Eh, no. You are, of course, correct that the Church produced the New Testament scripture as a colossal feat of writing, selecting, editing, and philosophizing that spanned centuries. But it doesn't follow that the process was not inspired and even divinely dictated, or that the original pieces were not saying what they say now as a part of the whole.
There has always been the Sacred Deposit of faith that Christ left with the disciples. This gave them an internal compass: an ability to sort out the stories, reminiscences, parables, moral teaching into those that rang true and those that did not ring true. Some hypotheses, -- for example that Jesus was a ghost and not man, or that the Old Testament God was hostile to Jesus Jewish God -- were tested and found wanting. The Orthodox sense was always there; this is why St. Irenaeus may not have the entirety of the Christian theology, but those things he writes about a modern orthodox theologian could write. The councils confirmed what the Church already believed.
No, it doesn't, but simply because someone says they do, doesn't mean they do, doe sit? Again, someone;s belief is not sufficient evidence that something is true. I can't argue with dreams and figments of someone;s imagination. But I don not confuse my own dreams with my wakeful reality either.
There has always been the Sacred Deposit of faith that Christ left with the disciples. This gave them an internal compass: an ability to sort out the stories, reminiscences, parables, moral teaching into those that rang true and those that did not ring true
This is true, but this is also true of all other Christian sects. They all had an initial "deposit" of beliefs, which were readily verifiable in the Gospels later on. Of course, these were their Gospels. What we have are the surviving Gospels of a particular religious party we call orthodox, to which we belong and with which we share beliefs, so "naturally" it is the "correct" version. Again, there is the phenomenon of equating one's beliefs with facts.
The Orthodox sense was always there; this is why St. Irenaeus may not have the entirety of the Christian theology, but those things he writes about a modern orthodox theologian could write. The councils confirmed what the Church already believed
Of course there was. It was a religious party, dedicated to certain principle,s base don certain beliefs. Just as Sadducees and Samaritans and Essenes and Pharisees were. Today's Judaism is an outgrowth of Pharisaical Judaism as much as todays' Christianity is an outgrowth of Pauline Christianity. We may consider it "orthodox" (we are biased, remember), but it is only because the victors get to write the history.
What does the "deposit of faith" mean? It simply means a set of beliefs. There is no evidence that any particular party is led by the Holy Spirit. The liberals are pro-choice; the conservatives are pro-life. That is not going to change. Each side has it's "deposit of faith." Only one will become the dominant factor, and with it its official truth.
Are followers of Arius morally flawed simply because they don't see Jesus as co-equal with the Father? Are Protestant morally flawed because they don't share the belief in the Eucharist? Morality is not an issue here. Orthodoxy must be able to demonstrate not necessarily moral superiority, which would become self-evident if it were to show that it is the intrinsically correct version of Christianity, whatever objective criteria existed for such a proof. So far, no such case has been made.
The councils confirmed what the Church already believed
No, the Church of the 1st and 2nd centuries did not believe what the Church believed under Origen and Tertullian. The Church simply did not figure" out exactly what was believed; it was a work in progress.