what sense would it make to say two Christians living either at the same time or separated by thousands of years; both read the same scripture and the Spirit leads them to opposite, contradictory or conflicting understandings?
It wouldn't make much sense if it were indeed the Spirit as the scapegoat for an error that may have resulted in the error. Since the Scriptures are objective, and man is subjective, either both Christians are wrong, one is wrong and the other right (or vice versa), but they can't both be right. But once again, it must be assumed that the Spirit is to blame wherein man should be the guilty culprit.
And like the man in Gaaza (Acts 8:31) trying to read scripture for the first time said to Philip, how can I understand unless someone SHOWS/TELLS me.
Yes, that is a great historical story. Tradition has it that he went back to Ethiopia, preached the gospel, and founded the Ethiopian Church! But does this verse help your position? Philip was a deacon. This strengthens the position that Scripture can and has been interpreted correctly outside of the model that Rome has subscribed to. He also baptized him.
The last step is the one that troubles most Protestants and perhaps it is there were some Catholics do have to take a leap of faith.
Yes, I find it troubling. Mainly because faith is always said in Scripture to be grounded to an object - and is never blind. In other words, I would never use the term "leap" of faith, slang or otherwise. Since faith is used in its noun form "and" its verb form, any verbal (that is, verb-al) use of faith other than the way John uses it in 1 Jn, would seem "shabby" to me, pardon the language. Also troubling is that since faith is always defined by its object (faith in >), to have to leap seems risky. But that isn't even a main distinction. i'm just trying to keep the dialogue flowing.
So for me in understanding scripture, it is not a matter of "allowing" the Spirit to guide me or not (of course He is to guide us), but believing that the same Spirit has guided this Church from the beginning and still does today. So to suggest that I can ignore everything the Spirit has revealed all the centuries through the Church and simply reach my own conclusions independently seems foolish to me. Why would I want to ignore where the Spirit led Christians all these years?
I’m not sure how much you have studied logic, but here there are some fallacies I would like to make you aware of. 1. You have indicated that the same Spirit has guided the Church from the beginning until now. 2. You have equated reaching an independent conclusion with ignoring everything the Spirit has revealed through Christ throughout the centuries. 3. You have concluded that that this would be foolish since it would be ignoring the Spirit’s lead. There are too many fallacies to even structure these into a syllogism in order to even test their validity. (Warning, this language sounds strong to most. Most take it as an attack. Give me the benefit of the doubt, you will see that I am not being nasty)1. The major premise is unproven and is merely an assertion. That is fine. I’m not even going to question your major premise: that it is the same Spirit, or that He has done any guiding. The question lies in your term “the beginning.” You are aware, aren’t you, that Rome had a beginning, and it wasn’t Matt. 16, since that has been refuted many, many times? Therefore, when you say beginning, to which beginning do you refer? Does this include the time period of Moses? Adam and Eve? Which beginning?2. You describe two things that are not mutually exclusive, therefore you have a false dichotomy, nullifying your argument as invalid. In Christian theology, independent interpretation can be by the Spirit. Scripture says the believer has the mind of Christ, not something exclusively reserved to the Vatican, which did not even exist yet when that was given.3. You result in circularity. Your conclusion was already in view when the premise was made. Your premise was assumed the conclusion, and is invalid. You began by assuming in your premise that the contrary was foolish, therefore X = foolish.
Of course your question implies how can one be sure at some point the Spirit did not stop leading the RC Church. While some might say it is mostly or maybe partially a matter of faith, am something more of a practical/engineer type. To me the message as been remarkably consistent for several thousand years, so it would be difficult for me to look at that history and say, wow look, they really took a u-turn there.
The question is, if it were shown to you, would you? I have provided one example in Irenaeus. He said that Scripture was the ground and pillar (singular) of our faith. This is an historical evidence that at one time, prior to the establishment of the papacy, the principle of sola scriptura was the final authority in matters of morals and doctrine. Rome has certainly "u-turned" from this. Besides this, well, if you would llike to have a more narrow dialogue about this, then we can do that. Too many subjects require too much typing