According to your own standards, it would have to be a source or authority about which there was no disagreement, no diversity of interpretations, no division of opinion about what it was revealing. As I have shown before, that cannot be Sacred Tradition...and it cannot be the "authority" of any particular church or church leaders.
Why not? Why couldn't-why
wouldn't-God establish a church-one church-having that authority? And why couldn't its Tradition be one of its sources of revelation? It can't because you
say it can't? Or
prefer that it can't? As already said, the authority, in this case the church-does
not disagree with itself any more than Lutheranism disagrees with Lutheranism. So the only real question on the table remains unanswered, who, or what,
is the authority?
...a claim that is of course untrue. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of church history knows that it is false.
Anyone taking an honest look at history knows that they both observed the Lord's Day as their main day of rest and worship, that they practiced infant baptism, that they believed in baptismal regeneration, that they believed in the Real Presence-both understanding John chap 6 in the same way- that their liturgies together with the language used for consecration of the the host are virtually identical, that they both believe in the priesthood and the continuous succession of it being passed on sacramentally by the laying on of hands, both recognize seven sacraments, both teach theosis/deification of man and a salvation that is worked out over time by human cooperation with grace/energies, both believe in Sacred Tradition by whatever name as a source of revelation-that list goes on and on and Sola Scriptura adherents either contest some of them outright, or disagree among themselves over them.
Truth is not arrived at by democratic vote. The Church simply proclaims the truth that she received at the beginning-and anyone can contest it based on whatever grounds or other authority they might appeal to. But the question is never about whether or not human
agreement causes the truth to be definitively known, but about who has the right and the divine guidance to properly discern the truth in its fullness. Disagreement on Scriptural interpretation-or on the interpretation of whatever source of revelation is recognized- only points to the fact that a
designated interpreter is a necessity-and that the doctrine of Sola Scriptura proves itself to be unworkable.
If
everyone disagreed with the tenets promulgated by Lutheranism, that in no way would prove Lutheranism to be wrong. But the same cannot be said about Scripture because at the end of the day Scripture is strictly a source of divine revelation which must be understood first of all. IOW, with varying interpretations, all often plausible, which is the right one? If any?
