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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!

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.

metmom wrote:

Um, Scripture promises the Holy Spirit to guide us.

Right: but there's far more to it than that... unless you think that the Holy Spirit is responsible for guiding thousands of Protestant denominations into contradictory beliefs:

worship on Saturday [Seventh Day Adventist] or Sunday [mainline Christianity]

baptism is regenerative [Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, many Lutherans, etc.] or merely symbolic [many evangelical non-denominational groups]

infant baptism is desirable [Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, etc.] or a grave mistake [Baptist, non-denominational, most evangelical, etc.]

the Eucharist is God [Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, some Lutherans] or a mere symbol [evangelicals, etc.]

abortion is morally allowable [Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, etc.] or an inhuman crime [most others, though the non-Catholic, number is dwindling]

contraception is morally allowable [virtually all non-Catholic and non-Amish/Mennonite/etc.] or morally illicit [Catholics, some "plain people"]

"gay marriage" is morally acceptable [many non-Catholic groups, Anglican, etc.] or a profound moral/physical/psychological disorder [Catholic, many evangelicals]

sins are mortal and venial [Catholic, Orthodox] or else "all the same" [most Protestant]

Mary is the Mother of God [Catholic, Orthodox] or not [most Protestants, especially evangelicals]

illness is real [non-Christian Scientists] or a mere illusion [Christian Scientists]

Do you get the idea? Which of these sincere, Bible-believing (and you'd find it difficult to contradict their claim to be Bible-believing) non-Catholics do you think were led by the Spirit "into all truth" (John 16:13)? And surely you don't think that the Holy Spirit led the others into error, do you?

This is one of the main additional problems with "sola Scriptura"--it spawns tens of thousands of "mini-Popes" who all believe that they're led "by the Holy Spirit" into all different directions! That simply can't be true... but you're in no position to say which is true, and which is false, while clinging to sola Scriptura.

Luther who? I don't *cling* to Luther. He has no effect or affect on my spiritual life.

Yes, he does... though you might not be conscious of it. If you subscribe to "sola Scriptura" (which he popularised), then you're a spiritual child of Luther. If you believe that the Protestant 66-book Bible is the complete Bible, you're a spiritual child of Luther. If you believe (in flat contradiction to James 2:24) that we are saved by "faith alone", you are a spiritual child of Luther. That's only scratching the surface.

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.

All right: you've now stated (yet again) your very strong, fervent, sincere raw opinion. Now, in order for anyone else to take that opinion seriously (i.e. as fact, and not your mere personal tastes), you need to PROVE your point... not simply restate it, again and again, with greater and greater amounts of emotional energy and rhetorical colour. Are you willing to try to do that, or are we done here?