Yet "Bible Christians" (the class whom Catholics mostly attack)
testify to greater and stronger unity in core beliefs than Catholics , and which is a more authentic testimony to what Catholicism really believes than paper or perfunctory professions.
You mean the Roman Catholic "one true church" or the Eastern Orthodox, "one true church,"which have
substantial and irreconcilable disagreements btwn themselves, including on what Tradition says and means? So much for singular and visible, while Catholicism abounds in disagreements and which would be more manifest if her members were more committed to doctrine, as her traditionalist sects are.
Bible Christians, or those who identify as such anyway, disagree on many core beliefs, some involving basic
soteriological matters such as infant baptism and baptismal regeneration: involving whether or not baptism even regenerates. Other bible Christians disagree on the deity of Jesus, Sabbath vs the Lord’s Day for rest/worship, and there's much controversy over John chap 6 and the real presence. These are all things that the EO and RCC agree on, btw, and have agreed on before the NT was even written. So Tradition plays its role regardless of how one describes and defines the term, and that's a major point; while the RCC for its part formally recognizes the many agreements between the two churches, amazingly considering the centuries in isolation,
certain commentators form the EO side seem to glory in emphasizing the differences, which often amount to differences in semantics only or to the lengths to which one (usually the RCC) may go in describing and defining some doctrines. A rose is a rose…
In addition, do you really want to try argue that,
That the RCC is the church of the NT, despite
Catholic distinctives not being manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed?
The NT was never intended to be some sort of catechism. One’s private interpretations can easily conflict with both RCC doctrine and the intended meaning of Scripture. Additionally, scripture even tells us that there are many things unrecorded that Jesus said and did, and instructs to carry on both written and oral traditions/teachings. The Church simply held the things given to her from the beginning.
But that an assuredly (if conditionally) infallible magisterium is essential for determination and assurance of Truth (including writings and men being of God) and to fulfill promises of Divine presence, providence of Truth, and preservation of faith, and authority.
Infallibility is nothing different from someone picking up the bible, reading and interpreting it, and then believing and telling others how to live their lives accordingly. These are primarily supernatural truths to begin with that our faith deals with, and one generally won’t bother living according to such truths unless they’re firmly held to be true. Infallibility is simply an honest statement regarding the fact that God established a Church for the purpose of receiving, preserving, and proclaiming the truths, the “deposit of faith”, that He’s given us. It’s simply the place where the buck finally stops regarding Christian truths and any controversies that might surround them.
And that being the historical instruments and stewards of Divine revelation (oral and written) means that Rome is that assuredly infallible magisterium. Thus any who knowingly dissent from the latter must be in rebellion to God?
And thus a faith which began in dissent from the historical magisterium cannot be the true faith?
The odds increase that, as we stray from the Church God established, we stray from the truth. Lutherans strayed less but JWs, being good Bereans/ Bible Christians as they believe, have as much right to claim correct understanding as anyone else going by those monikers.
"What Christianity?" And "accurately?" Do you really want argue that the uninspired words of popes and councils are more trustworthy than the wholly inspired-of-God words of Scripture?
Or that popes and councils can and do speaks as wholly inspired-of-God and also provide new public revelation thereby as could and did men such as the apostles?
I’m arguing that the Church has a
purpose, a
necessary one. And Philip was already a member of that Church, with proper understanding in place due to his exposure to the gospel through the disciples, without the benefit of the New Testament incidentally, when he laid out the truth for the Eunuch who couldn’t understand the meaning of Scripture on his own.
And that the veracity of popes and councils are not subject to testing by Scripture as being the supreme established authoritative standard, as even the preaching of apostles was, and who appealed to it as so? (Acts 17:2,11)
Tradition must weigh in, or else you have the situation we have today, expert exegetes disagreeing with each other on significant beliefs. Christian truths are thus rendered a matter of best-guess theology in the end when Scripture, alone, is the baseline, with little or no reference to the Churches lived experience/ history/tradition.
No, that is not "regardless" is your assertions are going to have any real polemical weight.
My assertion is that such a Church must
necessarily exist, because Sola Scriptura simply doesn’t fill the wishful thinking bill its proponents desire it to fill. The SS emperor has no clothes-hate to be the one to convey this uncomfortable truth.
You mean its Catechism (which one?) is wholly inspired of God or at least wholly infallible, or that is may contain errors, or have teachings that are subject to later "clarification" (contradictions) as many
past RC teachings have , and as your traditionalist brethren earnestly contend?
It’s the closest thing we’ll have to knowing God’s nature and will, in conjunction with the Scripture and Tradition it relies on.
