Why is the Sola Scriptura (or Bible alone) not a competent guide for Christian religion? Great as is our reverence for the Bible, reason and experience compel us to say that it alone is not a competent guide for Christian religion wh...ich must possess these three qualifications: 1. It must be within the reach of every inquirer after truth. 2. It must be clear and intelligible to all. 3. It must present all the truths of the Christian religion. The Bible, however, possesses none of these three qualifications. Firstly, the Scriptures were not accessible to the primitive Christians. Since the New Testament was not completed till near the end of the first century, it was obviously not available to those who died before that time. Neither it was accessible to the Christians for the first four centuries since the canon or list of 27 books to comprise the New Testament was not determined by the Church till 393 A.D. Furthermore, it was not available from the fourth century to the fifteenth century because the printing press was not invented until about 1440 and hence it was impossible to provide each member with a copy. Even at the present time, as in all previous ages, there are millions to whom the Bible remains a sealed book. Secondly, the Bible is not clear and intelligible guide to all. There are many passages in the Bible which are difficult and obscure, not only to the ordinary person but to the highly trained scholar as well. St. Peter himself tells us that in the Epistles of St. Peter there are “certain things hard to understand, which the unlearned, as they do also the other scriptures to their own destruction” (2 Pet 3:16). Consequently, he tells us elsewhere “that no prophecy of the scripture is made by private interpretation” (2 Pet 1:20). St. Luke narrates in the Acts of the Apostles that a certain man was riding in his chariot, reading the Book of Isaiah. Upon being asked by St. Philip whether he understood the meaning of the prophecy, he replied: How can I understand unless some man show me? In these modest words is reflected the experience of practicality all readers of the Bible. True, in the first years of his separation from the Church, Luther declared that the Bible could be interpreted by everyone, “even by a humble miller’s maid, nay by a child of nine.” Later on, however, when the Anabaptists, the Zwinglians and others contradicted his views, the Bible became “ a heresy book”, most obscure and difficult to understand. He lived to see numerous heretical sects rise up and spread Christendom, all claiming to be based upon the Bible. Thus, in 1525 he sadly deplored the religious anarchy to which his own principle of the private interpretation of Scripture had given rise: “There are as many sects and beliefs as there are heads. This fellow will have nothing to do with Baptism; another denies the Sacrament; a third believes that there is another world between this and the Last Day. Some teach that Christ is not God; some say this, some that. There is no rustic so rude but that, if he dreams or fancies anything it must be a whisper of the Holy Ghost, and he himself a prophet” (Grisar, Luther IV, pp. 386-407). The thousands of bickering sects all claiming to draw their doctrines from the Bible offer abundant evidence that the Bible alone is not clear and safe guide. Thirdly, the Bible does not contain all the teachings of the Christian religion, nor does it formulate all the duties of its members. Take, for instance, the matter of Sunday observance, attendance at divine service, and abstention from unnecessary servile work on that day. This is a matter upon which our Protestant brothers have for many years laid great emphasis; yet nowhere in the Bible is the Sunday designated as the Lord’s day; the day mentioned is the Sabbath, the last day of the week. The early Church, conscious of her authority to teach in the name of Christ deliberately changed the day to Sunday: she did this to honor the day on which Christ rose from the dead and to signify that we are no longer under the Old Law of the Jews but under the New Law of Christ. St. John ends his Gospel by telling us “there are also many other things which Jesus did which are not written in this book”. St Paul emphasizes the importance of holding fast to the teachings transmitted not only by writing but also by word of mouth: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle” (2 Thess 2:14). From all of which it must be abundantly clear that the Bible alone is not a safe and competent guide because it is not now and has never been accessible to all, because it is not clear and intelligible to all, and because it does not contain all the truths of the Christian religion. The folly of attempting to make the Bible alone serve as a guide for each individual in matters of doctrine is becoming recognized by an increasingly large number of Protestants. In the leading Protestant weekly, “The Christian Century”, this folly was pointed out by the editor, Rev Charles Clayton Morrison. Writing on the “Protestant Misuse of the Bible,” he declares: “Protestantism has put the Bible in the wrong place… It has put it in the place which Christianity accords to Jesus Christ alone.” Here is how they came to make so fatal a mistake. “The reformers,” he continues, “ reacting violently against the Roman Catholic system with the Pope as its head, were unwisely led to assume that it was necessary to set up an authority other than Christ Himself, which would unite Protestantism as Catholicism was united under the Papacy. The Bible, the newly translated into the vernacular, and made available to the laity by the invention of printing, became this authority. It was to be the supreme tribunal of appeal.” Dr. Morrison points out that Luther had hardly begun his revolt when the “conference of Luther and Zwingli at Marburg, the intention of which was to unify the German and Swiss Reformations, broke down in an unhappy temper over the failure of two leaders to agree on the interpretation of a single Biblical text: “This is My Body.” From that day on the misuse of the Bible has vitiated the spirit of Protestantism, narrowed its vision, preoccupied it with petty contention, unendingly divided it into sects and warped the supreme character of the Bible itself (The Christian Century, June 5, 1946). Thus at the very birth of Protestantism the poison of private judgment was injected into offspring: a poison which has wrought such woeful dissension, strife and anarchy its body ever since. That misuse has opened the door to the fatal misconception that each individual, regardless of education or lack of it, is able to interpret for himself all the books of the Bible: that fallacy has brought endless bickering and strife to Protestantism and has split it into myriads of warring sects and factions. We point this out not with glee but with sadness. We hope that the tragic error will be rectified so that the unity which prevailed before religious upheaval of the sixteenth century may be restored to a distracted Christendom. From the earliest centuries of the Christian era to the present day the Church has persistently and tirelessly promoted the reading and study of the Bible by both clergy and laity. Quotations from the early Fathers to this effect could be presented almost without end. Thus, referring to the Bible St. Jerome declares: “God gave it to you for you to read” (On Isaias, 22:6, Migne, PL, Tom. XXIV). Long before this, St. Polycarp had said to the Philippians: “ I trust that you are well read in the Holy Scripture, and that naught is hid from you” (Ad Philipp. XII, “Apostolic Fathers,” p. 86). Tertullian, writing in the second century, declares: “Look into God’s revelations, examine our Sacred Books, for we do not keep them in hiding” (Apol. XXXI, Migne, PL, Tom I). Great emphasis was placed upon the public reading of the scriptures in church during the early centuries. Thus, St. Irenaeus takes it for granted that every earnest man “diligently read the Scriptures in company with the priests in the church with whom lies apostolic doctrine” (Adv. Haer., Migne, PG, Tom. VII). That the custom of reading the Scriptures was widespread is evident from repeated references to the practice in Conciliar declarations in the writings of the Fathers. Since the invention of the printing press, bringing the Bible within the reach of millions, the popes have repeatedly recommended the reading of the Scriptures to the laity. In his encyclical on the Bible, Pope Leo XIII declares: “The solicitude of the Apostolic Office naturally urges, and even compels us, not only to desire that this great source of Catholic revelation should be made safely and abundantly accessible to the flock of Jesus Christ, but also not to suffer any attempt to defile or corrupt it.” In his encyclical on St. Jerome, Pope Benedict VX addresses to all Catholics the words which Jerome wrote to Demetrias: “Love the Bible and wisdom will love you; love it and it will preserve you; honor it and it will embrace you.” The pontiff adds: “No one can fail to see what profit and sweet tranquility must result in well disposed souls from a devout reading of the Bible. Whoever comes to it in piety, faith and humility, and with the determination to make progress in it, will assuredly find therein and will eat the “the Bread that cometh down from Heaven.” Even to this day the Church requires all her clergy, busy as they are with varied duties, to spend approximately one hour in the daily recitation of the Divine office. About three fourths of this is Scripture, and the rest is chiefly commentaries by the early Fathers upon the Gospels. As the Mother of the Bible, the Church loves it as a mother loves her son, and she has never ceased to inculcate in her children a reverence and love of the Bible and to urge them to read frequently, even daily, the inspired word of God, the holy Bible. The greatest book that is ever written
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 18:05:32 +0000
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