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The devil in his pride thought to triumph by independent thought. He tried to reason apart from God’s authority and fell into his own trap.

You are conflating two very different things. Everyone here would probably agree that independence of thought is bad if it's independence from God. But independence of thought from bad influences, like false teachers for example? We MUST have that kind of independence, because that is how we walk in the light, even as He is in the light.

So what devices does the devil use to ensnare us? One key device is independence from one another, and his most successful innovation along those lines is causing religious persons to trust not another and be not mentored or under any others’ authority, and the chief-est accomplishment along those lines is the protestant mind.

A statement like this seems to expose a complete lack of real world experience with evangelicals/protestants. I've been a Protestant/evangelical my whole life. We argue about some things, true. But the vast majority of those who adhere to Scripture really are unified on a great many things. I can go (as I once did with my dad) to a little store-front church in Tijuana, Mexico, or a little Baptist outfit on Chicago's south side or a big cozy non-denominal Bible church in the suburbs and the doctrinal agreement will be almost 100%, AND there will be a unity of understanding how that plays out in life, chasity, respect for life and property, all the virtues and graces we call Christian.

Bottom line, having a whole lot of people adhere to Scripture is NOT a good outcome for Satan, because it does foster spiritual unity and a very broad and solid Christian interconnectedness. In my own Baptist church, we pray every Sunday morning for our brothers and sisters engaged in Gospel ministry all over Springfield, regardless of denominational labels and history. We don't need the false comfort of paper unity when we have the beating heart of true unity in the body of Christ.

Is God unable to continue in our very midst His presence in the consecrated bread and wine?

God is unable to deny His own nature. He is the founder of rationality and a sound mind. Transubstantiation is not miraculous. It is a verbal sleight of hand, a regression to debunked neoplatonic theories of being that have no place in Christian faith. Jesus defined the premise of his presence with us, not in the Eucharist, but in the assembly of believers with one another, for wherever two or three are gathered in His name, He is there in the midst of them. Period. No extra stuff needed.

As for your reference to 2 Peter 1:20, it is a much abused Scripture, and in no way makes the point you seem to think it does. Peter is not talking about the readers of Scripture but the writers. The verb is ginomai, a verb that describes not something that simply exists, but something that is coming into being. Paraphrased, no Scripture came into being through someone's private undertsanding, but it came into being as God moved holy men through the Holy Spirit to write it. This passage provides no excuse for blind following of any human institution. Sorry.

Peace,

SR

I can go (as I once did with my dad) to a little store-front church in Tijuana, Mexico, or a little Baptist outfit on Chicago's south side or a big cozy non-denominal Bible church in the suburbs and the doctrinal agreement will be almost 100%, AND there will be a unity of understanding how that plays out in life, chasity, respect for life and property, all the virtues and graces we call Christian.

At least in core teaches and more than in Catholicism, in which claims to unity is largely on paper, while cults boast the greatest unity, and a group that broke off from another break off group (which led to another splinter one true church) and only has a few churches in only about a dozen states, is hardly comparative.

As for your reference to 2 Peter 1:20, it is a much abused Scripture, and in no way makes the point you seem to think it does. Peter is not talking about the readers of Scripture but the writers. The verb is ginomai, a verb that describes not something that simply exists, but something that is coming into being.

And the abuse of this Scripture examples the very thing that it is supposedly used to combat.