Which means that beside the reality that - contrary to how they are invoked - such "fathers" can contradict each others, and also were developing their own theology and which can be unclear at points - such are open to interpretation. And which means (to a faithful RC) not that the meaning of such or of Scripture is determined by the weight of contextual substantiation, but that what valid Scripture, history and so-called "fathers" consist of and meant is whatever Rome says they meant, and only judges those to be orthodox when they agree with her, which authority is based upon under the the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial veracity, at least as regards matters of salvation, which thus require assent by Catholics (albeit of different levels depending upon the levels of teaching).
It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine....Historical evidence and biblical criticism are human after all, and amount to no more than opinion, probability, human judgment, human tradition. I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves... The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour. — Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, “The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation,” (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228.
“The living magisterium, therefore, makes extensive use of documents of the past, but it does so while judging and interpreting, gladly finding in them its present thought, but likewise, when needful [as in V2], distinguishing its present thought from what is traditional only in appearance. It is revealed truth always living in the mind of the Church, or, if it is preferred, the present thought of the Church in continuity with her traditional thought, which is for it the final criterion, according to which the living magisterium adopts as true or rejects as false the often obscure and confused formulas which occur in the monuments of the past.
Thus are explained both her respect for the writings of the Fathers of the Church and her supreme independence towards those writings–she judges them more than she is judged by them.” — Catholic Encyclopedia: “Tradition and Living Magisterium
in all cases the immediate motive in the mind of a Catholic for his reception of them [doctrines] is, not that they are proved to him by Reason or by History, but because Revelation has declared them by means of that high ecclesiastical Magisterium which is their legitimate exponent.” — John Henry Newman, “A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation.” 8
Of course, whatever is invoked for support of this premise of ensured magisterial veracity in salvific truths can only mean what Rome decides based upon that premise. And which extends to the presumption that souls cannot even discern what Scripture consists of apart from faith in her which must tell them. Recognizing this problem of proving church by the Scriptures and the Scripture by the church then the recourse in Catholic apologetic has been, "when we appeal to the Scriptures for proof of the Church's infallible authority we appeal to them merely as reliable historical sources, and abstract altogether from their inspiration." (Catholic Encyclopedia > Infallibility)
Which means that while the would-be convert cannot discern what writings are of God yet he is expect to be able to see the Catholic (one of them) church as being of God. Which is simply absurd.
Thus rather than assurance of RC doctrine for a faithful RC being based upon the weight of Scriptural substantiation in word and in power as in the establishment of the church (and if RC's made that their basis then they would be operating as faithful evangelicals), or even the weight of tradition, then their assurance is based upon faith in their church as being the sure and supreme standard on Truth.
And which also means that while Catholics often employ the authority of Scripture in seeking to defend their faith and convert evangelicals others to it, they are actually abusing it in service to Rome in seeking to persuade us to abandon the only wholly inspired-of-God and substantive record of what believers believed as the sure and supreme standard, and place our faith in Rome. So we should realize what the real basis is for their false beliefs and motivation to defend such.
Exactly the point I led him into making.
The church fathers contradict themselves and each other. Just the mere existence of “Protestant” ideas in their writings exposes Rome’s lies about there being 100% unity among them.
I don’t defend salvation by grace through faith and not by works by the writing of these ancient Christians; Scripture does that job without needing help. Instead it simply tears down Catholicism’s ‘proofs’ quite easily.