Bersambung...
B. Assessments and comments:
1. Roman Catholic's and Orthodox should cast no stones at the religious division of Protestants, since there are between 30-410 Roman Catholic denominations and between 41-1302 Orthodox denominations. (Depending how your count them: see conclusions.)
2. "Oral tradition leads to doctrinal anarchy, which is further reason why you need to use sola Scriptura. Look at all of these Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox denominations, no less than 71 of them the last time I checked. How do Catholics and Orthodox know you're in the correct church?" Which of the 71 "oral traditions" is the true one?
3. There are over 142 different Roman Catholic and Orthodox denominations. This fact will come as a shock to most Catholics and Orthodox believers. We suggest you write your leaders and tell them to stop using the "division" argument against sola Scriptura because it comes back and bites you!
4. This is a case of blind hypocrisy because not only are the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches bitterly divided against themselves, there are also more than 30 different Catholic denominations and 41Orthodox denominations. Both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches made the identical claim that they have the true apostolic church tradition yet they differ so much in doctrine and liturgy, that they are not even "in fellowship" with each other. Obviously then, using tradition creates just as many different doctrines as Protestant churches.
5. Roman Catholic and Orthodox tradition defenders are merely highlighting the failure of creedalism, not true sola Scriptura. The reasons these "Sola Scriptura churches" differ in doctrine, is because they truly are not using the Bible alone, but use creeds like traditionalists.
6. Many churches that claim to use the Bible alone, in fact do not. So the Roman Catholic and Orthodox observation that "sola Scriptura churches" differ in doctrine is invalid because they are not really "sola Scriptura" churches since they use creeds, councils and statements of faith in addition to the Bible to determine doctrine. We call them pseudo-Sola Scriptura churches.
7. "Pseudo-Sola Scriptura" churches that claim such "personal illumination" differ as greatly in their doctrine, as the "Anti-Sola Scriptura" do in regards to their tradition. So Roman Catholic and Orthodox defenders need find another line of reasoning that makes no reference to "guidance from the Holy Spirit to understand the Bible alone". We reject this as a false doctrine, as much as papal infallibility.
8. So anti-sola Scriptura churches like Roman Catholic and Orthodox differ with each other for exactly the same reason pseudo-Sola Scriptura churches: They both use human creeds as standards of doctrine.
9. Further, these Protestants are protesting the Catholic and Orthodox system. Obviously God did not see fit to give Rome or Constantinople any supremacy, otherwise they would not be protested so much. The fact that there is protest on this kind of universal protest on such a large scale proves something is very wrong. This failure is highlighted by the fact that the Orthodox church rejected the Roman church's claim for world domination. The East (Orthodox) basically told the bishop of Rome, "It has never been this way, why should we start now!"
10. Amazing Catholics claim the are the true church and Orthodox is the denomination, and the Orthodox say that they are the true church and the Roman Catholic is the denomination, yet both claim apostolic succession and oral tradition. Both are wrong, only through scripture can you have unity!
11. The following table is taken from David B. Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, 2001, p 14-15.
Apples to Apples comparisons when quoting Barrett's 30,000 denominations figure:
1. If Roman Catholic and Orthodox tradition defenders say there are 30,000 Protestant denominations, (table 1-3) this is factually in error, since Barrett says there are 8848 Protestant denominations.
2. Apples to Apples A: If Roman Catholic and Orthodox tradition defenders say there are 30,000 Protestant denominations (column 11, table 1-3), then the apples to apples number that corresponds to them in table 1-3 is a total of 1712 Roman Catholic and Orthodox denominations. (410 Roman Catholic + 1302 Orthodox = 1712) Remember, you must add in the total number of 710 independent splits from the Roman Catholic (172) and Orthodox (538) churches traditions. Remember, however, that Barrett counts a single unified sect in three different countries as a count of 3 denominations in column 11, so a single denomination in 238 countries, would be counted by Barrett as having 238 denominations in column 11. Column 11, therefore is not helpful by itself in determining actual denominations in the classical sense.
3. Apples to Apples B: To calculate the actual number of Roman Catholic and Orthodox denominations, we need to use column 2, table 1-5 from Barrett's work. Barrett notes that although under one head, even the Roman Catholic are divided into 22 different denominations with varying liturgy and the Orthodox church under Constantinople/ Ecumenical Patriarch has 25 variations. We add to this the independent splits, not in communion with the mother churches (Rome and Constantinople) There are 66 independent denominations that are "Roman Catholic like" and 74 independent denominations that are "Orthodox like".
4. Apples to Apples C: If Roman Catholics object to our counting those under Rome as 22 denominations and Orthodox object to our counting those under Constantinople as having 25 variations, then we have created a third comparison that will quell the whining. In Comparison #3, we counted all the divisions under Rome and Constantinople as one each. Here we merely added the schisms in column 2 of table 1-5 in the "independent" category.
http://www.bible.ca/sola-scriptura-anti-refuted-division.htmSilahkan anda renungkan sendiri.
Shalom
