Originally posted by 37818
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Your second point is merely sola scriptura.
Your third point is against just protestant doctrine. Oddly enough Catholics and Eastern Orthodox do not deny that we're saved by grace alone, and that any merit we have is imputed by grace and that without grace our works have no merit. What we deny is the Gnosticism that its merely enough to intellectually recognize that Christ is Risen, and "the essentials".
So I'm pretty much right, I think, that with those three extra points you're targeting all the older forms of Christianity, from Catholics, to Coptics, to Eastern Orthodox.
Christ said, "I will build My church and the gates of the realm of the dead shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18).
So there has always been Christ's church. An essay.
So there has always been Christ's church. An essay.
I'm still not sure how you'd maintain the truth of this saying of Christ, against the reality that baptists, or Protestantism in any codified form didn't exist until around the 16th Century. Either you'll have to accept that what the Roman Catholic says is true or is merely heterodox (and so one could firmly believe all of it without loss of salvation), or you'd be forced to accept that not only did the Holy Spirit neglect to maintain the truth in Christians so much so that basically all of them fell into grievous error pretty much immediately, and didn't make this broadly known until more than a millennium afterwards.
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