Does the Holy Spirit still guide Christendom?
Has it guided Christendom continuously since the Crucifixion?
"It" is a "He," and the issue is that God's promise of His presence and guidance simply has never meant ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility, or otherwise that leadership would always follow Divine guidance.
Instead, God has often raised up men of God whom a remnant of mostly common souls ascertained to be of God, and who often reproved leadership, which in turn rejected them.
If so, then the Church as a whole, and especially the Apostolic & Church Fathers and saints within the Church, have been rightly guided, by the HS, for the past 2000 years.
And so, their commentaries & interpretations of Scripture are rightly guided, and Authoritative...
Which premise presents a problem, for they lacked uniformity, while even if they are authoritative, infallibility is not required for this.
Also, the interpretation of (so-called) Church Fathers and saints within the Church differs to some substantial decree within Catholicism, Roman and Eastern Orthodox for two, with both claiming the unique title of one true and apostolic church.
In addition, if you are claiming the writings of such (or of popes even in speaking infallibly) were wholly inspired of God, then that is another level of untenable presumption.
even as Jesus bequeathed the Church the Authority of legal halakhic interpretations, "binding & loosing" (= forbidding / permitting):
https://israelstudycenter.com/binding-loosing-first-century-style/ .
Your linked definition is actually too narrow, but the fact is the the power to bind and loose did not begin with the NT church, nor did it require or infer ensured protection from error, but neither is all of its scope restricted to clergy.
By denying authority to Tradition, you are denying guidance by the Holy Spirit... which you only acknowledge as far as the original Apostles (= NT), after which -- suddenly -- nothing, no rightly guided authority whatsoever...
Well then when are you going to leave your church? For the NT church The church actually began in dissent from those who sat in the seat of Moses over Israel, (Mt. 23:2) who were the historical instruments and stewards of Scripture, "because that unto them were committed the oracles of God," (Rm. 3:2) to whom pertaineth" the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises" (Rm. 9:4) of Divine guidance, presence and perpetuation as they believed, (Gn. 12:2,3; 17:4,7,8; Ex. 19:5; Lv. 10:11; Dt. 4:31; 17:8-13; Ps, 11:4,9; Is. 41:10, Ps. 89:33,34; Jer. 7:23)
And instead they followed an itinerant Preacher whom the magisterium rejected, and whom the Messiah reproved them Scripture as being supreme, (Mk. 7:2-16) and established His Truth claims upon scriptural substantiation in word and in power, as did the early church as it began upon this basis. (Mt. 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Jn. 5:36,39; Acts 2:14-35; 4:33; 5:12; 15:6-21;17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23; Rm. 15:19; 2Cor. 12:12, etc.)
Sounds more like the evangelical basis for veracity than that of Catholicism.
You are saying, that with the death of the last Apostle (John), the Holy Spirit abandoned the Church, which has been on a sort of "unguided ballistic trajectory" for the past 1900 years
That would be a false dilemma, for rejecting that your church is guided by God in declaring something like prayer to created beings in Heaven is the word of God, simply does not have to mean that the church is no longer guided by God.
Tell me btwn oral, passed down tradition and that which is written, what transcendent source were the people of God guided by in this episode of their history:"
And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan. And Shaphan carried the book to the king... (2 Chronicles 34:15-16,18-19,21)
And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes...
Go, enquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book. (2 Chronicles 34:15-16,18-19,21)
And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the Lord. And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book. (2 Chronicles 34:30-31)
Hint: it was not passed-down oral tradition.
You are also implying, that Tradition is somehow at odds with Scripture... but that's not true... some things, like the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, are "embellishments" of Scripture... but, they are technically possible, plausible and certainly consistent with Scripture
What is an example of some heinous odorous onerous Tradition which directly flies full in the face of Scripture? Scripture doesn't say, but Mary may have been Ascended, Jesus' brothers may have been elder half siblings from a previous marriage... Scripture doesn't
demand those interpretations, but does
allow them.[/COLOR] [/i][/FONT][/QUOTE]
You are not dealing with mere scholarly, interpretations, but binding doctrines. And the very premise that such need only lack conflict with Scripture is not sound. Based on that hermeneutic the Mormons can justify their tradition of Jesus appearing to American Indians, but instead doctrine needs to be warranted by Scriptural substantiation in word and in power.
In Gregory of Nyssa's words, the PPVoM and AoM "can be made to harmonize" with Scripture
And in Cardinal Ratzinger's words, harmonization would not do it, and instead the basis was that the church can "remembered"
what history forgot :
Before Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was defined, all theological faculties in the world were consulted for their opinion. Our teachers' answer was emphatically negative... Altaner, the patrologist from Wurzburg¦had proven in a scientifically persuasive manner that the doctrine of Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was unknown before the 5C; this doctrine, therefore, he argued, could not belong to the "apostolic tradition. And this was his conclusion, which my teachers at Munich shared.
But...subsequent "remembering" (cf. Jn 16:4, for instance) can come to recognize what it has not caught sight of previously ["caught sight of?" Because there was nothing to see in the earliest period where it should have been, before a fable developed] .." (Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones (Ignatius, n.d.), pp. 58-59; emp. mine).