & scriptural exegesis. Why invite authoritarian appeals, conciliar anathemas & Biblical proof-textings from the “dialogical” get-go?
If it just so happens that such an approach is more irenic than pugilistic, more respectful & less cursorily dismissive, that’s because the transcendental imperative of being loving is integrally intertwined with those of being attentive, reasonable, intelligent & responsible.
Do I thus avoid the anathematizing that applies to one who claims to possess subjective eschatological certainties?
I certainly will always avoid that, practically, by virtue of having too small an audience to warrant magisterial interdiction. Substantively, though, I’m a pragmatic semiotic realist & thoroughgoing fallibilist, whose certainties have only ever been existentially practical & provisional. The epistemological categories used in the historical anathemas would need to be updated & reinterpreted before landing a juridical blow on my writings. You know, I’m presupposing that our differences would be – ahem – interpretive.