metmom... with all due respect, you’re lapsing (rather quickly) from sane reason into (forgive me) hyperventilating rhetoric. My point was that ANYONE, with as little logical basis as you’ve done here, can say virtually the same thing. It’s easy to start name-calling, and accuse your opponent of “not being Spirit-filled”, “not having saving faith”, “being blinded by arrogance, greed, mindless allegiance to Rome [or whatever], etc.”... and that’s all fluff (and sometimes rather rude and insulting fluff, depending on who’s saying it, and how—FWIW, you were NOT rude, by the way!).
Here are two of my key points:
1) Scripture does not (at any point) insist that it ALONE is the sole guide to faith, or the sole source of relevation, or anything of the sort. It doesn’t take faith (or a lack of faith) to see that, any more than it takes faith to see if I’ve ever used the word “onychophagy” in my posts before now. (Hint: I didn’t.) It’s a simple matter fo reading and comprehension (and a bit of knowledge of Greek... though an interlinear Greek Bible would do).
2) Saying that your opponent “will never get it, no matter what” (implying that I, and other Catholics, are exactly like the rich man in Luke 16—is there any chance you see how [unintentionally] arrogant that statement is?) is a fallacy known as “special pleading”; it implies that you have some sort of “secret knowledge” by which one can know the “enlightened” by finding those who happen to agree with you! I could just as easily say that your hidebound and stubborn desire to cling to Luther and his man-made traditions has blinded you to the plain sense of the Scriptures you seek to hold alone... and that, until you have a change of heart, you’ll never be able to grasp the truth.
How would you feel, if I said that? I have at least as much basis (i.e. not much) for saying that as you had for saying what you said.
No... if you have a point to make, you’ll need to defend it as I do (and as all reasonable people do): with sound reason and logic, and not with mere appeals to passion, emotion, and popularity.
Um, Scripture promises the Holy Spirit to guide us.
1 Corinthians 2:6-16 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
I could just as easily say that your hidebound and stubborn desire to cling to Luther and his man-made traditions has blinded you to the plain sense of the Scriptures you seek to hold alone... and that, until you have a change of heart, you’ll never be able to grasp the truth.
Luther who? I don't *cling* to Luther. He has no effect or affect on my spiritual life.
My *church* does not demand fidelity to him or adherence to his doctrines of pronouncements under penalty of ex-communication or eternal damnation.
Luther was an instrument God used to shake up things spiritually a long time ago.
My beliefs are based on my reading of the Bible, not influenced by him. I never have read any of his works and I really don't care to.
Everything we need for coming to Christ for salvation and growing and maturing in Him is found in Scripture. If it's outside Scripture and lines up with Scripture, then it's redundant. If it's outside Scripture and contradicts Scripture, it's a lie. Plain and simple.