By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Here is a simple question for those people who believe in sola Scriptura: If every Christian had the ability — a God-given ability, of course — to interpret Scripture on his own, why is it that there are so many contradictory doctrines held by those who espouse it? Bible interpretation is not an easy thing to do, and there are things hard to understand in many places. But many who are ignorant and unstable risk twisting the texts of St. Paul and the other Scriptures, with disastrous consequences.
But wait! Before you accuse me of being uncharitable, please read what St. Peter says, referring to St. Paul’s epistles. In his second encyclical, the first Pope warns that in the epistles of St. Paul there are “some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:16 ). Does it ring a bell? There you have the utter condemnation of sola Scriptura by the Prince of the Apostles!
In the same encyclical, or epistle if you wish, St. Peter also specifically rules out private interpretation of Scripture: “No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but…from God” (2 Peter 1:20). But he was not alone in this approach: In the Acts of the Apostles (8:31), we learn that St. Philip echoed him and likewise did not support private interpretation. When he asked the Ethiopian man who was reading the prophet Isaias if he understood the message, the Ethiopian replied: “How can I understand it unless someone guides me?” If St. Philip were a follower of Luther, he would have said, “No worries, mate, just keep on reading the book and the Holy Spirit will enlighten you.”
But he did not say so. He simply followed the basic rule of having an official and correct interpretation and then instructed the man on the true meaning of the prophecy, which came true in Christ. The Ethiopian accepted St. Philip’s interpretation and teaching, and was baptized forthwith.
Now something from our own times that prove the failure of sola Scriptura: Those of us who pay attention to daily events realize that a number of issues requiring moral guidance appear for Christians to solve, but the Bible is totally silent about them. For instance: Can a Christian indulge in gambling? Why Sunday rest and not Saturday? Could Baptism be repeated? Should we pray to the Holy Spirit? The list grows all the time, as new issues appear, and an authoritative interpretation is required, not the opinions of believers. Therefore, an authority is necessary to solve these issues. And Jesus gave us that authority: Peter, the apostles, and the Magisterium.
Another well-known practical proof that the Bible alone is thoroughly insufficient to be the sole rule of faith among Protestants is their prolific diversity of beliefs. It suffices to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit does not inspire every Tom, Dick, and Harry to learn the full truth correctly on his own. There are so many extravagant doctrines today, from the various kinds of rapture to the varieties of the television evangelists’ approaches.
And, since there is no authority among them to help solve disputes over fundamental doctrines, cacophony reigns supreme in the World Council of Churches.
But someone might say that “my pastor is sincere in his interpretation, and therefore deserves credit.” I do not deny the sincerity of any Protestant pastor’s interpretations, because I have no window into another man’s mind. But if someone appeals to their sincerity, I do know this much: Sincerity is not a guarantee of truth or goodness.
Every heretic in the early Church was undoubtedly sincere; he really believed that what he was saying was the truth. But it was not. Our minds do not make the truth — they discover it. Who can say that Hitler, Mussolini, or the Ayatollah Khomeini was not sincere? Of course they were; no one doubts it. They were sincerely wrong!
Now, among baptized Christians, if every sincere interpretation is to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit, this can only mean that God the Holy Spirit is suffering from a psychological condition, a kind of schizophrenia, since He would inspire totally irreconcilable and contradictory understandings to different people — but this would be an unthinkable absurdity.
The Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura is shown to be wrong on other grounds also, which we have dealt with in other articles of this section of The Wanderer: Scripture, history, and logic show ad nauseam that Christ founded a living, visible, hierarchical, teaching Church. Consequently, any attempt to bypass His manifest work and ascribe His religion to a single book is diametrically opposed to the truth of His message of salvation through His life and teachings. Any attempt to reduce the Christian religion to a single book is flawed at its roots and is contrary to the clear teaching of Christ found in the Bible itself.
Luther’s new doctrine of “Bible alone” also raises another major problem: If it were true, then the Church of Christ has been dreadfully wrong for 1,500 years, misleading millions of people into believing gross errors about authority, faith, and morals. Luther would, in a sense, have been like Joseph Smith, who claimed a new “prophetic” understanding of salvation and started his new church to replace the old by “purifying it” from all the errors concocted by the papists.
But here is the big, big problem: Jesus clearly and specifically promised to be with His Church till the end of time and to send the Holy Spirit to be with her. So His protection is guaranteed! But, if, from the very beginning, the Church of Christ failed in teaching such a fundamental doctrine like sola Scriptura, but instead taught many wrong things, then Jesus’ promise did not work: He failed in protecting His Church.
And this failure in protecting her has very serious consequences, because if He did fail, then He could not be the Son of God. Christianity as a whole would be a big historical joke. All those thousands of Christians who died for Christ would have laid down their lives in vain.
Since Jesus did establish the authority, sola Scriptura is dead wrong and extremely dangerous to salvation. If Jesus did not establish authority, then sola Scriptura is right but Jesus failed in His promise to protect the Church from error. Sorry, mate, you can’t have it both ways.
Next article: With sola Scriptura — The Orthodox Church.
+ + +
(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www. RaymonddeSouza.com.)
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress