Whatever Paul meant as "the perfect", it most surely has come.
This would explain why tongues have ceased.
Your phrase "
whatever Paul meant (i.e., by
"the Perfect") shows that
you yourself either
do not know or
will not venture to say what you THINK Paul meant when he used that term. Despite being admittedly
unable to say for certain what Paul meant you, nevertheless, go on to conclude that this "
unknown" "perfect thing" had
surely come.
Does this sound anything LIKE a logical argument to you? It does not to me. Yet, you assure us all that your
highly uncertain proposition PROVES that tongues
ceased. However,
undefined highly uncertain propositions cannot
prove anything. The fact that you add the ADVERB
surely does not make what you say any more credible or certain. Those who wish to be "
skillful workmen who rightly divide the word of truth" cannot base their conclusions about the
meaning of scriptures on own their own presuppositions. That is a logical fallacy known as
CIRCULAR REASONING.
You also must deal with the fact that Cessationism was not the
historic view of the Early Church. If it had been, established doctrine or even a firm tradition passed down from the
Apostles or even from Christians who lived in the
Ante-Nicene period, do you not think they would have said so? Yet some of us here have cited them claiming to have
witnessed the ongoing operation of the
charismata.
Even
Augustine, the theological grandfather of the
Reformation (
which included such figures as Luther, Zwingli and Calvin) after
initially teaching Cessationism ended up publishing a retraction of that very view in several of his books:
Augustine believed in miracles. His writings clearly indicate that
he believed that God miraculously healed people of illness in order to support the authority of those who ministered in the name of Christ. The most detailed examples of this are written in the last book of his huge work,
City of God. In
Book 22 of the
eighth chapter of
City of God, of which is entitled,
Of Miracles Which Were Wrought that the World Might Believe in Christ, and Which Have Not Ceased Since the World Believed.
(
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120122.htm )
In this book Augustine gives a very lengthy description of miracles. These were
physical cures which
he had either witnessed himself, or about which he had heard from those whom he considered to be reliable witnesses. There the reader learns about
a blind man cured in Milan while Augustine and Alypius were there as laymen. Augustine devotes many lines to another man named Innocentius, whom he knew a little later in Carthage, when Augustine as a layman was a guest in the house of Innocentius. The miraculous cure of this man, who had been an advocate of the deputy prefecture,
happened under the eyes of Augustine. Innocentius was being treated by
medical men for fistulae, of which he had a large number intricately seated in the rectum. The cure of this man, who had been an advocate of the deputy prefecture, happened
under Augustine's very own eyes: "...
