Considering Catholicism - Part III Sola Scriptura

I have often been told that Catholicism greatly devalues the scriptures and puts more faith in what the Pope says than in the Word of God. This seemed credible at first. I believed that the scripture alone, as interpreted for us by the Holy Spirit, was all we needed – and anyone who preached differently was dreadfully misguided.

Yet, the doctrine of sola scriptura has created many obvious problems: there are now thousands of different Protestant churches, all of which preach a different doctrine based on their own interpretation of the scriptures.

It seems increasingly clear to me that relying solely on our own personal interpretation of scripture, without the aid of any authoritative guide, will lead us to confusion and the spreading of unbelief.

In fact, the Bible talks of such confusion: “Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked the man. ‘How can I’ he said ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. (Acts 8:30-31)”

Accordingly, unless someone explains the scriptures to us how can we really understand them?

I am now beginning to believe that it is neither unreasonable nor unscriptural to suppose that the Lord would have given us something or someone in addition to the scriptures to help guide us.

Protestants often recite 2 Timothy 3:16 as confirmation of their sola scriptura teachings:

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

However, that passage only proves that the scriptures are useful, not that they are wholly sufficient in themselves -- I can find no scripture which states such a thing as that.

John Henry Newman, a famous adult convert to Catholicism explains the error of sola scriptura teachings clearly. He says,

"Surely then, if the revelations and lessons in Scripture are addressed to us personally and practically, the presence among us of a formal judge and standing expositor of its words is imperative. It is antecedently unreasonable to suppose that a book so complex, so unsystematic, in parts so obscure, the outcome of so many minds, times, and places, should be given us from above without the safeguard of some authority; as if it could possibly from the nature of the case, interpret itself. Its inspiration does guarantee its truth, not its interpretation. How are private readers satisfactorily to distinguish what is didactic and what is historical, what is fact and what is vision, what is allegorical and what is literal, what is [idiomatic] and what is grammatical, what is enunciated formally and what occurs, what is only of temporary and what is of lasting obligations. Such is our natural anticipation, and it is only too exactly justified in the events of the last three centuries, in the many countries where private judgment on the text of Scripture has prevailed. The gift of inspiration requires as its complement the gift of infallibility."

Like it or not, when Protestants preach the doctrine of sola scriptura, they are essentially putting their faith in the Catholic Church’s ability to originally determine which scriptures would even make up the Bible. Since, after all, the Catholic Church is the authority which initially formed the canon of scripture.

Without an authoritative guide, i.e. the Catholic Church, it seems to me that Christians will inevitably splinter into thousands of opposing fragmentary groups, as we have already witnessed in great proportion.

I am beginning to believe that if we are to truly understand the scriptures then there must be an apostolic unity of teaching.