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Christianity is of course a way of seeing the world, but it can't be reduced to this. As with Scripture, so with the Church - there are many ways of understanding it. All are true, all are important.

I just finished reading Borella's Secret of the Christian Way. A truly enlightening work. I found the "Threefold Body of Christ" doctrine truly fascinating, but its depth can only be appreciated once someone already has an understanding of how the Church understands itself - and very few people, her enemies especially, actually understand the Church.

There is the Church Militant (those still fighting for salvation against the real risk of damnation, i.e. Christians in the world), the Church Suffering (those who are guaranteed salvation, but who still have impurities and attachments to be purged, i.e. those in Purgatory), and the Church Triumphant (those who have attained salvation, i.e. those in heaven). Borella, drawing on a couple of Medieval theologians, associates this threefold division of the Church - which is the Mystical Body of Christ - with the threefold stages of Christ's Body, as unassaulted (Corpus integrum), as enduring His Passion (Corpus passum), and as glorified / resurrected (Corpus gloriosum). And there is a final threefold division, the Corpus natum, as born, Corpus eucharistum, as sacrament, and Corpus mysticum, as Church. Just as the pre-Passion, Passion, and Glorified Body of Christ is the same Body throughout, so too is the "pre-sacramental" Church, the Blessed Sacrament, and the Mystical Body of Christ is the same Body. And Borella also points out that, just as the essence of Christianity - which you've referred to here - must always have reference to the Trinity, so too must the existence of Christianity (and thus the Church) always have reference to the Incarnation - to the Body of Christ. And unlike an essence, which can be contemplated intellectually but not directly seen, the Body is just that which is seen. And so if the existence of Christianity is inseparable from the Body, the Incarnation, then it is by this Body that Christians must see the world.

And this is the same Body that the Jews crucified, the same Body that by crucifying, Jewish identity is today defined.

So yes, you rightly point out that Judaism and Christianity are diametrically opposed, not just essentially, but in terms of worldview, of existence, of perception.

@BurnInHelena

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I'm currently reading Borella's Christ The Original Mystery. I am only three chapters in, but I'd say it's the best work on philosophy of religion that I've ever read. This man is brilliant. His views on what esotericism is, and the triune hermeneutic, are changing the way I look at reality. If I meant anything by the statement you referred to, it's that what you've said here is itself part of a hermeneutic, a process or a journey if you will. One thing Borella stresses in this work is that we are all both 'within' and 'without' (esoteric and exoteric) at the same time, but not in the same relationship. Meaning there is always a deeper way of moving into the revelatum. I think, for myself, it's that process of coming closer to the essence of the revelation which is the essence of Christianity. I think it is certain that the body, as the existing church itself has an essence. Again, that's certain. But I was speaking more about this concept Christianity itself and its popular usage as a noun - I believe the essence of Christianity is a trifold and active process - of revelatum, esotericism, and exotercism - where Borella identifies the latter two as a relation. One is always moving inward to the revelation, which is the only thing that defines the exoteria. The revelation, in other words, cannot be identified formally with any specific level, least of which is a definite exoteric level. He very much stresses this irreducibly triune process that connects man's soul to the revelation.