To be pedantic, I believe it was two votes and one black smoke after the second vote. Four votes per day but only two smoke signals, unless I am mistaken.
Bmonk: “Perhaps it is better explained that the Holy Spirit guides them as a College, and so it may take time for them to come to that spiritual unity in which the Spirit can speak and be heard.”
I based it on analogy to a principle of canon law: when a person must consult a group (a Bishop having to consult his Presbyteral Council, for example), he cannot just poll the individual members–a true consultation means they must gather and discuss the question as a body.
Kind of ironic considering how Non-Catholics can’t even come to agreement on how to baptize someone or what church leadership is. If they apply their own logic to themselves, they can’t follow the leading of the Holy Spirit either.
Yes–but the Scriptures are the Word of God, and explain themselves so clearly! (Which is why there is only one group that follows Sola Scriptura, I guess. . . .)
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