It never fails when you debate Catholics. Eventually you get to the truth. You put as much faith in the writings and tradition of man as you do to the inspired word. Of course you have to do this or your faith, which is based mainly on non-biblical doctrine would crumble like a house of cards.
Please name one church father whos writings are considered to be the inspired word of God? (Please don't try the argument that Rome can deem them inspired. I refuted that claim in my last post on Rome canonizing scripture)
You claim you love to study the history of the Church try this.
The Pharisees claimed that Jesus was wrong. They were the guardians of the truth. They could trace their lineage back to Abraham. They had scripture and sacred "tradition" on their side. Sound familiar to you? It should you have basically used this same argument. this is what Jesus thought of their claim.
" Mark 7:8-9 8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men." 9 And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! (NIV)
Mark 7:13 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." (NIV)
Matt 15:7-9 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 8 "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" (NIV) "
So much for church history.
"I mean, we can point to the fathers, but who can "scripture only" people point to from history other than Paul? "If I have to make a choice between all the church Fathers or Paul, I'll take Paul. I'll stake my salvation on his writings over any early church fathers.
Who would we need to point too?
"Where are all these people who believed "scripture only?" Where and what are their writings? Which Church did they belong to? "
Where are they? Some in heaven, some here on earth.
Their writings? It's called the Word of God.
Which church do they belong to? You really need to look to the bible to understand what the church is. You "belong" to a church. We belong to Jesus and are the "church".
1 Pet 2:9 9 "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God",
We have Jesus as our authority, you have a pope. You have a priesthood, we are that royal priesthood.
Peter,who you claim head of your church, wrote this. He contradicts your doctrine of the priesthood.
Now I know you can point me to hundreds of writings over the last 2000 years to show me what Peter really meant, as seen through the eyes of your church. Don't bother. Peter has been silent for 2000 years on this. Unless he comes back and writes again I think I'll take him at his last writing on the subject.
As is typical in debates with Catholics I can't recall you using the bible as proof for any of your arguments. If you want to debate Scripture fine I'll respond to that. While the writings of the early church fathers are interesteing to read I find debating them on doctrinal matters useless unless,as I asked before, you can show me some proof that ANY of the writings by the early fathers are considered inspired by God.
I'll pray that God lifts the blinders from your eyes and you begin to look to Him for your answers not Jerome.