Dan Chapa

Scripture is authoritative, meaning it is worthy of us believing its teachings and obeying its commands. Its authority comes from its Author: God, based on His truth, power and sovereignty. What the scripture teaches comes with all the authority of “thus saith the Lord”. Denying the authority of scripture is denying God’s authority, because the scripture is God’s Word. Catholics, in my opinion, indirectly undermine the authority of scripture, because: They teach errors, and claim exemption from the scrutiny of scripture. People are not allowed to look in scripture to find out if submission to the Pope is necessary for salvation. They subject scripture to another authority, the church. In practice they are not equivalent authorities. If you think scripture is telling you to do X and the church says do Y, you must do Y (and also unthink that the scripture said to do X). They use and teach the use of eisegesis (as opposed to exegesis). Instead of turning to scripture for the meanin...

Dave Armstrong provided some arguments against sola scriptura that I thought I would address. Initially he provided some definitions of sola scriptura , which I more or less agreed with. Here's his first issue regarding "victory conditions" in the sola scriptura debate. The Catholic needs to go further than that and establish, based on unassailable biblical evidence, examples of tradition or Church proclamations that were binding and obligatory upon all who heard and received them. Whether these were infallible is another more complex question, but a binding decree is already either expressly contrary to sola scriptura , or, at the very least, a thing that casts considerable doubt on the formal principle. I don't think what you suggest would disprove sola scriptura . Unquestionably, before the bible, there were oral teachings which were binding. Of course anything Christ said was binding. Before Moses, God taught His people in means other than writing. Fu...