Heh yeah I guess the brief thoughts got a bit long. This really will be a short response.
As Catholics we never believe it is ok to contradict the Bible. We don't accept the Church's teachings over and above the Bible, but rather the Church is seen as the authentic interpreter of the Scriptures. To repeat a point I made earlier, we see Jesus Christ as the fullness of Revelation and then we see the Bible and Tradition as two fonts through which that Revelation is mediated to us. Tradition and the Bible are meant to mutually support and guide one another.
Thus the difference is not between Catholics who side with the Church and Protestants who side with the Bible, it is a question of how we believe Christ desired to communicate His revelation to us through time. Did He simply leave us behind a book as a direction manual, or did He create a Church, instill it with His own Spirit, and through that Church give us Scriptures which that same Church allows us to properly understand
As Catholics we never believe it is ok to contradict the Bible. We don't accept the Church's teachings over and above the Bible, but rather the Church is seen as the authentic interpreter of the Scriptures. To repeat a point I made earlier, we see Jesus Christ as the fullness of Revelation and then we see the Bible and Tradition as two fonts through which that Revelation is mediated to us. Tradition and the Bible are meant to mutually support and guide one another.
Thus the difference is not between Catholics who side with the Church and Protestants who side with the Bible, it is a question of how we believe Christ desired to communicate His revelation to us through time. Did He simply leave us behind a book as a direction manual, or did He create a Church, instill it with His own Spirit, and through that Church give us Scriptures which that same Church allows us to properly understand
'... the Church is seen as the authentic interpreter of the Scriptures.'
exactly!
for Protestants,
the interpreter is the individual.
imo, out of this difference
stems every other difference.