"as if only Protestants have pre-fab answers or that it is a bad thing"
They don't and its not. It's all about that bit in St. Peter's epistle:
"We have the more sure word of prophecy; and you do well that you heed it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star arises in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit."
The whole point to this passage is that divine revelation comes from God through holy men of God, that divine revelation cannot be of private interpretation but only of the interpretation of those holy men of God, and that the Church thus has "the more sure word of prophecy" than do those who try to interpret it privately -- by whatever personal, spiritual, or scholarly means.
The entire witness of the Fathers is that they did not ever consider themselves to be writing anything new, but only to be restating for their own times what those sure words of divine revelation say and mean. This, by definition, leads to pre-fab answers (a major criticism of the Fathers is that they "never say anything new.")
The question, FK, is whether whose pre-fab answers you are going to trust -- those of the Fathers of the Church from the earliest centuries, or those of the Reformation's fathers (not directly appealed to as authority, of course, but passed off as being understandings that each person just happens to arrive at through independent reading of Scripture...)
The other thing that I would point out is that the pre-fab answer needs actually to fit the question being asked. You do a pretty good job of trying actually to answer questions and statements directly, and I appreciate that. What is annoying is when a specific question is asked, and the reply given is "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God..." -- a point no-one disagrees with but that had nothing to do with the point at hand.
Ping to 6843 -- sorry.
That seems like a little bit of a stretch to me. The passage does not say that only "Holy men" can interpret scripture, it says that prophecy was only given by Holy men. There is also the matter of "private interpretation". I would agree that no scripture should be "privately interpreted", and that brings us back to the problem of our disagreement about to whom the Spirit will speak. I believe that God does guide the "little people" like me. :)
The question, FK, is whether whose pre-fab answers you are going to trust -- those of the Fathers of the Church from the earliest centuries, or those of the Reformation's fathers (not directly appealed to as authority, of course, but passed off as being understandings that each person just happens to arrive at through independent reading of Scripture...)
I do agree it is a matter of whom to trust. And of course I would disagree if anyone made an assertion that any interpretation challenging that of the fallible men of the Church is automatically private and therefore error.
Much of the reason I find myself currently distrusting the hierarchy of the Church, and its "ancestors", is the degree to which power has been declared transferred away from God and to men. Of course the Bible is declared to agree with this, since the recipients of the power are the only ones authorized to declare what the Bible says. That seems to work out pretty well for all those who have the power. :)
Another main problem I have is with the declared interpretation of scripture. I am thoroughly convinced that if the Church's interpretation of the scripture is correct, then the Bible is substantially incomprehensible to anyone without that interpretation. It is like a secret code, and only the men in power have the decoder. God does not have this decoder (such that He would share it with any of the little people) because the men in power have declared that God has transferred it to them.
Since it is true that the reach of the Bible has long ago outstretched the reach of the RC and Orthodox Churches, and God knew that this would happen, I just can't bring myself to believe that right now uncounted millions of people have in their hands an essentially useless revelation of God's word. I can't believe that is God's will. I cannot answer the question of why God would inspire His written word indecipherably to all but a small few.
Of course, my side uses interpretation also, but as I examine the degree to which words must take on new meanings and whole concepts, across many passages of scripture, must be interpreted counterintuitively to the actual text, I see no comparison between the sides. My "advantage" is that I don't "need" the Bible to match anything outside of the Bible because I don't think there is anything else of equal authority. This is not true of the Church.
And I don't think it is a matter of what came first, scriptural Tradition or extra-scriptural Tradition. Many, many things have been declared infallible since those in power held the Bible in their hands. I do not find it credible that absolutely everything that the Church holds infallible today was well known and widely established before the Bible was assembled.
So I think that you really nailed the heart of it when you brought up the issue of trust. And, I can fully understand how anyone could trust the Church. There is a lot of history, and there are a lot of like-minded people who agree. I do respect that. And I do respect that you reached a point in your life when you felt truly led to re-evaluate. I suppose all any of us can do is to follow the lead we believe has been placed on our hearts.
Ho,ho....Now come on. The Reformation fathers traced their views back to the early days of the church as well. I often cite Augustine as my source-not the Reformed fathers.
In addition, you can't really say that ALL your doctrinal beliefs can be traced back to the early part of the Church for the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic are at schism with each other. You left in 1000AD. Who’s to blame and why don't you agree with the RCC interpretation? Do you believe in the Nicene Creed as the Roman Catholic doctrine shows? Do you accept the Pope as your final authority? Why is there an Orthodox Church and an RCC if tradition is the same? All these are legitimate questions.
To say that the Orthodox and RCC have built their foundations upon the early traditions and the Reformers on something made up 1500 years later is simply not true.