Where God Meets Man

The Church, the Incarnation, & the “Catholic Synthesis”

by Folke T. Olofsson

Christian belief is not a conceptual religious machine, conceived, projected, and constructed in order to meet certain human needs or fulfill various human aspirations. Nor is it an intellectual structure erected in accordance with a set of criteria endorsed by a certain age or a particular group of people. Christian belief is not a construction that may be deconstructed and reconstructed, but rather a discovery of something already given. As life is something given, which precedes any human action and exists as the prerequisite condition for any human activity, Christian belief is a discovery of the works and words of the Holy Trinity. And as life is known by being lived, so Christian belief is known by living in this discovery. Christian belief is based on facts of Life. The Christian Church is one of these facts.

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Folke T. Olofsson is docent of theological and ideological studies at Uppsala University, and is rector of Rasbo parish in the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden. He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.

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