Sooner or later, you're going to have to face it: The irreconcilable dilemma between the central hermeneutical principle of the Reformation, Sola Scriptura--with all its true implications--and the earnest desire nonetheless to have visible ecclesiastical expressions as mediating institutions between the individual man and his God. The highest and best expression of Sola Scriptura, coming as it does with a great "respect" and hopefully awareness of the ancient history, leaves one as a renaissance man, perhaps, but it does not fundamentally change the arbiter of truth: the individual. He decides what the Holy Spirit says in the Scriptures, he decides which ecclesiastical decisions from the past were the right ones, he provisionally consents to the authority he lives under now. None of this is itself an argument for Catholicism as such. But if the bitter taste of that leads you to consider the paradigmatic alternative, thanks be to God. In any case, face up to it , and don
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