I mean, just look at Craig: he basically dismantled monotheism right here: William Lane Craig and the Nicene Creed - #6 by 1Cor15.54
Do I think he means well? Absolutely. I’ve been reading him for ages. But this is what happens when someone, even in perfectly good faith, comes to believe that he “knows better” than an Ecumenical Council.
And as I told you, there are certain matters on which the Church never definitively ruled, such as the de auxiliis controversy. That means Christians are actually free to adopt Báñez’s views or to reject them.
Personally, as I’ve said, I find his views offensive and abhorrent. I genuinely loathe them.
But let me ask you this: what do you think I would do if the Church, through an Ecumenical Council or an ex cathedra pronouncement, actually established that Báñez was right? Do you think I would accept it?
You can bet your whole skull I would.
And not because I’m some unthinking simpleton, but because I do not believe that I possess greater authority than the Church. Nor do I believe that the Holy Spirit has ever abandoned (or ever will abandon) the Church to her own devices, allowing her to lead the faithful astray on dogmatic matters of faith and morals.
That’s the whole point, man. I simply don’t believe I possess that kind of authority. That’s all.
And I trust Jesus’ promises. I trust Him when He tells us that we will know the truth and that the truth will set us free. I trust Him when He says that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church, and when He promises that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth. To me, that is inherently incompatible with 47.000 different denominations contradicting one another even on fundamental matters of Christian doctrine.
You might ask: “But how would you reconcile your belief in God with Báñez’s views if they were ever dogmatically established as correct?”
And my answer would be: who says that I must understand everything?
There are plenty of things I don’t understand. I don’t understand why God allowed Auschwitz. I don’t understand why He is allowing what is happening in Gaza. And I don’t understand why He allowed some of the things I personally witnessed when, as a 20 years old kid, I was deployed to Bala Murghab, Afghanistan, in 2009, with the 183rd Paratroopers Regiment “Nembo” of the Folgore Brigade. Sure, free will and yada yada, but it doesn’t explain everything. There are countless ways God could prevent certain horrors without overriding anyone’s freedom, and yet He sometimes chooses not to. Why? Hell if I know.
None of that leads me back to atheism (which I abandoned definitely in 2014), nor, hopefully, does it make me an unthinking simpleton. I simply accept that His ways are not our ways; that, on this plane of existence, there are things we cannot fully know or understand; and that a childlike disposition is ultimately our surest path toward the Kingdom of Heaven.