I wouldn't argue your point. However, it manifests a problem, as I see it. The World Christian Encyclopedia claims there are 30K+ Protestant denominations. Why? One reason is interpretation of scripture. There are many areas of disagreement between Christians, not just Protestant and Catholics. Let's take one major area. There is great divide between Protestants who believe that some or all the gifts of the Holy Spirit stopped functioning after the 1st century - others, just the opposite. Why the disagreement? The answer is interpretation of scripture.
I would posit that you and I can interpret scripture to mean whatever we want it to mean. Ergo, thousands of denominations.
You could argue that personal interpretation is better than being spoon fed by a magisterium or like bodies in Protestant churches that serve a similar purpose. I wouldn't disagree. I believe in Sola Scriptura but the problem is not validity of the scripture but that every Christian or Christian denomination becomes an interpreter. You may not see this as a problem, I do.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, I see through a glass darkly now. I don't claim to have or know the correct interpretation of all scripture. My faith is the the life, death and resurrection of Christ for my salvation. Whatever I misunderstand or get wrong on this side of heaven, I trust there is grace for my darkness. Jn 3:16,17
You are right.
When we fail to take Scripture as saying exactly what it means, then we 'interpret' it to mean what we want.
'Tis a failing of ALL various incarnations of 'christianity'.
And I’ll raise you the differences between the Roman Rite and the Orthodox. They are not insignificant doctrinally and they have been in schism for over 1,000 years with each claiming to be the original version of Catholicism with the other in schism.
Nor is the fact that there are many Protestant denominations proof of theological differences. There is far less difference between many Protestant denominations that Catholics suppose. Some of the denominational “differences” are simply the focus of their mission.
Much of the reason for many denominations is simply geography.
Nor does being under the headship of one leader any guarantee of unity of theology and doctrine as witnessed by Catholicism. I’ve met more Catholics than I can count who are OK with abortion and homosexual “marriage” and who vote democrat in EVERY election.
The long and short of it is that Catholics are in no position to point any fingers about doctrinal differences between denominations in light of the doctrinal differences within theirs.
So who is right? Rome, the Vatican, or the Orthodox?
How’s Francis working out for you?
The World Christian Encyclopedia claims there are 30K+ Protestant denominations. Why? One reason is interpretation of scripture. There are many areas of disagreement between Christians, not just Protestant and Catholics. Let's take one major area. There is great divide between Protestants who believe that some or all the gifts of the Holy Spirit stopped functioning after the 1st century - others, just the opposite. Why the disagreement? The answer is interpretation of scripture. The World Christian Encyclopedia claims there are 30K+ Protestant denominations. Why? One reason is interpretation of scripture. There are many areas of disagreement between Christians, not just Protestant and Catholics. Let's take one major area. There is great divide between Protestants who believe that some or all the gifts of the Holy Spirit stopped functioning after the 1st century - others, just the opposite. Why the disagreement? The answer is interpretation of scripture.Actually, besides the 30K+ Protestant denomination figure being so misleading that even RC apologists as Dave Armstrong renounced using it, yet while there are divisions based upon interpretation of scripture, the reality is that those who most strongly esteem Scripture as the accurate and wholly God-inspired supreme authority have long testified to being far more unified in basic beliefs than those who Rome manifestly considers members in life and in death. Meanwhile, the really deleterious division under the vast umbrella called Protestantism is because perhaps only about half of denominations actually believe in the Bible.
Then you have your alternative, in which tradition and scripture only authoritatively mean what the magisterium, as infallible, says, which itself results in division. Let's take one area. There is great divide between EOs in leadership who believe that some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit stopped functioning after the 1st century and the RCS who don't. Why the disagreement? Because leadership reads tradition and scripture differently.
There is nothing Orthodox about the charismatic movement. It is incompatible with Orthodoxy, in that it justifies itself only by perverting the message of the Fathers, suggesting that the Church of Christ needs renewal, and indulging in the theological imagery of, Pentecostal cultism. With such things, one cannot be too bold in his language of condemnation and reprobation. - http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/charmov.aspx
Some within even do so far as to say:
Orthodoxy is not simply an alternative ecclesiastical structure to the Roman Catholic Church. The Orthodox Church presents a fundamentally different approach to theology, because She possesses a fundamentally different experience of Christ and life in Him. To put it bluntly, she knows a different Christ from that of the Roman Catholic Church.” "The Orthodox Church opposes the Roman doctrines of universal papal jurisdiction, papal infallibility, purgatory, and the Immaculate Conception precisely because they are untraditional." — Clark Carlton, THE WAY: What Every Protestant Should Know About the Orthodox Church, 1997.
With some mutual feelings from the other side:
Few Catholics realize that Eastern Orthodoxy, especially as represented by Palamite theology, represents a systematic and comprehensive attack upon Catholic doctrine. Catholic and Orthodox theology are not only in opposition to one another in their understanding of God (theology), but also in the various disciplines of philosophy – in Cosmology, Psychology, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Theodicy, and Ethics. They posit radically different views of God, of man, and of the relationship between God and His creation... Over the past 2,000 years there have been many heresies, schisms, and systems of thought comprehensively opposed to Catholicism. But none has carried the potential threat for corruption of all of Catholic dogma which Eastern Orthodoxy represents. — http://www.waragainstbeing.com/partiii
More here.
In addition, as one poster observed, rather than creating unity, the Roman magisterium fostered division in the ranks:
"The last time the church imposed its judgment in an authoritative manner on "areas of legitimate disagreement," the conservative Catholics became the Sedevacantists and the Society of St. Pius X, the moderate Catholics became the conservatives, the liberal Catholics became the moderates, and the folks who were excommunicated, silenced, refused Catholic burial, etc. became the liberals. The event that brought this shift was Vatican II; conservatives then couldn't handle having to actually obey the church on matters they were uncomfortable with, so they left. ” - Nathan, https://christopherblosser.wordpress.com/2005/05/16/fr-michael-orsi-on-different-levels-of-catholic-teaching (original http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/blog/2005/05/fr-michael-orsi-on-different-levels-of.html)
Thus we have, Is Catholicism about to break into three?
Archbishop Viganò: We Are Witnessing Creation of a ‘New Church ’
The SSPX's Relationship with Francis: Is it Traditional? post #6
Is the Catholic Church in De Facto Schism?
The Impossibility of Judging or Deposing a True Pope...If Francis is a true Pope …
And before.
Cardinal Ratzinger observed,
"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution.“
"It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196). http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2012/06/13/whos-in-charge-here-the-illusions-of-church-infallibility/)
I believe in Sola ScripturaThen these 14 questions should help more
but the problem is not validity of the scripture but that every Christian or Christian denomination becomes an interpreter. You may not see this as a problem, I do.Westminster affirms that , " It belongs to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God," (https://westminsterstandards.org/westminster-confession-of-faith) but with veracity based upon manifest conformity with Scripture, versus the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility as per Rome (and basically in certain cults).
Moreover, as I have said before, the goal should be that of a central magisterium of mature, wise spiritual male pastors to whom appeal is made in matters unresolved on lower levels, which is Scriptural, (Dt. 7:8-13; Acts 15) but which ideal Rome poisoned. If she cannot even be reconciled with her Catholic cousins, who charge Rome as the one who is guilty of moral fratricide, of a sin against the unity of the Church (http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/TheGreatSchism.htm) and those she manifestly counts as members in life and in death (from Ted Kennedy Catholics to Traditionalists - who themselves fight with each other) are more disunified as a whole in basic beliefs, while affirming distinctive Catholic teachings that are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed, then it is not even a candidate for the position it lusts for and presumes to have.
While comprehensive doctrinal unity was ever a goal not realized, the prima NT church was basically of "one heart and one soul" (Acts 4:32) under manifest apostles, (2Co. 6:4-10) that we sadly do not see today, but who established their Truth claims upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, in dissent from the historical magisterium, and contrary to Rome.