For me, it simply comes down to trusting in an ALL sufficient God, so certainly His Word is as well. All that is necessary, which to me, is the most important word in reference to Scripture only.
Before I begin, I must point out that you did not address a single one of my points.
Now, you say that you trust in an ALL sufficient God, and His Word, so that all necessity for faith is found in reference to Scripture. Trusting in an all sufficient God is fine. In fact, Catholics do, too. In fact, we trust that God is sufficient in an even more visible way that Protestants. We trust that He is powerful enough to lead us as a whole to Truth, and that He actually gave us the ability to remain one (unity was very important to Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, and to the early Fathers). So, in essence, we trust in an all sufficient God in an even more radical way than Protestants.
You state that you believe that Scripture is literally the only reference for faith. This, in itself, opposes Paul’s orders to appoint elders that would teach. Scripture, at that point, wasn’t even canonized. The early Church had no idea what was Scripture and what wasn’t. Many of the first several centuries of Christians considered Barnabas’ writings to be inspired, as well as the Apocalypse of Peter, Clement’s epistle, and a few more. Most in the early Church actually DIDN’T consider John’s Apocalypse to be inspired.
So we have a conundrum. The early Church, AFTER the apostles were dead and gone, had no idea what was inspired and what was not in the NEW TESTAMENT. Later, after the Jews began using only Hebrew books as inspired canon, the Church became divided on the Greek Old Testament vs the Pharasitic Hebrew Old Testament. This created further issues on the inspiration of Scripture.
How did the Church decide which books were canononical? In exactly the same manner that was prescribed since the beginning: councils. They determined the canon of Scripture by setting up requirements and taking from tradition. They came to the current Catholic conclusion universally around 393 AD (though one can find the same canon affirmed in previous councils).
So, you, and all Protestants, know that the Bible is inspired… because you trust in the Tradition of a unified Church that came to a conclusion through theological councils. Further, because your version of Scripture excludes seven books from the original Greek Old Testament based on Luther’s assertions, you follow an additional man-made tradition that was never affirmed by any theological council whatsoever (though at Trent, the 1200 year-old canon was affirmed again).
And, if you are a Trinitarian Christian, you believe in another conciliar dogma. ‘Trinity’ is not found in Scripture. The Trinity is clear in Scripture, but in the same way councils and bishops and Tradition are found in Scripture. So you hold to certain conciliar dogma, but you base this on… wait for it… the traditions of individual men with no Scriptural authority whatsoever.
I could go on (consubstantiation, OSAS, double negative predestination, non-necessity of baptism, ect., are all Protestant dogma that is not found in Scripture explicitly, but is an interpretation of Scripture by individuals), but I think you get the point. You DO NOT believe in the sufficiency of Scripture. You have taken select doctrine, proliferated from other individuals who read the Bible, and have proclaimed them directly from Scripture. In essence, you (Protestants in general) have done exactly what you accuse the Catholic Church of doing, except on a much smaller, far less unified scale.
Where is the logical sequence in this reasoning? I am not seeing it. This is why, even when I was cold in my faith, I never seriously considered Protestantism of any kind. It makes no sense to me.
