The Bible as it stands, is the anchor and the foundation, along with the Holy Spirit man

Well, not really

I think that mis characterises quite of lot of Christianity man

I mean have you been granted the gift of infallibility?

No, that's why we have Eccumenial Councils

The early church tooks years to hammer out the doctrines on the trinity and the person of christ

In that sense those councils were helpful

yes, they determine what is heresy or not

But it is authorative because it is derived from what has been said in scripture

yes, and you're saying we let fractured churched determine theological matters

They are not authorative because some bishop was like, 'meh, screw it.. that verse means this'

that's not how the Councils worked

Its authorative because they all were knoweledagble and debated like crazy about the passages

and looked at the scriputres in context and in reference to other parts of scripture

yes, so they deserve to determine what is heretical or not

Protestant churches haven't really decided much on primary matters man. Not much of the very central primary stuff has change, if at all

Protestant churches differ on secondary matters that don't determine whether someone is saved or not

They didn't declare sola fide as infallible truth, because they read the Book of John and declared that faith without works is dead

Yes

Yes, the primary stuff *has* changed

such as how to get to heaven

Along with the books of James man

Faith without works is dead

James 2:14-17

Faith is there, but for me at least and the reformed tradition

It is on God to plant that seed of faith, as god draws those whom he has elected to salvation purely out of his grace and goodness, not because we deserve it and whatnot

But once that faith is there, we should be doing those works anyway, as a showing of the fruth of the spirit at work

Consider the fact that the protestants broke away from the catholics who broke away from the Orthodox by rejecting an Eccumenial Council, it's only logical to determine that the Orthodox are the original branch
Also, it's completely possible to have faith while not doing works

“by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9)

I forgot what's Eph

Ephesians bro

Protestants broke away form the catholic church because they though that papacy was silly and too political and whatnot.. plus indulgences was like the biggest scam ever

They went back to basics

the bare basics which isn't enough

Went back to scripture, instead of just relying on Priests saying that we need to attend mass and participate in the eurcharist to achieve salvation

But Jesus is our High Priest, as you would know, from Hebrews

Basics, as in Sola Scriptura

Actually, let me tell you how 2:8-10 should be interperated

instead of Scripture, plus what the popes had to say plus like gazillion different saints and authors who had stuff to say

Plus your local priest

But you have to remeber, a lot of this had to do with the free spread of information.. due to the printing press. It wasn't just some priest reading form a gold leaf handwritten bible written in Latin, being read and interepreated to a crowd of mostly uneducated peasants (literally)