I personally believe, based on my experiences, that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Protestant denominations, and the main reason for this is sola scriptura.
Most Catholic critics of Protestantism don't place the number of denominations that high. But Martignoni's comments reflect a common Catholic sentiment, though in a heightened form.
One of the problems with that sentiment is that it undermines Catholicism. Catholics often argue for the Roman Catholic Church by first arguing for Jesus. Supposedly, Jesus founded the Roman Catholic Church and taught, directly or by implication, that it has the authority it claims to have. But that sort of argument for Catholicism requires the Catholic to argue for, or depend on others who have argued for, Jesus' existence, His identity, what He taught, the meaning of what He taught, etc. And there are many differing and contradictory interpretations of Jesus and His historical context. Consider, for example, all of the views of Jesus you come across on the web and in modern scholarship, including Catholic scholarship. The Catholic appeal to the historical Jesus as an argument for Catholicism depends on our being able to sufficiently discern the historical Jesus. If we can do so, despite all of the disagreements that exist on the subject, why should we think the same isn't true with regard to the Bible and sola scriptura? Much the same can be said about all of the disagreements concerning the existence of God, the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, the apostle Paul, the church fathers, etc.
Catholics should ask themselves what would happen if they were to apply their arguments against Protestantism to their own belief system. It seems that they often don't do that.
One way to answer the Catholic who cites a large number of Protestant denominations is to cite the large number of views of Jesus. Or the large number of views of the origin of the universe. Or the authenticity of the writings of Ignatius of Antioch. Or the meaning of what Irenaeus wrote. Or the validity of particular claimants to the papacy. Etc.
Maybe Catholics wouldn't use so many suicidal arguments so often if they were more involved in Christian apologetics. Evangelicals have been at the forefront of that work, while Catholics have been more concerned with other things. And it shows.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteGood points. Can you speak to the Catholic propensity to cite and use Thomas Aquinas as the justification for using reason alone based on empirical evidence for the existence of God, existence of Jesus, scientific proof of origins, and/or that man comes to knowledge and can trust this knowledge by first beginning with this ability to reason? I'm sure that Aquinas spoke to both faith and reason so maybe I'm not stating the above clearly, but in terms of epistemic certainty, where should one start and does starting with Aquinas' view contain inconsistencies?
I'd add that Catholic epologists are quite dependent on evangelical scholarship regarding the inerrancy and reliability of the Bible in general, and the historical Jesus in particular.
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteNot quite sure what you mean here. Quite dependent on 'evangelical scholarship' in what sense?
Thanks
For instance:
ReplyDeletehttp://socrates58.blogspot.com/2010/07/alleged-bible-contradictions.html
Note the overwhelming representation of evangelical scholarship.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteLast time I checked Dave still had "the inroads of higher criticism and liberal views of Scipture into Evangelicalism" (or words to that effect) in his list of reasons for being Catholic!
Perhaps he should read some books by John Paul the Great, Benedict the Almost as Great, Brown, Meier, Fitzmyer, etc. and tell us who the real liberals are.
-Steve Jackson
Steve Hays:
ReplyDeleteThanks. So 'evangelical scholarship' as opposed to starting epistemically from 'Scripture'?
I guess I'm trying to figure out whether the Thomistic approach that many Catholics fall back on to buttress the claim that we must all start with 'reason', or our reasoning ability through our mind/intellect does not have some fatal flaws to it (epistemically).
I wasn't opposing evangelical scholarship to anything. I'm merely pointing out that Catholic epologists like Dave Armstrong (Ben Douglass is another example) must turn to evangelical scholarship to defend the inerrancy/reliability of Scripture.
ReplyDeleteSteve Drake,
ReplyDeleteYou've raised a lot of issues, and I don't know how you're defining some of your terms. I don't have the knowledge or time to address everything you brought up. I don't know much about Thomas Aquinas and how different Catholics use his material.
Most of my work is in historical apologetics. That's primarily where I've seen the Catholic deficiency I referred to. I'm not as familiar with Catholic involvement in disputes over epistemology and the existence of God, for example, as I am with their involvement in disputes of a more historical nature.
Steve Hays has cited the examples of Biblical inerrancy and reliability. I have a lot of interest in the historicity of the infancy narratives. Roman Catholic scholarship has been prominent in undermining the traditional Christian position in that context, but Catholics haven’t done much to defend the traditional Christian view. When somebody like Richard Carrier or John Loftus writes an article or book against Christianity, we expect Evangelicals like Steve Hays and J.P. Holding to respond more than we expect a response from Catholics, even conservative Catholics. Some critics of Christianity are more focused on Evangelicalism than Catholicism, so Catholics could cite that fact as a partial explanation for why they don’t respond as much. But a lot of the issues involved are of concern to both Evangelicals and Catholics (Jesus’ resurrection, etc.). And why do critics of Christianity have a tendency to be so much more focused on Evangelicalism to begin with? Why does somebody like Paul Tobin sense more of a need to respond to and dismiss Evangelical scholarship? Why does he see Catholic scholarship as more supportive of his position? When we think of the best arguments for the dating of Isaiah and Daniel, the resurrection of Jesus, the authorship of the gospels, etc., do we tend to think more of Evangelical or Catholic scholarship? In the online context, do we tend to think more of Evangelical or Catholic web sites? Given Christianity's nature as a historical revelation, the historical nature of so many objections to Christianity, etc., Catholicism ought to be doing much more on historical issues than it has. Often, Catholics not only aren’t doing much to advance the right side of these disputes, but are even arguing on the wrong side.
There’s a large gray area between the “reason alone” position you refer to and what you might have in mind with “starting epistemically from 'Scripture'”. Are you referring to all of scripture? If so, then are you saying that accepting the book of Jude, for example, is a necessary presupposition? If so, why? What about people who lived prior to the writing of scripture? (Similar questions can be asked if you move from scripture to the word of God in general.) Are you just saying that God regenerates His people, so that they begin their Christian lives with a tendency to believe scripture? But that would be different than beginning an argument for Christianity from scripture. I don’t know what you have in mind.
And even if a Catholic argues for God’s existence or the resurrection of Jesus in a faulty manner, along the lines of what you’ve described, at least he’s making an argument and probably is making some good points along the way. If the good points are combined with some bad ones, then we can correct the bad while accepting the good. But what I see in so many contexts is a failure of Catholics to even go as far as the “reason alone” view you’re referring to. Some Catholics have done some good work in defending a Biblical worldview, including on historical matters, but Catholicism seems to me to be much weaker than Evangelicalism on these issues.
GK Chesterton somewhere makes exactly this argument - that, just because there are lots of false religions out there in the world, doesn't mean that one of them can't be true (I have a pretty good guess which one GKC had in mind).
ReplyDeleteI suspect that when non-Christians hear Catholic kakangelists pointing out the large number of Protestant denominations, their response is not "Gee, 33,000 Protestant ecclesial communities, a dozen Orthodox churches, but only one Catholic Church!" but rather "Oh, lord, 33,013 different brands of Christianity and they all claimed to be right".
As others (David Heddle IIRC?) have noted, the number is often deliberately inflated by counting each independent, non-denominational credobaptist congregation in the US as a "denomination" unto itself. If we focus on different creeds or confessions (and variations of) there are "only" about 4,000. If we focus on different theological strands within Protestantism (defining this to mean those who believe that the 66-book Bible is the sole authority directly binding the individual Christian - no Watchtower Society to infallibly interpret it, no "Book of Mormon" or "Science and Health" or Prophet Kip to infallibly add to it), there would be fewer than a dozen (Reformed vs Arminian credobaptist, paedobaptist Calvinism, high- and low-church Lutheran, low-Church Anglican, Amish/ Mennonite, with some Thomists-vs-Molinists-style internal variations within these types).
DA's linking to "Introduction to Bible Difficulties and Bible Contradictions", an evangelical site, given that Ven JH Newman (whose motto was "Cor ad Cor Loquitur") gave the apparent discrepancies within the Bible as a big reason why he rejected "Sola Scriptura".
Steve Hays,
ReplyDeleteI think I understand now. You are talking about 'evangelical scholarship' as opposed to or in contrast with their own 'Catholic scholarship' I believe. This was what my original question was referring to.
I was making the point that conservative Catholics don't have conservative Catholic Bible scholars they can turn to to defend the traditional view of Scripture. They must turn to evangelicals to move the heavy lumber.
ReplyDeleteTo begin with, I never saw you cite an actual source for John's words, so that's irresponsible blogging (and could turn up slanderous). The quote came from John's last E-Letter, by the way.
ReplyDeleteJason said: "Catholics should ask themselves what would happen if they were to apply their arguments against Protestantism to their own belief system. It seems that they often don't do that."
This is a good point to bring up, but in my experience the situation is reversed: it is more often the Protestant apologists who make arguments based upon double standards when talking on Catholicism.
One of the leading examples is when it comes to Protestants deciding whether (orthodox) Catholics are "Christian" or not. You'd be amazed at how much leeway one Protestant will grant another Protestant, but how this doesn't often translate into leeway for the Catholic. A common example is when Calvinists 'graciously extend' the title of "Christian" to Arminians but not to Catholics.
You also said: "One way to answer the Catholic who cites a large number of Protestant denominations is to cite the large number of views of Jesus."
This claim, but itself, doesn't prove or suggest anything. There can be various views on Jesus or any other topic and not have that entail or involve division.
Further, your argument betrays the fact both Protestants and Catholics start on a lot of common ground as to the historical existence of Jesus, inspiration of Scripture, etc, etc, so it's bogus to try and attack that foundation with "there are tons of views of Jesus".
As for John's numbers, he gave his reasoning, and you don't appear to want to deal with that but instead muddy the waters. The argument is essentially as follows:
1) There are 300 million people in America.
2) Let's say half of these are Protestant (150M).
3) Let's say 1% of these claim (without any hesitation) they are their own private church without any formal ties to any other Protestant body. This means there are 1.5 million personal/private denominations on top of the 'big name' mainstream denominations.
4) Even if we were to say 50 million Protestants in America and 1% of them doing their own thing, that results in 500,000 denominations.
So the argument and reasoning is not unfair at all. And I've encountered enough "just me and my Bible" Protestants to accept the serious likelihood for such a massive amount of denominations exist.
As for the encyclopedia where the 33,000 denominations figure came from, properly interpreting the data and applying the same reasoning above yields no less than 10,000 denominations.
"As for the encyclopedia where the 33,000 denominations figure came from, properly interpreting the data and applying the same reasoning above yields no less than 10,000 denominations."
ReplyDeleteRight, and I guess proper interpretation of that data would include subtracting out the hundreds of Catholic denominations listed in that same encyclopedia, huh Nick?
Matt,
ReplyDeleteYou are exactly right. Since the Encyclopedia was counting 238 denominations of Catholicism (*one for all 238 countries*) meant the 33,000 number had to be properly scaled down. That's how the data points to something around 10,000 Protestant denominations and not 33,000.
Nick, for one thing, There is just barely 190 countries in the world, not 238. Second, even if we were to accept that there are 238 countries for the sake of argument, what makes you think that each of these divisions are all just part of one denomination which shares the exact same doctrine? Why doesn't it show just as much disunity amongst catholics as it does amongst protestants?
ReplyDeleteYou can still make other arguments for the existence of ten-thousand protestant denominations, Nick. That isn't an issue I necessarily dispute, but you're still making a very bad argument for this case if you utilize the OWC encyclopedia as a source.
Nick wrote:
ReplyDelete"To begin with, I never saw you cite an actual source for John's words, so that's irresponsible blogging (and could turn up slanderous)."
No, I was trusting a reliable source (James Swan) on a minor point. As I explained in my initial post in this thread, the sentiment expressed in the quote is common, even though it usually doesn't take the heightened form it did in the quote I posted. Even if James Swan's quote had turned out to be unreliable, I still would have been responding to a common Catholic argument.
You write:
"One of the leading examples is when it comes to Protestants deciding whether (orthodox) Catholics are 'Christian' or not. You'd be amazed at how much leeway one Protestant will grant another Protestant, but how this doesn't often translate into leeway for the Catholic. A common example is when Calvinists 'graciously extend' the title of 'Christian' to Arminians but not to Catholics."
Take that up with the Protestants you have in mind. I'm not one of them.
And why should we think that it's wrong to accept the Christian status of an Arminian, but not a Catholic? It would be inconsistent under some circumstances, but you haven't defined the circumstances enough to establish your point.
You write:
"This claim, but itself, doesn't prove or suggest anything. There can be various views on Jesus or any other topic and not have that entail or involve division. Further, your argument betrays the fact both Protestants and Catholics start on a lot of common ground as to the historical existence of Jesus, inspiration of Scripture, etc, etc, so it's bogus to try and attack that foundation with 'there are tons of views of Jesus'."
I wasn't addressing "division". I was addressing disagreement.
And how is the fact that (some) Protestants and Catholics agree about Jesus (on some issues) relevant to what I said?
You write:
"And I've encountered enough 'just me and my Bible' Protestants to accept the serious likelihood for such a massive amount of denominations exist."
I wasn't addressing the number of denominations. You're ignoring most of what I said, and you're trying to move the discussion in a different direction.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteIt all depends on how countries/territories are being divided up. The Encyclopedia is using the number 238, so this is the figure I used in *analyzing* the data, not just misquoting the page that says "33,000" as too many have done.
You asked: "what makes you think that each of these divisions are all just part of one denomination which shares the exact same doctrine?"
In many cases, that is true, that's why, based on the *data*, the number must be less than 33,000, since a significant number of that figure are simply the same denomination just separated geographically. But it's not likely that all are simply separated geographically, nor (especially) is it likely that most of those denominations are in many countries (much less every country).
As for the OWC - it's to be taken with a grain of salt, ultimately. There is nothing dogmatic about it. That aside, there are way too many denominations, causing serious scandal to the Gospel, and simply going the approach of Martignoni is a reasonable guide to how bad things are.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteYou said: "Take that up with the Protestants you have in mind. I'm not one of them."
Not one of which type? The Calvinist who does *not* extend the title of Christian to Arminians?
You said: "And why should we think that it's wrong to accept the Christian status of an Arminian, but not a Catholic? It would be inconsistent under some circumstances, but you haven't defined the circumstances enough to establish your point."
The circumstances are typically that the Arminians trust in Christ alone, despite having the wrong views on the doctrines of grace. In other words, Rome can have heretical views on the doctrines of grace and be condemned, while Arminians are graciously given a pass for their heretical views on soteriology. Folks like Matt Slick of CARM take this view.
You said: "And how is the fact that (some) Protestants and Catholics agree about Jesus (on some issues) relevant to what I said?"
Because you were giving off the impression we were in a bind since we were simply picking out of an ocean of conflicting evidence on who "the real" Jesus was.
You said: "I wasn't addressing the number of denominations. You're ignoring most of what I said, and you're trying to move the discussion in a different direction."
No, you were confusing two different issues from the very start (and I made mention of that in my first post), number of divisions due to Sola Scriptura and reliability or likelihood of sifting through an ocean of evidence to build one's case.
John is saying: Sola Scriptura is the root cause of these scandalous divisions in Protestantism.
Jason is saying: How do you know what the truth is given that there's hundreds of conflicting books on Christ?
Two different and unrelated arguments. The latter argument is of no relevance (at least here) and non-sequitur.
Nick wrote:
ReplyDelete"Not one of which type? The Calvinist who does *not* extend the title of Christian to Arminians?...The circumstances are typically that the Arminians trust in Christ alone, despite having the wrong views on the doctrines of grace. In other words, Rome can have heretical views on the doctrines of grace and be condemned, while Arminians are graciously given a pass for their heretical views on soteriology. Folks like Matt Slick of CARM take this view."
I'm not a Calvinist, I'm not Matt Slick, and I don't define orthodox soteriology by "the doctrines of grace". I've explained how I do define it in our previous discussions about justification.
You write:
"Because you were giving off the impression we were in a bind since we were simply picking out of an ocean of conflicting evidence on who 'the real' Jesus was."
You're not answering my question. Again, what's the relevance of agreement about Jesus among Protestants and Catholics?
You write:
"John is saying: Sola Scriptura is the root cause of these scandalous divisions in Protestantism. Jason is saying: How do you know what the truth is given that there's hundreds of conflicting books on Christ? Two different and unrelated arguments. The latter argument is of no relevance (at least here) and non-sequitur."
Instead of giving us your own summary of what I've supposedly been arguing, why don't you interact with what I said?
I didn't refer to "hundreds of conflicting books on Christ". I referred to views of Jesus. Earlier, you responded to me by referring to agreement about Jesus among Protestants and Catholics. You still haven't explained the relevance of that response. And now you're referring to "hundreds of conflicting books on Christ", which is also different than what I was addressing. Why do you keep changing the subject?
In order to get a number like "hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Protestant denominations", you have to define a lot of highly similar organizations as different denominations. I don't consider it "scandalous" if two conservative Baptist churches are governmentally independent of one another. If you want to limit the "scandalous" description to only a portion of the Protestant denominational differences, then you'll have to explain which ones and why.
Do you think it's "scandalous" when a liberal Catholic theologian, a conservative Catholic theologian, a Buddhist, and an atheist have such different views of Jesus? Do you conclude that "Jesus is the root cause" of such "scandal", with the same sort of negative implications you've suggested concerning sola scriptura?
Jason,
ReplyDeleteYou said: "I'm not a Calvinist, I'm not Matt Slick, and I don't define orthodox soteriology by "the doctrines of grace". I've explained how I do define it in our previous discussions about justification."
That's just it, as I originally said, there is a double standard in this regard, even if you don't fall prey to it (which I'm not going to discuss now), it's common among Protestant apologists.
You asked: "Again, what's the relevance of agreement about Jesus among Protestants and Catholics?"
The relevance is that both sides can cut through the confusion surrounding the real Jesus and come to an accurate orthodox and historical view on Christ. Thus to spin the argument as if we're all faced with a mountain of contradictory evidence is not only bogus, it's irrelevant to John's point.
You said: "Instead of giving us your own summary of what I've supposedly been arguing, why don't you interact with what I said?"
I've been interacting with what you said.
You said: "I didn't refer to "hundreds of conflicting books on Christ". I referred to views of Jesus."
Distinction without much difference. Your point was there was a mountain of conflicting testimony and teaching on Christ and that we had to dig through.
J: "Earlier, you responded to me by referring to agreement about Jesus among Protestants and Catholics. You still haven't explained the relevance of that response."
The relevance is that common ground (between Protestants and Catholics) cannot be used as a basis to claim a double standard. The mountain of data has been sifted through by both sides and agreement has been found on who the "real Jesus" is. This has no bearing on the fact Sola Scriptura is the root cause of Protestant divisions.
(2 of 2)
ReplyDeleteJ: "In order to get a number like "hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Protestant denominations", you have to define a lot of highly similar organizations as different denominations. I don't consider it "scandalous" if two conservative Baptist churches are governmentally independent of one another."
The tally includes doctrinal differences as well as ecclesial. Two churches could be similar in doctrine but governmentally/ecclesially autonomous. To be governmentally autonomous is scandalous in that communion doesn't exist; each church is doing their own thing, and neither pastor submits to anyone but themself.
I know many conservative and well educated Protestants who don't belong to any denomination and just attend whatever church is nearby when/if they feel like it, they don't submit to any creed or confession, and their statement of faith is their own private concoction. Even if what they believe is similar to other Protestants, there is still very real scandal in the fact there is no actual communion and instead a "go it alone" mentality.
J: If you want to limit the "scandalous" description to only a portion of the Protestant denominational differences, then you'll have to explain which ones and why.
Scandal arises when any two parties (consisting of at least one individual), each claiming to be Christian and following the Scriptures alone, are not in communion with eachother for either doctrinal or ecclesial reasons. Scandal is something either sinful or apparently sinful (e.g. drinking excessively even if not getting drunk) that gives rise to onloookers either being led into sin themself or forming negative judgment (e.g. contempt) about Christianity.
J: Do you think it's "scandalous" when a liberal Catholic theologian, a conservative Catholic theologian, a Buddhist, and an atheist have such different views of Jesus? Do you conclude that "Jesus is the root cause" of such "scandal", with the same sort of negative implications you've suggested concerning sola scriptura?
The scandal in that situation only applies to the Liberal Catholic theologian, for publicly dissenting upon the Truth. Jesus is not the root cause here, but rather disobedience to the authority of the Church. With Sola Scriptura, each believer has the right to interpret as they see fit, and thus "scandal" only loosely applies within Protestant framework (hence why so few Protestants have any problems with the rampant divisions).
NICK SAID:
ReplyDelete"The relevance is that both sides can cut through the confusion surrounding the real Jesus and come to an accurate orthodox and historical view on Christ. Thus to spin the argument as if we're all faced with a mountain of contradictory evidence is not only bogus, it's irrelevant to John's point."
That's an impressive concession to sola Scriptura. You're making progress!
Normally, Catholic apologists assure us that an orthodox Christology is unobtainable by Scripture alone. Scripture must be supplemented by ecumenical councils to arrive at an orthodox Christology. They assure us that apart from the Magisterium, we might as well be Arians.
NICK SAID:
ReplyDelete"I know many conservative and well educated Protestants who don't belong to any denomination and just attend whatever church is nearby when/if they feel like it, they don't submit to any creed or confession, and their statement of faith is their own private concoction. Even if what they believe is similar to other Protestants, there is still very real scandal in the fact there is no actual communion and instead a 'go it alone' mentality."
Of course, that's only "scandalous" from a Catholic perspective, which begs the question.
And the logic is reversible: what is scandalous to a Catholic may not be scandalous to a Protestant while what is scandalous to a Protestant may not be scandalous to a Catholic. Hence, your objection is self-defeating.
Nick said:
ReplyDelete"That's just it, as I originally said, there is a double standard in this regard, even if you don't fall prey to it (which I'm not going to discuss now), it's common among Protestant apologists."
That's another unsupported assertion. And, even if true, it wouldn't apply to me or to Protestants inherently.
You write:
"The relevance is that both sides can cut through the confusion surrounding the real Jesus and come to an accurate orthodox and historical view on Christ."
And we can "cut through the confusion" regarding scripture, despite the disagreements that exist.
You write:
"Thus to spin the argument as if we're all faced with a mountain of contradictory evidence is not only bogus, it's irrelevant to John's point."
I didn't say that "we're all faced with a mountain of contradictory evidence". I referred to a large number of views of Jesus, which isn't the same as saying that there's "a mountain of contradictory evidence".
You write:
"The relevance is that common ground (between Protestants and Catholics) cannot be used as a basis to claim a double standard. The mountain of data has been sifted through by both sides and agreement has been found on who the 'real Jesus' is."
How does the fact that Protestants and Catholics agree about something prove that Catholics aren't inconsistent? It doesn't.
And there are disagreements among Protestants and Catholics about Jesus. Conservative Protestants and conservative Catholics agree with each other on many of the relevant issues, but they also disagree on some points (what Jesus taught about the eucharist, whether He founded the Roman Catholic Church, etc.). And there are Protestants and Catholics who aren't conservative in their view of Jesus.
(continued below)
(continued from above)
ReplyDeleteYou write:
"To be governmentally autonomous is scandalous in that communion doesn't exist; each church is doing their own thing, and neither pastor submits to anyone but themself."
Why are we supposed to agree with you that "communion doesn't exist" among governmentally independent churches? Scripture refers to unity among those who aren't governmentally united (Luke 9:49-50), and it refers to disunity among those who belong to the same congregation (1 Corinthians 11:18, Philippians 4:2-3). As even many Catholic scholars acknowledge, there was no papacy in the earliest generations of church history. The earliest churches had much in common and often worked with one another, but they weren't united under a Pope as one worldwide denomination. Where did Jesus and the apostles suggest that it would be "scandalous" for two doctrinally orthodox congregations to be governmentally independent of one another? We know that they considered much of what happens in Catholicism unacceptable (disputes between liberal and conservative Catholics, disagreements similar to the one mentioned in Philippians 4:2-3, etc.). You're maintaining a standard of unity that Jesus and the apostles didn't teach while your denomination widely and frequently violates the standard of unity they did teach.
You write:
"The scandal in that situation only applies to the Liberal Catholic theologian, for publicly dissenting upon the Truth. Jesus is not the root cause here, but rather disobedience to the authority of the Church."
Jesus and the apostles condemned anybody who doesn't believe in Christ. The Buddhist and atheist I referred to are condemned, regardless of whether you want to call their behavior "scandalous". Why should we be focused on your unsupported definition of that particular term?
Just as the widespread disagreements about and disobedience to Jesus don't prove the insufficiency of Jesus, so also the widespread disagreements about and disobedience to scripture don't prove the insufficiency of scripture.
You write:
"With Sola Scriptura, each believer has the right to interpret as they see fit, and thus 'scandal' only loosely applies within Protestant framework (hence why so few Protestants have any problems with the rampant divisions)."
The claim that "so few Protestants have any problems with the rampant divisions" is absurd, and you don't offer any support for the claim. As I mentioned earlier, scripture doesn't define unity as belonging to one worldwide denomination. Rather, it defines unity in terms of personal relationships, doctrine, and other matters that Protestants have often been concerned about. That's why Protestants so often make an effort to be reconciled with other individuals, discuss their doctrinal disagreements with one another, work with other congregations and denominations, etc. They fall short of the ideal (as the early patristic Christians did), but there's a large gray area between the ideal and "so few Protestants having any problems with the rampant divisions".
"It all depends on how countries/territories are being divided up. The Encyclopedia is using the number 238, so this is the figure I used in *analyzing* the data, not just misquoting the page that says "33,000" as too many have done."
ReplyDeletei) Just for clarity's sake, there is no page that says 33,000. That's a myth. You wouldn't be misquoting that page's number because the page doesn't have that number. You would just be perpetuating a falsehood.
ii)So you used 238 to "analyze" the data. What does that mean? You just took the number, conjured up some ad-hoc (not to mention inaccurate) idea to explain away the apparent division the OWC shows (according to Catholics), and that's how you analyze data?
"In many cases, that is true, that's why, based on the *data*, the number must be less than 33,000, since a significant number of that figure are simply the same denomination just separated geographically."
i) How do you know the 'doctrines are identical in many cases' from the OWC?
ii)Even if most of them were identical to each other, why aren't they all united, if the Catholic church is such a uniting religion that resists the divisions into denominations?
"But it's not likely that all are simply separated geographically, nor (especially) is it likely that most of those denominations are in many countries (much less every country)."
Again, how do you know this from the OWC? Is this just another ad-hoc assumption on your part?