Really??? The Church Fathers must have found it because they quote voluminously from the scriptures and in most cases verbatim.
They all believed them to be authoritative -- solely authoritative. They didn't cite each other or each other's writings as authoritative -- just the scriptures.
Perhaps you all need to reread your own church fathers to see how out of touch you are with them. For as Irenaeus wrote [but you all seem to have forgotten], "in matters of importance, one should defer to the writings of the apostles".
Just when are you all going to start doing that???
"I would not believe in the Gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not influence me to do so."
St. Augustine of Hippo (Church Father), Against the letter of Mani, 5, 6, 397 A.D.
That is a loaded statement considering the “line” continues.
What I don't get is since the Holy Spirit is suppose to “pick” the next in line, do those in the conclave who pick the “looser” not have the Holy Spirit in them? I guess those who picked the looser needs to go to the confessional more often.
The sworn secrecy bit of the conclave is even far more troublesome. What would happen if the majority does not vote “through the Holy Spirit” and strong arms (An RCC of version of Bush vs. Gore with no outside “authority” as referee) the minority? At least the current Pope put things in some perspective:
“I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the pope. ... I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined.”
So now the Holy Spirit is an educator instead of directly picking the process? Hmmm. They cut Jesus out of the process, He is now just an observer “directing”/making “suggestions” on the conclave. What happens when the majority does not want to be educated?
Questions, questions but that is the pitfalls of traditions.
You just built a straw man argument and then tore it down. There is an extremely important distinction between deferring to scripture and blindly ignoring every other source of revelation. If you wish to argue against a traditional understanding of revelation, you should first make the effort to fully understand the position that you wish to argue against.
The written words of the Apostles??? Not the 'traditions'??? Irenaeus then believed in Sola Scripture, the Scripture alone...
They all believed them to be authoritative — solely authoritative. They didn’t cite each other or each other’s writings as authoritative — just the scriptures.
Perhaps you all need to reread your own church fathers to see how out of touch you are with them. For as Irenaeus wrote [but you all seem to have forgotten], “in matters of importance, one should defer to the writings of the apostles”.
Just when are you all going to start doing that???
= = = =
Now Uncle Chip . . . you SHOULD KNOW! . . . that the RC edifice and magicsterical are
NOT interested in solid historical, logical true facts.
They are only in the market for rubberized pseudo facts that can be stretched from 400 years prior to their founding to galaxies far away and back.