D12:
Wrong, as no matter how much you may desperately want to believe it, the fact is that "The Holy Scriptures cannot be infallibly interpreted by any human authority today" is a straw man, as it precludes anyone from making a correct, infallible "beyond speculation" interpretation of Scripture, when we see the NT church itself beginning because souls had correctly understood both writings and men as being of God, and not on the basis of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility. And even pagans can believe in God so surely in the light of natural revelation that they are without excuse.
47:
It's not a straw man unless you want to claim: That you are not a human being or...
That you do not read Scripture infallibly or...
That the Holy Spirit dictates to you, word for word, what the true meaning of Scripture is.
It's just that simple.
No, actually, it's fairly complex. I believe the distinction your are missing is the keyword "authority." If this is the premise in question:
The Holy Scriptures cannot be infallibly interpreted by any human authority today
... then it follows that each term is there for a syllogistic purpose, to link primary terms over an appropriate number of joining terms (middle terms). This is somewhat problematic for the above premise because it is an overly complex aggregation of ideas. Where are the boundaries on the primary and middle terms? I don't know. But let's take the premise at its word and assume we are not talking about private individuals per se but only that which fully satisfies all the (best guess) terms, because I think we can agree that not all interpreters of Scripture fall into the category of "human authority." I would further narrow this as stating that we are not talking about individual authority figures interpreting the text in a personal or private setting, but those interpreting the text in some official capacity, acting as an authority, and therefore merging the question of fallibility/infallibility with their exercise of authority. Else why include the qualifier "authority?"
That being the case, yes, the premise misses the evangelical point (i.e., is a straw man in this context) because it remains perfectly feasible under evangelical principles to say that any individual might interpret, for example, "Thou shalt not kill," correctly, and that the aggregation of believing individuals as guided by the Holy Spirit will over time and circumstance develop a correct consensus as to it's meaning, yet not in such a way that some authoritarian organization could come along and claim monopolistic control over such a passage, empowered to find against all reason and piety radical new meanings for the word "kill," such as for example, "anti-liberal microagressions," or else empowered to prohibit proselytizing others to accept the more obvious sense of the passage arrived at by standard exegesis, which BTW would account for both the physical sense in Moses and the NT sense of baseless anger.
So, contrary to your list of private individual-oriented objections, the above premise can be technically correct (depending on term boundaries) and yet there be an infallible source of truth available to believers, because while the evangelical does deny that infallible interpretive authority must be a
human authority, we still maintain it does reside in a
superhuman authority that is available to all believers, the word of God as illuminated by the Spirit of God.
BTW, the usual objection to this, that said unity is not real because a particular observer cannot see it, is rather like saying the Mona Lisa does not exist because those not in the Lourve museum cannot look directly at it, and do not believe the testimony of those who have seen it, nor do they trust the many pictures and articles that exist describing it. The existence of true unity in the true body of Christ is objective, but it is hidden in plain sight, just as Christ was, from those who judge by outward appearances, and not by the heart, as God does.
Peace,
SR
So, contrary to your list of private individual-oriented objections, the above premise can be technically correct (depending on term boundaries) and yet there be an infallible source of truth available to believers, because while the evangelical does deny that infallible interpretive authority must be a human authority, we still maintain it does reside in a superhuman authority that is available to all believers, the word of God as illuminated by the Spirit of God.THis is just claiming the same thing claimed for the Pope alone (and/or those in communion with him). Actually it's greater, because as Daniel pointed out the claim WRT the Pope and the bishops in union with him is not as great as claiming what is above, which that the Holy Spirit is a "superhuman authority that is available to all believers, the word of God as illuminated by the Spirit of God."
The passage in quotes above is the same situation as analyzed below:
...we are left with a belief that God (the Holy Spirit) somehow guides each of us individually, apart from any "IM", the exact manifestation of this guidance remains a mystery.
We each claim to have the gift of infallibility (from the Holy Spirit) UNLESS we claim that it's not us who are infallible but He who is infallible in us.
That is the same thing as saying He talks to us individually, with either an audible voice or one inside our head, to "teach us all things". However that's self deception, which anyone can see if one is humble enough.
There is a significant difference between:
Claiming Party A helps Party B with the aid of the Holy Spirit vs..
Claiming the Holy Spirit helps both party A and B directly.
The former protects Party B from error on only one given point at a time. It is not assured in the former that either Party A or B will be correct about everything, all the time. In fact it may at some other point in time be the Holy Spirit's will that Party B teaches Party A. This is the Catholic claim.
The latter protects both from error on all points. The latter is the Protestant claim, however is by definition "infallibility" because for all things both parties are protected from error. That's the definition of "infallibility".