Seems to me that using Scripture alone is exactly what the Reformationists were and are criticized and condemned for, because they didn't accept the extra-Biblical teachings of various men's opinion pieces.
Which is it? Are those of the Reformation to be criticized for following Scripture alone (sola scriptura), or for holding to doctrine not found in Scripture (tradition).
I do wish Catholics would make up their minds.
Let us go back to the real issue. I have preached repeatedly to you and to the children of the Reformation that it is possible to defend most heresies directly from the pages of Scripture.
By selecting the appropriate Scripture, for instance, one can defend modalism, for instance. It is not that most of the Reformation cannot point to somewhere in Scripture where if the snippet is small enough, and pieced together with enough other snippets, almost any doctrine can be defended.
To turn back to the point of the Reformation's departure from the Church and some of the main points of that departure, let us bring up some of them:
The authority of the Church to teach and to declare correct (and incorrect) teachings.
The Eucharist and the rest of the Sacraments (including absolution).
The doctrine of double predestination. These will do for now, I think. The teachings are clear; Scripture and Apostolic teachings are what the Church relies on since they were given them by God.
Seems to me that using Scripture alone is exactly what the Reformationists were and are criticized and condemned for, because they didn't accept the extra-Biblical teachings of various men's opinion pieces.
The Reformers used selected Scripture and used the Church Fathers even more selectively (and significantly less as the Church Fathers who agreed with these departures from Church teachings are few and far between) in order to differentiate themselves from the Church. The issue is less Scripture alone, and more snippets of Scripture alone and when mixed in with solo (as opposed to sola), opens up complete and infallible interpretation to every Tom, Dick and Harry. Each one of them claims the Holy Spirit, and as long as snippets or logical extensions of Scripture snippets are used, why then almost anything can be concocted. And who is to say that Tom's interpretation is any less valid than Dick's? Both claim infallible powers from the Holy Spirit. Who can gainsay either, as long as there are actual snippets?
Which is it? Are those of the Reformation to be criticized for following Scripture alone (sola scriptura), or for holding to doctrine not found in Scripture (tradition).
You guys follow solo Scripture, not sola. That is the whole deal with the WCF and the various Catechisms and Confessions that came out of the Reformation. At first, the Reformers stuck with sola, but the second generation of Reformers, beginning with Calvin went solo, and constructed novel systems out of the snippets. That is solo and what the last 300 years or better (certainly brought to the light of day in the Restoration) has seen almost exclusively in Reformed circles.
With the abandonment of the Creeds of Christendom, solo Scriptura has led to the creation of the LDS, the JWs, the Pentecostals, the Churches of Christ, the decline of the mainstream denominations and the increasingly visible apostacy of the nondenominationals. We have the Apostolic and Church Fathers and their writings as to what Christians believed and practiced before the NT Scripture was chosen. All rejected and sneered at by those who discover new things every time they take all the words of Scripture, shake them into a pile and assemble them anew in ever diverse arrangements.
We reject the doctrines and practices of the children of the Reformed because they a) do not rely upon the whole Bible and even more because they do not read the words of Jesus in the NT as the pinnacle of God's revelation to man; and b) because they reject the teachings of the Church Fathers in spite of Scripture which instructs us to follow the teachings of the authority of the Church (Jesus, Paul and Peter are most instructive on this).
I do wish Catholics would make up their minds.
That mind was made up all the way back in the upper room at Pentecost. We haven't changed. Not for Simon Magus, not for John Calvin, and not for the likes of Joel Osteen either.
The world that you rejected, mm, is the world of constant Scripture and constant interpretation. St. John Chrystostom received the Eucharist then, just as any Catholic does today. St. Augustine went to Confession the same as any Catholic does today. St. Jerome venerated the Theotokos the same as any Catholic does today. We reach back to St. Luke for his writing of the Virgin Mary icon as an example of how that first generation of Christians practiced Christianity. And it isn't what the children of the Reformed fantasize about.