How the Spirit leads the Church in truth

[sotzo]

In a recent thread on how we know the doctrine of the Trinity is true, it was pointed out that interpretation of the Bible is a fallible process; but that fallibility does not remove certainty because the Holy Spirit is promised to guide true believers into the truth.

Since we know there are doctrines on which true believers disagree (ie, credo vs paedobaptism), one of two things must be true about the above:

1. There is a limit to which the Spirit leads with respect to which doctrines He leads the church in...In other words,, his faithfulness to lead the Church into truth doesn't necessarily include all doctrine.

2. One side of the true believers in a disagreement (say for example the credo vs paedo disagreement) are actually not true believers.

The above assumes that unanimity within in the Church is a sign of the Spirit's leading....I guess this could be a wrong assumption in that the Church could be unanimous on a doctrine and still err.

Thoughts? Other options I've left out?

 

[Davidius]

 

[Contra_Mundum]

He doesn't promise to lead us there all at once. For reasons best known only to him, he has left us to reckon with sin. He fights against the sin in our minds. While he could overcome it all at once as soon as we become believers, and unify our minds in lock-step with his own, he chooses to do otherwise. He chooses to LABOR.

Experience tells us this is just the case. Bottom line: we are not in heaven yet. Imperfect unity and dissension, though sinful, yet serve God's purposes of ultimately bringing us to unity by a circuitous route. If we think "that's not efficient," or "that's not the way I would have done it," ... oh well.

 

[sotzo]

He doesn't promise to lead us there all at once. For reasons best known only to him, he has left us to reckon with sin. He fights against the sin in our minds. While he could overcome it all at once as soon as we become believers, and unify our minds in lock-step with his own, he chooses to do otherwise. He chooses to LABOR.

Experience tells us this is just the case. Bottom line: we are not in heaven yet. Imperfect unity and dissension, though sinful, yet serve God's purposes of ultimately bringing us to unity by a circuitous route. If we think "that's not efficient," or "that's not the way I would have done it," ... oh well.

So is the perfect unity Paul longs for in the Corinthian congregation not really able to occur this side of heaven (I Cor 1:10)? I know that context there is specifically in regard to the superiority of Christ over all apostles
as it pertains to salvation, but Paul unpacks this further when he says he is sending Timothy to remind them of the "way of life in Christ Jesus" (I Cor 4:17). Then after chapter 4, the rest of the book is Paul prescribing ways of life for them so that they will know how to be united with regard to marriage, liberty, feasts, the Eucharist, etc. My point being, Scripture seems to indicate that unity is not only possible but required.

Where does Scripture indicate that this unity will come progressively, ultimately realized in heaven? I'm not disagreeing with the fact that there will be unity in heaven or the effect of sin on achieving unity. Just looking for texts in Scripture that balance the texts where unity is held out as the norm.

Perhaps seeing those will help me with my OP.

 

[panta dokimazete]

Scripture seems to indicate that unity is not only possible but required.

Where does Scripture indicate that this unity will come progressively, ultimately realized in heaven? I'm not disagreeing with the fact that there will be unity in heaven or the effect of sin on achieving unity. Just looking for texts in Scripture that balance the texts where unity is held out as the norm.

Why do you need to have balance? We know that we are unified in the Spirit, even if we experience human disunity.

Unity does not require perfect homogenity - which may be the lesson we are being taught.

 

[sotzo]

Scripture seems to indicate that unity is not only possible but required.

Where does Scripture indicate that this unity will come progressively, ultimately realized in heaven? I'm not disagreeing with the fact that there will be unity in heaven or the effect of sin on achieving unity. Just looking for texts in Scripture that balance the texts where unity is held out as the norm.

Why do you need to have balance? We know that we are unified in the Spirit, even if we experience human disunity.

Unity does not require perfect homogenity - which may be the lesson we are being taught.

But Paul is after perfect unity.... "I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. (v 10 of chap 1)".

So that we don't veer off the OP too much, what I'm trying to understand is how we can be certain of doctrines such as baptism, the Trinity, etc in the presence of us all being fallible interpreters of an infallible text, often coming to different conclusions with one another. I agree with the statement in the thread I refer to in the OP that fallibility does not necessarily entail error...we can indeed truly know. Yet, there are divisions in the church and many of these divisions are not the result of blatant sin, but a faithful exegesis. I'm trying to understand what we should do in such circumstances in light of the biblical mandate for unity.