If you don't trust Church authority why do you trust the Bible?
Church authorities (Catholic Bishops) in the councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage decided which books would comprise the New Testament. IF the Church was evil, how can you trust their decision?
The Bible teaches that authoritative Christian teaching comes through the Bible, the Church, and the apostolic "deposit" or Tradition. Catholics agree that every true doctrine can be found in the Bible, if only indirectly sometimes, and cannot contradict it.
2 Timothy 3: 16 does not teach "Bible Alone," but simply describes the virtues of Holy Scripture. Biblical indications for the Catholic position are quite numerous. When Jesus condemns "tradition", he qualifies His rebuke by referring to corruptions or traditions of men."
The apostle Paul refers positively to a Christian Tradition ("maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you" 1 Cor 11:2). He also upholds the authority of oral tradition, referring to "the word of God which you heard from us" 1 Thess 2:13 and "sound words which you have heard from me." 2 Tim 1:13-14. The latter passage is very important because it is located in the context of the 2 Timothy passage that is the most common Protestant proof text against tradition.
Perhaps the clearest Biblical proof of the infallible authority of the Church is the
Jerusalem Council, and its authoritative, binding pronouncement
Acts 15. Peter made the decision that gentiles who came into the Church did not have to be circumsized or follow certain laws from the law of Moses. This decision that Peter and the Council agreed upon was found nowhere in Scripture. In fact, the Scriptures offered only support for a different decision. This is clear Biblical proof that the Church was able to make decisions that had no Scriptural support. At that time there was no New Testament.
In Matt 23:2-3,
Jesus teaches that the scribes and Pharisees have a legitimate binding authority (even when they are being rank hypocrites): "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you." The idea of "Moses' seat" cannot be found anywhere in the Old Testament, but it appears in the (originally oral) Mishna, which teaches a sort of "teaching succession" from Moses on down.
In 1 Cor 10:4, St. Paul refers to a rock that "followed" the Jews through the Sinai wilderness. In the Old testament, we hear about Moses striking a rock to produce water, but
it doesn't say anything about such a miraculous movement. But rabbinic tradition does.
Nor did the Jews ever accept Solo Scriptura. Only the skeptical Sadducees rejected Oral Tradition, but they also rejected the future resurrection, the soul, the afterlife, eternal rewards and retribution, and demons and angels. The nature of authority in the Old Testament times is illustrated by Ezra, a priest and scribe who taught the Jewish Law to Israel.
His authority was binding, under pain of imprisonment, banishment, loss of goods, and even death. Ezra 7:6, 10, 25-26
The overwhelming weight of relevant biblical data is opposed to the central Protestant doctrine of Bible Alone, and strongly supports the idea of authoritative tradition.
The History of Protestantism and its many doctrinal divisions and some 20,000 denominations strongly argues against the solo-scriptura Doctrine. How could a perspicuous Bible lead so many believers to so many different interpretations.
The Bible is not easy to understand. It's a complex book whose words and ideas have captivated the world's most brilliant minds for millenia. Without an authoritative voice of interpretation --like a Church-- error and division are inevitable.
Such division began right at the beginning of Protestantism. Martin Luther had different beliefs than Huldreich Zwingli about the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Calvin, Zwingli, and Luther were divided about Baptism. There are today five major competing Doctrines of Baptism.
2 Peter 3:15-17 "There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ingorant and unstable twist to their destruction, as they do the other scriptures."
Division is not of God, yet the Solo Scriptura Doctrine brought division to Christianity that had not been there previously. Martin Luther did not reform the Church, he splittered it into many different pieces, which is unbiblical.
God wills that we be unified in faith. Our Lord Jesus prayed in
John 17:22, "that they may be one even as we are one." Acts 4:32 informs us that the earliest Christians were "of one heart and soul." St. Paul taught that "there is one body and one Spirit...one Lord, one faith, one baptism," Eph 4:4-5, and that Christians were to "stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel," Phil 1:27, and to be "in full accord and of one mind".Phil2:2
St. Peter urges us to have "unity of spirit." 1 Pet 3:8
Denominationalism and doctrinal relativism are roundly condemned by the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor 1:10-13 "all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgement...each one of you says, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas, or I belong to Christ. Is Christ divided?"
Only an authoritative Church, commissioned by Christ to teach His truth and protected by the Holy Spirit from doctrinal error, can preserve individual Christians from the dissensions caused by their own flawed interpretations.
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