"Proving Catholicism to be teaching false doctrine, and thus a manmade church"

So my opponent actually did NOT, in any rounds previous to his last reply, provide a definition of "mad made", though he claims he did. This is an inaccuracy at least, and at worst, a deception. He clearly did not previously define what makes something "mad-made" before the previous round, nor did he explain how his church is not. You will see, in this rebuttal, how my opponent's position is quite hypocritical, unscriptural, unhistoric, and untenable. Definition of man-made according to my opponent: He claims that if it is not found in the Bible then it is man-made, and a false doctrine. I would appreciate it, if my opponent would show me in the Bible where it says, that I one must find something in the Bible, or else it is a "man made" tradition. What verse is that exactly? Is the Sinner's prayer therefore man made? Is the Trinity? Is "Sola Scriptura"? Is the term "personal Lord and Savior" therefore a man made concept? Because you cannot find any of those terms in the Bible explicitly, rather they came from the teachings of men. Dismantling my opponent: Of course I would subscribe to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Although it is not explicitly mentioned in the Scriptures, it is taught through the scriptures and was a belief held by the early Catholic church (pre-Bible). It was through BOTH tradition and scripture (oral teachings and practices combined with the writings and teachings of the early Church) that this teaching is maintained. Surely my opponent would not disagree. This argument will be sustained for virtually all Catholic teachings my opponent dismisses as man-made. Every single catholic teaching has a scriptural basis. My opponent simply does not subscribe to these scriptural interpretations. But he would also not subscribe to any other protestant denomination to which he does not belong. And this is the exact problem with Sola Scriptura. Using Scripture, as the sole rule of doctrine, leads to 40,000 plus denominations ALL claiming to practice sola scriptura. Yet they cannot all agree. If Sola Scriptura was what Christ intended...why did He not preach it? Why did He not write anything down? Why did he not promise a book that would come later? Why did He not commission anyone to write it down? Of course He cites scripture, but that does not show how Scripture is the sole rule of faith, nor would it negate the Catholic position that it is BOTH Scripture and Tradition. Here is a short list of New Testament verses that go against Sola Scriptura: Jn 21:25 ... not everything is in the Bible. 2 Thess 2:15; 2 Tim 2:2; 1 Cor 11:2; 1 Thess 2:13 ... Paul speaks of oral tradition. Acts 2:42 ... early Christians followed apostolic tradition. 2 Pet 3:16 ... Bible hard to understand, get distorted. 2 Jn 1:12; 3 Jn 1:13-14 ... more oral tradition. 2 Pet 1:20-21 ... against personal interpretation. Acts 8:31; Heb 5:12 ... guidance needed to interpret scriptures. What Christ did give us...is a Church. A Church which would be built upon Peter (rock) (see Matthew 16), and against which the gates of Hell would not prevail. He gave us priests with special authority and that would act AS THE FINAL AUTHORITY (see Matthew 18: 17-18). Matthew 18:17-18King James Version (KJV) "17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. 18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Here we see that the church is the FINAL appeal, not scripture. He then gives special authority to His chosen few, who will be ministers onto the people in a special way. This comes from the lips of the Messiah. Here are some more verses on the authority of the Church (please note this authority all comes before the creation of the Bible): Acts 2:42 ... doctrine, community, sacred rite (bread). Eph 5:25-26 ... Christ loved the Church. 1 Tim 3:15 ... church is pillar/foundation of truth. Mt 16:18; 20:20 ... Christ protects Church. Heb 13:17 ... obey. Mt 18:17-18 ... church as final authority. Mt 23:2 ... Pharisees succeeded Moses (seat of Moses). 1 Cor 5:5; 1 Tim 1:20 ... excommunication. What were Christians doing for nearly 400 years without a Bible? Protestants Took Books out of the Bible: Why did the advocates of Sola Scriptura (The Protestant Reformers) get the audacity to take out multiple books from the Bible, and then profess "Scripture Alone"? What gave them the right to pervert what the Holy Spirit gave us? Why could they get rid of a 1000 year old canon? So it's "Scripture alone", but only when you remove books that show how your theology is demonstrably false. For example, the book of Maccabees (found in the original Bibles, before the Reformers butchered it) shows prayers for the dead. Luther and his kind took it out, and even added words....like "faith alone" in Romans. ^ http://www.catholicbible101.com... 2 Timothy 3:16 Does not teach Sola Scriptura: The closest he comes to this is talking about Sola Scriptura (which he still fails to fully define) and providing us with 2 Timothy 3:16. Notice that nowhere in 2 Timothy 3:16 say that ALL YOU NEED IS SCRIPTURE. He merely says it is "useful" or "profitable" (depending on your translation). That would be like me saying that playing and processing your scales on the piano is useful and profitable for becoming a great pianist, but it is NOT all that is required and certainly not sufficient. Furthermore, 2 Timothy was written BEFORE THERE WAS A BIBLE. In the proceeding verse, Paul refers to SCRIPTURES YOU HAVE KNOWN SINCE YOU WERE A CHILD...meaning the Old Testament. To further add to my own thoughts on this issue, I will cite Jimmy Akin, a former Evangelical Minister who came back to the Catholic Faith after researching the Early Church Fathers. "To begin with, in the opening clause of the passage, the phrase "All Scripture" is normally taken by Evangelicals to mean "All of Scripture" " in other words, a reference to the whole of the canon of Scripture, which coextensive with what a Protestant wishes to make normative for theology. This is natural for a Protestant since he things of the term "scripture" in the singular as a reference to the entire Bible and nothing but the Bible. But that is not the way the term is used in the Bible itself. The ability to refer to the Bible as a unified work is an invention of the age of moveable type. Prior to the existence of the printing press, Scripture was at best a set of individual, bound volumes. In the first century, when Paul was writing, it was a collection of several dozen scrolls. There was no way it was conceived of as a unified literary work, as it is today. As a result, a study of the way the New Testament uses the term "scripture" reveals that whenever the term is used in the singular " "scripture" " it always refers to either a specific book of Scripture or a specific passage within a book. It never refers to the whole of the corpus of works we today refer to under the unified title of "Scripture." When the Bible wants to refer to the whole of the corpus, it always uses the term in the plural " "the Scriptures," never "Scripture." Knowing this, we should be clued in to the presence of a mistranslation in the opening clause of 2 Timothy 3:16Open in Logos Bible Software (if available). Since the singular term "Scripture" is always used for an individual book of passage of the Bible, the phrase "All Scripture" would mean either "All individual book of the Bible" or "All individual passage of the Bible" " neither of which makes grammatical sense. And when we turn to the Greek of 2 Timothy 3:16Open in Logos Bible Software (if available), we find that there is, indeed, a mistranslation. The phrase rendered "All Scripture" is pasa graphe, which means "Every Scripture" " they key word being "every," not "all." This is an important distinction, and it makes grammatical sense of the phrase, given our knowledge of what the singular term "scripture" means (for "every individual book of Scripture" and "every individual passage of Scripture" certainly make grammatical sense). Had Paul wanted to refer to the entire corpus of Scripture, he would have used a different Greek phrase " something like hai pasai graphai ("the whole of the scriptures"), not pasa graphe, which means simply "every scripture" (a fact which even some of the biggest advocates of using 2 Timothy 3:16-17Open in Logos Bible Software (if available), such as anti-Catholic James White, have admitted). This is important because it makes it totally impossible to use the passage to prove sola scriptura, because if one tries to use it in that way it will prove way too much. Since the passage says "Every Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, etc.," if this proved the sufficiency of Scripture, it would actually prove the sufficiency of each passage of Scripture for theology or at least the sufficiency of each book of Scripture for theology. This would mean that not only would the Bible as a whole be enough to prove every point of theology, but each individual passage or book would be sufficient. So you could do theology not only by Scripture alone but by Matthew alone or by Mark alone or Luke alone or what have you. You could do theology sola Matthew, sola Mark, sola Luke, or, to go to the shortest books of the Bible, even sola Jude or sola 3 John if you wanted. But that is clearly absurd. No single passage, and no single book, of Scripture contains all that we needs to know to do theology. As a result, 2 Timothy 3:16-17Open in Logos Bible Software (if available) cannot be used to prove sola scriptura. If it could, it would prove way more than sola scriptura." Source:http://jimmyakin.com...