THE BIBLE ALONE!?

Let us start with the question, "What is the pillar and foundation of truth?" If we believe that the Bible is the infallible inspired word of God, we can look to 1 Tim 3:15 where we find that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth.

Most non-Catholic Christians believe that the Bible is the sole rule of Faith. This was one of Martin Luther's claims when he broke away from the Catholic Church, ie., the claim of "Sola Scriptura." Catholics have, however, always accepted the teaching authority of the Church together with the Bible as the basis for our Faith.

SO HOW DID CATHOLICS ARRIVE AT THIS POSITION?

Well they didn't actually arrive at it, they simply lived it out since the very inception of the Church. Maybe a brief historical perspective will be helpful in understanding this.

From the previous topic (Is the Bible Inspired?), we saw that the New Testament books were not really put together as a completed Bible until approximately 400 AD. So we know that the earliest Christians did not have access to the written word. We also know that until the invention of the printing press in the 1450's, the Bible was not accessible to most people due to the laborious task of making copies by hand. It wasn't even until relatively recently that faithful Christians were educated enough to be able to read the Bible!

HOW WAS THE CHRISTIAN FAITH TRANSMITTED TO BELIEVERS DURING THIS PERIOD OF TIME WHEN ACCESS TO THE BIBLE WAS QUITE LIMITED?

The answer is that virtually all of the teaching during this time was done by oral instruction relying on the teaching authority of the Church for the proper interpretation of the Scriptures and for the passing on of Apostolic Tradition.

The Bible itself is quite clear regarding the significance of tradition (see John 21:25, 2 Tim 2:2, 2 Thes 2:15 and 1 Cor 11:2). Since these scripture references, along with many others, refer to both tradition and the spoken word, they MUST be integrated into the Christian understanding of revelation. Since the Word of God can not contradict itself, the only choice we have as Bible believing Christians is to accept tradition as well as scripture as our source of faith.

Click below to proceed to other topics



Return to the Catholic Apologetics Home Page