I feel I should clarify…
When I ask why one would think that there are plural, confusing teaching sources, I actually have more than the CCC in mind. I was about to list a slew of books, but decided against it because you are probably well aware of the volumes that have been written on the interpretation of Roman Catholic documents and councils. The reason that I ask the original question is because of the attacks on Sola Scriptura as a reliable source of how the church can know God and how we ought to conduct ourselves in the world. So, we see that it’s either one book that has been breathed out by God Himself, or it’s a slew of councils and priests and documents, and books written to further explain the councils and other documents, and so on.
The very fact that we are discussing this makes it quite clear that there has been no improvement by abandoning the Bible as the sole infallible rule for faith and practice. And since this is off-topic, I won’t continue with it. I actually was making a passing comment on the irony of the situation; I never meant to go down this road in this thread.
2 Timothy 3:16 (Douay-Rheims is used here) disproves Sola Scriptura
16 All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, 17 That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.
16 “All scripture,”… Every part of divine scripture is certainly profitable for all these ends. But, if we would have the whole rule of Christian faith and practice, we must not be content with those Scriptures, which Timothy knew from his infancy, that is, with the Old Testament alone: nor yet with the New Testament, without taking along with it the traditions of the apostles, and the interpretation of the church, to which the apostles delivered both the book, and the true meaning of it.
and from the Haydock Bible Commentary
Ver. 16. All scripture divinely inspired is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, or admonish, to instruct others in justice, and in the ways of virtue, that thus he who is a man of God, a minister of the gospel, may be perfect and instructed unto every good work. But when our adversaries of the pretended reformation, undertake from these four verses to shew, first, that every ignorant man or woman is hereby warranted to read and put what construction his or her private spirit, or private judgment, suggests upon all places of the holy Scriptures; and secondly, that the Scriptures alone contain all truths which a Christian is bound to believe; or at least, that the Scriptures teach him all things necessary to salvation, without regard to the interpretation and authority of the Catholic Church: I may at least say (without examining at present any other pretended grounds of these assertions) that these consequences are very remote from the text and sense of St. Paul in this place. As to the first, does this follow; the Scriptures must be read by Timothy, a priest, a bishop, a man of God, a minister of the gospel, whose office it is to instruct and convert others, therefore they are proper to be read and expounded by every ignorant man or woman? Does not St. Paul say elsewhere, (2 Corinthians ii. 17.) that many adulterate and corrupt the word of God? does not St. Peter tell us also, (2 Peter iii. 16.) that in St. Paul’s epistles are some things…which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as also the other scriptures, to their own perdition? See the preface to the Gospel of St. John, where reasons are brought for which it was requisite that the Church should put some restraint to the abuse which the ignorant made of reading the Scriptures in vulgar tongues. As to the second consequence, does it follow: every Scripture divinely inspired is profitable for St. Timothy, for a priest, a bishop, a man of God, a minister and preacher of the gospel, to teach and instruct, and conduce to bring both him and others to salvation; therefore they contain all things that a Christian need to believe? &c. Is not every Christian bound to believe that the books in the canon of the New and Old Testament are of divine authority, as in particular these two epistles of St. Paul to Timothy? Where does the Scripture assure us of this? But of this elsewhere. (Witham) — Every part of divine Scripture is certainly profitable for all these ends. But if we would have the whole rule of Christian faith and practice, we must not be content with those Scriptures which Timothy knew from his infancy, (that is, with the Old Testament alone) nor yet with the New Testament, without taking along with it the traditions of the apostles and the interpretation of the Church, to which the apostles delivered both the book and the true meaning of it. (Challoner)
This one of many reasons why Catholics do not believe in Sola Scriptura. Do you have any proof in scriptures that Catholics need to believe in Sola Scriptura like your denomination does??
