artybloke said:
No doubt a very comforting thought. However, as none of the NT had actually been written at that time, that would be somewhat unlikely. That, and the fact that if took a further 400 or so years of often vicious and frankly unChristlike wrangling for the church to actually agree on its core beliefs.
Nice theory, but wrong. The teachings of the Church don't come from the Bible; they come from the teachings of Christ. Those teachings were being spread around before Paul wrote his first epistle. Do you think that Paul is the one who told everyone what to believe? Peter and the Apostles were already doing that. They didn't write it down at first, but they were certainly teaching. Those teachings have been passed down to our time as Sacred Tradition.
Don't forget, Paul was persecuting Christians before Christ convinced him to do the right thing. First Thessalonians is believed to be the oldest writing of the New Testament, and it was written around 51 A.D. That's about eighteen years after Christ was crucified. The Apostles did not stand around for those eighteen years waiting for someone to start writing letters. Paul didn't articulate the teachings of the Church for the first time when he wrote his epistles. He merely explained what was already being taught. His writings were and are inspired, yes. But they are not all that matters.
Remember, there's one central figure of the Church who did not write a single word of the New Testament: Jesus Christ. He taught orally, as did his Apostles. And what they taught has been handed down to our day, through His Church. Yes, there have been some additions as society has 'evolved' and progressed; birth control and cloning, as a couple of examples. But that which was taught then is still taught today, in the Catholic Church.
As for those 400 years, the Church wasn't wrangling about what was Sacred Scripture. True, there was no official canon until Carthage and Hippo, but isn't it interesting how those councils independently came up with the same canon? If that's not inspired, please tell me what is.
And I'm sure that Augustine and Aquinas were very wise and we can still learn from them. But I doubt they're anymore inerrant than any biblical scholar of today; and they would have had considerably less knowledge of such things as historical context.
Augustine was around when the canon of the Bible was set, and wrote some of the greatest theological works ever (City of God, Confessions, On Christian Doctrine). St. Thomas Aquinas wrote THE finest work of theology ever written, the Summa Theologica. They might not have 'historical' context, but they certainly had a deeper understanding of Christianity than just about anyone this side of the Apostles themselves.
And besides, do you really think that the Holy Spirit has stopped doing new things in the church?
Of course not. The Holy Spirit will work through the Church forever. But if you think I'm going to take it upon myself to say that I know more about what God is saying than two thousand years of scholarship, sorry. I freely admit I have an ego the size of Ontario, but I know my limits.