Thanks for the honest reply. But that's really just ignoring the question as one should still ask, "How do you know what you believe to be a 'fit' with the rest of Scripture isn't just your opinion that it 'fits'"?
I can just about guarantee that there is at least one subject about the Catholic Church that gives you pause or causes you to question. Start there.
I won't lie and say there isn't from time to time. I am human after all. But I don't see a reason to go with your methodology until and unless I can be convinced it has a reasonable possibility (real possibility) of being free from the error I've described (my own personal opinion contaminating the study).
Do you agree it's all too easy for every single person who has ever lived to fool themselves into believing they are "right", when objectively they are not? Do you agree that's a danger for every person?
Likewise that applies to your decision as well, to follow and accept the teachings of the Catholic church.
On what basis do you determine that they are reliable, they have correct interpretation, and that they are safe to follow to keep you from error?
Do you agree it's all too easy for every single person who has ever lived to fool themselves into believing they are "right", when objectively they are not? Do you agree that's a danger for every person?
That is true, but again, it also applies to the one who searches Scripture out themselves, or who take the who package of someone who has done the work for them as with the RCC.
I was just reading something that said that if you think you can't be deceived, you already are.
Everyone of us is in that danger. That's why it's important to have an anchor, some sure, solid source of Truth to which they can go back and examine what they believe and why they believe it.
God gave us a mind for a reason and it needs to be renewed and conformed to His thinking and that is through His word.
Everything we do and everything we are is stained and corrupted by sin. We see through a glass darkly. He knows that we being finite, mortal beings, cannot possibly grasp the infinite and immortal.
There are certain basics that are necessary for salvation. Repentance, confession, believing, but beyond that, there is wide latitude and there are matters which are not critical to ones salvation, that if someone is wrong about them, they will not be not saved.
I'm of the opinion that God would rather work out His character in us to show Christ to a lost and dying world, than to have our theology *perfect*, with all the i's dotted and t's crossed, and miss what's really important in live.
Just like the Pharisees.
1 Corinthians 13:2 comes to mind. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.