TMal3 said:
You again keep misrepresenting what I say and then attacking your strawman creations to make you feel like you’ve proven something when you've proven nothing. "What today is deemed scripture by all the church throughout the world" is what I deem as divinely inspired, infallible, authoritative sacred Scripture too, so stop saying I don't. Stop trying to create these strawman positions that I don't hold. That's is disingenuous.
And your "argument" is the most convoluted piece of eisegesis I think I've ever seen to force Scripture to say what you want it to say, instead of letting it speak for itself. And even if I grant you said argument, 2 Tim 3 still only refers to the Old Testament.
(You also conflate "the word of God" with "Scripture" when the apostles usually use these terms separately. Thus, for example, in 2 Tim 3.16-17 Paul speaks of Scripture, but in the same letter in 2 Tim 2.8-9 refers to the gospel message as "the word of God.":
2 Timothy 2.8-9
8 Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, 9 for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!
Try to be a good listener: I too believe the Bible is the "Word of God" in that it is divine revelation. But that still doesn't change the fact that references in the Bible to the "Word of God" are not referring to the Bible, which didn't yet exist (and you know it, so it's absurd to try to deny it)
1. The Bible is the Word of God in that it is inspired divine revelation--FACT
2. The phrase "Word of God" in the Bible is not referring to the Bible--ALSO FACT
*But sure, you keep pretending I'm saying something else.
The "self-contradiction" in your argument is its fatal flaw. Catholic polemic against sola scriptura is unsound and absurd because of these elementary facts: Scripture is the "word of God" and therefore the phrase "the word of God" does refer to Scripture generally. End of argument.
It is irrelevant, immaterial and incompetent the phrase can be found also referring to Jesus as "the Word of God" or Paul's oral tradition as "the Word of God", because Paul obviously that tradition (and more!) in his writings---Today Paul's writings ARE Holy Scripture:
For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. (1 Thess. 2:13 NKJ)
And Peter called Paul's writings Scripture:
15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation-- as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you,
16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. (2 Pet. 3:15-16 NKJ)
Peter says Paul "speaks" in his epistles = apostolic oral tradition written down, the Word of God Scripture.
Suppose Jesus' words were passed down generation after generation, and finally someone wrote the four gospels down and today we call it scripture. Do we then conclude the phrase "the word of God" does not refer to the Gospels?
Recall Jesus called His teachings the "Word of God":
So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, (Lk. 5:1 NKJ)
Not only were many things Jesus taught the masses recorded in Scripture, much of what only the disciples heard is there also. So your argument the phrase the "word of God" proves the Catholic Church has "word of God" Protestants do not, contradicts history. History, God's-Story. God knew how to get the Word of God written down, how faithless is it to suppose that was left to chance?
Catholic polemic against sola scriptura fails for another main reason, already mentioned. Catholics don't have the Word of God apart from the Scriptures. If they did, they would write it down and share it with us. The text, not their pontifications pretending to be infallible.
That Catholics do NOT have anything superior to Protestants, even though we are divided into many denominations, is proved by the constant change in Catholicism.
There are many versions of it throughout history begging the question "which version is correct?"
To illustrate, Catholics of the first few centuries would have been slain if they teleported into the future and landed in Spain during the Spanish inquisition.