Yes we need the Holy Spirit to be our Guide and our Teacher. The Bible talks about a dead, harlot, apostate church. Only we are told to let the wheat and the chafe grow together and the angels will sort everything out at the end of the age.
Gal 2:4 talks about " false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage" Do you know the difference between true brethren and "false brethren" that Paul is talking about in his letter to the galations?
I think that without the physically locatable, visible Church, full of ofttimes bumbling and sinful and limited humans as it were, we would not have the Nicene creed with the doctrine of the Trinity having been hammered out at Nicaea, the canon of Scripture, especially the New Testament, as it was formalized in 382 at Rome, then sanctioned later at Florence, then later yet at Trent, the various teachings on justification and the role of grace as exemplified at the 2nd council of Orange, etc. In fact, by now Christianity might be a minor footnote in history at best without the Church-warts and all- that Christ established and that received, preserved, and proclaimed the gospel down through the centuries.
And yet how can we predict what the exterior might necessarily look like after centuries in this world? Maybe the interior is kept intact by a greater power in any case, in spite of human limitations or excess baggage. I'm saying that it's not either/or; the invisible church necessarily exists, but probably not without and totally apart from the visible one and its history. And that invisible Church is also an ideal, the perfect Bride of Christ which is not yet fully perfect, still manifesting all sorts of human warts, itself, by its members.
Well, it's a bit speculative IMO as to where, exactly. the corruption occurs. I've been a member of a non-Catholic Christian Church where great scandal happened even though they had seen themselves as quite holy and set apart beforehand. That's sort of a human thing unfortunately. And as far as doctrine goes there's significant widespread differences of opinion there throughout Christianity. And yet Christ told us that His Church would prevail-and as I see it that can only happen in spite of humans being human beings, to put it one way.
To permede the visible church but not so with the invisible. They seem juxtupositioned in many ways.
