What about the Catholic teaching on Devine Scripture and Scared Tradition? My church teaches only from the bible or Sola Scriptura. Which is correct?

This is a key part of what I have been discussing in this blog and it should have been addressed first. This concept of sola scriptura or faith by bible alone is a fairly new concept. It came about during the Protestant Reformation. There are many ways to address this question and I plan to use as many as I can. I would like to start with is that this teaching in and of itself is not biblical. This will also be addressed during this discussion. Again I would like to invite you as you read this and reflect on it ask any questions you may have or add to the discussion. If you do add to the discussion please let us know where you are finding any information that you are using so we can look at it also. Remember to be kind and enjoy what you are doing. We are here to learn for each other.

If you are going to use the idea that the bible alone is the only way to develop your faith doctrine I would like to ask how to you know which books for the bible you should use. Where in the bible does it tell you which books are supposed to be there? There is no canon of the Bible in the bible itself to tell you what is inspired and what is not. The canon of our current bible was developed during the Counsel of Rome 382 AD and looked at and affirmed in later counsels of the Church. Thank you to the Catholic Church for the bible, as we know it today. Now to what it tells us in scripture about where we should get our teaching.

I think I would like to start by looking at what Saint Paul has said in some of his letters. I will tell you that there are many examples I can use to defend the Catholic’s Church viewpoint. I think a good passage to look first at is 1 Cor 11:2. Paul tells the church at Corinth to hold fast to the “traditions” handed to them. So is it scripture alone, tradition alone or both together? Let’s look at another passage by Saint Paul. 2 Thess 2:15 states that we are to hold on the traditions, weather oral or written. So here we have traditions that were not written down? To answer this we can look at Jn 21:25. Here we see that not everything that Jesus had said has been written down in scripture. Again we are seeing that the Apostles felt that both scripture and tradition is to be used to teach the faith. Now that we know that both scripture and tradition is to be used where can we find the tradition to help teach? Jesus and the Apostles also revealed this to us.

Again we can use Holy Scripture to show that there is to be a teaching authority and who that authority should be. We can start with fact that Jesus started one church and it was to be headed by Peter. For more on this please look at the primacy of Peter. Pay close attention to the section covering Matt 16:18. We can also look into Matt 18:15-17. We are told be Jesus himself if we are having problems with others we should take it to the church. If this is the case, which church do we take our problems to? With over 2000 different denominations of Christens which church do we look to for guidance? I say the Church Jesus founded. I can trace the Catholic Church to Jesus Christ himself. Who started the church you go to? I can also trace the Catholic Mass to scripture but that is for another time. Then we have the question of how scripture is to be interpreted. Peter states in his second letter 2 Peter 1:20 “Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation”. We can also look at 2 Peter 3:15-16 “And consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, as our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, also wrote to you, speaking of these things as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures.” Who do we look to for proper interpretation? I say the Catholic Church. The One, Holy, catholic and Apostolic Church.