Yes. But the question has to do with the degree of punishment merited. That is something that seems to fail Calvinist understanding. As I remember, EVERY sin deserves the same punishment -- eternal hell. Yet this doesn't even correspond with the earthly analogy of punishment found in the civil codes which God gave in the OT, does it? The punishment fits the crime, which is the point I am making, and not all sins are worthy of eternal hell. That was Luther's problem - he thought that every single peccadillo deserved God hanging him upside down and flame-roasting him to a golden brown, and as we know, Luther had some serious psychological problems.
All sins are worthy of eternal hell. Eternal hell does not imply the same DEGREE of torment, however. Those who are the more responsible will suffer
greater torments. But all who are damned will be damned to eternal death, to roast forever in the fires of hell. There are no two ways about it: when Christ divides the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, he doesn't offer a midway point between heaven and hell.
There is nothing that says that the helpmeet cannot be a corporate entity such as the Church. This follows the paradigm in the OT where the coveantal head was the high priest (who offered the sacrifice of covenantal renewal once a year for his "family" -- YOM KIPPUR), the Jewish theocracy was the helpmeet to assist him in his work, consisting of the Law of God for direction and nurture and the priests to reconcile sinners to God, and the circumcized believers. It is a covenantal triad and therefore I feel I am on safe ground with this paradigm.
If you want to take this route, I suggest you are looking at either judges or kings as helpmeets to the high priests, rather than some bureaucratic system as a whole, in order to maintain proper one-to-one correspondence. Otherwise you're simply defining helpmeet conveniently.
Rome's interpretation comes from believing in the authority of Rome's tradition, not from believing that Scripture is itself sufficient.
Is not the same thing to be said of the Presbyterian arguments from Scripture, as well as those of the Episcopalians, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Fundamentalists, etc. etc. etc?
Hardly. I don't believe that the interpretation put forward in the Westminster Confession is correct because I regard the
Westminster divines as infallible interpreters. I believe the Westminster Confession's interpretation is correct because I regard it as a
faithful exposition of Scripture. The Bereans did not accept Paul's doctrine on the basis of some infallible authority which they believed him to have, but rather because they themselves compared his teachings to Scripture.
You, as well as all Calvinists, totally misunderstand Holy Tradition. Tradition is that which comes from those who first interpreted the words of our Lord, who were given the oracles of the Faith, and who kept the Faith and passed it on. Tradition is not something which is made up of thin air and a couple bad pastrami with pickle sandwiches. It is the living link we have to all that was believed in the past. And in the case of the Catholic Faith and especially the writings of the first Christian leaders, the Early Fathers, that link is the link to what was originally believed and practiced, even before we had a canon of scripture.
Look, how do you think that they got the idea of the Real Presence and "baptismal regeneration" as Early as the writings of the Didache in 110 AD? Remember, those writings represent what was commonly believed among all Christendom at that time. There was simply no other teaching being taught.
That is what Holy Tradition is.
I know what you mean by your sacred tradition. No, it is not made up out of thin air, but neither for that matter was the Pharisaical sacred tradition, for which they also appealed to their fathers. The problem for any such tradition is that it has no means of establishing itself as being handed down from the original authority so claimed. Could the Pharisees show that their sacred tradition was actually handed down from Moses himself? Can Catholics show that their sacred tradition was actually handed down from the apostles themselves? And again, the claim that the canon of Scripture is authoritative because the tradition is authoritative only pushes the question back one step further.
Now "tradition" (small "t") would be, for instance, how our Eastern Church administers the Eucharist. We do not use the flat paten you are familiar with, but instead, in the Orthodox praxis, place cubes of consecrated bread into the chalice and the wine soaked bread is then administered to the communicant by means of a golden spoon. Very different. That is an Eastern tradition. It is administrative, has nothing to do with the doctrines or teaching of the Church, and if we had to stop doing it tommorrow, would not invalidate our Eucharist to do it otherwise.
The Eastern Orthodox are to this day very adamant that the West invented the custom of unleavened bread in the Eucharist. They claim (on the basis of their sacred tradition, no less!) that the universal custom in the church was and is to use leavened bread. While it may not be a matter of "capital T" Tradition between the Byzantine and Latin Rites of the Catholic Church, it remains one for the Eastern Orthodox.
Omigoodness!! Stop and think about what you have just said. If salvation is totally dependant upon knowing God in truth -- if one may be considered as "not saved" because they hold to error, then by your own admission, we are in deep trouble, considering the multitude of opinions that are out there in Christendom. Some of these differences actually involve salvation itself, so that this is no light matter. Do you see what a problem this creates if you do not have a source of infallible truth?
Surely you are aware of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers? While we are not
infallible priests, we believe that the Holy Spirit, the only infallible interpreter of Scripture, will ultimately guide the church, the body of all believers, into all truth. You questioned me before regarding whether I thought the Holy Spirit could infallibly guide the mind of the Bishop of Rome, and I responded in the affirmative, with the caveat that there's no scriptural justification for it. Now I ask you, is the Holy Spirit capable of guiding all believers into all truth without bestowing infallibility upon any of them?
For that matter, why even believe in the Trinity? That teaching was validated by a Catholic council, yet you state that neither they, nor anyone else is infallible or reliable as such for the proper interpretation of the scriptures.
I believe in the Trinity because it is scripturally warranted, not because I believe a body of sacred tradition, or a single man whose claims to authority rest in such tradition, provides an infallible interpretation of Scripture.
