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It sounds you are very much like a protestant in that you (O’S) also have decided that a “tradition” can be fallible , a council can be fallible, a church can be fallible. You also reject certain traditions.
I am not sure who coined SS or if it was even Luther . I think he took a stand against a certain biblical interpretations that were held up by a magisterium, even councils and popes. What he was really saying was that they were fallible and that one can have a differing interpretation, some would even say "private’’. That is not to say Luther was devoid of any tradition that helped illumine "his"interpretations. As you rightly say, we do have a foundation given to us. Luther was aware of history and early father writings. Luther was also aware of Holy Spirit dynamics being available to every generation to “see if it isn’t so”. He was very Augustinian or Jerome like in this regard. Like the HS helped illumine fathers to the trinity as He still does today. He does not rest once it is revealed so that others don’t have to eat the meat and digest for the themselves. Otherwise everything would be milk to us (predigested food, by others).
I would say Luther though knowledgeable of history and councils and fathers finally rested upon scripture to make sense of it all. You and I can quibble over SS but only because we have a tradition, even a church, that is free from a tradition that says she is infallibly right on all things (faith and morals),that being the opposing final norm.
SS made perfect sense in his time and circumstance. At the very least(worst?), one man made tradition cancelled out another man made tradition. Politics aside, the church, even the CC, has strived to be “scriptural” in all things, and most churches also strive to stay within historical context and foundations.
If the term fallible is a term to be used I would clarify something. Tradition is fallible, in that mistakes can and have occurred in it, yet without tradition it impossible to grasp the scripture in its deepest and fullest sense. Tradition is necessary, not an option in my view of things.
As for the issues which Luther disagreed with, it does no good to appeal to tradition in general to respond those. Each point in particular would have to be bought up. But I do think there are certain extravagances Luther and those after him took to, especially on Sola Fide, the sacraments and the nature of church. I do not think the Lutheran understanding of what the church is coheres with the church which came before it in any century.
But I find the comment that he: rested upon scripture to make sense of it all” the ultimate point of contention. This statement to me is another way of saying he rested on his own personal reading of scripture which perhaps influenced his reading of it and the fathers maybe? I am no Lutheran scholar and haven’t read his works, but I am aware of what he said at Worms, “Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me.” For Luther it was impossible to submit to a church which contradicted his view of the bible and this is why I like to compare someone like Maximos the confessor to Martin Luther.
In some ways the two men are very similar. They were both monks, both scholars, both resisted the church during their time, yet with one very important difference. Maximos did not openly condemn his enemies (at least of what I am aware of) nor did he seek to start a movement around his theology. All he did is not participate in the communion and he did not seek to formally break with the church. He was a dissenting voice in the wilderness and the authorities could not abide him influencing others.
Like Luther, Maximos made his appeal to conscience and to scripture and to the fathers and said Christ has two wills: Jesus truly acts (or moves) according to his humanity and not just his divinity. Unlike Luther he didn’t start a separate church and he was remembered as a great saint by those later who saw he was right in his theology and a true Confessor for Christ. The church vindicated him in the end even if it falsely killed him and Maximos accepted it.
In an imprecise way I hope I have laid out the difference and my problem. I see sola scriptura against the principle of Christian submission. Submission to man is impossible, submission to a man who is wrong is even more impossible. I believe I asked a Lutheran on these boards a question a while ago, if you came to a different position than everyone in your church, would they have the authority to condemn you? To try to correct you? To expel you if need be? Why is it impossible that you’re not another Martin Luther going against the establishment and preaching truth to the world which was distorted until it was more clearly brought out by you? It can’t be impossible and it may very well be likely, especially if you have read the scriptures and have come to an understanding. What then is a church? If we disagree with one particular teaching we move on to another church? If we find water baptism and sacraments repellent we just move on to an evangelical church and yet are still all part of the same church in some way?
That’s why I can’t see Sola scriptura being correct. I can’t see it being correct for other reasons mind you, but this general sense reflects my understanding. If I need to clarify any points (which I am sure I will need to) please ask me to clarify.
This needs to be repeatedly pointed out to our Catholic friends on these forums and throughout the Internet. Too often, the abuse of sola scriptura–an abuse you rightly call solO scriptura–is attacked as though it were actually sola scriptura.
