Victor R. Claveau, MJ
The Bible, nothing but the Bible, freely interpreted by everyone was, from the beginning of the Protestant Revolt, and still is the Protestant rule of faith. [1]
The Protestant reformers rejected the authority of the Catholic Church and put forth Scripture alone as one of the cardinal principles of Protestantism; it declares that all of divine revelation is contained exclusively in the Bible. They maintained that the Holy Spirit would guide each person in the proper understanding of Scripture. Hence, the subjectivity and variety of Protestant belief. Therefore, it denies the validity of Sacred Tradition. Sola scriptura is one of the five solae,[2] considered by some Protestant groups to be the theological pillars of the Reformation.
Moreover, Protestants profess a personal faith (Faith alone – Sola Fide) whereby they are assured that their sins have been forgiven through the merits of Christ’s sacrifice. This is the faith which according to Protestant teaching, justifies without works.
The primary scriptural justification for this premise is 2 Timothy 3:16-17:
“All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (RSVCE).
Thesis. — The Protestant Rule of Faith is Untenable.[3]
First Argument. — This rule of faith is contrary to the will of Christ, and condemned by Scripture itself.
a. Protestants, if faithful to their rule of faith, must prove to us by clear texts from Scripture that the apostles received from their divine Master the command to write the teachings which fell from His lips. Far from being able to do this, they find as we do, when they read the Bible, that Christ, after founding His Church upon Peter and the twelve apostles, did not say to them, Go distribute Bibles, but, “Go teach all nations, preach the kingdom of God to them; teach them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you; he that hears you hears Me.”
b. Christ giving example in his own person preached, but he wrote nothing. Nowhere do we find that he founded a religion to be taught by writing, still less that it was to be done exclusively by writing. “Christ,” says St. John Chrysostom, “left no written instructions to His apostles; but instead of books He promised them the Holy Spirit, who would inspire them what they should say.”
c. The apostles, to whom Christ promised that the Holy Spirit would recall all that He had taught them, did as their Master commanded them. It was by preaching that faith was propagated in the world. It was only occasionally that a few of the apostles committed their teachings to writing. The other apostles wrote nothing, and yet they converted whole nations. It was only at the end of the first century, about sixty-seven years after the death of Christ, that the books of the New Testament were completed; yet the faithful could not have been without a rule of faith during all these years. Moreover, the sacred writers constantly refer to a parallel oral teaching; they formally declare that they wrote only a very small portion of Our Savior’s teachings; and they exact the same respect for what they taught by word of mouth as for what they had written. (2 Jn 5:12.) “Stand fast, brethren/’ says St. Paul to the Thessalonians, who were already Christians, “and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle” (2 Thess. ii. 14). And to Timothy (2 Tim. 2:2): “The things which thou hast heard of me by many witnesses, the same commend to faithful men, who shall be fit to teach others.”
d. It is well known that we have no biblical authority, no authority but tradition, for example, for the substitution of Sunday for the Sabbath, for the validity of baptism administered by heretics. If there be in the Church a certain and unchangeable rule, followed by all the Fathers, proclaimed by all Councils, and observed by all her Doctors, it is assuredly this: To follow most faithfully the command so often repeated by St. Paul: O Timothy, that keep which is committed to thy trust” (I Tim. 6:20). Keep, as St. Vincent of Lerins explains, not what you have discovered yourself, but what has been entrusted to you; not what you have yourself invented, but what has been handed to you by others; not what your own mind has told you, but what you have learned from your predecessors; not what you have established by your individual efforts, but what you have received from hand to hand, by a public and official tradition, whereof you are not the author, but a simple guardian.
Second Argument. — This rule of faith is condemned by the teaching of the history of the Church. According to the testimony of St. Irenaeus, there were, even in his time, many barbarous nations who believed in Christ, though paper and ink were unknown among them. These countries did not have the Holy Scriptures, and yet the same saint attests that they preserved the faith pure and intact by means of tradition. Do we find anywhere in the history of later times that the baggage of the ministers of the Church consisted of books which they distributed before they preached? How, moreover, would this have been possible before the invention of printing, that is, during the fourteen centuries when copies of the Bible were few and very expensive? During this period the majority of the faithful had little means of instruction save the oral teaching of the ministers of the Church, and yet they were Christians.
From all that we have said it is evident that the Church was founded without the Bible, and that it existed before the Bible. The gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the epistles, and the Apocalypse did not form the Christian communions or the Church, but they were addressed to these communions already formed. Thus St. Augustine had good reason to declare that he would not believe the Gospel except on the authority of the Catholic Church.
Third Argument. — In any case, if the Bible freely interpreted by all were the only rule of faith, very large classes even of the present day would be deprived of the means of salvation, for there is a large majority that cannot read, or whose laborious life leaves them no time to read. And yet, according to Protestant teaching, every one must verify for himself the inspiration of Holy Scripture, the true meaning of each verse, as well as the authenticity, integrity, and fidelity of the version in his hands. If God had given the Bible as a rule of faith, if He had, as Protestantism insists, made it a law for all Christians to read the Bible for themselves, He would have made the entrance to the Church, to eternal salvation, impossible for nearly all men, particularly for the poor. Now one of the special marks which Christ has given of His divine mission is that the poor shall have the Gospel preached to them, and He declares them His favorite children (Lk. 4:18; 7:22).
Fourth Argument. — Without the authority of the Church it is impossible to establish the full canon of Scripture and to offer to the faith of believers a clearly and positively defined body of doctrine. In fact, Protestants, even the most learned among them, cannot be certain that the Bible is inspired, that is, that it contains the word of God, not simply that of man. Nor can they be certain what books form part of the Bible. The testimony of history, the agreement of manuscripts, criticism, furnish only a human authority, upon which it would be impossible to make an act of divine faith. Criticism, moreover, has led Protestants to cut off successively from the list of the sacred books nearly all the books of the Old and the New Testament; and many of them even deny that any part of the Scripture is inspired.
Conclusion. — The following simple dilemma suffices to prove the falseness of Protestantism: During the first period of its existence either the Church of Christ was buried in error or it had preserved the integrity and purity of its doctrine. In the first case, the promises which guaranteed the stability and perpetuity of the Church were not fulfilled, consequently the Author of these promises was not God nor was He sent by God. Hence, we have no need to concern ourselves with His work, still less with the work of Luther or Calvin. If, on the contrary, the Church of Christ remained pure in its doctrine, this Church was the Church of Rome or it was another. If it was another church, Protestantism ought to have allied itself with that other Christian society, which was the true Church. Now this it did not do. If this true Church was the Church of Rome, then Protestantism had no right or reason to separate from her, and in rebelling against her it proclaimed its own illegitimacy.
May our separated brethren remember that their ancestors were Catholics, and that in adopting the Catholic faith they are not changing to a new religion; they are only returning to the bosom of the Church which their fathers unfortunately abandoned three centuries ago.
Commentaries by the Church Fathers on 2 Timothy 3:15-16:
3:15 – The Sacred Writings Are Able to Instruct you.
True Wisdom, St. John Chrysostom,
“For he who knows the Scriptures as he ought, is not offended at anything that happens. He endures all things patiently, referring them partly to faith, and to the incomprehensible nature of the divine dispensation, and partly knowing reasons for them, and finding examples in the Scriptures.… Know this, however, that God dispenses all things, that he provides for all, that we are free agents, that some things he works, and some things he permits. Indeed, wills nothing evil to be done; for all things are not done by His will, but some by ours also. All evil things by ours alone, all good things by our will conjointly with his influence. Thus, nothing is without His knowledge. Therefore, He works all things. You then knowing this can reckon what things are good, what are evil, and what are indifferent.” (Homilies on 2 Timothy 8).
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Reasons to Remain Steadfast.
“Paul here lays our four reasons why Timothy should remain steadfast, if he will recall them: first, because of the teacher from whom he learned; second, the time when he learned it; third, the source from which the teaching came; and finally, the sublime purpose for which he learned it. (Commentary on 2 Timothy).
[1] From most of the first century the Bible was not complete. The faithful received the rule of faith by word of mouth (Sacred Tradition); hence, St. Paul writing to the Thessalonians says: “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter (2 Thess. 2:14). Saints Peter and Paul never saw the entire New Testament. Moreover, some of the Epistles written by the Apostles were lost. The Bible cannot be received as the sole rule of faith, because it does not contain God’s complete revelation. The Bible does not tell us how many Divine Books there are, or which they are; if we did not know this from Sacred Tradition, we would not even have a Bible. The Apostles, through whom the revelations of Jesus came to us, were commissioned to teach, not to write.
[2] The Reformers were known to have only clearly stated two of the five sola; Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide. Even today there are differences as to what constitutes the solae, how many there are, and how to interpret them to reflect the Reformers’ beliefs.
[3] This section was adapted from: Christian Apologetics: A Defense of the Catholic Faith, by Rev. Walter Devivier, S.J., New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1908.