Are you afraid of hoping in God?

1. JJS, why the scare quotes?

   Are you afraid of hoping in God?

   Is there no accounting for spiritual intuition?

   That depends upon what you mean by spiritual intuition. If you mean that you claim some sort of spiritual intuition which can’t be confirmed, then, no, there is no accounting for it.

   But if you mean that you have submitted your intuition to the judgment of the Church, then you can see spiritual intuition recorded throughout the centuries in the writings of the Saints and the witness of the Mystics.

   I thought it was the Catholics who had that over the sterile Prots.

   The Catholic Church has everything over the Protestants. Protestants do not understand either the Scriptures nor the Tradition of Jesus Christ.

   Still, if Paul teaches eternal non-assurance then I will hang up my Christianity

   That is a straw man. The Catholic Church teaches that St. Paul teaches the assurance of hope in God.

   and go back to my secular upbringing. You know, like when he says that if there is no resurrection we are of all men most pitiable. If I cannot be assured of my final salvation then Christianity, Catholic or Protestant, is a complete and utter waste of time.

   Let me quote St. Paul:
   Hebrews 7:19
   For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.

   And he also said:
   1 Corinthians 4:2-4
   King James Version (KJV)
   2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. 4 For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.

   Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world: the atheists have a point.

   You can follow the atheists if you want. I follow Jesus Christ by the witness of the Catholic Church.

   Finally, the Catholic Church also teaches:
   TRENT VI
   CHAPTER XII
   RASH PRESUMPTION OF PREDESTINATION IS TO BE AVOIDED

   No one, moreover, so long as he lives this mortal life, ought in regard to the sacred mystery of divine predestination, so far presume as to state with absolute certainty that he is among the number of the predestined,[74] as if it were true that the one justified either cannot sin any more, or, if he does sin, that he ought to promise himself an assured repentance.

   For except by special revelation, it cannot be known whom God has chosen to Himself.
2. 
   

   What is your “principled reason” for believing that Roman Catholicism is the infallible church?

   Scripture says:
   1 Timothy 3:15
   But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

   There’s only one Church which claims and can support that charism. The Catholic Church.

   Sincerely,

   De Maria