My own opinion is that Protestants have a problem with nature, not grace. This is why the protestant cross has no body of Christ on it. They deny the body of Christ both in the sense of denying the Church and in the sense of denying the incarnation itself (and thus the idea that all nature shall now be progressively sublimated by the action of God). Not that Protestantism can be collapsed into mere docetism. The subtle difference is that the docetists said that Christ's body was illusory. Protestants simply "foreclose" it, because it is passible/fallible. As Chesterton writes somewhere, it is God emphasized even to the point of absolute (not relative) contempt for the world.
All of which is to say that, to me, the great argument for confirmation (besides your own argument, which is sufficient!—modern theologians are obviously misreading Trent) is that it fills a *natural* need, the human need for a coming of age ritual which initiates us into adulthood.
I examine these things from this POV (the spiritual demands of mere human nature) here:
NB that I'm not saying that religious rituals are purely instrumental, but that religious rituals adapt themselves to certain needs baked into human nature, as well as being real pathways to God. Rather, the two things are inextricable.
My own opinion is that Protestants have a problem with nature, not grace. This is why the protestant cross has no body of Christ on it. They deny the body of Christ both in the sense of denying the Church and in the sense of denying the incarnation itself (and thus the idea that all nature shall now be progressively sublimated by the action of God). Not that Protestantism can be collapsed into mere docetism. The subtle difference is that the docetists said that Christ's body was illusory. Protestants simply "foreclose" it, because it is passible/fallible. As Chesterton writes somewhere, it is God emphasized even to the point of absolute (not relative) contempt for the world.
All of which is to say that, to me, the great argument for confirmation (besides your own argument, which is sufficient!—modern theologians are obviously misreading Trent) is that it fills a *natural* need, the human need for a coming of age ritual which initiates us into adulthood.
I examine these things from this POV (the spiritual demands of mere human nature) here:
https://8014543.substack.com/p/record-of-a-primitive-religion
NB that I'm not saying that religious rituals are purely instrumental, but that religious rituals adapt themselves to certain needs baked into human nature, as well as being real pathways to God. Rather, the two things are inextricable.