I just got back to this thread today, and wow is it long. I read the whole thing, whew!, but I have to speak first to MB’s idea on the disunity of 33k+ Protestant denominations.
"But the unity Scripture calls us to is a unity in truth. Paul wrote, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10).
So far, I agree that Scripture calls us to unity in truth. But continuing with your quote–
He (Paul) did not counsel the Corinthians to grasp for a superficial unity
Who says or thinks Paul counseled the Corinthians to grasp for a superficial unity?
Who says or thinks Paul counseled the Corinthians to set truth aside?
embracing an organizational unity without regard to sound doctrine.
Who says or thinks that Paul conseled the Corinthians to embrace an organizational unity without regard to sound doctrine? It is pretty irresponsible to say, what I guess is implied here, that Catholics think St. Paul cares more about bureaucracy than teachings. So Catholics seem pretty stupid and faithless, right?
Nor did Paul order them to abandon their differences and simply place a blind and implicit trust in his apostolic magisterium.
Who says or thinks Paul ordered the Corinthians to abandon their differences and place blind trust in his authority?
He was urging them to work through their differences and strive to achieve unity in both heart and mind.
Yes, and the point? Except to underline the Catholic position, that Christian unity is vital, and that Christian disunity is offensive to Our Lord and a great wound in His Body…
Such unity is possible only when people are themselves in union with Christ. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16)."
Since Our Lord Himself is the Word; and He is the Way, The Truth and the Life; then if we are united to Him, we are one also with each other, and we will hold one truth. Yes, Catholics hold this.
I just don’t get how your citation (leaving out the spin) helps you at all with the problem of the disunity in Christianity.
I say again that Sola Scriptura results in disunity at the level of truth. I say that Christians
cannot be of one mind about what is Christian teaching, not as long as non-Catholic Christians think they have the capacity through the Holy Spirit each to infallibly recognize what scripture means without any human teacher authoritatively interpreting it for them. This, because of fallen human nature and the fact that we do not have angelic intellects to begin with, is a recipe for disunity.
The protestant rejection of teaching authority results directly in the disunity of 33k+ sects, all holding contradictory things to be true.
MB, I really don’t get how your citation can help you show that the disunity is not caused by Sola Scriptura.
I *see * that you would tend to say that the disunity is caused by everybody getting to see for themselves, rather than learning through the (corrupt?) Catholic Church’s teachers, the words in scripture, and discern for themselves how to interpret those words. Still don’t see how this would help your view–That, is, without the “corrupt” CC’s help, what results is corruption…
On this point, I can only repeat what previous posts have pointed out–it was the G. Press which made bibles more available and more affordable; it was the increase in literacy which made them more read among the educated. (And where did the first universities of Europe come from?) No doubt, the illiterate were grateful for the CC’s reading the bible to them. They would not have had any exposure to the Bible without the CC. (You know that Mass has always included readings from the bible?)
Onward and Upward!
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