But at least on Emperors… and Problematic History: We at least agree on a couple of points!

The Emperor issues are indeed problematic – though we had as much persecution (even after Constantine) from Emperors as not. They frequently meddled in the Church and caused many problems.

But I don’t see the evidence for a very pluriform early Church.

But, as I said, history is problematic.

No attempt was made at being contentious: but point of fact you summed up my difficulties rather nicely. Those *are* the claims of Orthodoxy. I heard Fr Victor, zt”l, made them in a sermon as well (before I was Chrismated).

That’s exactly where I say, “Eh… I’m still not sure.”

I can’t prove any of these claims so yes, increasing faith is required. I agree with you.

I can believe in these teachings recorded in these ancient texts (the preservation of which I know I owe to certain parties within the early Christian communities).

I can believe in Jesus’ existence, upon which some of the more important teachings are posited (which I can’t prove).

After that it gets tenuous.

But the existence of the various Churches (Rome and Orthodoxy), prior to about 250 CE, gets really hard to prove: there were Churches, yes. But as to them being The (o)rthodox (c)atholic Church – instead of a multitude of believers of different shapes and flavours – well…

In fact it is a simple statement of history that the second is true: there were a multitude of believers of different shapes and flavours. Other parties made minor changes here and there (unless you want to believe that St Luke was a painter…) St Thomas in India seems to have taught a slightly different religion than St Andrew in Byzantium. But everyone got a long rather well, kinda, until one party did get imperial favour.

Or else God appeared to the emperor.

Pass me Ocam’s razor…

But if someone wants to be contentious, so be it. I can’t convince I can only point to what I think is true and seems obvious.

Increasingly your definition of faith itself requires faith. Look back at your posts and see their evolution.

Another way to put it is that your statements that all truth statements are “faith” statements puts you in the connundrum that your definition itself is either not a “faith” statement, in which case you have disproven that all truth statements are “faith” statements, or that it is indeed a “faith” statement, in which case you have stated a double negative by making a “faith” statement on “faith”. And it is a double negative that is then easily ignorable since all you can claim then is that you have stated your opinion (at best).

Or to put it yet another way, your definition of “faith” and “truth” is akin to the question of whether God can create something which he cannot move. The supposed solution is that God is not omnipotent no matter what answer you choose. You have chosen to define “faith” and “truth” in such a way that you have supposedly made yourself invulnerable to any critiques, since all is “faith”. Your classic answer, regardless of the cogencies of anyone’s arguments with you has lately become, “that’s what you believe.” That is no answer, that is a slogan.

Language theorists long ago solved that puzzle by noticing and evaluating that there are a whole class of grammatical statements which can be fully read and understood, but which actually do not have a logical meaning. Another example is the question of what happens when the unstoppable force hits the immovable object. The question makes utter sense, but the connundrum is posed only by the definitions of immovable and unstoppable and the fact that they can be put grammatically in an understandable sentence. In other words, the sentence itself is a grammatical possibility only because of the inherent finiteness of definitions.

Your definition of all truth being “faith” is itself a grammatically possible statement, but ultimately it is self-contradictory and non-sensical in the language theorist definition of non-sensical.