All this confusion as to what is doctrine and what is dogma is because the RC Church relies on the traditions of man and not the Word of God.
The comparison between the Pharisees and the Catholic Magisterium is striking. The Lord accused the Pharisees of "teaching as doctrine the precepts of men" (Mark 7:7), labeling the oral Torah as "the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8). The Pharisees held to the equal authority of Scripture and Tradition. They taught that Moses had handed down the Law received on Mount Sinai in two ways. The first was through his oral teaching. They called this the unwritten Torah or oral Tradition. The second was the written Torah or Scripture. They taught that the written Law and the unwritten Law together made up the complete Torah, the Word of God. Jesus rejected the man-made authority and oral traditions of the first century Jews. What Jesus rejected, the Roman Catholic Church has now restored. It has elevated tradition to the same level of authority as God’s inspired Scriptures. Its pope and bishops have laid claim to universal jurisdiction and sole teaching authority using tradition to justify doctrine that cannot be justified by Scripture.
Yes. Jesus recognized the teaching authority of both.
Matthew 23:1-3Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you."
Matthew 18:17
if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
"All this confusion as to what is doctrine and what is dogma is because the RC Church relies on the traditions of man and not the Word of God."
The Word of God, is what?
Surely not the traditions of man comprised by the Bible.
The Bible itself never refers to itself at all as such.
And when the Bible uses the reference to the "Word", it is referring to the Word made flesh. Jesus is the Word of God.
The written Bible is not.
It contains the words of men inspired by God, to be sure, but limited by their own understanding.
The Word is God, per John.
The Bible is not the Word, because the Bible is not God.
Indeed, to call the Bible, which is the written tradition of Jewish and Christian men "the Word", and to really believe that IT, and not the continuing inspiration of the Holy Spirit upon man and the Church (which is what Jesus promised men would have, in the Gospels) seems vaguely idolatrous, holding up a graven image (the Bible) and calling it God (the Word).
The closest way we can, any of us, know the Word of God, is by turning directly to the Holy Spirit - God - and asking Him to speak to us in our consciences.
He never fails to.
Trouble is, there are other spirits out there too, and they can talk to us too, and lead us astray, so JUST because we are keenly aware of a supernatural power guiding us and speaking to us does NOT perforce tell us we're talking with God.
So, we need something to vouchsafe for us that the spirit that talks back to us when we call on the Holy Spirit is, in fact, the Holy Spirit, and not the Devil or some unclean thing. We can never be sure to do that on our own.
And THAT is why Jesus left a Church, a community of worshippers, with traditions and signs. The Apostles knew when they were communicating with God, when the Holy Spirit was upon them. They passed it along, not just in the written works that became the Bible, and other written works that didn't, but mainly through the expedient of the direct laying on of hands. The apostles were with God. That they chose to lay hands on another man and make him a shepherd of souls too, a bishop, was a strong control over who could authoritatively speak. Not a CERTAIN control, because bishops, too, fall into sin.
But have a vast community all pulling in the same direction, and who is teaching strange doctrines becomes clearer.
The traditions of the Church, written as the Bible, written as other doctrines, and unwritten, constitute a corpus that is like an insurance policy. You can't really be certain that every doctrine and dogma comes from God. That's an overreach. But you CAN be certain that God is THERE, and so when you go there, and go through the rites and the sacraments and call on the Holy Spirit and talk to him, that who you are talking to is really God and His angels, and not the Devil masquerading as such.
We each, individually, have to walk down the path of life with its temptations. The Holy Spirit is there to help us. But evil spirits are there to lead us astray. We need some assayer to be able to know for certain the one from the other. And the Church, with its vast repository of experience and its lists of people who have encountered angels and performed miraculous acts under the power of God is that bulwark, that fortress, so that we know that the spirit who talks to us in our conscience is really God, and not an evil impostor.
HOW do we know? Because if our conscience starts to tell us to do things that are offensive to the moral traditions of the Church, where we know from proofs over the ages of miracle after miracle all the way back to Jesus and prophets before him, we know that it's not God talking to us, but the Devil. Aware of that, we have a place to go that can help us keep our feet on the right path, which we can't see, while we call on the Holy Spirit to drive out the Devil.
The RC Church, at its best, relies on the real presence of God.
Of course, the temptation to legalism is ever present...