“What you guys don’t get is that if the scriptures agreed with your pope, there would be no religion besides yours...”
Sure there would, I. We’d still have Mohammedanism and Buddhism and Judaism, in fact we’d still have the hundreds, maybe even thousands of little ecclesial groups which are generically called “protestant”. None of them teach the same “religion” as that taught and preserved for 2000 years by The Church. Why, aside from some Jews, the “religions” I’ve mentioned don’t even worship the same God as those of us in The Church do.
As for scripture agreeing with the pope, or better said from an Orthodox pov, The Church, well, as I have said before, The Church decided what was “in” the Canon and what was “out” and it made that determination based on Holy Tradition. The Church teaches so much of scripture as agrees with what The Church has always and everywhere believed, not the other way around (for example, the NT is riddled with apparent Arian and Nestorian thought, not to speak of Adoptionism, etc. The Church does not teach those heresies.). That notion is a 16th century innovation dreamed up by prideful and disobedient people who were mad, perhaps justifiably so, at a pope. The result of that innovation has been theologically “unfortunate” as it has given new life to old heresies and heresies never turn out well for humanity.
We believe that The Church through the Mysteria is indeed God’s ordained instrument of salvation/theosis. Christians have always believed that. A relatively small group of theological revolutionaries came up with another idea 500 years ago, again because they were mad at a pope, and prideful.
“Do yourself a favor and read some scripture....”
The same scripture you read that was defined by The Church for The Church’s purposes and with and by The Church’s methods and efficacious only by The Church’s understandng...that scripture?
“and not simply a mere assembly of believers
That mere assembly of believers is what constitutes the ‘Body’ of Christ...”
Only within The Church, where the assembly of believers is a liturgical community, assembled around the bishop and focused on the Eucharist. Nothing else is The Church, which is the Body of Christ.
Bravo, bravo, well stated Kolo. I ran up against this Freeper Iscool on another theological thread with basically the same argument on his/her part for sola scriptura as you are dealing with here. I made most of your same argument. Believe me, you are wasting your breath. However, I love your argumentation, so continue anyhow so the rest of us can read it and benefit from it.