Let's say that the Apostle Paul had been put on ice in a cryogenic experiment back in about 65 AD.
The Catholic Church discovers him frozen away in a catacomb and excitedly verifies, "Yep, this is that old St Paul."
Everyone's excited because they've identified Paul.
Some scientist says, "Let's unfreeze him." They do, and he lives!
Now, who do you listen to ---
The Apostle Paul who's living, breathing, and talking to you, OR do you ignore Paul and his words and say, "Alright everyone, that church over there...they're the ones who found him, so listen to them. They're the final authority....not Paul."
"Now, who do you listen to --- "
Brilliant xzins, brilliant!
Now, my dear brethren, consider, are not these two states or acts of mind quite distinct from each other;--to believe simply what a living authority tells you, and to take a book such as Scripture, and to use it as you please, to master it, that is, to make yourself the master of it, to interpret it for yourself, and to admit just what you choose to see in it, and nothing more? Are not these two procedures distinct in this, that in the former you submit, in the latter you judge? At this moment I am not asking you which is the better, I am not asking whether this or that is practicable now, but are they not two ways of taking up a doctrine, and not one? is not submission quite contrary to judging? Now, is it not certain that faith in the time of the Apostles consisted in submitting? and is it not certain that it did not consist in judging for one's self. It is in vain to say that the man who judges from the Apostle's writings, does submit to those writings in the first instance, and therefore has faith in them; else why should he refer to them at all? There is, I repeat, an essential difference between the act of submitting to a living oracle, and to his written words; in the former case there is no appeal from the speaker, in the latter the final decision remains with the reader. Consider how different is the confidence with which you report another's words in his presence and in his absence. If he be absent, you boldly say that he holds so and so, or said so and so; but let him come into the room in the midst of the conversation, and your tone is immediately changed. It is then, 'I THINK I have heard you say something LIKE this, or what I TOOK to be this'; or you modify considerably the statement or the fact to which you originally pledged him, dropping one half of it for safety sake, or retrenching the most startling portions of it; and then after all you wait with some anxiety to see whether he will accept any portion of it at all. The same sort of process takes place in the case of the written document of a person now dead. I can fancy a man magisterially expounding St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians or to the Ephesians, who would be better content with the writer's absence than his sudden re-appearance among us; lest the Apostle should take his own meaning out of his commentator's hands and explain it for himself. In a word, though he says he has faith in St. Paul's writings, he confessedly has no faith in St. Paul; and though he may speak much about truth as found in Scripture, he has no wish at all to be like one of these Christians whose names and deeds occur in it. (Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman, Discourses to Mixed Congregations, "Faith and Private Judgment", 199-201)
Oh, Padre, you can do so much better than that! :( Po, Po, PO,(shaking his old gray head)!
What makes you think they'd disagree?
Regards
You scenario is somewhat glib, but it presupposes that the Apostle Paul and "...that church over there..." *must* have different or divergent messages. We, of the "church" I presume you're targeting, would beg to differ! ;-)
Amen
The Apostle Paul who's living, breathing, and talking to you, OR do you ignore Paul and his words and say, "Alright everyone, that church over there...they're the ones who found him, so listen to them. They're the final authority....not Paul."
*The dilemma of the false alternative.
Saul/Paul was personally converted by Jesus who taught him that in attascking/persecuting the Church, Saul/Paul was attacking/persecuting Jesus Himself.
Saul/Paul had to go to the existing Catholic Church to have his blindness cured and to be catechized by the already existing Catholic Church. Do you know how long he spent in catechesis before he began preaching as a Catholic Bishop?
Your imagined scenario fails at all levels. Paul would tell us Himself to listen to the Church the Pillar and Ground of Truth.