That's circular, Patrick! What if First Century Bible Church, the parent ministry of Swamp Rangers, is the singular Church which holds the correct interpretation? I've got our apostolic succession around here somewhere. More particularly, Catholics argue exactly the same way.

What if God is the Flying Spaghetti Monster and we're all wrong?

The answer is simply that it was not the case because we know what the early Church looked like and what they taught based on the Church fathers and Scripture (Acts and Epistles).

And you test your experience against your interpretation of the words of Scripture And Tradition. Everyone has the same epistemological lack, which cannot be made up by humans alone but only by God reaching in and delivering regeneration and faith.

No, I appeal to the interpretation of the Church. I don't hold my own interpretation because I'm not the appropriate authority to do that. You can't apply the same critique to systems that have different epistemology and metaphysics. The Orthodox hold that the Church is infallible because it has Christ as its Head and is guided by the Spirit. Individuals within the Church are fallible.

I do not count on myself to be right but only on God to be right in giving faith to fallible me.

But so do all Protestants, and they hold contrary beliefs to yours. There's no way to arbiter between all those position when you all hold the same epistemological presupposition. How do you justify the belief that one Protestant (or a whole denomination) is true and not the other ones over there?

Seems to me nobody can have the whole wholeness, or else all Christians partake of sufficient wholeness. It's very interesting and the debate about circularity has gone on a long time.

Can you justify that claim? Historically Jesus established one universal apostolic Church that encompassed all of the Christians so even if you believe the Church was split later on, it logically follows that it was united in it's beginning at Pentecost. Sufficiency is problematic too, because it assumes a criterion for what's sufficient. But that has to be justified too.

That's circular, Patrick! What if First Century Bible Church, the parent ministry of Swamp Rangers, is the singular Church which holds the correct interpretation? I've got our apostolic succession around here somewhere. More particularly, Catholics argue exactly the same way.

What if God is the Flying Spaghetti Monster and we're all wrong?

The answer is simply that it was not the case because we know what the early Church looked like and what they taught based on the Church fathers and Scripture (Acts and Epistles).

And you test your experience against your interpretation of the words of Scripture And Tradition. Everyone has the same epistemological lack, which cannot be made up by humans alone but only by God reaching in and delivering regeneration and faith.

No, I appeal to the interpretation of the Church. I don't hold my own interpretation because I'm not the appropriate authority to do that. You can't apply the same critique to systems that have different epistemology. The Orthodox hold that the Church is infallible because it has Christ as its Head and is guided by the Spirit. Individuals within the Church are fallible.

I do not count on myself to be right but only on God to be right in giving faith to fallible me.

But so do all Protestants, and they hold contrary beliefs to yours. There's no way to arbiter between all those position when you all hold the same epistemological presupposition. How do you justify the belief that one Protestant (or a whole denomination) is true and not the other ones over there?

Seems to me nobody can have the whole wholeness, or else all Christians partake of sufficient wholeness. It's very interesting and the debate about circularity has gone on a long time.

Can you justify that claim? Historically Jesus established one universal apostolic Church that encompassed all of the Christians so even if you believe the Church was split later on, it logically follows that it was united in it's beginning at Pentecost. Sufficiency is problematic too, because it assumes a criterion for what's sufficient. But that has to be justified too.