Well, you refused to give a definition, other than that the doctrine of Sola Scriptura excludes canon formation (You’re the first one I eard that from) so I was free to get my own definition. I asked you several times, but no answer.
I asked you this like five times, and all you would say is that it excludes the formation of the canon. Why wouldn’t you answer a simple question?
Well if you asked me that somehow I missed it. But since you are asking now…
I believe what is found in the statement of faith in my church with a couple of qualifications. I don’t know whether this is considered Sola Scriptura. But anyway here it is:
The Bible is the Word of God.
The Bible is the Word of God. We believe that the Bible, in its entirety, is the Word of God, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and it is our only infallible rule of faith and conduct.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
My qualifications are these:
(1) You can make the case that the Scripture cited does not support the only part of the statement. However it does support the inspiration and the rule part of the statement.
(2) A minor quibble. I am not sure whether infallible is the best word to use in relationship to the Bible. Strictly speaking the word infallible only applies to processes. But I could make the argument that everything that God does is infallible. And since God inspired the Bible therefore the Bible is incapable of being incorrect (of course this now touches on the issue of inerrancy which is a separate sticky wicket).
(3) There are two ways you can believe the Bible is our “only infallible rule of faith and conduct”. The first way is an active way in which you believe the Bible specifically teaches that of itself. However the second way is a passive way. The passive way acknowledges that the Bible doesn’t explicitely teach that there are no other infallible sources. You simple do not have any reason to believe that any other sources you know of are infallible and are very skeptical that in the future any other sources could be brought forth that you can believe would be on the same level as the Bible…
I believe in the passive version.
As far as the canon goes, the explanation is really simple and I think works with most definitions of Sola Scriptura that I have heard.
The word infallible refers to a process. Only a repeatable process is
incapable of being incorrect (Catholicism does use the word infallible in the correct sense. The repeatable process in this case is the pontiff of Rome speaking ex-cathedra on an issue of faith and morals). The creation of the canon is simply an event. An event can of course can be 100% correct. But it is impossible by definition for an event to be
incapable of being incorrect.
To illustrate, an event is me getting 100% on a math test. Infallability in math means that it is impossible for me to get anything less than 100% in math (the repeatable process is me taking math tests). Just because I get 100% on a math test does not mean that I am infallible in math.
I haven’t made any unprovable assertions. I just stated my personal opinion that Sala Scriptura may be satanic, and that’s my opinion. I don’t have to defend it, because it isn’t an official belief of my Church.
If that is your personal opinion fine. But I don’t hold that opinion.
Good. At first I thought you were disparaging the moderators.
If you thought that…sheesh you have a suspicious nature. All I was doing was making the offhand observation that those who come here with the “Whore of Babylon” / “Pope is the AntiChrist” canard usually get booted. I think that is a true observation. It was really nothing.
Like I said, for practical purposes, I count them. However, I gave you the WCD count, 9,000 (a lot, in other words) and you haven’t even responded to that. I hope you’re not trying to dodge the issue.
If WCD is a reputable source I won’t argue that for now. I am not terribly hung up on numbers. I do know that the 30K figure is not accurate because I read a reputable Catholic source refuting that figure.
BTW if you want to count each non-denominational church as a denomination, you end up with more than 30K denominations. Why not then say there are 500K or 1M or something really big number protestant denominations (no I do not know what the number of independent churches worldwide is).