Of course the Church is autocratically ruled by Christ, her head.
We have a problem in America with being 'ruled', some one else telling us what is good or true; heck, telling us anything. We wish to be self-sufficient individuals on our own - down with the King! This is a good thing when it comes to government, not so good when it comes to religion; we can easily end up with subjectivism and relativism and culturally influenced to an extreme degree; and, my point, a multitude of 'churches'.
I know you don't agree that the Church is what the Church says - else we wouldn't be having this discussion. But the answers to your questions are not new, and they all have as their foundation the belief in the Church as in Holy Scripture, visible as well as invisible, the body of Christ, with authority, etc. They all flow from that and are logically and scripturally answered from this base. Or pillar and foundation. :)
My point here is that if it were intended that each individual determine the Christian faith... well, that fails as we see.
As for the "autocratic rule," the same objection applies when each individual is their own Church, interpreter, theologian, etc., If that is the objection, it is not avoided outside the Church, to wit:
[Each individual] is effectively answerable to no one and irreprovable…
Thanks again.
That's a dandy set of loaded dice you've got there.
You must know that this not what i was referring to, but that of the church defining itself as infallible and thus irreprovable, and the logic behind it, and to which my questions pertain.
As for the "autocratic rule," the same objection applies when each individual is their own Church, interpreter, theologian, etc., If that is the objection, it is not avoided outside the Church, to wit: [Each individual] is effectively answerable to no one and irreprovable…
You also should know that sola scriptura as historically understood does not render man unanswerable or irreprovable, and to be so one must claim supremacy over scripture. SS is contrary to that, as it disallows any man from from claiming assured infallibility, and as Westminster taught, it affirms the place of the ecclesiastical magisterium:
I. For the better government and further edification of the Church, there ought to be such assemblies as are commonly called synods or councils.
II. As magistrates may lawfully call a synod of ministers and other fit persons to consult and advise with about matters of religion; so, if magistrates be open enemies of the Church, the ministers of Christ, of themselves, by virtue of their office, or they, with other fit persons, upon delegation from their churches, may meet together in such assemblies.
III. It belongeth 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, and government of his Church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same: which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission, not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God, appointed thereunto in his Word. http://www.creeds.net/Westminster/c31.htm
However, these are not held as being assuredly infallible outside Scripture, although they may teach infallible truths, as Scripture alone is held as being the assured word of God.
Those who claim assured infallibility in interpreting Scripture are engaging in Sola Individualitica, unless they are God. Yet Christ established His claims upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power.
It is true that one may claim that their interpretation of Scripture is true despite correction by others, rightly (which is how the church began) or wrongly, but likewise a Catholic can claim the same as regards their interpretation of Rome, even as to which magisterial level a teaching belongs to, as well as what Scripture text mean, within the parameters of Rome as they understand them.
The issue is what is the assured word of God, and thus the supreme authority, Scripture or Rome, as both require some interpretation. And the perspicuity of Rome is such that she can or can appear to change regarding many things, after centuries of souls believing differently. .
Rome also treats many notorious examples of deviant belief and practice as members in life and in death (Ted Kennedy for one).
Truth is established due to Scriptural substantiation, and which is why souls had assurance that me of God such as Joshua were such, and that the Itinerant Preacher from Galilee, whose authority was rejected by those who sat in the seat of Moses, was God manifest in the flesh.
And while God did ordain the magisterium, yet the Lord often raised up men from outside the magisterium to correct it, and to preserve faith among a relative remnant. "And by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved."
And thus the church began in dissent, and as needed, thus God raises up voices in the wilderness to speak truth to power, and thus it continues.
We have a problem in America with being 'ruled', some one else telling us what is good or true; heck, telling us anything.
This is true, but your solution is a government which declares it cannot be wrong.
We wish to be self-sufficient individuals on our own - down with the King!
Having a king was not God's plan, but as under prophets, whose office is not maintained thru formal historical decent but upon manifest anointing of God.
This is a good thing when it comes to government, not so good when it comes to religion; we can easily end up with subjectivism and relativism
What can happen or does sometimes occur under a basis for truth does not negate it as the basis. The first 3 miracles of Moses were duplicated by the devil, as happen s today, but the solution is not to disallow miracles, but to overcome evil with good, as Moses and the apostles did.
The issue here is not that the whether the magisterium is not needed, but whether it is autocratically supreme, so that assurance of truth is not based upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power - which Rome's teaching are not dependent upon - but upon its own assured veracity in which it cannot be wrong when speaking according to her scope and subject-based formula.
The church did not begin under that premise, and in fact it began in dissent form those who presumed as much, and instead those who sat in Moses' seat were reproved by Scripture for teaching as doctrines mere tradition of the elders, (Mk. 7:3-16) while the Lord established His claims upon Scriptural substantiation, in text and in power, as did the apostles and early church. (Mt. 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Jn. 5:36,39; Acts 2:14-35; 4:33; 5:12; 15:6-21;17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23; Rm. 15:19; 2Cor. 12:12, etc.)
"For the kingdom of God is not in word [self-declaration], but in power." (1 Corinthians 4:20) This is the contest, and as this means competition, with the church having to continually manifest that it is of the living God, and which the historical preaching of the evangelical gospel has, whether is be Wesley or Whitefield, Spurgeon or Sunday, M'Cheyne or Moody (and despite differences on predestination, which exists in Rome as well), in contrast to an institutionalized gospel of either Catholicism or parts of Protestantism.