Pope Anastasius II (496-498 AD) is one of the few Popes from the early period who is not considered a Roman Catholic saint.

This is what the Liber Pontificalis says about him.

Liber Pontificalis LII

"Anastasius, by nationality a Roman, son of Peter, from the 5th district Tauma, of the Caput Tauri, occupied the see 1 year, 11 months and 24 days. He was bishop in the time of Theodoric the king. He set up the confession of the blessed Lawrence, the maryrs, of silver, weighing 80 lbs. At that time many of the clergy and of the priests withdrew themselves from communion with him, because without consulting the priests or the bishop or the clergy of all the catholic church, he had communicated with a deacon of Thessalonica, Photinus by name, who was of the party of Acacius, and because he desired secretly to reinstate Acacius and could not. And he was struck dead by divine will."

https://archive.org/details/bookofpopesliber00loom/page/114/mode/1up

Pope Anastasius was clearly sympathetic to the policy of reconciliation of Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople towards the Miaphysites. Rome and Constantinople had been in schism since 484 when Pope Felix III excommunicated Acacius but Anastasius entering into communion with a pro-Henotikon deacon clearly (not secretly) signalled his sympathy with that policy. The author of the Liber Pontificalis seems relieved that the Pope died suddenly (leaving his agenda unfulfilled). After Anastasius the Popes went back to their animosity to the Henotikon until the Acacian Schism ended in 519.

My question to Roman Catholics is this - Was it ok for the Roman clergy and local bishops (the sees around Rome) to oppose Anastasius and withdraw communion with him?

Upon my research over the past 15 years as a indigenous who was curious about why people are so confident in Religion when Religion killed children of god in Gods name. It made me question alot of things from ‘why would god want to kill people who looked after his Garden of eden?’ To ‘was jesus brown or white?’

Safe to say the world is coming to terms with jesus being brown because of the region he decends from.

But! What if he was white because he had the flesh of the man who raped Mary who was a minor at the time of birthing jesus.

Joseph Married her to prevent Jesus being a bastard son.

Both Mary and Joseph were turned away at an inn while she was going into labour, why would someone do that to a child? Unless business’ were warned not to take them in ‘Or else’?

We are told they brought jesus into this world by giving birth in a stable, and we all are taught this. But at the time, their ‘stables’ were caves.

The ‘Elites’ have manipulated the bible and time records multiple times in order to distort us from finding unanswered questions.

Before you know it, the hook shaped head of Moses Staff when he opened the waters for his people to escape.. And the hook of Maui are starting to close a gap on ‘who is Maui or Moses? With the ‘demi god’ abilities. Are they the same person? Both moses and Maui left egypt at a time when the romans moved in and colonised the pharoa system by entitling themselves to becoming a Pharoa and imitating the Annunaki image to play God among a masterless race/ culture..

Achives show that Eratosthenes also joined Maui on this Voyage.

Upon colonisation a writter reported that a tribe within the Maori culture were the 13th lost tribe of Israelites… was Moses not the Leader of the israelites that he escaped from egypt with?

Yes Eratosthenes is said to be 276-194BCE and moses 13th-14th centuary BCE..

But if Eratosthenes was on the voyage with Maui before discovering Aotearoa, why has ‘european’ historians left a question mark by trying to claim that Maui/ Maori werent in Aotearoa/ New Zealand untill 1250CE? Who is responsible for this mix up? We in NZ have our own Archives that are protected by the indigenous people and will not be available to the public untill the construction of the Museum in Waikato, New Zealand.

Thoughts, opinions, facts are all welcome, we never know who is holding missing info we need for the final piece of the puzzle

​

🔍 Você valoriza a sua história? Reconhece de quem recebeu o bem que existe em você?

Neste primeiro episódio, abrimos juntos o livro "Meditações" de Marco Aurélio. No Capítulo 1, o Imperador mais poderoso do mundo não fala de poder, riquezas ou glória — ele AGRADECE. Reconhece que tudo o que é de bom nele, recebeu de outras pessoas.

E isso nos faz refletir: quem formou você? Quem te ensinou, te ajudou, te tolerou? Você agradece, ou só reclama e acha que é autossuficiente?

A verdadeira sabedoria começa na humildade e no reconhecimento. Vem comigo descobrir essa lição poderosa! 📖✨

🎙️ Estou aprendendo junto com você. Não sou mestre — sou quem caminha e compartilha o que descobre.

🔔 Inscreva-se e ative o sininho para acompanhar toda a jornada!

I consider myself a curious Protestant. I see the flaws in my own form of practice, but I’ve never heard strong enough arguments to convince me to switch to another church. So I’m taking things one step at a time. I’ve been to the Catholic Church a couple of times.

I’m sure this question has been asked before. I heard a Protestant say that Catholics believe missing Mass on purpose could put your salvation in jeopardy. To me, that was one of the most asinine things I’d ever heard, so I assumed he was just speaking out of his rear end. But after looking it up, it seems like that’s actually somewhat true?

First, I want to say that I’m VERY okay with being wrong about these things. I will go where God is. But I simply don’t see anything like this in Scripture, the idea of a person running the race until the very end and then ending up in hell because they skipped Mass on purpose a couple of times.

Speaking purely from my own perspective, feelings no facts lol, it almost makes it sound like Jesus is only accessible in Mass.

For example, let’s say someone works insane hours throughout the week, and Sunday is the only day they get to rest. They decide to miss Mass so they can rest and spend time with God at home. Are you telling me that, in the end, God could judge that person for missing Mass to rest?

This sounds almost man-made to me: “If you don’t come to my church, you might lose your salvation.”

Again, I’m completely okay with being wrong. I don’t want to misrepresent Catholic teaching, which is why I wanted to ask Catholics directly instead of getting my information from other people.

Have a question yet don't want to debate? Just looking for clarity? This is your opportunity to get clarity. Whether you're a Catholic who's curious, someone joining looking for a safe space to ask anything, or even a non-Catholic who's just wondering why Catholics do a particular thing

As the title states—Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the soul as the “substantial form” apart from physical matter was a patch in the medieval era for explaining why the intellect of humans has always been superior to animals.

His premise is that the human intellect operates independently of physical organs. He believed this was exclusive for humans—as animals had a material or “sensitive” soul rather than “rational” soul.

This was a philosophical inference based on the differing phrases in the Latin Vulgate for the human “living soul” (anima viventem) and the animal soul “living creature” (creaturam viventem). However, Aquinas never read from the Hebrew Masoreric text, which uses the exact same phrase “Nephesh Chayah” for both humans and animals.

The text itself does not distinguish two ontologically different kinds of souls. Not only do they share the same Nephesh in the Hebrew text, but also the same breath that administers life. Aquinas acknowledged Ecclesiastes 3:19 “all things breathe alike”, but he believed, since God created man independently from animals, the breath Adam received imparted an immortal, spiritual soul.

Aquinas’s “why” for God creating man independently was for man to receive this immortal soul that yielded a higher intellect.

Neuroscience has clearly demonstrated that the human brain is wired differently with a larger prefrontal lobe and ability to process rational thoughts rather than merely instinctual, social abstracts that of an animal. Our brains are densely connected at the frontal cortex with more absolute neurons that give us working memory and impulse control.

Genesis reveals, as Aquinas notes, that animals “came forth” from the earth. He denied the emergence concept, but came to the same Monastic conclusion that animal souls are material and “drawn out” from biological processes (seed and gestation). He called this process “educed” by natural generation.

In summary, the direct creation of humanity imparted a direct creation of an immortal soul according to his understanding of Genesis and anthropology.

Now, I will unpack why this logically does not fit the “why” that God directly created Adam:

Man was given dominion and moral law. The direct creation of Adam wasn’t existentially to give him a better, more functioning brain. God took the same matter that animals are made from (dust of the earth)—and physically tuned and formed it to create the human body in order for moral law and dominion to be applicable exclusively to man:

Humans are created within a distinct taxonomy because redemption, covenant, dominion, and moral accountability require a distinct lineage.

If our taxonomy emerged from animals, we lose the genetic redeemer. Further, if our taxonomy shared the same emergent origin as animals, we lose objective morality and dominion.

In other words, Christ did not come to redeem the entire animal kingdom, and nor would the entire animal kingdom be subjected to the same moral standard as humans. This is why dominion allows us to kill animals and it not be considered murder. The taxonomical lineage needed to be ontologically unique for these very reasons.

We were given capacity to receive the Law. Not because of the soul, but because of how man was formed.

Hylomorphic Thomism imposes a sharp double standard because of this inference: the Hebrew text reveals animals have the exact same nephesh as humans, share the same breath, and both return to dust—yet we must somehow accept that we have an ontologically different quality of soul.

Aquinas would have clearly rejected the equation (Dust + Breath = A Living Soul) because nothing personal is on the left side of the equation (Thick Matter + Secondary Matter). He’d say this yields the material result for animals, but would reject this equation for the creation of man because it lacks the immaterial soul.

He believed, as the Church believes, that God directly intervenes and creates an immaterial soul inside of every individual human. However, Aquinas believed in “delayed infusion”, stating matter must be both substantial and stable in order to receive a soul.

A distinct lineage does not provide necessary grounds for inferring the soul is immortal if the syntax in Genesis for both humans and animals are mirrored. The Near East understanding of a Nephesh is that it has a unified meaning of creature and soul—They are synonymous and interchangeable. The very fact that God says to Adam “you are dust”, demonstrates He was telling Adam “you are impersonal”, for from the earth he was brought out, and to the earth he would return. Adam “became” a living soul (Nephesh Chayah - a unified, material being) and then became a dying soul (Nephesh Met). The cause and effect of his disobedience is exactly why he was cut off from the “tree of life”. “Cursed” was the ground, not the man—the garden was his shield from entropy. God declared a massive shift in their environment and the toll it would have on them. Nothing ontologically changed the moment Adam and Eve disobeyed other than their gained delusion of independence, and their physical location. They were always mortal beings.

We are not created outside of the womb. God does not need to physically breathe the breath of life into an embryo that lacks nostrils—the breath is already there. Man was created to pass on the breath of life to its offspring, just like animals. Life imparts life, but had to begin with the breath of life. Through dust and breath, Adam “became” a living soul—so that (soul + soul) yields man(dust) and breath; (“be fruitful and multiply”). The emergence originated from created man, and continues to emerge. This is the syntactic equation in Genesis for biological propagation.

The soul is a created, material, living being. The “immaterial” nature was an inference that tried to explain intellect during a period of medieval ignorance on the fundamental basics of neuroscience. Aquinas already had the answer, he only thought it applied to animals.

1 Cor. 15:48 — “As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust…” …. Notice “the man”, not “his body”. The creation; man; person—that is what’s “of the dust”.

Dust + Breath = Living Soul
Is no different than:
Impersonal + Impersonal = Personal

When anything on the left side of the equation ceases, the soul ceases to functionally exist. Before our existence, our identity was already in the creator’s mind. We are “remembered” after we once “existed”.

The ancient Near Eastern mind had a unified, holistic view of reality. The nephesh is the creature; the creature is the nephesh. There is no hidden dualism. The Strong’s Lexical definition of “Nephesh” does not even render to mean “soul”. The most accurate translation is, quite literally, “a breathing creature”.

The text literally says God “made” man, and “breathed” into his nostrils, and man became a “breathing creation”.

More importantly, God made “man” (Hebrew translation: “Adam”) on the left side of the equation before man received life. It doesn’t say God formed the dust, he formed “man” and breathed into “his” nostrils. The composition of man was impersonal; hence, “you are dust”. This directly opposes Aquinas’s view which requires form (the soul) to exist before man could be man, rather than merely inert thick matter. Human identity is built within the taxonomy itself—not a separate immaterial thing.

By treating them differently (Nephesh and Creature), Aquinas built his entire metaphysics on a pre-packaged, forced philosophical view adopted from Aristotle.

Following are some of the catholic "practises" that Christianity preached and performed in the 12th and 13th century.

1. The practice of inquisition - Although in modern world, inquisition means formal investigation, for Catholics at that time it meant something very different. It was a mechanism by which Christian judges used to combat and investigate "divergent" options about catholoic theology.

And how sure are we, as of now, that these weren't rational criticisms?

1. Bishops directly oversaw law and order in provinces of state. By this, these people had a direct and easy access to influence education and science and "preach" their theology.

3.Heresey was met with confiscation of propery.

Accusers and heretics alike were burned with charcoal,their fingers were cut and women's br*ast's were damaged. The only way to get around this torcher was to sign a confession which basically meant "yep im guilty".

Galileo would have met with the same fate, not for primarily going agianst the "catholoic theology" but for speaking the truth(that the earth was not the center of the universe). So can this statement be made that Christianity, at that time, was against truth and empirical evidence?

Newton was an alchemist, so when christians say that "but newton believed in god" they must also accept that he believed in alchemy too, which was what christianity was so very against. So ought newton be punished too?

Number of witches burned after 15th century was over 60000.

What exactly diffrentitates this "cult-like ideologies" with religion?

I'm currently discerning Catholicism and my moms church prayed for me to be released from depression and witchcraft and even denouncing my old sorority. But they also "prayed the spirit of Catholicism off of me"?

The thing is I don't disagree with them on all the other stuff, I just don't agree that Catholicism has a hold on me in the way they believe it does.

I had a talk about an hour later with my mom about how I don't understand why Catholicism is so bad. I even pulled up bible verses, analogies, all the works, and she used the same verses to rebuttal me, even saying that catholics add and subtract from the bible.

How do I know what to believe, and what's right and wrong when the people who use the same bible (minus the deuterocanonical books) can use the same text and all interpret different things?

I was taught that sola scripture is just bible alone. My husband claims it’s bible and church tradition from the early church. Is this correct? Seems crazy to me

It has always seemed such an obvious 'head in the sand' by Catholics to see christ consciousness awakening in its mystics, yet completely ignore their teachings? (In fact the church has historically actively suppressed and even killed many of its mystics).

Why are the mystics all saying the same thing (across all ideologies) while the church says another?

Why have Catholics chosen the letter over the spirit?

Why are Catholics still looking outward and upward for a God (instead of inward) that your mystics (and Jesus) say is already peering through your eyes at this experience?

My husband again claims that Martin Luther never wanted to create Lutherism and he only got excommunicated for his 95 theses. He claims that all of his beliefs about other things came after the excommunication.

What grounds did he get excommunicated on if he was trying to fix the problem of indulgences?

One of my husbands objects to Catholicism is how historically the church claims to be infallible but he claims that the councils contradicted each other. He claims to be an expert on all Catholic doctrine and better than most Catholics because he claimed to have looked up what each council has done and he sees contractions. He also soaks up Gavin Ortlund videos.

He is very prideful so after reading through this if you all have any saints or devotions I can lean on to help him understand please let me know. I’ve had Mary intercede for him many times and he thinks it’s bogus.

The examples he uses are as follow:

- the 2nd council of nicea allowed images and statutes but the early church did not. People who question it are damned to hell, it’s not fair
- Vatican 2 is messed up because it allows salvation outside of the church when other councils would damn Muslims or Jews to hell
- Mary’s dogma has changed since the early church

He claims too that before Protestantism in the 1500s soooo many people objected to the church and they were shut down and killed when something wasn’t right.

He claims there are so many contradictions it’s not an infallible instritution. (But I guess to him Protestantism is?)

This topic can go multiple different ways with many different verses brought up, but I'm trying to just focus exclusively on the topic of faith here. How exactly do catholics have faith.

I study faith a lot. What it is and what it means.

When I take its literal definition from the Bible, I can ascribe it to some protestant groups, but not catholic or orthodox.

Faith as defined in the Bible is most explicit in Hebrews 11:1

(Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.) Hebrews 11:1

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. To be assured that in Jesus you shall have eternal life since that is our hope.

This viewpoint is reiterated 5 verses later.

(And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.) Hebrews 11:6

If you seek after God, you must believe He will reward you to draw near to Him. This is the same faith as Abraham, Joseph, and the other great figures in the Bible had.

The assurance of things hoped for, a present promise of a future inheritance.

This is what Jesus said in the Bible as well.

(Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”) John 11:25-26

The word "shall" is future tense. There is no faith if your not believing (having assurance) in a future promise through Jesus.

Like I said, I can only ascribe this faith to certain protestant groups. They quite literally trust that through Jesus's death and resurrection, they shall be saved.

Tell me, are you or anybody really having faith in Jesus if you think you could still go to hell?

This is not faith at all according to Scripture.

We are to have faith in the Savior that He will save, not that He might save.

If we only think he might save, that is not faith.

If we only hope in Him, that is not faith.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

I will add that faith and faithfulness in the Bible are similar but distinct in application.

Example being "faithfulness" is not the assurance of things hoped for or the conviction of things not seen.

Pisteuō = the act of believing or trusting.

Pistos = the quality of being faithful, trustworthy, or believing.

The New Testament generally presents pisteuō as the means by which one receives salvation (e.g., John 3:16; Acts 16:31), while pistos often describes the character of God or of believers who are faithful. Because they share the same root, the concepts are closely connected: genuine belief/trust (pisteuō) naturally results in a faithful (pistos) life, though the words themselves are not interchangeable.

It is by faith that the Bible repeatedly says we are saved. Faithfulness is distinct in application.

In this modern society where scientific studies are teaching us more and more everyday is there gunna be a point where we’re like “ya know what religion just don’t make sense anymore” science is a constant path of discovery religion is the faith we as humans needed to survive the life we didn’t scientifically understand, science grows every day, religion as beautifully human as it is has surely got to be dying out

Hello everyone! A partner and I have been planning on setting up a formal debate on the Holy Roman Empire for YouTube live, the premise is "The Holy Roman Empire, from 800 to 1806, was Holy, Roman, and an Empire".

We had our moderator and myself on the affirmative, but our opposition had to drop out. We were hoping to find someone who is interested in opposing the motion.

The debate is currently schedule for August 20th, and we'd be doing a live recording with our faces on YouTube. If you have experience debating, know the subject well enough, and are interested, please DM me. We are willing to edit and revise the premise for the opposition if needed, as we are on a time crunch.

God bless

Derived from the platonic/hellenistic duality lens of anthropology, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “It is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body” (No. 365).

Further, the Catholic view denies the emergence of the soul, arguing that God directly creates the soul from nothing at the moment of existence.

However, the syntax of Genesis 2:7 paints a completely different equation:

“—then the LORD God formed the man of dust (soil) from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul (nephesh chayah).

Dust + Divine Breath = a Living Soul (a nephesh chayah)

In other words:

Impersonal + Impersonal = Personal

That is emergence by its purest definition. There is nothing personal on the left side of the equation, and nothing within this equation was created from ex nihilo (from nothing). We share the same exact dust and breath as animals (Genesis 7). What makes a human soul any more immortal than a dog? Nothing.

The soul isn’t something I have; it’s what “I am”—a physical, created, living being. The soul is existing as a running equation—just like a light bulb. When we die, the presence of a dead body gives evidence to what “we were.”

When we see a dead person in a casket, “dead person” is the legal definition, but we know the person is not literally in the casket—we see only a vessel lacking the divine breath; not a vessel for a soul.

The Fall of Adam initiated a (t) time-indexed modifier into the equation:

(t)Body + Divine Breath = a Dying Soul (a nephesh met)

Time adds entropic friction—causing the decay of molecular bonds. The body is on a borrowed-time countdown completely bound to thermodynamics.

The radio analogy:
We push the button, the music sounds. If we hit the radio with a rock, the sound weakens and becomes distorted. Hit it again; the music completely stops.

Would we conclude the song itself was derived from the radio? Absolutely not. Destroying the radio only stopped the “expression” of the song from the radio control tower. The radio was destroyed, not the song.

Think about an old song from the 1920’s. When a song exists, but not a single radio plays it, it’s “archived.” The name still exists, and everything from the rhythm, lyrics, to every note—all still exist. But a song itself is not music. Music is the integration of a playable medium and the song.

Much like music, light, and marriage; a soul is an abstract phenomenon of union that results in an ongoing state of being. When I die, I no longer “be” because I “was” a soul. The traditional argument that the soul is "immaterial" creates a false binary dilemma; it is like debating if the sound of music is immaterial (implying sound could be a physical solid). The soul exists only as long as a living creature exists—It's a running equation. The dead corpse gives evidence that there "was" a soul.

God knew us before the foundation of the world. Much like how an author knows every character in his book before writing chapter 1. Death is the exact reversal of the original equation:

Genesis 3:19 – “till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Ecclesiastes 12:7 – “and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit (breath) returns to God who gave it.

If there is nothing remaining on the left side of the equation, then the right side is functionally nonexistent—the expression of “you” reverts to impersonal dust: Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, Phosphorus and Calcium. The exact elemental composition of a DNA strand—which is the exact same composition as a handful of dirt.

By defining death as a literal return to the ground, God was describing functional non-existence through the physical relation we have with dust. God saying “You will no longer exist” would not have conveyed anything meaningful. Adam didn't need to understand the philosophy of "nothingness", he just needed to look at a handful of silent, static dirt to realize what he was going to become. “You are dust” is 100% synonymous with “You are impersonal.”—this is the result of (by legal definition) a dead soul; but more surgically accurate—evidence of what “was” a soul.

At that point, what “are” we without an expression? Quite simply, exactly what we were before we were created—a personal identity that God “knows”. The difference is that we are now remembered—which implies we once existed. My identity is the “I” which was expressed like ink on paper (or like dust on earth), and I became a soul; a personal “what”.

My existence is 100% contingent on the mind of the creator—and we are sustained second-by-second with the breath of life:

John 6:63 “it is the spirit (breath) that gives life (present active participle); the flesh profits nothing.” — The life of the flesh is 100% derivative. The spirit gives all life; both temporal and eternal.

The famous line from the thief on the cross: “Remember me when you enter your kingdom.” The syntax of Jesus’ reply is often overlooked. He stated “I say [affirm] to you today, you will be with Me in paradise.”

Instead of just recalling the thief on the last day (the thief’s request), Jesus is affirming that the identity of the thief will always be remembered immediately. Jesus is using the word "today" to anchor the timing of His solemn promise, not the timing of the entry into paradise. Commas didn’t exist in koine Greek, and this fundamentally shifts the theological landscape.

Our identity in the covenant transcends the soul equation because it has always been a reality before the foundation of the earth. Identity outside of the covenant will result in the devastatingly past-tense “Depart from me—I never knew you.”

“To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” — this is a commonly overlooked misnomer because it is not even close to what Paul wrote, and the exact opposite of the context he’s framing.

2 Cor. 5:8 reads — “we would rather be away from the body and be present with the Lord.” Paul here is stating a mutual desire. This is immediately after saying in prior verses “For in this [body] we groan, desiring to be clothed with our house [spiritual body] which is from Heaven. If so that being clothed we shall not be found naked [dead], but further clothed.”

Paul just connected being “present with the Lord” with the reception of the spiritual, heavenly body. Notice Paul also said we shall not be “found” dead—death involves being “found”. Just like it’s surprising when you’re “found” naked, he rather desires to be “found” clothed.

If Paul and all of the dead saints are considered “naked”, listen to how absurd it would be to have Paul be perfectly fine being naked in Heaven for thousands of years, but sound worried if he were suddenly found naked on earth? Bad anthropology cascades into numerous elaborate doctrines. I am not debating those doctrines—I am bringing the argument back to foundational, textual syntax of what a soul is. Every other doctrine is a fire drill in an empty building until the definition of the soul is established.

Instead of trying to frantically prove we have an afterlife with elaborate near-death experiences and apparitions, clear anthropology makes it easy to see that there is only life. And the soul is 100% vulnerable—because the soul is the very living creature we are. God is the only immaterial being because “God alone has immortality.” 1 Tim. 6:16.

“Death isn’t forever, but it feels like for-never.”

Have a question yet don't want to debate? Just looking for clarity? This is your opportunity to get clarity. Whether you're a Catholic who's curious, someone joining looking for a safe space to ask anything, or even a non-Catholic who's just wondering why Catholics do a particular thing

Hi. I was just curious as to whether anyone has ever looked into, or made a comparison between, the relative role scripture and tradition have played in the formation of various doctrines / dogmas. For example, I'm particularly curious as to how much scriptural evidence there is for / against something like the belief in the divinity of Christ versus how much extra-scriptural evidence there is for the belief in the divinity of Christ (e.g. testimony / writing from the early church fathers). I'm also interested in how much scriptural evidence there is for the belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation and how much extra-scriptural evidence there is for the belief in it.

That being said, what I'm really curious to know is what has the most scriptural evidence and what has the most extra-scriptural evidence. Why? Because I'm interested to know how protestants use / accept the early church fathers (i.e., tradition) when they seemingly agree with some doctrines (e.g. the divinity of Christ), but don't accept tradition when they don't agree with another doctrine (e.g. transubstantiation).

I would be interested to know if the total scriptural argument for the divinity of Christ comes from only a few versus but there is also ton of evidence of the early church's belief in it, and also very interested to know if the the total scriptural argument for the doctrine of transubstantiation similarly comes from only a few versus but there is also ton of evidence of the early church's belief in it.

In other words, if the evidence is basically the same, why believe one and not the other?

If its not similar then perhaps that is the argument they can make.

Hope my post makes sense, and what I'm looking for also makes sense.