Doc Holliday said:
Mothra said:
Doc Holliday said:
Mothra said:
Doc Holliday said:
Mothra said:
Doc Holliday said:
Mothra said:
Doc Holliday said:
Mothra said:
Doc Holliday said:
Mothra said:
Doc Holliday said:
Fre3dombear said:
Ezekiel 44:1-2
Simply another verse speaking to the perpetual virginity of Mary
In fact St Jerome Spoke of this in the 4th century explicitly. Hidden in plain sight fir those with eyes to see.
Every saint grows in theosis through struggle and cooperation. Mary simply represents the fullness of what that cooperation can produce when grace is given without reserve and met with total fidelity.
Protestant theology can't allow for it. They believe in total depravity as a fixed natural property of humanity rather than a condition that entered history and can be addressed by grace.
For them, grace is a legal cover, not actual participation in the divine life, which can genuinely transform and even preemptively sanctify a human person.
They have no concept of this which is also why they don't understand the bones of Elijah, Paul's handkerchiefs healing people or why saints decompose slowly. The genuine participation of the human person in the divine life, becoming "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).
It's the inauguration of deified matter. Christ's glorified body is the first and fullest example of what theosis does to human flesh taken all the way to its completion. That's how he resurrected.
You continue to display a gross misunderstanding and ignorance of Protestantism. "Total depravity" doesn't mean people are as evil as possible; it means sin affects every part of us and that we can't fix ourselves without God taking the initiative. My reformed faith believes grace transforms, but rejects the idea that anyone besides Jesus was exempt from needing salvation or was kept sinless ahead of time without clear biblical support.
Pointing to miracles like Elijah's bones or Paul's handkerchiefs doesn't prove that people or objects become "divine." Those passages show God working powerfully through ordinary means. The focus is always on God's power, not on matter being transformed into something divine or humans reaching a higher state like Christ. Jesus' resurrection is unique because He is the Son of God, not because He demonstrates a process that turns other people into something like Him before the final resurrection.
As for Mary, the idea that she represents the highest possible cooperation with grace just isn't stated in Scripture. The Bible is clear that Jesus alone is sinless, while everyone else - including Mary - needed a Savior. Elevating her to that level goes beyond what the text actually says is an example of the heresy that Catholics and Orthodoxy consistently engage in.
I was a Protestant. No misunderstanding whatsoever.
What prevented God from taking the initiative preemptively with Mary? The Immaculate Conception (Catholic) or Orthodox All-Holy Panagia don't claim Mary fixed herself, they claim God acted first. Your own definition of grace permits it. Your objection isn't theological, it's just "I don't see it explicitly in Scripture," which is a sola scriptura assumption. You seem to believe that if something isn't in scripture, then it can't be true? Why?
We're not operating on the same starting point. I believe God absolutely has the ability to work through fallible men to pass down the word of God both written and orally. Scripture shows that the word of God isn't just written text. Did you know that?
I get your position, you don't think it was possible for oral tradition to be passed down from the apostles nor possible for them to setup a visible church that maintained continuity and safeguarded the faith once delivered. Even though God worked through fallible men to write scripture, translate it, canonize it…you completely say it's impossible for a visible Church to have been established that practiced specific traditions that aren't written down.
The argument for holy relics isn't that Elijah's bones became ontologically God. Matter can be a genuine vehicle of divine energies, which is the essence/energies distinction. The consistent pattern in Scripture is that God dwells in and acts through sanctified matter in ways qualitatively different from ordinary matter.
Jesus didn't just speak the blind man's sight back. He spat in the dirt, made mud, and applied it to his eyes (John 9:6). He could have healed with a word, and did so elsewhere, but deliberately chose to work through matter. Clay. Spit. Physical stuff.
Why? He didn't have to.
The Incarnation itself is a statement about matter. God doesn't redeem us by extracting us from physical reality, He enters it, sanctifies it, and works through it. If God truly took on flesh, then matter is permanently and irreversibly dignified as a vehicle of divine presence. You basically have to deny this in your framework.
When you allegedly attended this Protestant Church, were you five, or did you just sleep through Sunday School? I ask because I've never met a former Protestant as glib about his former congregation as you appear to be.
At the core, this isn't really about whether God could have done these things - of course He could. The real issue is whether He actually did them in the specific ways you're claiming, and whether the apostles clearly passed those teachings down. Saying something is possible isn't the same as showing it's true.
When Scripture talks about Mary, it presents her as someone who received grace and still needed a Savior, like everyone else. So if you're claiming something unique like the Immaculate Conception, the responsibility is on you to show that it's part of the original apostolic teaching, not just something that developed later.
When it comes to tradition, I'm not denying that God worked through people orally as well as in writing. The problem is figuring out how we can reliably tell which traditions actually go back to the apostles and which don't. Different groups all claim to have that continuity, but they don't agree with each other, so something has to serve as a standard to test those claims. That's where Scripture comes in - it's the only source we have that is clearly tied to the apostles and publicly available for testing. So it's not that I think "if it's not in Scripture, it can't be true," but rather that teachings need a clear apostolic basis if they're going to be treated as binding doctrine.
The same kind of issue applies to the idea of a perfectly reliable, visible Church. Yes, God used flawed people to write and preserve Scripture, but that doesn't automatically mean He created an institution that can't err. In fact, Scripture itself shows leaders making mistakes and even churches drifting into error. So pointing out that God worked through fallible people doesn't prove that everything later attributed to the Church is guaranteed to be correct.
As for relics and physical objects, I don't disagree that God sometimes used material things to accomplish miracles. But those were specific situations where God chose to act in that moment. They don't automatically establish an ongoing practice or system for using objects in devotion. There's no clear evidence that the apostles taught or organized that kind of practice.
Are you claiming Ireneus made up a bunch of nonsense?
I respect many of Ireneus's writings. On this issue, he indeed missed the mark.
Wow.
So the laying on of hands stopped mattering after the apostles died? What's your scriptural support for that?
I know some Protestants believe the church went into the dark until the reformation. Do you believe that? The early church fathers almost unanimously affirm the Eucharist and Mary as we understand it today.
I never said anything about the laying on of hands, so bringing that up doesn't address my point at all. The issue is much simpler: being part of an early succession doesn't make someone infallible in their interpretations. Scripture itself shows that Peter had authority and was still corrected by Paul. So appealing to Irenaeus or any other father doesn't settle the question.
And no, I don't believe the church "went dark." That's a false dichotomy you're trying to force. I'm saying what Christians have always done: test teachings against Scripture. Respecting the early fathers doesn't mean blindly agreeing with every conclusion they reached. You have a brain, and the Holy Spirit in you (if you are a Christian). Do you really need every thing spoon fed to you? Are you like a little child, incapable of reaching conclusions based on your understanding of the text?
You also keep appealing to "near unanimity," but even if that were accurate, consensus isn't the final authority- Scripture is. The real question hasn't changed: does the text actually teach what you're claiming, or are you reading it into the text? Pointing to later agreement doesn't answer that.
Nobody said Irenaeus was infallible. I said he's a firsthand witness to what the apostolic churches taught. You use eyewitness testimony in every other area of history. Why does the standard suddenly change when the witness contradicts your theology?
Name one Church Father who operated by sola scriptura as you're describing it. One who treated his private interpretation of Scripture as the final authority over the Church's received Tradition. You can't. Because that method was invented in the 16th century. What the Fathers actually said was that Scripture is interpreted within the Church, by the Church, according to the rule of faith received from the apostles. Irenaeus himself says exactly this in Against Heresies Book 1.
Show me the verse where Scripture calls itself the final authority over unanimous patristic consensus. You're applying a tradition (the Protestant tradition of Scripture's interpretive supremacy) that Scripture itself never claims. Meanwhile the actual text says 'the Church is the pillar and ground of truth' (1 Tim 3:15). Not Scripture. The Church.
You're still dodging the central issue. Nobody denies Irenaeus is valuable as a historical witness, but being early - even an eyewitness - doesn't make him correct. All historical testimony - including his - has to be weighed against Scripture, not placed alongside it as a second authority. That's not a "changed standard"; that's the only consistent standard Christians have ever had within Scripture itself.
Your argument also assumes that proximity to the apostles guarantees accuracy in interpretation, but the New Testament itself disproves that. Churches founded by apostles still fell into error (see the Galatians and Corinthians). So simply saying "he reflects what churches taught" doesn't settle whether what was taught was right. That still has to be tested.
As for "sola scriptura," you continue to demonstrate a gross misunderstanding of that phrase. It's not about "private interpretation over the Church." It's about Scripture being the final, correcting authority over everyone - including the Church. That principle comes straight from Scripture. Again, no appeal to tradition or authority is above examination by the written Word.
Scripture is God-breathed and sufficient to equip the man of God for every good work. If something is sufficient to fully equip, it can't depend on an external authority to complete it. That doesn't eliminate the Church, but defines its role as subordinate to and governed by the Word.
I need to you understand something very important and logical:
When you say 'all historical testimony must be weighed against Scripture,' you haven't actually identified Scripture as the authority, you've identified yourself. Scripture doesn't read itself. Someone has to interpret it. And in your framework that someone is always you. So what you're actually saying is that Irenaeus, who learned from the disciple of an apostle, who transmitted what he personally received from the apostolic churches, must be weighed against your private reading of a text he received before your tradition existed. You've appointed yourself the final court of appeal while calling it Scripture.
When you weigh Irenaeus against Scripture and conclude Irenaeus is wrong, and I weigh Irenaeus against Scripture and conclude he's right, which of us is actually using Scripture as the authority? We're both appealing to Scripture. The disagreement is about interpretation. So Scripture isn't actually functioning as the authority here. Your interpretation is.
Notice what Paul does when those churches err. He writes letters correcting them back to the apostolic deposit. The correction is always back toward received Tradition, not toward individual re examination of texts. And who receives those letters as authoritative? The Church. Who decides they're canonical? The Church.
Those errors were immediately identified and corrected by living apostolic authority. That's exactly the function of apostolic succession.
You're criticizing me for using my interpretation of Scripture, but you're doing the same thing with tradition. If I read Scripture and come to one conclusion, and you read both Scripture and Irenaeus and come to another, the disagreement is still about interpretation. Appealing to tradition doesn't remove that - it just adds another layer to interpret.
There's also a bigger problem here. If God is not a God of confusion, then His Word cannot be so unclear that it requires an infallible external authority to make sense of it at all. That would mean ordinary believers can't actually understand what God has revealed without being completely and utterly dependent on an institution. But Scripture itself presents God's Word as something that teaches, corrects, and equips directly; not something fundamentally locked away behind a system. When Paul corrects churches, he points them back to the truth already given - the gospel - not to an ongoing, undefined stream of tradition that needs institutional control.
We have been over this ad nauseum, but your main accusation simply doesn't stick. You say appealing to Scripture makes me the "final authority," but in your system that role belongs to your specific church. And then we still have to ask: which church, and how do you know? That answer still depends on a person making a judgment. So either way, you don't escape interpretation.
Bottom line is my position says God's Word is the highest authority, and everything else is tested by it. Yours says Scripture plus an external authority interprets it, but that authority still has to be identified and interpreted by individuals.
There's a critical difference between us. I'm submitting my interpretation to a community of interpretation that predates me by 2000 years, includes the people who personally received the faith from the apostles, and has remained consistent across continents and centuries. You're submitting your interpretation to nothing outside yourself. Those aren't equivalent positions. One is a individual reading a text alone. The other is an individual reading a text within the community that produced, canonized, and transmitted it.
You assume you interpret scripture perfectly. Why?
If God's Word is so clear it doesn't need authoritative interpretation, why have Protestants produced 40,000 denominations all reading the same Bible and reaching irreconcilable conclusions about baptism, the Lord's Supper, salvation, church governance, and eschatology?
Nobody disagrees that God's Word is the highest authority. The question is what God's Word actually is. You've defined it as the 66 books of the Protestant canon interpreted by you personally. But that canon was determined by the Church you're now placing under Scripture.
God's word isn't just written text. Divine revelation isn't limited to just texts. Much of God's word was preserved orallly.
You're framing this like the only two options are "trust the ancient Church" or "trust yourself alone," but that's not actually the Protestant (or at least my Reformed) position. As previously pointed out on numerous occasions in response to your misconception, Protestants don't interpret Scripture in isolation - they read it within a long historical tradition, using the Church Fathers, councils, creeds, and the broader Christian community as
helps. The difference is that none of those things are treated as infallible in the same way Scripture is. So it's not "me vs. 2000 years of history" - it's Scripture as the final authority, with history as a guide that can still be questioned.
Also, the idea that there's been one perfectly unified, consistent interpretive community for 2000 years just isn't historically accurate. Also as previously pointed out, the early Church had major disagreements - on Christology, the Trinity, grace, church authority, and more. Entire councils were called because bishops and regions were in serious conflict. So appealing to "one continuous, unified interpretation" smooths over real divisions that existed from very early on.
On your point about interpretation: nobody claims they interpret Scripture perfectly. The question isn't whether individuals are fallible - we all are. The question is where ultimate authority lies. You're placing it in the Church's interpretive tradition, while Protestants place it in Scripture itself as the only infallible standard. That doesn't eliminate disagreement, but neither does your positionOrthodox, Catholics, and even groups within those traditions still disagree on important issues.
The "40,000 denominations" argument is just silly. A lot of those are administrative or cultural differences, not radically different theologies. And more importantly, disagreement doesn't prove Scripture is unclear - it may just show that people are fallible, biased, or inconsistent. The early Church had major disagreements too, even under apostolic leadership, so diversity of views isn't something that suddenly appeared with Protestantism.
