Wow Jimbone, I am really amazed that you could write me a response like this after everything I have already written both to you in pm's as well as posted publicly here.
For starters, you completely missed my point in asking about the canon of the Bible, but I will address that in a moment. The thing that confuses me about this resonse is how it is that you believe that I have somehow not met Christ. That I somehow don't believe in the real activity of the Holy Spirit in the world or in my life. It seems like what you and Magenta are saying is that the only way we can properly interpret the Bible is through the Holy Spirit guiding each individual, yet when I tell you that I also invoke the guidance of the Holy Spirit and read the Scriptures you seem to deny that I even know or believe in the real activity of the Spirit, and then deny your own principle and say that my interpretation of the Scripture can't possibly be right.
I don't know what I could do to "prove" to you that I love the Lord and seek Him in my life, but none of that is even the topic at hand.
The topic that I have asked both yourself and Magenta about is regarding the very origins of the Bible. I think you all are failing to miss the big point: you take the Bible as your only guide even though you have not been able to even explain where the Bible comes from.
It is simple, if a direct communication from God is the only authority, then unless Jesus Himself gave us a list of the books of the Bible we would have no reason to believe in them.
If this is not the case, then we must trust that God works through men, as human agents, to inspire them to make infallible decisions in order for us to have an infallible list of the canon of the Bible
It is true that at least you know of the council's of Carthage and Hippo (although Magenta has still not told me about her mysterious councils of which she makes reference to) which gave us the first list of the canon of the books of the Bible, but you have not given me a reason as to why you believe that this council's decision should be authoritative. You also seem to think that this was not a council of the Catholic Church, which is why I asked you how you justify that belief, but you have not responded to that question still.
As someone who knows the Catholic Church's teachings quite well I have to say that I think you have failed to truly understand us.
Nor have you understood my point about God's desire to work through human agents; you seem to confuse this point with us replacing God with human agents.
Overall I feel pretty dissapointed that you all apparently are not even willing to try to understand Catholicism, and you simply continue to mischaracterize us and attack us according to your mischaracterizations.
I have enjoyed talking with a handful of you, and Jim, I appreciate your zeal for preaching your personal encounter with Christ, and I know that what you are saying to me is because you think that I am in need of your help to come to know Christ, but I think I have pretty well discovered that I am not being understood, nor are people here really interested in true Ecumenical dialog, so I don't expect I will post much more. Peace
Dang man I read this and was like "when did I say he didn't know Jesus", but after I reread my post I can see how you got that. I didn’t mean it like that and don’t believe it’s possible for any of us to KNOW anyone else’s salvation status, although there are assumptions that can be made given evidences shown. That was my point and when I was saying all this
"I'm telling you man that His Spirit is a very real thing that I can't "show" you, nor can the RCC declare you "saved" either. God has to show you, and until He does it's all just words. So as long as you love the "RCC", then no one will ever be able to lead you to truth, you have to love Jesus more and before the RCC and anything else. The RCC is not the author and distributor of all truth as they tell you they are, Jesus alone is, and if you start from scratch with no preconceived notions and read the Bible you will see how off the RCC really is, but if your only angle is defending the RCC and proving them right then there is no way you will ever see it. That goes for anyone and any ideology as well though, truly seeking God isn't as easy as it sounds. It took me losing a limb for me to even start asking questions and looking into to roots of these beliefs. "
I didn't mean it to "you personally”, I meant “you” in a general generic sense to means "anyone", and I don't think I've misunderstood you at all. You seem to be looking for an authority on all things God on this earth, which is what you keep asking for, and that is how you keep referring to the RCC. Your question suggest you're looking for the "cannon" before the Catholic Church (not the same as the RCC for the record) says it “made” it cannon. The teachings you’re asking for are in the books of the bible first and foremost, all of which existed before the RCC. Jesus Christ is the authority over all, and the apostles and early church fathers are the ones He used to make sure they passed it all along to all future generations in its fullness. I'm sorry if my words offended you but I stand by every one of them because I serve only one, and am speaking truth as He commands us to. I also would like to add I also believe He could have used the RCC to help do that in ways, I just can’t give them the authority and credit you do for it.
The RCC did all it could do to keep His word out of the common man’s hands, because if the common man knew His word they would know how far from it the RCC was straying from it. That's history, do you deny that? Do you know why the “dark age” was so named? That's just like the cults of today telling their members not to research on the internet, to me it's a HUGE red flag, but how much of that is just like the RCC trying to keep the bible from the common man then. Same thing. Before the RCC Rome dealt with anyone that came against it by killing them, before the RCC Christians were slaughtered by Rome as fast as they could do it, but didn't kill His church off, after the RCC came to be all of a sudden the Roman Church "Christians" dealt with their problems the same way Rome always had, nothing telling about that huh? Look man I'm not trying to just be offensive, but when the only truth you accept is the “truth” the RCC feeds you I think that is a very dangerous place to be. Look at all history, for as many different sources as possible to come to your conclusions, it’s too cultish not too. Scientology, the Watchtower Society, and any other cult you can name do the exact same thing “only listen to us, everyone else is wrong”. When you follow Jesus you can do this, look into everything, get any perspective and draw your own conclusion. I can tell you I’ve yet to hear a worldview or any other ideology that fit’s with everything I see and look at around me as well as the Truth Jesus. Again I’m really sorry you were so offended by my comments, but with all due respect it’s not you I’m trying to please.
