Old Scholar, to make a point at the absurdity of Sola Scriptura let me make an analogy you might be able to better identify with.
Suppose you lived alone far removed and seperated from most other people. A beloved family member has become ill and appears to be dieing. On your shelf is a thick medical book that somone has given you long ago. You often had read this book but lacking pictures and illustrations it was hard to understand what some of the terms meant and what not.
Examining your sick family member you see that she has a visible tumor on her neck that is interfering with her breathing. So you thumb through the medical book and come to a description about tumors and procedures for removing tumors. You are desperate and you remember that you had an old emergency medical kit that you picked up at a flea market that had a scalpel, some anesthesia, bandages, antiseptic and suturing materials.
The situation is desperate and you start reading the medical book on how to remove tumors but you have never done this before and your hands are shaky. You seem to have everything you need but you can’t attempt the procedure since you might do more harm than good - yet she is dieing before your very eyes.
What do you do?
Well OS it should be clear from this illustration that we can not rely on scripture as a do it yourself “cook book” or a “self help” sort of book. True, everything
apparently necessary for saving us is in the book but without being taught or having gained experience from somone else that has passed down their knowledge its tantamount to suicide (or murder) to rely on one’s own insights in interpreting how to apply all the principals. We can get the basics for sure (prayer, faith, example, conviction, persevering in the face of failure, etc.) but its really might as well be all not there at all if we can’t discern how it all inter-relates.
If Sola Scriptura is valid then every doctor, lawyer, engineer, scientist etc. could learn all they need to be successful practitioners by going online to
amazon.com and ordering a trunk of books and reading them at whatever comprehension level they naturally have. We would have no need for teachers in anything in life - we could all simply buy books and read about “how to”. We can buy “How to Become a Millionaire” or “How to Win all the Treasure in the Universe and be Like God!”. Don’t buy into it!
Clearly Sola Scriptura is nothing more profound than the cultural artifact of the west’s general paranoia and mistrust of authority and plays into the social jingoism of “do-it-yourself since you can’t trust anyone but you”. At its core it’s just an euphemism for anarchy and a recipe for mediocrity and confusion.
Sola Scriptura proponents lack the faith to trust in anything but themselves and are like lone rangers or a cult of survivalists. As a class they tend toward paranoia, sensationalism and conspiracy. Ergo, they lack the faith and the essential ingredients necessary to survive. And that is profoundly ironic that those seeking to save their own lives will likely lose them.
There is no self help cook book formula approach to salvation. Without mother Church, her teachings and her sacraments and the combined talents and resources of the Body of Christ (e.g. The Catholic Community) none of us has a prayer.
My advise, don’t get caught up in the self-help social jingoism of the age (Sola Scriptura) and equate that with Church nor salvation.
James
