You presume error where the Church teaches infallibly. The Catholic Church does not “spoon feed” doctrine; she transmits divine revelation safeguarded by the Holy Spirit. The First Vatican Council (1870) dogmatically defined that “the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra… possesses that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed His Church to be endowed” (Pastor Aeternus, ch. 4; DS 3074). You may reject this authority, but you cannot refute it by mere assertion.
To call the Church’s teachings “erroneous” is to accuse Christ Himself of falsehood, for He promised, “The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18) and “He who hears you hears Me” (Luke 10:16). The Magisterium does not invent truth; it guards and articulates what God has revealed. Your claim betrays ignorance of the Church’s doctrinal foundations and the rigorous theological tradition that undergirds them.
You speak as though your private judgement supersedes two millennia of apostolic continuity. That is not intellectual courage—it is spiritual presumption. The Church does not appeal to sentiment or manipulation; she appeals to reason illuminated by grace. As Dei Filius affirms, “faith is not a blind sentiment of religion springing from the depths of the soul… but a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing” (ch. 3; DS 3010).
If you reject the Church’s teaching, you reject the means by which Christ communicates saving truth. You may call it “spoon feeding,” but it is in fact the nourishment of eternal life. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). That is not metaphor. That is dogma. And it is not yours to dismiss.
You appeal to Scripture while dismissing dogma, yet Scripture itself presupposes the authority of the Church to define dogma. You ask where one must believe a “particular dogma” to receive grace—yet the very act of believing in Christ entails assent to His teaching, His sacraments, and His Church. To isolate the resurrection as the sole necessary belief is to mutilate the Gospel and reduce Christ to a slogan. “He who hears you hears Me” (Luke 10:16) was spoken to the apostles, whose successors define dogma not arbitrarily, but as guardians of divine revelation.
You demand a verse that lists dogmas as prerequisites for grace. That is a category error. Grace is freely offered, but not received apart from faith rightly ordered. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), and that faith is not generic—it is ecclesial, sacramental, and doctrinal. The Council of Trent (Session VI, ch. 7) teaches: “Justification… must proceed from the predisposing grace of God… whereby man is moved to believe those things which are divinely revealed.” That includes the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Real Presence, and the authority of the Church.
You cannot receive Christ while rejecting what He instituted. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53) is not optional. It is dogma. The Eucharist is not a symbolic add-on—it is the source and summit of Christian life (cf. Lumen Gentium, §11). To deny it is to deny Christ’s own words. Likewise, baptism is not a suggestion: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). That is dogma. That is grace mediated through sacrament.
You cannot pit Scripture against dogma, for dogma is the Church’s authoritative interpretation of Scripture. To reject dogma is to reject the Church. To reject the Church is to reject Christ. “If he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matthew 18:17). That is not metaphor. That is ecclesial judgement. You may claim to believe in Christ—but if you reject what He taught through His Church, your belief is self-fashioned, not salvific.
I shall leave the rest of your reply unanswered because answering it will in all likelihood be unfruitful.
