Hi, grandfather. I want to thank you for your enlightening and orthodox posts. I see from your profile that you are Catholic, and as such I would like to offer a little tweak on what you stated above.
Catholics proclaim that our faith was whole and entire before a single word of the NT was ever put to writ. That is, our doctrines do not come from Scripture; rather, Scripture reflects the doctrines of our Church. They serve to affirm and confirm the kerygma, but the kerygma does not come from the Scriptures.
Our doctrines come from Christ, not from a book, however Holy.
Of course! But we are dealing with people who don’t believe what we believe. They will only accept scripture, even though their doctrines are not found there.
If they claim all their doctrines are from scripture then they should be able to show where they are found in scripture if they are challenged. They can not quote, Luther, Calvin, Moody, Swaggert, Graham, or any theologian and you can’t quote Aquinas.
If we want to convince them of our beliefs we can only use scripture if that is all they will accept.
You can’t convince an atheist something is true. because the Bible says it. You can not convince a Protestant something is true, because a ecumenical council taught it.
If a Protestant group asserts something is true they need to prove it by scripture alone, their sole rule of faith. Whether it is once saved always saved, Jesus had brothers, the Eucharist is symbolic, babies should not be baptized, or that scripture is the sole rule of faith, they should be able to use scripture to prove it, and explain why they do not agree amongst themselves on their doctrines to be able to tell which are true.
Mary is ever virgin. We know this, because our Church teaches us. Protestants almost universally claim she is not, because of a superficial faulty reading of scripture. They do not care what the Church teaches about anything.
My intent is to show them from scripture alone, their doctrine, that they are wrong.
There are men called brothers of Jesus in scripture. One of them is James an apostle. Scripture also names the parents of James. The parents are not Mary or Joseph. This is black and white, clear as could be. Reason says that if James to be the sibling of Jesus, then scripture contradicts itself.
If you hold scripture to be true it can not contradict itself. Maybe just maybe the Catholic explanation that brother means close kinsman is the only option that upholds the truth of scripture.
What is confounding is that when you show from scripture that James can not possibly be the sibling of Jesus, because scripture reveals who his parents were, these people continue to insist the opposite.
