T
Tiberius1701
Guest
This imaginary, incongruous dispensation of yours is “a sign-less age”? Really? Then why does the Bible record many miraculous signs done by the Apostle you hope to kidnap as the spokesperson of “this dispensation”? We know, obviously (since your own positive claims logically lead to it and since you’ve never denied it), that everything you say about Biblical interpretation is merely a guess backed by absolutely no assurance of Truth, but I’m nonetheless truly shocked, not just by your ability to extrapolate wildly from what you read in the Bible, but far moreso by your ability to completely ignore what is plainly written there.
Why should we listen to anything you, a fallible person who cannot logically even believe that everything he/she says about theology/ecclesiology is correct, when your own claims pattently contradict the word of God? If Paul’s alternate dispensation is “sign-less,” then why does God Himself claim the exact opposite of what you just claimed? You say, “[Paul’s] dispensation of the grace of God [Eph. 3:2] is a sign-less age.” Yet Acts 14:3 says, “And the Lord proved their [Paul and Barnabus’] message was true by giving them power to do miraculous signs and wonders.” I’m a little confused here, Cat. Should we believe you? Or… should we believe God? Are you more trustworthy than the God of the universe?
I’m willing to suppose that you’ll claim that this was the conveniently nebulous “transitional period” that allows God to contradict you by showing the radical continuity between Paul’s message and the message of all the other Apostles without you having to pay any heed to God’s own proof that you’re wrong since the “transitional period” can no doubt be expanded to last from the Ascention of Christ to the death of Paul in Rome if need be, but I’d remind you that the verse singles out Paul and Barnabus, whom you’ve claimed are the Apostles solely of your “dispensation of grace” and not of anything else, “giving them power to do miraculous signs and wonders” to prove their message, not anyone else’s. So, if God proved that their message is true by performing miracles through them, Cat, why doesn’t He perform miracles through you or anyone who shares your message?
Once again, Cat, you force us, by your own short-sightedness, to confront the many logical inconsistencies in your beliefs and conclude because of them that you are wrong. You come to a Catholic forum proclaiming this new gospel, this wild innovation, as though it were God’s own Truth, yet neither you nor God gives us any reason to believe that what you say has any measure of Truth in it. God tells us, in His Word, that miracles are given to prove that what His prophets say is true, yet you perform no miracles. You act as though your word is the very Word of God, yet you simultaneously claim that no one, not even you, is infallible. Why should we listen to you, Cat? Neither you nor God backs up anything you say with any kind of proof. You give us 0% assurance that what you say is true, and you tell us that no one, not even God, can or will verify it for us by any means beyond reminding us of that assurance of absolute uncertainty. Please, Cat, tell us why anything you believe should matter to a single person other than you? You claim indefatiguable fallibility while assuring us that neither you nor anyone who believes what you believe can perform miracles. You basically come here to tell us that interpretation is just a game of Russian roulette with eternal consequences.
If you have any hope of “saving” any of us who reject your interpretation from our “evil,” yet pattently Christian, religion, tell us this one thing: why should we leave a Church that gives us assurance of Truth, a Church that had borne the witness of countless miracles from the days of the Apostles down through this very moment, and instead fly to a “non-religion” utterly devoid of God’s own miraculous witness endowed only with the promise of total confusion and conjecture when it comes to what is Truth?
I challenge you to follow the evidence: look at which Church *does *claim infallibility and thus can give us assurance of Truth, and then look at which Church God Himself has given His unbroken witness to by giving it the power to perform miraculous signs and wonders even to this very age. God just recently healed a Catholic nun of Parkinson’s Disease through the intercession of Pope John Paul II. Parkinson’s is incurable, Cat. Yet non-Catholic medical professionals have affirmed both that this woman had Parkinson’s and is now completely cured of Parkinson’s. And this is just one of thousands upon thousands - perhaps even millions - of miracles performed throughout the entire history of the Cahtolic Church by Catholics who were alive at the time and also through the efficatious intercession of Catholics who had died and gone to heaven. To borrow the words of Acts 14:3, I dare say that “the Lord prove