The Quadrality

[Gorgias]

Well, it seems you have to resort to the argument that a group of people can have a religious belief of which they are unconscious temporarily. Therefore, I do not think it would be so far-fetched to have a belief like the quadrality defended by the same means.

Fair enough. However, I’m not buying your premise. If you respond to my request in the previous post, and can show me what your grounds are, perhaps this discussion can move forward. Otherwise, we continue to devolve into the “snark and refutation show”…

Several people have already admitted that if a pope declared it to be so, it would be so. Therefore, my suspicion that Catholic beliefs are based on a circular reasoning or pure religious authority seems to be demonstrated.

It goes like this:

Nope. It goes more like this:

Parents have the authority to lead their children and set boundaries for them. When parents put a babysitter in charge, if they should say “your authority is X, Y, and Z”, then the babysitter’s authority extends only to those things. However, what if the parents should say, “kids, whatever Suzie says, goes. Whatever she tells you to do, I’ll stand behind. Her word is my word”? In that case, it’s not a matter of the babysitter’s authority, it’s a matter of parental authority given by proxy to another.

And, of course, babysitters can make some pretty stupid decisions. We believe Jesus when he not only gives the proxy, but also promises that He’ll send the Holy Spirit to protect us.

Church teaching is taken as a given, and then apologists reason to what the facts must have been.

You’ve never seen the process of Church teaching in action, then. It’s exactly the opposite, as you’ve explicitly pointed out in referring to Church councils! The discussion happens first, and the magisterium discusses, and only once they’ve reached a consensus does an expression of doctrine get made.

I cannot abide this epistemology, I can’t be sure that it points me in the direction of the truth.

I wouldn’t be able to abide by it, either. The problem is that you’re mischaracterizing it, and therefore, it seems backward to you. I get that. Your challenge is to rise above your misunderstanding and see what’s really happening here. That’s a pretty difficult thing to do; it requires you to set aside your bias and prejudices, and evaluate anew.

Here’s the curious thing though: all of you in this thread see my illogic, unfounded assumptions, baseless suppositions, and pure silliness in the claim of quadrality. You are using reason and historical analysis to deny my conclusions. You start from the facts, and reason to the conclusion.

My question is: why do you not do this with everything?

We do. You’re just not seeing it.

Why do you exempt Catholic claims from this process? By arguing with me, you have proven that you do want to believe the truth, but there appears to be a double standard. Why do you not apply the same rigor to all claims of this nature?

We do apply this kind of rigor – or we trust those who have done so in the past. We do not ‘exempt Catholic claims from this process’, but neither do we construct stories that mischaracterize what this process precisely is. Sorry. :nope:

 

[jinglebelle]

What’s a “sixth former?” Anyway…this is more proof that the belief in Mary’s divinity has always been part of the faith, though not in an explicit way. The fact that he went on to live a happy life proves that he was right about this and God must have given him special insight into their essence.

A final year in high school, I never doubted his belief,never doubt anyones but the bishop expelled him , not me

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

What you have there is a satire on legalism, on the emptiness of following the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law, which Jesus also preached against.

That’s a very fair point, although I was once presented with the classical triangular diagram as evidence of the Trinity. Then I fell into the old sci-fi trope when an evil computer is presented with a paradox and started flailing my arms and shouting “Does not compute” while making buzzing and whirring noises.

Since I’d much rather talk about diagrams than as to whether Mary could be the fourth person in the Godhead, here’s one I made for a thread I had called “The Possibility of More Than Three Persons In the Godhead”. It was similar to this thread except it didn’t specifically posit any particular entity as being co-eternal, equal in majesty, etc. and was more about determining what we do and don’t know about the Trinity. It vanished off the board early yesterday morning, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, here’s the diagram for 5 persons (kvar and kvin being Esperanto for 4 and 5):

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Things start getting messy the more we add, especially with an even number of persons. So I cheated when I made a 6 person diagram:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Agreed. Yet, you’re about to step in it, big time. Watch out…

And… there you go.

No, at the time the OT was written, these things weren’t known. Yet, as Christians, we believe that at that time, Divine Revelation was not yet complete. Rather, we believe that public revelation ceased at the death of the last apostle.

This has disastrous consequences for your little thought experiment. Your whole case hinges on an implicit assumption that you’re making: since things weren’t fully revealed in the OT, then it’s possible that they weren’t fully revealed in the NT. To a Christian, that dog just don’t hunt. We believe that God revealed himself not only in the OT, but in the words of Christ (and in the teachings of His apostles).

You cannot make a case here that will satisfy a Catholic, since your case explicitly requires that we assent that doctrine is created wholecloth by a pope or the magisterium. Moreover, it requires that we buy into the notion that the revelation in the NT is somehow less important than that in the OT.

(Now, I understand that you personally don’t believe in the NT, but you can’t make your case on a belief that only you hold and we do not. Your insistence that your case holds speaks volumes about the blinders that you’re wearing, as well as your misunderstandings of what we’re saying.)

No, you misunderstand. I was employing the Christian argument that things clearly revealed to Moses can be flatly contradicted by later revelation and somehow be a “development” rather than a flat contradiction. Christians think things weren’t fully revealed to the Jews. I personally don’t actually know. If God can insist again and again that he is a singularity and there is no other, and then Christians can believe that he would later flatly contradict himself by saying he is a plurality, then any possibility seems open does it not? Christianity is wide-open to modification: and look at your history. Disagreement and strife abound, including contention about the most essential beliefs. Thousands of splinter groups all hating each other because of theological differences based on the same texts!

I know you say “that dog don’t hunt” but you have no reason to state this other than pure prejudice. If a new prophet/pope were to come along and claim that Mary was God too, some Catholics would probably believe it, and some would splinter off. The group splintering off would no doubt think themselves to be the “true” believers. They would be the pharisees of today (not that that’s a bad thing, mind you! ).

The implication of “Χαῖρε κεχαριτωμένη” is precisely so.

The interpretation of Mt 1:25 – in particular, the “ἕως οὗ” part of “οὐκ ἐγίνωσκεν αὐτὴν ἕως οὗ ἔτεκεν υἱόν” – says that this is so.

I do not read Koine Greek. Suffice it to say, if it were so unambiguous, then why don’t protestant scholars who do read Koine Greek agree with your analysis? Surely there must be some reason or explanation.

as you’ve pointed out, Jesus himself used the language of ‘Trinity’, even if He did not use the term itself.

This single line of one gospel hardly seems sufficient to overturn the thousands of repetitions of “Only I am God…there is no other” found all over prior revelations. I could easily say this was just a ceremonial tradition in the early church that found it’s way into the gospel author’s account because it sounded nice. Just because someone is “baptized” in some or such other formula doesn’t necessarily mean that person recognize the three names as distinct but con-substantial divine beings. God has many names in Hebrew, that doesn’t mean each of them are distinct persons.

The explanation of ‘transubstantiation’ is an explanation of what Jesus meant in the Bread of Life discourse, as well as in the Institution Narratives.

So, yeah… Divine Revelation does tell us these things. Where we need explanations, we turn to those whom Jesus promised would be able to teach us (doctrine) without error – the Church, as protected by the Advocate (i.e., the Holy Spirit).

(Again, you may not personally believe this to be so, but this belief isn’t sufficient to act as proof against our claims.)

Proof against your claims: people who claim to be Christians believe no such thing about transubstantiation and read the same texts. You will say they aren’t “true” Christians and embrace the “No true Scotsman” fallacy of course, right? Apologists put it in more patronizing language like “they don’t have the fullness of truth” but it will mean the same thing.

No… that’s a characteristic of a humanity that chooses its own interpretation above that which has been given by God. If you can find a verse that says that Scripture is “clear and unambiguous text”, as promised by God, I’d love to see it…

You are “moving the goalposts.” I never said the Scripture claimed to be clear and unambiguous, or that it should be. I am submitting evidence that Catholic theological claims are not so clearly and unambiguously support by the texts. If that were the case, then Christians wouldn’t have had a long and bloody history of vociferous disagreement about basic theological issues. They wouldn’t have needed a whole office to enforce theological views via torture, violence, intimidation, book-burning, and execution.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

What are you quoting here? This seems to be the root of your argument, and therefore, the root of your misunderstanding. Can you quote to me, please, what you’re citing here?

I’ll stop here and continue responding in another post. This question I’ve just asked is important enough for me to hope you’ll respond to it…

"Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit."42

"And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching."43

82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence."44

-Catechism of 1993, Part 1, Section 1, Article 2, Chapter 2, Paragraphs 81-82.

The entirety of the “Word of God” was entrusted to the apostles apparently. It’s the Church’s job to “interpret” this tradition. There is no way to distinguish between “interpretation” and “fabrication” though, because no one else has access to the information contained within tradition, apparently!

Nope. It goes more like this:

Parents have the authority to lead their children and set boundaries for them. When parents put a babysitter in charge, if they should say “your authority is X, Y, and Z”, then the babysitter’s authority extends only to those things. However, what if the parents should say, “kids, whatever Suzie says, goes. Whatever she tells you to do, I’ll stand behind. Her word is my word”? In that case, it’s not a matter of the babysitter’s authority, it’s a matter of parental authority given by proxy to another.

And, of course, babysitters can make some pretty stupid decisions. We believe Jesus when he not only gives the proxy, but also promises that He’ll send the Holy Spirit to protect us.

There are several babysitters and tons of kids actually. Increasing numbers of kids aren’t convinced they have parents at all. The babysitter’s are always at each other’s throats, and many of them claim to be the sole legitimate babysitter while the others are evil imposters. Most of the kids never even met their parents. The ones who claim to have met the parents have vague and contradictory reports about what they’re like and what they want. When Suzie says “Mom and Dad are really like this or that, and I’m always right, and I have their authority” I don’t believe her. I have no good reason to believe she is the legitimate babysitter. This family is a mess! Isn’t it more likely the parents will have to sort it out when they come home?

You’ve never seen the process of Church teaching in action, then. It’s exactly the opposite, as you’ve explicitly pointed out in referring to Church councils! The discussion happens first, and the magisterium discusses, and only once they’ve reached a consensus does an expression of doctrine get made.

More like people come in with agendas and intimidate, argue, and politik with others until a consensus is forced by exigent circumstances. Does this sound like the royal road to God’s truth?

I wouldn’t be able to abide by it, either. The problem is that you’re mischaracterizing it, and therefore, it seems backward to you. I get that. Your challenge is to rise above your misunderstanding and see what’s really happening here. That’s a pretty difficult thing to do; it requires you to set aside your bias and prejudices, and evaluate anew.

We do. You’re just not seeing it.

I literally have no reason to think God is a plurality other than because the Catholic Church says so. It is unreasonable. I have no reason to believe anyone has experienced it. What reason could you have to think this? Because Jesus says so? No one can actually verify what Jesus said, all we have are retrospective reports supposedly complied from anonymous sources.

We do apply this kind of rigor – or we trust those who have done so in the past. We do not ‘exempt Catholic claims from this process’, but neither do we construct stories that mischaracterize what this process precisely is. Sorry. :nope:

Maybe I am mis-characterizing the mode of Catholic belief. I was Catholic for decades. I tried my very hardest to make myself believe this stuff, but it’s just impossible. I actually do not understand how someone can be a true-believing Catholic. Literally, I cannot imagine thinking that the Catholic Church teaches the truth. Jesus himself would have to miraculously appear to me and explain the trinity and explicitly tell me the Pope is his vicar or whatever for me to believe this. Even then I probably wouldn’t believe it since I would have no way of knowing whether this apparition was actually Jesus!

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Hi Pumpkin Cookie,

Still playing?

Bro, I didn’t get your response to this the last time I posted this, so I’ll give it another shot:

Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel: ‘When He shall come, the Spirit of truth, shall guide you into all the truth.’ Paul does not say to the Athenians: ‘This is the encyclopedia of truth. Study this and you have the truth, the truth.’ No! The truth does not enter into an encyclopedia. The truth is an encounter - it is a meeting with Supreme Truth: Jesus, the great truth. No one owns the truth. The we receive the truth when we meet [it]

Pope Francis

The statement “no one owns the truth” is itself an attempt to claim ownership of the truth!

To address the bolded questions, faith cannot be proven by reason, doctrine, prophesy, infallible statements, philosophical assertions, logic, or any other such head-centered human constructs. Faith rests on the encounter within and without, through prayer, through following Love and living love. Faith begins with the wonder of a small flower or the smile of an infant.

Jesus, in his lifetime, “grew in wisdom”. Would we dare be so rigid that we cannot believe that the Church does the same? Revelation “unfolds”. Doctrine, even guided by the Spirit, is the best attempt we can endeavor to make sense of this amazing encounter/relationship we have with the divine.

So, if you can come up with a better way to make sense of the mystery of it all, feel free! In the mean time, there are plenty of people whose faith is highly dependent on reason, doctrine, prophesy, etc., and that is okay, we can accept and understand people from where they are, right? As long as no harm is being done, we can “live and let live”.

This may go back to an earlier discussion, but do you see some harm being done? Or, do you see that faith truly leads to “life at its fullest”? Are you thinking the former?

If so, this thread is more than play, it is an attempt to steer people away from what you see as a problem, right?

Peace

Look, I think having false beliefs is harmful yes. Catholicism has spiritually, psychologically, financially, and physically harmed millions of people. It has also encouraged some people to help millions of people. Is it a net gain? I’m not sure.

I’m not going to argue with you OneSheep. You are a peacemaker and are trying to help. Thanks for your help.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

That’s a very fair point, although I was once presented with the classical triangular diagram as evidence of the Trinity. Then I fell into the old sci-fi trope when an evil computer is presented with a paradox and started flailing my arms and shouting “Does not compute” while making buzzing and whirring noises.

Since I’d much rather talk about diagrams than as to whether Mary could be the fourth person in the Godhead, here’s one I made for a thread I had called “The Possibility of More Than Three Persons In the Godhead”. It was similar to this thread except it didn’t specifically posit any particular entity as being co-eternal, equal in majesty, etc. and was more about determining what we do and don’t know about the Trinity. It vanished off the board early yesterday morning, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, here’s the diagram for 5 persons (kvar and kvin being Esperanto for 4 and 5):

http://muchsarcasm.com/pics/fivehead.png

Things start getting messy the more we add, especially with an even number of persons. So I cheated when I made a 6 person diagram:

http://muchsarcasm.com/pics/sixhead.jpg

The persons could multiply to infinity and yet the doctrine would still be the same amount of contradictory.

 

[inocente]

That’s a very fair point, although I was once presented with the classical triangular diagram as evidence of the Trinity. Then I fell into the old sci-fi trope when an evil computer is presented with a paradox and started flailing my arms and shouting “Does not compute” while making buzzing and whirring noises.

Since I’d much rather talk about diagrams than as to whether Mary could be the fourth person in the Godhead, here’s one I made for a thread I had called “The Possibility of More Than Three Persons In the Godhead”. It was similar to this thread except it didn’t specifically posit any particular entity as being co-eternal, equal in majesty, etc. and was more about determining what we do and don’t know about the Trinity. It vanished off the board early yesterday morning, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, here’s the diagram for 5 persons (kvar and kvin being Esperanto for 4 and 5):

You have way too much time on your hands.

Christianity is monotheistic, the Nicene Creed starts with We believe in one God. Anything which appears to portray it as belief in a pantheon of gods could be upsetting to some.

To me God is ultimately beyond human definition (“I am who I am” Exodus 3), beyond human imagination even (“See, God is great beyond our knowledge” Job 36). This is what God is, but we can’t meaningfully relate to such a being. The Trinity provides the relationships - we’re all children of the Father, friends of Christ, connected to him by the Spirit. (Some may be horrified at the liberties I took there, but hopefully it shows that the Trinity can’t be contained by a diagram, a diagram isn’t even close.)

There are things about us we don’t understand, or at least if we’re honest. There are tombs of the unknown soldier in many countries, guarded with great respect and reverence to give honor to the Fallen. The tombs just contain bones, dust to dust, but we can all relate to those unknown soldiers, just as we can relate to Christ, who also died for his friends. It’s the relationships which are important.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

The persons could multiply to infinity and yet the doctrine would still be the same amount of contradictory.

I completely agree. In my other thread I noted that the two arguments against the Trinity usually are:

1. How such a setup possible and how the persons interact.
2. Whether the Son and/or Holy Spirit are considered persons of the Godhead.

Your argument about adding Mary, and any suggestion that the members of the Godhead may exceed three don’t concern themselves with those arguments. It already accepts both premises. It then becomes a matter of revelation, which you headed off from the start by stating in your argument that Mary being the fourth member of the Quadrality has been revealed.

And as I noted in an earlier post on this thread, the second and third persons of the Godhead were not initially revealed to exist and then were revealed to exist weren’t considered a person in the Trinity.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

I completely agree. In my other thread I noted that the two arguments against the Trinity usually are:

1. How such a setup possible and how the persons interact.
2. Whether the Son and/or Holy Spirit are considered persons of the Godhead.

Your argument about adding Mary, and any suggestion that the members of the Godhead may exceed three don’t concern themselves with those arguments. It already accepts both premises. It then becomes a matter of revelation, which you headed off from the start by stating in your argument that Mary being the fourth member of the Quadrality has been revealed.

And as I noted in an earlier post on this thread, the second and third persons of the Godhead were not initially revealed to exist and then were revealed to exist weren’t considered a person in the Trinity.

I appreciate your graphics by the way, it really adds to the discussion.

Yes, most arguments about the trinity are so well-worn and rehearsed. I wanted to come at this from the other end, by trying to show that the apologia offered does too much work rather than not enough. It is tempting to accept a narrative when it seems to adequately explain some phenomenon or other. The problem is that we often don’t push the theory to its limit to see whether it also explains phenomena that aren’t obvious or don’t exist.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

You have way too much time on your hands.

Yeah, I could use another hobby

Christianity is monotheistic, the Nicene Creed starts with We believe in one God. Anything which appears to portray it as belief in a pantheon of gods could be upsetting to some.

To me God is ultimately beyond human definition (“I am who I am” Exodus 3), beyond human imagination even (“See, God is great beyond our knowledge” Job 36). This is what God is, but we can’t meaningfully relate to such a being. The Trinity provides the relationships - we’re all children of the Father, friends of Christ, connected to him by the Spirit. (Some may be horrified at the liberties I took there, but hopefully it shows that the Trinity can’t be contained by a diagram, a diagram isn’t even close.)

I’ve been around CAF for a while, and I’m sure you’ve seen me prattling on about some religious matter or another. For the most part I’m fine with the Trinity – or more accurately it doesn’t concern me the way something like slavery in the Bible or claims of fulfilled prophecies. It’s a mystery and even the various Christian churches say it’s a mystery.

I think one aspect that confuses me though are claims by some (not you) that the Trinity can not only be understood, but understood well. To say that the Trinity isn’t fully understood but is believed, who am I to dispute that? To say that we know enough about the Trinity to prove something about it is or isn’t true then I start getting all diagrammy asking for evidence

There are things about us we don’t understand, or at least if we’re honest. There are tombs of the unknown soldier in many countries, guarded with great respect and reverence to give honor to the Fallen. The tombs just contain bones, dust to dust, but we can all relate to those unknown soldiers, just as we can relate to Christ, who also died for his friends. It’s the relationships which are important.

I think that’s the part of Christianity that most appeals to me, is the call for love and to use Jesus as a model to strive for. I believe very little of the events described in Christianity; but I’m not one to knock its merits, especially those that can bring people to do good and work together.

 

[JerryZ]

Yeah, I could use another hobby

I’ve been around CAF for a while, and I’m sure you’ve seen me prattling on about some religious matter or another. For the most part I’m fine with the Trinity – or more accurately it doesn’t concern me the way something like slavery in the Bible or claims of fulfilled prophecies. It’s a mystery and even the various Christian churches say it’s a mystery.

I think one aspect that confuses me though are claims by some (not you) that the Trinity can not only be understood, but understood well. To say that the Trinity isn’t fully understood but is believed, who am I to dispute that? To say that we know enough about the Trinity to prove something about it is or isn’t true then I start getting all diagrammy asking for evidence

I think that’s the part of Christianity that most appeals to me, is the call for love and to use Jesus as a model to strive for. I believe very little of the events described in Christianity; but I’m not one to knock its merits, especially those that can bring people to do good and work together.

Ahh but that IS an important question. If Jesus and the Church HE founded are a lie then our faith is useless. And I am not the first one that stated as much. St. Paul himself proclaimed this truth.

I Corinthians Chapter 15

9 For I am the least of the Apostles. I am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. 10 But, by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace in me has not been empty, since I have labored more abundantly than all of them. Yet it is not I, but the grace of God within me. 11 For whether it is I or they: so we preach, and so you have believed. 12 Now if Christ is preached, that he rose again from the dead, how is it that some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not risen. 14 And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is useless, and your faith is also useless. 15 Then, too, we would be found to be false witnesses of God, because we would have given testimony against God, saying that he had raised up Christ, when he had not raised him up, if, indeed, the dead do not rise again. 16 For if the dead do not rise again, then neither has Christ risen again. 17 But if Christ has not risen, then your faith is vain; for you would still be in your sins. 18 Then, too, those who have fallen asleep in Christ would have perished. 19 If we have hope in Christ for this life only, then we are more miserable than all men. 20 But now Christ has risen again from the dead, as the first-fruits of those who sleep. 21 For certainly, death came through a man. And so, the resurrection of the dead came through a man 22 And just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be brought to life, 23…

Faith is a gift sometimes we need to ask for it ourselves if we allow to enter our heart after all we CAN refuse to accept a gift.

…

 

[Gorgias]

No, you misunderstand. I was employing the Christian argument that things clearly revealed to Moses can be flatly contradicted by later revelation and somehow be a “development” rather than a flat contradiction.

I get that.*

The problem is, you’re using it in a way that doesn’t necessarily follow. As Christians, we don’t claim that any arbitrary later revelation is true; we claim that Jesus, as the Son of God, gave us Divine Revelation. Our claim is that His teachings helped us to grow in knowledge – whereas we’ve always known that God is one (and we still believe it!), we now understand that there are three ‘persons’ in God. That might be confusing for you, since you’re not an ancient Greek. The word ‘persona’ doesn’t exactly mean what the English-language word ‘person’ means. Theologically, we are saying that there is one God with three distinct persons (Father, Logos, Spirit); they share the same substance and are one being.

Christians think things weren’t fully revealed to the Jews.

Yet, we can find kernels of this teaching in the Old Testament revelation to the Jews: we see references to the Spirit of God, and to the Logos. Did the Jews understand the Triune Nature of God? No. Were they exposed to it in certain ways – ways in which they believed? Yes.

I personally don’t actually know. If God can insist again and again that he is a singularity and there is no other, and then Christians can believe that he would later flatly contradict himself by saying he is a plurality

In saying this, it’s obvious to me that you do not understand what Christians mean when we say that God is a Trinity. He is One; but, in his One-ness, there is a Trinity. We do not have a pantheon (or, would that be a tri-theon?); we have one God who exists as a Trinity of persons (there’s that word again; it doesn’t mean “three distinct beings”). It’s a hard teaching, I’ll give you that. However, if you insist on mischaracterizing it, there’s not much we can do: we’re not going to defend your misunderstanding of what the ‘Trinity’ is, since that mischaracterization isn’t what we believe in.

, then any possibility seems open does it not?

No, because it is not what you claim it is.

Christianity is wide-open to modification

No, it isn’t. If three of us gathered to play baseball, and then one of us put on ice skates and grabbed a puck and the other grabbed a soccer ball and goal, would you say that we were all playing baseball? Would you say that the definition of ‘baseball’ was wide-open to modification? Of course not: you’d say that one of us was still playing baseball, while the other two (to a greater or lesser extent) had begun making up games of their own invention (even if they still called it ‘baseball’).

: and look at your history. Disagreement and strife abound, including contention about the most essential beliefs. Thousands of splinter groups all hating each other because of theological differences based on the same texts!

I’m not sure that you’re making any point at all. If some people decide to leave a group (but retain some of its teachings), that’s a reflection of the defectors, not of the group or its teachings. Heck – Jesus predicted that this would happen! He knew what human nature is, and what people want to do (after all, it’s the same thing that Adam & Eve did: they attempted to take what God gave them and make up their own rules!). The ‘thousands of splinter groups’ is the result of the Reformation – are you really laying that at the feet of Jesus or at the Catholic Church?

I know you say “that dog don’t hunt” but you have no reason to state this other than pure prejudice. If a new prophet/pope were to come along and claim that Mary was God too, some Catholics would probably believe it, and some would splinter off. The group splintering off would no doubt think themselves to be the “true” believers.

Your claim here has two dynamics to it: I think it’s important to examine both of them. First, there’s the human element: anytime any group makes a claim, there’s the chance that someone in the group will say ‘nope, I don’t like that assertion’. Sometimes, they’ll even leave the group because of it. Yet, you seem to be saying that this reflects negatively on the group itself. That doesn’t make sense to me. Did Jesus say “ya’ll will always agree on every little last thing”? No – He said exactly the opposite. This doesn’t reflect on Him as much as it reflects on us as humans.

Second, there’s your claim that a Pope could make a doctrinal assertion that’s counter to Divine Revelation. That’s something that just cannot happen: there’s an element of belief there (we believe that the Holy Spirit protects the Church from teaching errors in doctrine), but there’s also an element of practicality: the pope just doesn’t have that authority. There’s a subset of folks who fear that Pope Francis will do just the type of thing you’re saying – that he’ll go off the deep end and just say something contrary to Catholic Tradition. It can’t happen. (Not that it won’t happen: this is a more intense statement: it cannot happen.)

(con’t…)

 

[Gorgias]

(continuing…)

If it were so unambiguous, then why don’t protestant scholars who do read Koine Greek agree with your analysis? Surely there must be some reason or explanation.

Of course there is!

It’s a topic that will get us off on a tangent, but I think there are a couple quick answers that can at least be mentioned: first off, it’s a literary text. Have you never seen that one person can approach a text and think it says ‘white’ and another looks at it and says, ‘no, it says black’? Where do you presume that all will read the Bible and must necessarily interpret it the same way?

Second: we, as Catholics, assert that protection from error in interpreting the Bible doesn’t stand with individuals or even groups, but rather, with the teaching authority of the Church. Therefore, the fact that some persons or groups read it differently doesn’t imply to us that the Holy Spirit is slacking off: it just means that “no Scripture is a matter of private interpretation.”

Third: if there had been groups of Catholics who read ‘full of grace’ or ‘until she had borne a son’ and interpreted it differently than the Church, then that would be one thing. However, when a group who has splintered goes and re-examines the Scriptures and re-interprets them to fit their (already developed) new theology, that doesn’t seem surprising at all.

This single line of one gospel hardly seems sufficient to overturn the thousands of repetitions of “Only I am God…there is no other” found all over prior revelations. I could easily say this was just a ceremonial tradition in the early church that found it’s way into the gospel author’s account because it sounded nice.

Or, you could say that someone whom we believe is a Divine Person said it, and therefore we believe it.

Just because someone is “baptized” in some or such other formula doesn’t necessarily mean that person recognize the three names as distinct but con-substantial divine beings.

And it took the Church a while to figure out what that formula actually means. It wasn’t an automatic understanding, but we believe that, guided by the Holy Spirit, the teaching authority of the Church got it right.

God has many names in Hebrew, that doesn’t mean each of them are distinct persons.

Agreed. Yet, we believe that two of them did reference the Trinity – when God is referred to as ‘Father’, ‘Logos’, and ‘Spirit’. We see each of these.

Proof against your claims: people who claim to be Christians believe no such thing about transubstantiation and read the same texts. You will say they aren’t “true” Christians and embrace the “No true Scotsman” fallacy of course, right?

Of course not. Yes, there are some who, after leaving the Church, developed their own doctrines that are in contradiction with the Church’s. That isn’t proof that they’re not Christians – just that they’ve separated themselves from the Church that Christ founded.

Apologists put it in more patronizing language like “they don’t have the fullness of truth”

Not sure why that’s ‘patronizing’. If you and I assert that Moby Dick is a story about human ego run amok, and then I decide that you’re wrong and really it’s a story about the proper way to grill a steak, one of us has to less right, no? And, how do we make that case? It’s not a science text, to be dissected through reason and empirical evidence. How do we decide who’s right and who’s deviated from truth? As Catholics, we believe that our Church is protected from doctrinal error… so yeah, we’d say that we have the ‘fullness of the truth’. How could it be otherwise, and yet we still claim we’re following Jesus’ teachings? (As a Catholic, I can’t understand how we all look at the same equation (2+2=?), and we say ‘4’, another group says ‘10’ and still another says ‘purple’ and yet we’re supposed to say “all of these are equivalent expressions of the truth”! That just doesn’t make any sense…)

You are “moving the goalposts.” I never said the Scripture claimed to be clear and unambiguous, or that it should be.

PumpkinCookie:

I mean, millions of protestants are reading an essentially similar text and coming to wildly divergent conclusions. Is that a characteristic of a clear and unambiguous text?

If this isn’t a challenge that Scripture is “a clear and unambiguous text”, then I don’t know what it is.

I am submitting evidence that Catholic theological claims are not so clearly and unambiguously support by the texts.

OK, I’m game: show me where God or Jesus or the Scriptures make the claim that Scripture is meant to be ‘clearly and unambiguously’ understood. If you can support that claim, then I’m with you. If you can’t… then guess who it is who just moved the goalposts…?

If that were the case, then Christians wouldn’t have had a long and bloody history of vociferous disagreement about basic theological issues.

Umm… because this is something that’s characteristic only to Christians? Only Christians have had groups splinter off from the main body?

They wouldn’t have needed a whole office to enforce theological views via torture, violence, intimidation, book-burning, and execution.

So… the moral development of mankind – such that they were willing to do some horrible things in the past millenium that we’re now not willing to do – is the fault of Christianity? No – it’s reflective of the culture of the day. If the Church today did those things, then I could see how you’d make the claim that it’s reflective of Christianity. If it happened in a day when these actions were common – for all sorts of reasons, not just religion – then it’s only fair to suggest that these were characteristic of a place & time, not a religion.

 

[Gorgias]

-Catechism of 1993, Part 1, Section 1, Article 2, Chapter 2, Paragraphs 81-82.

The entirety of the “Word of God” was entrusted to the apostles apparently. It’s the Church’s job to “interpret” this tradition. There is no way to distinguish between “interpretation” and “fabrication” though, because no one else has access to the information contained within tradition, apparently!

OK… I had a feeling that’s where you were going. Apples and oranges (or, as it were, ‘apples and pumpkins’), PC! What you’ve asserted is that “the true Catholic faith existed whole and entire since the time of the apostles”, but what you’ve quoted is that “the Word of God (in its entirety) has been entrusted to the apostles.” These two aren’t the same assertion! We don’t believe that the apostles interpreted every last nuance of Christ’s words – that would be a superhuman effort, and would mean that Scripture (as soon as it was written) would have had a single, comprehensive reference guide! That’s not how it works: rather, as questions were raised over this issue or that issue, the Church gathered in order to clarify what it meant. These doctrinal statements, then – developed in response to a question, not in a vacuum – become part of the body of theological thought in the Church.

How can we distinguish between ‘interpretation’ and ‘fabrication’? Well… what do you suggest? You seem to be asking for a mediator. Who mediates the interpretation of Sacred Scripture? Are you asking for a democracy, in which each Christian gets one vote as to what a piece of Scripture means, and the majority rules? Seriously – what means of mediation are you proposing (and on what basis)?

There are several babysitters and tons of kids actually.

Umm… dude? That wasn’t a screed on the true nature of all babysitting activity; it was merely an example of how ‘proxy’ works.

More like people come in with agendas and intimidate, argue, and politik with others until a consensus is forced by exigent circumstances. Does this sound like the royal road to God’s truth?

That’s your take on it. I disagree.

I literally have no reason to think God is a plurality other than because the Catholic Church says so. It is unreasonable.

No – you can reason that Jesus said it. If you believe he’s the son of God, then that’s a pretty good reason. If you decide he isn’t, then nothing that any church says will change your mind.

Is it a difficult truth to wrap your head around? Absolutely. It calls for faith.

I have no reason to believe anyone has experienced it. What reason could you have to think this? Because Jesus says so? No one can actually verify what Jesus said, all we have are retrospective reports supposedly complied from anonymous sources.

Yes, ‘because Jesus said so’ is a good reason. And, pray tell, what kind of ‘verification’ do you have in mind? How about this: these texts were circulated orally for ~40 years and then written down. They were listened to and read by those with first-hand knowledge of Jesus. If they were fabrications, then don’t we expect that those who would know better would have said, “no, He didn’t say ‘blessed are the peacemakers’, He said, ‘blessed are the cheesemakers’! Get it right, why dontcha?!?!?”

Other than that… what kind of verification do you want? (Remember, it has to be a reasonable standard that is possible to achieve!)

Maybe I am mis-characterizing the mode of Catholic belief.

You kinda are. Not to be mean, but yeah, that’s what’s going on here…

I was Catholic for decades. I tried my very hardest to make myself believe this stuff, but it’s just impossible. I actually do not understand how someone can be a true-believing Catholic. Literally, I cannot imagine thinking that the Catholic Church teaches the truth. Jesus himself would have to miraculously appear to me and explain the trinity and explicitly tell me the Pope is his vicar or whatever for me to believe this. Even then I probably wouldn’t believe it since I would have no way of knowing whether this apparition was actually Jesus!

OK: so, what’s going on is your lack of faith. That’s reasonable. But… in all that you’ve said here, it comes down to one thing, over and over again, that you’ve been asserting: “I don’t believe it, and therefore it must be false.” You can see that this isn’t a reasonable basis for a truth claim, right?

(I mean, that isn’t even the Catholic stance for its teachings! We make claims about Scripture, and about Jesus’ teachings as articulated by apostles and their successors, and about the Church’s foundation by Jesus and what that implies… we don’t just say “we believe it, and therefore it must be so.”)

If you don’t believe, then say “I don’t believe.” You won’t be the first. But, that doesn’t mean that the statement of unbelief is itself a truth claim. You’ve been given a lot of good counter-examples to the claims you’re making. I’m not certain you’ve really heard many of them – just countered them with repeated unjustified/unsubstantiated assertions. I think you’re hung up on a mistaken understanding of the grounds upon which the Church works, and perhaps, this understanding was formed when you were younger (and were a practicing Catholic). One of the hardest things for adults (who were Catholics from youth) to do is move from their youthful understanding of the faith to a mature, adult understanding that is more accurate. In the case of active adult Catholics, the result is often a lukewarm, paint-by-numbers faith. In the case of fallen-away adult former-Catholics, the result is often the honestly-held assertion that “I examined these things and they just don’t make sense.”

 

[inocente]

I’ve been around CAF for a while, and I’m sure you’ve seen me prattling on about some religious matter or another. For the most part I’m fine with the Trinity – or more accurately it doesn’t concern me the way something like slavery in the Bible or claims of fulfilled prophecies. It’s a mystery and even the various Christian churches say it’s a mystery.

I think one aspect that confuses me though are claims by some (not you) that the Trinity can not only be understood, but understood well. To say that the Trinity isn’t fully understood but is believed, who am I to dispute that? To say that we know enough about the Trinity to prove something about it is or isn’t true then I start getting all diagrammy asking for evidence

Thinking about it, I can’t remember a single sermon on the Trinity, maybe it’s more important to some denominations. As for understanding it, I’ll go with Monsignor Lemaître, the originator of the Big Bang theory, who said “The doctrine of the Trinity is much more abstruse than anything in relativity or quantum mechanics”.

I think that’s the part of Christianity that most appeals to me, is the call for love and to use Jesus as a model to strive for. I believe very little of the events described in Christianity; but I’m not one to knock its merits, especially those that can bring people to do good and work together.

Watched a program on satellite the other day, by a tv presenter who outed himself as a moderate Catholic. He went looking for other moderates and found plenty Muslims who said when they can’t get to a mosque, they’ll pray in the nearest church, and plenty Christians who said they go to a mosque in places where there are no churches nearby. Very heartwarming to hear from ordinary people who care more about what we all have in common than in the dogmas which set us apart.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

I get that.*

I am trying to stay focused here. We can argue about the other stuff via PM if you want, or I will start a new thread.

1. How do Catholics know whether a teaching which appears to conform to the requirements for infallibility is actually true or not?

Response one: The pope said it infallibly therefore it must be true.
Response two: The pope didn’t really fulfill the conditions for infallibility, so it may or may not be true.
Response three: The pope isn’t really the pope, so it may or may not be true.

How can we falsify it? How can we prove that it isn’t true, not merely raise doubts about its falsity?

As I’ve attempted to show, any attempt to refute a pope’s teaching is impossible, because there is no way for anyone to verify the full and explicit contents of revelation to know whether or not something is a genuine “development” or a “fabrication.” Further, the apologetic toolbox will enable one to argue that almost any wild doctrine is supported by scripture or tradition.

You strive mightily to refute my claim of quadrality, but if a pope declared it to be so, within a week there would be a cottage industry of people churning out apologetic materials to “explain” and “defend” the proclamation as a legitimate development using the same sophistry, circular reasoning, special pleading, and bogus narrative weaving that we see in defense of all manner of Christian and para-Christian beliefs. It isn’t only Catholics who engage in this, in my opinion.

Christianity is wide-open to modification. You say it isn’t, and then proceed to flesh out the no-true-scotsman fallacy in a baseball analogy. My evidence that Christianity is ambiguous is that there has never been a single period of total agreement on fundamental doctrines within the Christian world. Right from the beginning it was war and strife. Any peace and homogeneity achieved in a geographic area for any length of time was enforced by violence and censorship of some kind or another.

That’s normal and characteristic of religions. People don’t agree about ambiguities and obscurities. Christianity is not special, not unusual, and thoroughly human. No special blame should be laid at the feet of Christians. They are no better and no worse than anyone else.

I never said that the New Testament is a clear and unambiguous text. I never meant to imply that I thought it should be. I am acknowledging that I think it is unclear and ambiguous. I submitted the thousands of Christian groups throughout the history of Christianity disagreeing with each other over fundamentals as evidence the texts must not be clear and unambiguous.

The content of Christian revelation must be exceedingly obscure and ambiguous, or else differing viewpoints wouldn’t have to be shut down via violence and political suppression. Further, Christians wouldn’t even need a pope or councils to precisely and ceremoniously define so many things if Christian beliefs were obvious.

This website is itself a testimony to the obscurity and ambiguity of Christianity/Catholicism. LOL. It exists because no one knows what a true Catholic really should believe.

Confusion, strife, arrogance, deception, politiking, and obscurantism reign supreme. Well then…that’s not so unusual for humanity now is it? Nothing unexpected, nothing unusual, nothing…divine.

Your second page seems like rehearsed apologetic for a protestant. I’m not a protestant. I’m not a Christian. I’m an outsider. Your insistence that “no, no, really…they aren’t true Scotsman” isn’t convincing to me. I’m not trying to say that one brand or splinter group of Christianity is more or less Christian than another. I’m acknowledging that, to an outsider, Catholicism is a splinter group (for all we know).

I’m saying that no one is able to determine the content of Christian revelation. There is no non-circular or non-authoritarian way to determine just what Christianity is. If there ever was a Jesus, Christians have hidden him.

Last thing. Your claim that the teaching authority of the Church is the “objective” ground and foundation of belief does no more work and is no less subjective than the sola scriptura of fundamentalists.

Me: Why do you believe this?
You: Jesus says so.
Me: How do you know?
You: Tradition says so.
Me: How does Tradition know?
You: Church says so.
Me: Why do you believe them?
You: Because they can’t be wrong.
Me: Why?
You: Church says so.

Me: Why do you believe this?
Fundamentalist: Jesus says so.
Me: How do you know?
Fundamentalist: Bible says so.
Me: How does the Bible know?
Fundamentalist: Bible says so.
Me: How do you know it isn’t wrong?
Fundamentalist: The Bible is never wrong.
Me: How do you know?
Fundamentalist: Bible says so.

The epistemology is the same, with an additional layer for Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and any other group with an authoritative interpreter. In either case, the individual’s subjective understanding is the bottom line. It’s just that the fundamentalists and those who subscribe to authoritative bodies pretend that their subjective judgments are “objective” by ascribing them to the authority.

In reality, we cannot escape our own subjectivity. No pope, preacher, saint, council, or book will rescue us from our terrifying freedom.

 

[Gorgias]

I am trying to stay focused here.

LOL…! Some of the other stuff is pretty critical to the discussion, I think; but, I’ll stick with you…

1. How do Catholics know whether a teaching which appears to conform to the requirements for infallibility is actually true or not?

Response one: The pope said it infallibly therefore it must be true.
Response two: The pope didn’t really fulfill the conditions for infallibility, so it may or may not be true.
Response three: The pope isn’t really the pope, so it may or may not be true.

How can we falsify it? How can we prove that it isn’t true, not merely raise doubts about its falsity?

Here’s my gut feel: 99% of the discussions about ‘infallibility’ aren’t really about infallibility. Well … folks think they’re about infallibility, but really, they’re about something else: authoritativeness.

Many think that, if they tilt against the windmill of ‘infallibility’, they’re making headway. But… I think they’re missing the point. You see, when it all comes down to it, somebody has to have the ability to interpret Scripture and define doctrine authoritatively. Who might that be, then? Better yet, how might we ground such a decision? That is, what would be our basis for the claims that a certain person or group has authority to set doctrine?

As I’ve attempted to show, any attempt to refute a pope’s teaching is impossible, because there is no way for anyone to verify the full and explicit contents of revelation to know whether or not something is a genuine “development” or a “fabrication.”

Fair enough. Let’s look at it from the ‘authority’ standpoint, though, ok? Who has the authority to set doctrine? Who has the authority for oversight of Scripture? (After all, if you read a decision penned by the Supreme Court of the U.S., and decided that they’d gotten it wrong, would you claim that you have the standing and authority to refute their decision?)

You strive mightily to refute my claim of quadrality, but if a pope declared it to be so

Stop right there, please. What you’re saying is akin to “if the pope said that a triangle is really a quadrilateral…”. You realize that this is impossible, right? That’s the problem with your thesis: you presume that the pope could spout an impossibility (and then you wax poetic about what the fallout might be), but the truth is… he can’t. Can. Not. It’s not within the sphere of his competence to create new doctrine that replaces existing doctrine. Just. Can’t. Happen.

Christianity is wide-open to modification. You say it isn’t, and then proceed to flesh out the no-true-scotsman fallacy in a baseball analogy.

You either misunderstand the ‘no true scotsman’ fallacy or are mis-stating it. The folks I’m talking about aren’t claiming to be Catholic, so the fallacy doesn’t apply. (Oh, they claim to be Christian, but they’re explicitly claiming to be something different while simultaneously claiming that their doctrinal take is correct. Different ballgame, Pumpkin. )

My evidence that Christianity is ambiguous is that there has never been a single period of total agreement on fundamental doctrines within the Christian world. Right from the beginning it was war and strife.

It was? The Acts of the Apostles disagrees with you, Pumpkin.

Any peace and homogeneity achieved in a geographic area for any length of time was enforced by violence and censorship of some kind or another.

Freely asserted, freely denied.

I never said that the New Testament is a clear and unambiguous text. I never meant to imply that I thought it should be. I am acknowledging that I think it is unclear and ambiguous.

That’s why it needs an authoritative interpreter. And guess what? Jesus gave us one! The Church! Woot!!!

The content of Christian revelation must be exceedingly obscure and ambiguous, or else differing viewpoints wouldn’t have to be shut down via violence and political suppression.

Please show me where the doctrinal assertions of the 20th century were ‘enforced’ by means of “violence and political suppression.” If you can’t… then you can’t hold this point.

Further, Christians wouldn’t even need a pope or councils to precisely and ceremoniously define so many things if Christian beliefs were obvious.

Pumpkin! Stop it! You’re making this too easy! Just a paragraph ago, you argued that Scripture (and the beliefs that flow from it) aren’t obvious – and now, you reverse course and denigrate the Catholic Church precisely because Christian beliefs aren’t obvious! Please – choose a stance and stick with it; it’s too difficult to discuss with you if you waffle from one assertion to its opposite…

I’m saying that no one is able to determine the content of Christian revelation.

I disagree. I’ll point you to Matthew 16:19, where Christ makes it clear that it’s Peter who will have the authority to ‘bind and loose’. That’s the ‘proxy’ I was talking about with the babysitter example. Peter determines, and Christ gives the thumbs-up to his determination. That’s what ‘proxy’ means.

Last thing. Your claim that the teaching authority of the Church is the “objective” ground and foundation of belief does no more work and is no less subjective than the sola scriptura of fundamentalists.

No, that’s not true. It’s a good discussion to embrace, but it gets us pretty far afield from your original topic. If you want to open another thread to discuss this particular question, please do…! After all, I’m trying to stay focused here…

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Ahh but that IS an important question. If Jesus and the Church HE founded are a lie then our faith is useless. And I am not the first one that stated as much. St. Paul himself proclaimed this truth.

I would greatly disagree. Just as I can see the positive effects of Christianity I can see those same positive effects in other religions, include those both you and I would agree are not true. Obviously you and I differ as to whether what is told in the Bible is true, but even if they are not we can gain wisdom from things that are not true. Parables (including ones said to have been told by Jesus), fables, and the like can be enlightening just as true stories are.

There didn’t need to be people who spent their whole lives chained to a cave wall for us to gain insight from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, and neither the Bible nor the ideas behind the Church’s foundation need be true for us to celebrate those positive ideas and actions that come from it.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

LOL…

There are many critical things to discuss, but if we don’t remained focused this thread will get to 1,000 pages and we’ll have gained almost nothing.

Here’s my gut feel…

Yes, Catholics/Mormons/Jehovah’s Witnesses want to shift the epistemology away from documentary evidence, observable evidence, reason, and historical analysis and toward authority. Don’t get me wrong, all the authority-grounded groups will still make use of other forms of knowledge, but they will be interpreted with the assumption that the authority is always right. All apparent discrepancies will be resolved in favor of the authority. You start with the conclusion and reason to the facts. Catholics explicitly maintain this in the doctrine of infallibility, but Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses also proclaim other forms of infallibility.

“How do we know it is true?” “Because the authority says so.” This is the ultimate ground of authoritarian epistemology, and I find it unacceptable. It doesn’t tell us the truth about the natural world, politics, economics, or anything else. Why should it be able to tell us the truth about God?

It isn’t true that somebody has to be the authority. We can offer opinions and take them or leave them as reason, documentary evidence, observable evidence, and conscience tell us. We cannot outsource our conscience to a third party.

Fair enough…

I am not here to tell Catholics or Christians how they should run their business. I don’t sit around thinking “if only Christians would change their epistemology to such and such, I would become a Christian.” I am here pointing out a vulnerability in a particular kind of authoritarianism.

Stop right there…

Why is it an impossibility? Because it contradicts reason? The trinity contradicts reason. As I’ve shown, I can come up with all sorts of bogus arguments to defend quadrality, just like there are bogus arguments to defend all kinds of unreasonable doctrines.

Because it replaces existing doctrine? How would anyone know that? We do not have access to the full and explicit contents of “revelation” so we have no way to distinguish between a genuine development and a fabricated fraud! People today make arguments that same-sex marriage is approved by God in the bible, or that abortion is acceptable, etc. Their arguments are thoroughly bogus, from a documentary and rational standpoint, but if a pope declared it Catholics would have to obey because authority is the ultimate ground of knowledge and belief for them.

You either misunderstand…

I see Catholicism as a splinter group of the wider “Christianity.” Everyone you consider a heretic I consider to be a Christian with beliefs that are incompatible with Catholicism. The Arians were a large group of Christians. They built basilicas all over Europe, some of which stand to this day. They were suppressed via politics and violence. The Gnostics of various sorts? All Christians. To me, everyone who claims to be a Christian is a Christian. I do not get to say “no, this group who claims to be Christian isn’t really Christian.”

It was?..

Have you taken history courses about late antiquity? I assume, because you seem familiar with Greek, that you are a well educated individual. So, you must be aware of the long and well-documented history of doctrinal disagreement among Christians since the 2nd century. Before that, we don’t have enough documentation to make a determination. There may have been consensus, but Paul’s constant corrections to his churches and his warnings about false teachers suggests otherwise! Acts of the Apostles displays a somewhat rosier picture for the same reason that any regime’s official retrospective narrative shows a time of heroes and saints.

That’s why it needs…

Or, that’s why we need the humility to understand that all we have are our opinions and our consciences. No one is a proxy for God! No human or group of humans is always right. Our ancient Greek ancestors warned us of hubris. To think that we are God’s official spokesmen and that we can never be wrong is outrageous hubris.

Please show me…

By the 20th century, the Catholic Church’s political power had just about broken. Though they supported dictators in Spain and Italy (not going to touch the Nazi controversy here) their ability to silence their enemies had disappeared. Thank God!

The doctrinal assertions of the 3rd-18th century on the other hand, were absolutely enforced via intimidation, violence, criminalization, torture, and political power. Again, I very much doubt you are unfamiliar with European history. If so, go ahead and google it. You’ll have fun for hours. Take a course at your local university. Read some books about Church history.

Pumpkin! Stop it!

I think you misunderstand my aim here. I am asserting that the dogmatic content of “Christianity” is obscure and ambiguous. I submit your argument that you need an authoritative body of experts or holy men to tell you the contents as evidence that it is ambiguous and obscure. If the contents were clear, the argument that an authority is needed would have no grounds. Other evidence: constant disagreement and strife among self-professed Christians throughout history. More evidence: this website we’re on right now, arguing about obscurities and ambiguities.