Sola scriptura I didnt steal your fork argument

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I once heard an argument against sola scriptura that stated “I didn’t steal your fork” (or something like that)…and the argument was that if put emphasis on either one of the words in that sentence the sentence can be interpreted in five different ways does anyone know this argument and explain it to me please.

Like how do i explain this as i like the example
 
I didn’t steal your fork.
First emphasis on “I”; somebody stole your fork, but I wasn’t the one who took it.
Second emphasis on ‘didn’t, flat out denial, I did NOT steal your fork.
Third emphasis on ‘steal”, based on what ‘steal’ represents. I may have BORROWED your fork but I didn’t STEAL it.
Fourth emphasis on ‘your’, I may have taken forks from OTHERS but I left YOUR fork alone.
Fifth emphasis on ‘fork”, ‘I may have stolen your guitar, your change purse, or millions of other things, but your FORK I left strictly alone.
 
I never said you stole money - Patrick Madrid among probably others.

“I” never said you stole money, but others did.
I never said you stole money, but I wrote/posted that you did.
I never said you stole money, but others did.
I never said you stole money, but you stole something else.

So what does the sentence really mean?

As to bible alone, show me one word which has but a single meaning or usage. Can’t. Bible alone is a foundation of quicksand - hundreds, thousands of denominations the proof.
 
This is amazing. For various reasons I had to get you all heart on all above posts.
 
You had to give them all hearts.

You had to give them all hearts.

You had to give them all hearts.

You had to give them all hearts.

You had to give them all hearts.

You had to give them all hearts.

❤️
 
Forgive me, but it’s a poor argument, context is normally very useful in determining in what specific way you didn’t steal the fork.
The argument works for any communication ever, including tradition, church fathers and even your modern magisterium, which can be interpreted in many ways. If you want proof of that you only need to hang around in these forums long enough 🙂
 
GRod said:
the sentence can be interpreted in five different ways
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I’ve heard that before too. And that the consequence of a multitude of interpretations naturally leads to 10,000+ Protestant denominations.
 
Praise and thanks to Jesus for gracing “His church” (Mt. 16:18) with the gift of the papal infallibility. Thanks to the truths defined in Catholic doctrines we know Scripture passages must be understood in conformity with those teachings.

Mt. 16: 17-19 Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
 
Except! Those who cling to bible alone have no context! The reformers condemned and discarded the Apostolic tradition, the context in which the words were used, taught, and finally, written down.

Neo-nazis and other white supremacists use the bible as justification of their beliefs. Are they correct? How to prove them wrong, since you can only use the same words which they misuse.

Someone has to be in charge. Some authority (from: author) must interpret and declare the truth truthfully.

The Church.

The bible points to the Church.
 
I mean the immediate context of the verses normally reveal the meaning. It is not difficult to see when verses are ripped out of their context. No doubt there are difficult portions of scripture but the plain meaning is normally quite clear when read in context. Men writing centuries after the texts are not the context for the scripture, however helpful they may be in interpretation.

And in the example of the fork if we knew the line before or after we would likely be able to determine meaning.

I have seen Catholics argue about and disagree about the wording of documents put out by their magisterium, an example was a discussion I witnessed about the document which described the churches position on contraception (the name escapes me, I think humana vitae). They were arguing about whether the English translation was accurate in saying that natural family planning may only be used in “grave” circumstances. So the magisterium does not prevent disagreement of interpretation among Catholics.
 
Given fallen human nature (concupiscence), the Magisterium guarantees disagreement. However, as Saint Paul wrote, there must be factions, so that those who are approved may be known.
 
You do realize the same analysis can be done with this sentence.
 
Not to mention that which is lost in the translation.

However, in matters of revealed truth, someone, something has to be in charge. A tangible, responsible and responsive being. A Moses-like figure, at the risk of praising Judaism.

With our L-rd in His domain, who to trust? Who to consult? Mankind needs a guiding light. A CEO. A rock. Can you imagine if the laws of physics were subject to parsing sentences in textbooks?

The physical world would be in as much chaos as the theological.
 
po18guy said:
Except ! Those who cling to bible alone have no context !
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Strictly speaking, they do have a context, the wider Bible text in which a given sentence appears. This usually suffices to set aside a number of interpretations which then make no sense.

Just one other sentence suffices to reduce the field of possible interpretations.

“How many times do I have to tell it, officer ? I did not steal the fork.”
“I did not steal your fork. Here it is.”
 
OddBird said:
Just one other sentence suffices to reduce the field of possible interpretations.
Click to expand...
Absolutely true. However, there are some (not all, not even most) people in some Protestant denominations or communities who like to “verse-sling”, including deliberately taking a single small quote out of its context to “prove” a point. Look for example at the thankfully small and isolated groups who base a significant portion of their ritual around Mk 16:17-18 by handling venomous snakes and/or drinking poison. Let’s not even get into what some groups who claim to be Christian but really aren’t do with scripture.
 
Shouldn’t they agree then? We see an almost infinite number of sharply differing opinions on almost everything, and pseudo-Christian sects, all founded on the same scripture. Once the license is given to the individual, theological entropy is quickly observed.
 
Actually, serious (scholarly) Protestant exegesis has been able to achieve consensus on a lot of topics.

Just because there are groups who do not use, or disregard, or use incorrectly, the hermeneutical tools at their disposal, it does not follow that these tools do not exist.

FWIW, I don’t think SS is a sustainable position, but I also don’t think the “I didn’t steal your fork” argument is an effective one against it.

ETA: I forgot to add that “I didn’t steal your fork” works… in English. In some other languages, including my own*, other (mostly syntactic) means of emphasising one part or the other in a given sentence would be used. This greatly reduces the interpretive possibilities.

*Greek, from what I recall from my studies, also has syntactic emphasis. Hebrew likes to reiterate important words ("for stealing, I stole your fork…)
 
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