“What you are requesting of the Catholic Church is to offer is something in the nature of a “legal” interpretation like a commercial contract.”
No, I haven’t requested anything of the Catholic Church. I’m requesting it of you, Steelfish. You are the one who made the pronouncement that, unless one is a successor to Peter, one cannot quote Scripture authoritatively. You are not a successor to Peter, I believe, and yet you quoted Scripture as if it carried some authority. When pressed, you basically claimed that you are deriving some vicarious authority by relying on the interpretation of your church, which can claim succession from Peter.
Now, it only stands to reason that in order for you to use the authority of your church to cover your quotation of Scripture, you must be quoting that Scripture in a manner which is consistent with the interpretation of your church. I just want to verify that. Yet, you can’t point me to any one source where that can be easily verified. It defies reason to think that your use of those verses can be consistent with an interpretation which you cannot seem to produce, and which you now seem to be admitting doesn’t actually exist.
What I did say was that only the Catholic Church can authoritatively interpret Scripture. And the Catholic Church uses scriptural text, context, sacred tradition, and revelation as handed down from Christ to Peter and his successors. Scripture after all was written some 60 years after the death of Christ and the early Church Fathers set forth the definitive books we now call the Bible. Now, if you do not believe in this then you are in the company of those who are against the great theologians that have lived including several successors to Peter and the likes of Aquinas, Augustine, and Benedict XVI whose works are studied in all the great universities of the world.
When I quote Scripture in accordance with the Catholic Catechism and the various doctrines set forth in Church encyclicals, you press on to have me footnote my interpretation with chapter and verse. This is what you requested before and then you yet continue to insist that you are not seeking a legal interpretation like in a commercial contract. Herein lies an inherent contradiction. Why? Because Scriptural interpretation can never be bounded by text alone. The context, sacred tradition, and revelation provides what the text means but does not say.
So when we Catholics quote Scripture we are quoting the teachings of the Church. Now if you point out to me that any of my scriptural quotes go against Church teaching as found in the Catechism, Church doctrines, Church Encyclicals, then let me know. But its absurd to me or any other Catholic to separate out for you the various strands that interweave Catholic beliefs.
I have provided you with a list of treatises beginning with the Catholic Catechism, the superb insights by Benedict XVI in his profoundly erudite books: “On the Way to Jesus Christ,” Jesus of Nazareth,” Jesus, the Apostles & The Early Church,” and his most recent, “The infancy Narratives,” and yet you seem reluctant to inform yourself of Church beliefs and the reasons therefor.
Now if you specifically let me know where I have deviated from Church teaching, then I can hopefully clarify. But to do that you would first have to be very informed and take on the task of doing some very serious reading. But instead you appear to refuse to do so. I let it be known to you that Church interpretation is a product of many modalities of interpretation, and yet you keep requesting single threads of proof (chapter and verse, as you previously put it) when what we have is an interwoven tapestry of interpretation and its central designs are found in the Catechism and liturgical practices. It is to this body of beliefs that my interpretation of Scripture is anchored to.