Ok thanks. I would only like to clarify that the line of reasoning I described before (which you analyzed in great detail) is certainly not the foundation of my faith today. Ironically for reasons you describe. One can’t base one’s faith on a claim of authority I agree.
I was describing though how one might approach the “problem” (for lack of a better word) of faith. What is the next most reasonable step, given a faith in God. Then, after that step, there would be another step and another. This is only, ultimately a human way to approach the issue. I’m only human after all so that’s the only way I can approach and tackle any challenge.
Part of this is to recognize how I live and work in other areas. How am I successful, how do I find something to be reasonable. How do I know something is true.
If I have a problem assembling a bike, after reading the directions I call a help line (if it’s available).
If I have problems doing math or science problems at home (homework), I’d ask my teacher for help.
If I have problems in my marriage, (which I don’t, I’m just saying), we would seek help. Maybe even help from a priest.
All of these things are a reasonable first step for their respective problems. No one could say otherwise. No one could reasonably say, “Just go it alone, read the manual again read the math book again, just pray for your marriage don’t seek help. It will all work out if you just have enough ‘faith’”. No one would say that in those situations, not to themselves, not to others.
So for this reason, it seemed to me then, and still seems to me now, to be a good, first step. After all, by that time and certainly now I believed that God was/is Incarnate. So, I reasoned, if God himself took human form, came down to earth to save humanity, then he must want to work IN the world, and not above it as all the other gods of all the other religions. No, he must, for whatever reason value humanity, and want to work in it to save it, even though we screw up all the time.
Since then it’s become clear to me that Christianity is an EVENT, happening now and not merely a lesson in history or a list of things to do (or not do) to “get to heaven” and “avoid hell”. So I still maintain it’s the reasonable thing to do, to at least start with the stewards and instruments of Scripture in a search for an encounter with Christ here and now. Because that’s what I wanted then, and still want now (even though I’ve encountered him some times since then I still want to encounter him again).
Otherwise, it’s not reasonable, it’s not really human to be a Christian. If He is not present and helping us NOW in a tangible way, the only way we can really respond to him as a human, Christianity is just a nice idea. A moralism meant to soothe an impending fear of death, or something checked off a checklist, as any other worldly label, that ultimately means nothing.
This is the level I want, really need, to live my faith. And I submit it’s the level everyone needs to live it, if they are honest with themselves.
That's what God sent the Holy Spirit for.
But that is really where your "Rome gave me the Bible so they must best know what it means" leads to. Unlike how the church began, you rely upon an authority who authoritatively claims they are the authority based upon their authoritative claim of what Scripture and history means.
So I still maintain it’s the reasonable thing to do, to at least start with the stewards and instruments of Scripture in a search for an encounter with Christ here and now.
It is reasonable to expect they should know, but it is unreasonable to believe they must know best, and to place trust in them for assurance of truth, which you are to do as a RC, rather than the Scriptures themselves.
For nor being an instrument or steward of God warrants that, and such can lead you astray, as the OT corporate stewards of Divine revelation.
Moreover, the Roman magisterium was not and is not the instrument of Divine revelation, as it was neither a group project or responsible for its recognition, and is manifestly contrary to the NT church.
Otherwise, it’s not reasonable, it’s not really human to be a Christian. If He is not present and helping us NOW in a tangible way, the only way we can really respond to him as a human,
But your logic does not lead to the conclusion that Rome is to be submitted to, nor does it require her. Basing acceptance of Truth claims upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, with Scripture being supreme as the assured word of God, not Rome and her assured veracity, is how the church began, as explained. While the stewardship=assured veracity logic invalids the church.
But submission based upon the premise of the assured veracity of Rome is what is Catholic teachings prescribe, even to saying God being obliged to submit to her.
If you do not subscribe to this submission then you are not much of a RC, and your faulty logic has led you to a faulty church.
It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock...So distinct are these categories that..the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors. - VEHEMENTER NOS, Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906:
“All that we do [as must be patent enough now] is to submit our judgment and conform our beliefs to the authority Almighty God has set up on earth to teach us; this, and nothing else.”
“Absolute, immediate, and unfaltering submission to the teaching of God's Church on matters of faith and morals-----this is what all must give..”
The Vicar of Christ is the Vicar of God; to us the voice of the Pope is the voice of God. This, too, is why Catholics would never dream of calling in question the utterance of a priest in expounding Christian doctrine according to the teaching of the Church;” —“Henry G. Graham, "What Faith Really Means", (Nihil Obstat:C. SCHUT, S. T.D., Censor Deputatus, Imprimatur: EDM. CANONICUS SURMONT, D.D.,Vicarius Generalis. WESTMONASTERII, Die 30 Septembris, 1914 )]
As Alphonsus Ligouri, whose writings were declared free from anything meriting censure by Pope Gregory XVL (1839) in the bull of his canonization, states,
“With regard to the mystic body of Christ, that is, all the faithful, the priest has the power of the keys, or the power of delivering sinners from hell, of making them worthy of paradise, and of changing them from the slaves of Satan into the children of God. And God himself is obliged to abide by the judgment of his priests, and either not to pardon or to pardon, according as they refuse or give absolution, provided the penitent is capable of it.
Such is," says St. Maximus of Turin, " this judiciary power ascribed to Peter that its decision carries with it the decision of God." 2 The sentence of the priest precedes, and God subscribes to it. .” – Dignity and Duties of the Priest, St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Vol. 12, p. 2; http://www.archive.org/stream/alphonsusworks12liguuoft/alphonsusworks12liguuoft_djvu.txt
As saith another sanctioned authority, The supreme power of the priestly office is the power of consecrating...Indeed, it is equal to that of Jesus Christ....The priest speaks and lo! Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command. - (John A. O'Brien, Ph.D., LL.D., The Faith of Millions, 255-256 , O'Brien. Nihtt obstat: Rev. Lawrence Gollner, Censor Librorum Imprimatur: Leo A. Pursley, Bishop of Fort Wayne,-South Bend, March 16, 1974
Read some Matthew Henry commentary or others, and some good evangelical preaching if you want solid food.