Why So many Denominations?

Once again, I find myself way behind in my blogging.  No excuse, just a number of distractions mixed in with a dash of spring fever.  Anyway, back to the topic of a high vs low view of the Bible. 

20 years ago, when I was at another church, I would often meet with some of the men attending the University of North Texas for Bible study and sometimes just to discuss whatever was on their minds, current events, cultural shifts or whatever.  One night they came in with this question.  Why are there so many different denominations with differing theological views?  They presented it this way.  If all our pastors are prayerfully seeking the Holy Spirits guidance in their studies and work hard at objectively teaching what the Bible clearly says, why so many disagreements? 

After some discussion I put forth several options from which they could vote on for the most likely reason.  Option 1 - The Holy Spirit has a sense of humor and is leading them to different conclusions just to see the debates.  Zero Votes.  2. Maybe the pastors aren’t being truthful about their prayerful approach to study.  50/50 on the votes.  Most thought there might be some like that but were sure their pastor wasn’t like that.  3.  Maybe some of these pastors are more influenced by their education and mentors than they realize.  That got the most votes.     

They understood the impact of 2 Peter 1:21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.  If the Holy Spirit guided the human authors in writing the Bible, He wouldn’t lead someone to believe it meant something today different than what He had inspired the authors to write.  We know languages evolve over time.  The meaning of words can change with the culture.  But God doesn’t change and neither does the intent of His revealed word. 

Therefore, the words of the Bible should not be interpreted to mean something today they didn’t mean when first written down.  Unfortunately, not everyone follows that rule.  In a previous post I mentioned a survey of pastors in which only 25% of the respondents agreed with 2 Peter 1:21. So, the rest apparently followed either what they had been taught in seminary or the ‘what it means to me’ rules of interpretation.  And that is how we end up with so many different denominations and contradictory belief structures. 
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God created a universe that follows defined laws of physics, chemistry and biology.  Which means we can trust that the things we make using those rules will work as planned.  We trust reality will continue in its present state.  So, why would we not conclude that God would also have defined spiritual laws?