[mlizzy]

And this is why Protestants believe that such “necessity” is man made and allows for corruption to enter into the church. God provided his word to us and for us and provides all sufficiency.

Is that why, do you think, there are over 33,000 "Christian" denominations?

[daniel1212]

The willingness of Catholics like yourself to use such a polemic shows how free Catholics are to promotes ignorance.*

Upon what basis are we to ascertain that Rome is the one true church whose magisterium is protected from error when speaking in union with the pope to the whole church on faith and morals?

However, the premise of Rome is that because relying upon the Scripture as the supreme authority often engenders division, while implicit trust in an Assuredly Infallible Magisterium (AIM) results in unity, then the latter is correct. And yet apart from infallible teachings, like in evangelical churches (who actually show more unity in core values and doctrine) Catholics can disagree to varying degrees with non-infallible teachings, though who knows all of which ones are infallible.

Although RC's appeal to fallible human reasoning to seeking to convince me from the Bible to believe in the Assuredly Infallible Magisterium which is protected from the fallible nature of when they speak according to their Infallibly Declared Formula, (if they do say so themselves), yet once one becomes a Catholic he/she is not longer to search the Scriptures to ascertain the verity of what her church has defined, or to objectively examine claims to the contrary.

However, the fact is that God Himself reasons with men in seeking to convince them, (Is. 1:18; Acts 17:2) and abundant appeals to the authority of Scripture, including reproving those who presumed, like Rome, an authority over the Scriptures. Implicit trust in an Assuredly Infallible Magisterium is not how unity was achieved in the Bible, nor is unity by itself a goal of the Godly, as division is actually necessary because of truth, and is better than unity in error.Instead, unity is the result of God affirming His truth to those who hear and obey it, and thus the most essential unity is that of the "unity of the Spirit," (Eph. 4:3) resulting from faith in the truth which the established and infallible Scriptures teach.

And apart from infallible teachings, like in evangelical churches (who actually show more unity in core values and doctrine) Catholics can disagree to varying degrees with non-infallible teachings, though who knows all of which ones are infallible.

The Divine inspiration of Scripture is affirmed by both of us, and which is affirmed to be assuredly infallible, but which appeals to human understanding for assurance, (1Jn. 5:13) and affirms being like a noble Berean to determine how know that he/she is listening to this nebulous "Living Voice of the Holy Ghost." and to which God provides other attestation which complements, not contradicts it.

But this means we affirm the core essentials we both concur on, as being truths revealed by the Holy Ghost to the Church, being well substantiated by the Scriptures, while contending against those who deny them, which is typically the result of effectively exalting the authority of mortal men and or an office above the Scriptures. And thus we also contend against those teaching of Rome that also commit the error of the Pharisees. Mk. 7:6-13)

The following is from http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2009/12/special-pleading-of-sola-ecclesia-ists.html See also http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2010/06/look-unity-argument-just-doesnt-work.html Tuesday, December 15, 2009

*The special pleading of Sola Ecclesia-ists' claims to unity

A favored argument against Sola Scriptura frequently used by our friends in the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church is "Just look at Protestantism! It's a mess, of 22,000 25,000 30,000 33,000 58 gazillion denominations!"
What are they saying? Mostly that Sola Scriptura as a rule of faith is insufficient to bring about institutional, organisational unity to the church of Jesus Christ. And of course, Christ would obviously want His church to have institutional, organisational unity! Evidently, setting the Scripture alone up as the sole infallible final rule of faith for the church doesn't accomplish what it's supposed to. Ergo, Sola Scriptura is false.

I've created this crude and very maladroit drawing to illustrate.


Let's analyse, then, the alternatives of Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy.
Now, we of course like to accuse them of Sola Ecclesia; that is, we contend that their sole infallible final rule of faith is Whatever The Church® Says. But they don't like it when we say that, so let's be conciliatory and lay the contention aside. Their "real" rule of faith is Apostolic Tradition, which includes written and unwritten tradition from the apostles, both in Scripture and in other places such as the lived-out faith of the church, the liturgies, the writings of church fathers down through the years, etc.
Notice that, like the Scripture, this too forms a corpus with limits. The Da Vinci Code is not part of Apostolic Tradition. Neither is the Qur'an, nor is The Audacity of Hope (though, depending on which Roman or EO priest you ask, that last one might be close). We and others have contended many times, rightly, that the limits to the Roman and EO Canons of Scripture are not only poorly defined but actually non-existent. It is also indisputable that one's presupposition of an infallible interpreter (whether she be Rome or EOC) will govern which little-t traditions are actually accepted, promoted if you will, to Big-T Sacred Apostolic Tradition, thus forming the basis for Roman or Orthodox dogma, leaving the little-t traditions to rot by the wayside, relegated to "Well, he was just speaking as a private theologian" or "That was just his opinion" status.
But let's leave all of that aside and grant that there is one big and awe-inspiring God-given Verbum Dei corpus of Scripture and Tradition that is the proper rule of faith for the church of Jesus Christ.

The problem is obvious - Rome, sedevacantists, traditionalist Catholics, Pope Michael-ists, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, and various other churches with incompatible teachings all appeal to this set and limited corpus of Scripture and Tradition. It would appear that the criticism against Sola Scriptura of multiple denominations applies to the Roman and EO rule of faith as well.

The Romanist or Orthodox might object: "But we're not in communion with those schismatics/heterodox/heretics!" Now, what if I were to reply, as a member of a Southern Baptist church, that, have no fear my non-Sola Scripturist friends, my church holds that everyone who's not a member of a Southern Baptist church is a schismatic/heterodox/heretic too? Would that make our Romanist or Orthodox friends feel better?
Or would that make them criticise us even more strongly: "See? You Sola Scripturists can't even hold communion with each other!"? Yep, my money's on that one, too. We're darned if we do and darned if we don't, but somehow if the Romanists or Orthodox don't hold communion with these other churches, that's just fine. Such special pleading is just...special.

So let me break this down as clearly as I can. "The Protestant Church" does not exist. Self-named "Protestant churches" vary so widely in doctrine and authority as to make points of comparison impossible to ascertain. If you want to compare unity and disunity, compare the adherences to the competing rules of faith. Or compare churches, like the Roman Church to the Southern Baptist Convention or the Pope Michael Catholic Church to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. What do we find, if we do this? How different from each other are the churches that hold to Scripture alone as rule of faith, and how different from each other are the churches that hold to "Sacred Apostolic Tradition" as rule of faith? Answer that and you'll know one reason why we consider all this talk about how Tradition and Magisterium make for superior church unity to be just that - talk.