Jesusfreak5000,
Haha! What an opinion. Do you not think I would assert the same thing?
You should be able to if it is the Gospel. What Gospel would you teach as a missionary. You don't even know which gospel is the correct one. the Gospel that Christ gave is a universal Gospel. Paul, Peter, Andrew, Mark, James did not teach their interpretation from a book that we don't know about. They did not even teach separate gospels, but ONE Gospel, ONE faith, ONE Church, the Church founded by Christ through them, the Apostles. They are the foundation, and the Church is built upon that foundation. We don't need to change the foundation, not adjust the Corner Stone either. Christ is the Authority, not man.
He commanded His disciples and all those disciples that follow to preach His Gospel which He promised to preserve in this World, and not my or any man's gospel.
So, it still falls on you to at least show that what you believe is that ONCE given Gospel, preserved for all in time. If you cannot, then you have some bits and pieces of that ONE gospel, not the fullness of it.
You cannot prove this. This is totally your assumption.
I don't need to. History did that for me. A continuous recording of the Church, the beliefs, the practices, what they specifically believed. Eventually some of it was written down in what became the NT Canon. For 400 years they did not have a Canon, not all of the Churches had all of the specific letters that eventually became the Canon. Yet, from all corners that the recordings have come, it is the same Gospel.
Amazing when you think that within the Sola Scriptura one can have a totally different gospel within the same family. Just amazing. Thousands of miles apart, with no email, no faxes, not even fast transportation, the Gospel remained the same from generation to generation. Just cannot be man that is so faithful. Must be the Holy Spirit keeping His promise to preserve His Gospel. After all, He is the Head of that Church He founded.
To actually take your view, you need to deny that Christ made the promise or at the very least He cannot keep His promise. To both preserve His Gospel and His Church.
You cannot prove this. This is totally your assumption. I can think of historians who are much more qualified than you or I who would claim you are way off, one belng Francis Schaeffer.
Francis Shaeffer is not an historian. He is a protestant theologian. But isn't that ironic, His son is Orthodox and you should read his story and interpretation of Christianity in Dancing Alone by Frank Shaeffer. But understand neither is unbiased. But if you take independent historians it does not change the facts.
My statement:...Can you say that of reformed faith. Where is the teaching of "reformed" as as part of the Gospel since the beginning.
Your response:
Uh... Scripture???
Your interpretation or the best you can do is go no further than Luther who was first, then Calvin, Zwingli, then it already startes to get muddy. You will find no faith as you state practiced before these men. Calvinists, of course will rely on Augustine, whose teachings never were the believe and practice of the Church. Even the RC does not accept all the innovations of Augustine, though they took many which is why Augustine is also known as the Father of the RC Church. But RC depends more on Anselm who fleshed out Augustines thinking which all protestants have accepted as well, which is the forensic or satisfaction theory.
You argue as though you don't know our position. Either your truly don't know how we refute your points or you are trying to get me to say something. I've noticed this with you, you play little games and never really come right out and say what you are thinking. I think this is a typical tactic of the Eastern Orthodox Church. You are always claiming that everyone is wrong, yet you never come out and truly say what you believe. It is quite bothersome.
the situation is that I know two of the major basis of the reformation, excluding Lutheranism. I was born and raised Calvinist and lived most of my adult life somewhere in the middle with the end being in the Methodist Church. So I am very familiar with both theologies, having taught both of them. Or actually taught all the variations possibly known to man as still be called protestant.
The problem is you cannot refute the Truth. It is true that I am arguing from 2000 years of unchanged Christianity as believed and practiced from the beginning the very same from the early Church to the present day.
Neither the understanding of creation, the purpose of man, the fall, redemption from that fall, the understanding of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the salvation of our indiviudual souls has not ever changed and no man has changed it, though several have tried to implement their personal views upon the Church. But all, to a man, were declared invalid, unscriptural, heretical. They were so declared by Councils but approved over time by the Church which is what Scripture alludes to which protestants have such a difficult time with.
To say that I don't say what I believe is astounding. You obviously have not been reading what I write. The least you could try to do is show that my understanding of Orthodox theology might be wrong, which it just might be. I do not know everything there is to know. But you will not ever refute what I do know with protestant interpretions that cannot get outside of the 16th century. Hardly the Gospel once Given. The Bible is not what is being preserved, necessarily. It is not the whole Gospel.
I am not claiming everything is wrong. I am claiming that what you are saying is not scripture or the Gospel, the Gospel historically. If you want to keep it ONLY as you believe and what you interpret it as, so be it. Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentacostals, Dispensationalists, premillennialists all have their particular interpretation, all are based on scripture, but none of them can bring it further back than their founders. And that is precisely how it is stated; a faith founded by XXXXX. I am saying a faith founded by Christ. There In ONLY ONE Christ, ONE Lord, ONE Faith.
Once again, another assumption.
It may be an assumption that you might not embrace, but many on these forums and some in my clasess of past history surely have. It is truly amazing just how some thing the Bible came to be.
Terrible. Absolutely terrible logic. The book does have authority on it's own, because it is living.
Really. Pure protestant logic. Why is it living. No other book is living.
Christ makes it a living Gospel, It is enlivened by the Holy Spirit who guards that Gospel, not necessarily the Book.
But since you state that it has authority just what kind of authority. Surely it cannot lead to correct interpretation. It cannot lead to correct Gospel. You have had 400 years to show unity of authority and it has become a virtual ameba splitting by the month. You have thousands of different faiths that run the entire spectrum for absolute Truth, to absolute absence of any Truth. From some believing in the Incarnated Christ, then some who just think he became like man, looked like a man, but was not really man. To others who say Christ was ONLY God. to the other extreme, He was ONLY man. Some believe in the resurrection some don't. Some believe in sacramental worship and sacraments, most protestants do not.
Please explain where you think the Bible is authoritative? I would be very interested.
Which Gospel is the Holy Spirit preserving. How do you know which is the real Gospel from all the other gospels. Is it ONLY that if it is your interpretation it is of the Holy Spirit? Then how can you show that the Holy Spirit is not confused?
It does not need to be affirmed by anyone or anything, and it is still the Word of God.
I should have read ahead instead of anwering as I go. You just answered all of my questions above. Your gospel is as valid as Joseph Smith's. It is precisely what each derives from a book, as long as that book is the Bible. The Bible is the basis, but nothing needs to be unified. Nothing need corrrespond to what Christ actually gave and the Apostoles gave to the world in the first century. Any wonder that nothing is valid except the Book. It does not even need to be an accurate translation, as that is not necessary. How quaint.
You have the best of the world. You have the Gospel according to you. Yet Paul condemned this very thing. Anything not what He preached is false, and nothing including what He preached is not of Paul but of Christ. Yet you say just the opposite. It is what each derives from the Bible. The Bible makes it valid. A real comfortable religion to say the least. How can you be cited for false teachings. That is an unheard of phenonomon.
You are arguing that Jesus and the Church make the Bible what it is because they claimed it to be something.
Ah, yes, Jesus made it what it is, created, established it as it is recorded in that Bible. You just omit that part to create your own comfortable religion from the Bible.
The Holy Spirit is responsible for the Word of God, and it exists as the Word of God apart from any other condition.
Ok, if that be true then you have no business telling any other faith that it is false. Islam has as much validity as you do. Mohammad is claiming the very same thing you just did, Quite a bit of the Koran is taken from the Bible that the Assyrian Church had where Mohammed grew up. He valued the concept of "the Book" which prompted His own.
Maybe Confucius did also, I would not know. But if those of today want to claim it as such, they would be correct and you have no business in saying they are incorrect. In other words you just removed all Truth from existance. Truth is what man really says it is, as long as he claims He got it from God. Do you really get that from the Bible? Has a theocratic Trinity been reduced to a democratic pluralistic religiosity?
Christ is no longer relative because some have gotten the word of God to the contrary. I would presume you do not do missionary work. All you need to do is hand out the Bible and say "go for it" Make the best you can, it is valid as long as you use the Bible. All I can say is WOW!!
But then again, it does not shock me now. This is what prompted me 10 years ago to go searching for that ONE Truth. If Christ says He gave it, and preserved it, I wanted it. I knew I did not have it and neither did those in my classes. It is what made me find Orthodoxy. The faith of our Fathers and the Faith given by Christ, preserved by the Holy Spirit, within His Body, AS HE PROMISED.
The acceptance of the refutation does not make it authoritative. This is a logical fallacy.
I can see why you would think so. It would destroy personal revelation. It would destroy your whole foundation of a faith.
I never said anyone received new revelation. Here we go again with putting words in my mouth, which is why I get tired of arguing with you.
But how do you account for all of the changes from the Original. Even if you don't agree with the Original Gospel, the changes must of necessity be new revelations. How can one be that the Incarnation has always been held as one of the two most distinctive things about Christianity. Actually it is what makes Christianity. Yet, most in this forum denounce the historic definition and understanding of the Incarnation as it is described in Scripture. So, if you do not believe in it as it was originally given, then your "word of God" as it came to you is totally different, since you do not believe in the historical, scriptural Incarnation. Would not that be new revelation?
What about the understanding of the Eucharist. First many do not believe as the Original that it is the Body and Blood of Christ, then many others do away with the sacrament completely, as others simply call it a celebration as a birthday celebration. That also must be new revelation, since none of the latter is actually in scripture.
And what about the Trinity. There are several views out there, most of which have actuallyalready been declared heretical since it is different that the Original understanding. But you are saying that some believe differently because they received the "word of God" differently, thus new revelation.
Do you actually understand what you are saying and what it means?
All you are doing is justifying the absolute confusion you face and it is this rationalization that makes it comfortable for you to accept.
Enough, you are simply mislead and cannot be redeemed of your illogical position.
I don't need to. It has been in existance and will be in existance far longer than your personal view. You just cannot justify your position from scripture, even just the Bible, and make it align with the original.
And obviously it does not align with your personal view, which means nothing to me.
That is not the gospel from the beginning as Scripture clearly shows. It is by faith, and faith alone.
Sola Fide.
Of course, and I would be futile to try to refute it. I can say just the opposite and say, faith with anything else as well. It is as valid as any other. Nice comfortable religion. Just the kind of pyschology that is preached today of which I have heard for many years. In fact, it is the kind of religion I actually heard in one of those Mega Churches that I had attended a couple of times just before I converted 10 years ago. They stay completely away from doctrines of any kind. the pastor even had a degree is psychology as well. Fits right in with modern, humanism, individualism, the American dream world.
The problem I see is what faith, you alone with you own personal faith. Totally separated from the Faith of Christ.
May God have mercy upon you.
This is why one must be born again to enter into the Kingdom of God. What can wash away our sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. There is power in the blood of Jesus. 
