What's the point, Emmanuel?

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What's the point, Emmanuel?

Forum: Theological Expressions
Re:

Seventh Day Adventists- what is wrong with their doctrines? (Peter Selvan)
Re:

Just a small info......... (Emmanuel)
Date: 2001, Jul 11
From: Christopher Yip CKHY

Emmanuel,
YOU: "If you are a Protestant your church was started by a human being."
ME: If you are a Roman Catholic, your church was (supposedly) started by Peter and Paul (even though the Church of Rome was already there before Peter and Paul went there); and if you are a Greek Orthodox, your church was (also supposedly) started by Andrew; and if your church is the Assyrian Church of the East, it was (also supposedly) founded by Thomas and Bartholomew; if you are an oriental orthodox, your church is the Syriac (Oriental) Orthodox Church and it was founded by Peter.
In this sense, no church is ever started by Jesus Christ! Obviously churches around the world have human founders in the sense that they were planted, organised and constituted through some person.
Furthermore, if you are a Protestant, you have no Head of church except Jesus Christ; but if you are a Roman Catholic, the head of your church is a human being.
YOU: The belief of private interpretation of the Bible has been the hallmark and down fall of Protestantism. This is quite evident in the squabbling over the true meaning of the Bible which has created over 25,000 different Protestant denominations. 382 Million estimated by my statistical research.
ME: How has the Roman Catholic Church solved this problem of interpretation? We hardly call this divine when the pope decides which interpretation goes into the catechisms, into the encyclical or canons or decrees.
As an individual, we make choices as to whom we want to believe. This is a fallible choice, so in effect, Roman Catholics arbitrarily and fallibly chose to follow the Roman Catholic Church in her interpretation but does this choice in itself makes it valid? The Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, et al all claim to have the "correct" interpretation to Scripture - so what makes one who chooses the leaders of these cult groups as their final arbiter of Scripture any more "right" than one who chooses the Church of Rome.
Inevitably the answer comes back to this - because Rome claims she is the infallible successor to Peter, that she holds the keys but when you ask Rome how do we know that the bible is in fact saying that Rome is the final arbiter, the answer is Rome says so. So Rome holds the final interpretation because she says so.
Putting this unfounded theory aside, let's look at the practicality of it.
Sola Scriptura is about authority, not interpretation. Interpretation is always fallible but the Scripture is not. The Scripture places itself as the ONLY AUTHORITY - Jesus when he was tempted appealed to Scripture, not Tradition. Protestants who have the Scriptures as their sole source of AUTHORITY do not need to agree on everything in order for this position to hold. Sola Scriptura does not teach unanimity of interpretation - that's only the misinformed Roman Catholic view.
Of course, many would ask what good is a sole authority when one cannot have unanimous understanding and interpretation? As we have seen, this same question can be thrown to the Roman Catholic who has simply chosen to believe ONE of the many interpretations and to boost his confidence, believe it to be divine and infallible interpretation. The fact is that it is not really that diverse.
Consider the words of James White:
"We are seemingly told that the Holy Spirit did such a poor job in producing Scripture that while the Psalmist thought it was a lamp to his feet and a light to his path, he (the Psalmist) was in fact quite deluded, and was treading very dangerously. Instead of the glorious words of God spoken of in Psalm 119, we are told that such basic truths as the nature of God, including the deity of Christ or the personality of the Holy Spirit, cannot be correctly interpreted from Scripture by anyone, but require some infallible interpreter. Of course, one could argue against any interpretation if one is willing to sacrifice context, language, consistency, etc. But are we really to believe the Bible is so unclear that we cannot arrive at the truth through a whole-hearted effort at honestly examining the biblical evidence?
Misinterpretation and misuse is definitely a real problem and why is it so? It's because humans are sinful people, some have agendas, others want to find something in the Bible that isn't really there. Now, you may retort, "See, you've proven our point. You need an infallible interpreter to tell you what the Bible says because you are a sinful person, and hence you need a sinless, perfect guide to tell you what to believe!" Aside from the fact that such a concept itself is absent from Scripture, and is in fact countermanded by Scripture (did not the Lord Jesus hold men accountable for what GOD said to THEM in SCRIPTURE?), we need to observe that Rome is not solving the problem of fallible people. Once Rome "speaks" the fallible person must still interpret the supposed infallible interpretation. The element of error remains, no matter how much Rome might wish to think it has been removed."
(http://www.aomin.org/cathan.html. Catholic Answers: Myth or Reality? A Refutation of Patrick Madrid's Article, "The White Man's Burden," and a Defense of Sola Scriptura by James White)
The Protestant view of private interpretation is that God holds EACH OF US accountable for what HE REVEALS TO US AS WE READ THE BIBLE.
Finally, has the Pope and Magisterium settled the issue of interpretation? Hardly. We have Roman Catholics debating the meaning of Unitatis Redintegratio, Humanae Vitae, Dominus Iesus, Partim-partim view of Tradition and Scripture; just visit any Roman Catholic discussion boards or read The Rock from Catholic Answers. How has the Roman Catholic Church provided infallible certainty in Scriptural matters? It's an illusion.
Christopher